The Ahl Al Hadith blog is becoming a must read for me and I strongly recommend it to others.In a recent project, the site’s coordinators examine the contemporary crisis facing Muslims through the lens of Seerah .

So we need to encourage each other to [as I was encouraged to talk about seerah by my brothers, may Allah reward them] read seerah as something that enlivens our lives because seerah is like a tafseer of the Quran, because it is the life of the Prophet [saw] and he was the walking Qur'an, meaning he lived it, lived the Qur'an.
This three tiered reading will help us:
Reading seerah
Reading how the Ummah declined
Reading the situation we live in
but the reality we live in and the decline of the Ummah must be understood from the angle of seerah so that we are grounded in knowledge or else we will fall into depression and also become plagued by problems
We want to use a book like crisis to analyse what took place and try to understand.
Likewise we want to root ourselves in seerah the same is to be said about the Qur'an but with the Quran we do not do this type of reflection because we have rules for tafsir that must be followed rather with the Quran we learn the stories of the former nations and the characteristics of people and look at the world from those stories and look at ourselves and our characteristics who do we exemplify, what people: the munafiquon, the people of Nuh, nabi Yunus [as] etc.
For example the character of the Prophet Yusuf [r] in Egypt, the character of Abu Lahab, the character of the people of Lut etc. all these things help us to see that humanity treads a path and that the straight path is Islam.
Seerah will help us understand Qur'an but we do not theorize in understanding Qur'an this is problematic rather we first root ourselves in understanding the arabic and then hadith. So to make up for that in English there is Ibn Kathir abridged and it is good to read between Raheequm Makhtum and Ibn Kathir which was abridged from the original.
All in all this is a very strong base, Qur'an, seerah, hadith and the book crisis which is an islamic based sociology, for this reflection we are talking about and will preoccupy us for a while along with these works three books should be read in the sciences of Quran and one in hadith sciences, in order that tafsir is understood consciously. We should try to apply the concepts learned in the following books to our reading and understanding of tafsir. The concepts are to be found in in the following books:
First: Quranic Sciences by Ahmad Von Denffer
Then Fauz Al Kabir by Al Muhaddith Shah Wali Ullah
Shah Wali Ullah will outline a pattern for you that is at work in the Quran.
And for the willing Ibn Taymiyah's principles of tafsir unfortunately is has no explanation but after reading the first two books they will kind of explain it.
And lastly Hadith Methodology by Azami this work I studied a while ago is one of the best works in english helps to build one's understanding sp that you ask about the grade of hadith and know the meaning of sahih, da'ef etc. in addition of you see a hadith with no chain then you know the terminiology for that etc and since we are dealing with Ibn Kathir which is hadith based this comes in handy.
Quranic sciences and Crisis of the Muslim mind are online I believe the rest have to be purchased. I am doing something to this effect at the moment so who ever wants to join in start and then brief me on your reflections so i can benefit too.