Posted by Helen on: 09.26.2006 /
It’s been a few months since I asked what you’re reading. I figure that at least some of you will have different answers from last time!
I just started reading Vanity Fair (for the second time). I first read it some years ago. We watched the movie on DVD for the first time last weekend and it’s inspired me to read it again. I’ve loved older novels since I was a teenager.
I just finished Pigs In Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver and Nights of Rain and Stars by Maeve Binchy, both of which I enjoyed. (I bought those at the annual summer book fair in my neighborhood, which is an awesome place to acquire cheap ‘gently used’ books)
I also just finished Revolution by George Barna. I ran across it in the library and thought it would be good preparation for the conference.
I’m probably about to read The Reason Driven Life by Robert Price (just mentioned by me on the eBay atheist blog) and The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (just mentioned by Hemant on The Friendly Atheist).
Comment by: Julie Marie
1I’m reading Jews God and History by Dimont right now. Seeing as how the only “history” of the Jews I had was the Bible, its been very enlightening. He makes the point that not all Jews went to Egypt when the big drought came, and the ones who stayed behind were very different from the ones who returned with Moses, and posits that these differences were the cause of the rift and the division into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. And in his book the Pharisees come off as reasonable folks. I’m finding it quite interesting.(this is written from a secular historian’s viewpoint, if you didn’t guess already)
I went to the bookstore yesterday for The Reason Driven Life and TGD, but they weren’t in. There were about 5 books by Rick Warren on the shelves though. I got halfway through Revolution - still intend to finish it, but got diverted by Jews God and History.
Comment by: Mike O
2I started Velvet Elvis, but it’s just not clicking for me. I loved Blue Like Jazz, Revolution and The Barbarian Way. Those were my Christian, reading-for-growth selections. I also read (listened to, actually) Velocity by Dean Koontz. An interesting little murder mystery. A bit graphic, but I enjoyed the psychology of it … it was very ’smart.’
Comment by: Theresa Frasch
3I’ve read 60 books so far this year - right now I am reading Philosophy Made Simple a novel by Robert Hellenga, Natural Atheism by David Eller. I just finished The Book Your Church Doesn’t Want You to Read by Tim C Leedom and The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards. For a complete list :-) go here: http://theresafrasch.com/index.php?now_reading_library=true
Comment by: Pam Hogeweide
4dang Theresa, you are a book-a-maniac! Have you ever been to Portland? You would love Powell’s, our City of Books. This store is so big that it gives customers a map of their lay-out.
Ok, I’m reading right now a manual about how to reach street kids, Called to Question by benedictine nun Joan Chittister, and McLaren’s book The Secret Message of Jesus, and I just borrowed a copy of Revolution by Barna. I just finished Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie. This is a short, beautiful book.
And I have plans to read Christine Wicker’s Lily Dale (have it), and God Knows My Heart (gonna get it).
One other book: A Field Guide to Evangelicals by Joel Kilpatrick. Hilarious laugh outloud book. It’s irreverent, not disrespectful, and made me and my husband as well as my pious missionary friends roar to the point that we woke up the kids! I don’t think I’ve ever had a book do that before.
Comment by: Helen
5Julie Marie, a book I found interesting a few years ago was The History of God by Karen Armstrong. It’s not an easy read but I liked the overview it gave of how people have thought of God throughout history.
Mike, someday I should read Blue Like Jazz - I’ve heard so much about it.
Theresa, welcome to CatE - thanks for your comment! Wow, like Pam said - how do you read so many books? You must be a fast reader!
Pam, we have some Powell’s bookstores here, but they aren’t as big as yours! My husband was in the Portland one once when he went to give a talk at Reed. I liked Tuesdays with Morrie - I read that a couple of years ago.
I hadn’t heard of A Field Guide to Evangelicals. Sounds like a fun book!
Comment by: Mike O
6I should get A Field Guide to Evangelicals. Sounds fun. Is it written for an evangelical audience or non-evangelical? I don’t get offended, I’m just wondering. Offense is just something else to do, and I don’t have time to get offended :)
Comment by: Paul
7I used to read books, then I had kids, lol… am slowly reading through Renewing the centre by stanley grenz (which is like an overview of evengelical thought on into a post-theological 21st century) and just raced through a couple of Dan Brown numbers - now why can’t theologians write like him, lol :)
Comment by: Helen
8Paul, a few years ago I read the book about women that Grenz co-authored - I appreciated that.
Actually I think you have a good point. My favorite way of learning is through story - it’s the most fun and I think story can often teach as well, or better, than the non-narrative formats Christians often use. PLUS Christian authors often are not very engaging writers. I found the Purpose Driven Life very boring because of the way it was written. The author could have made it better by, say, including inspiring stories or powerful word pictures - but he didn’t.
Comment by: Julie Marie
9I was at the bookstore Monday night and looked hard at a Karen Armstrong book…but bought Blue like Jazz (b/c it keeps coming up) and The God we never Knew by Marcus Borg instead. Borg was one of the contributors to the ‘liberal alternative to alpha’ course I wanted to take but got shut out of b/c I waited too long to sign up.
Comment by: Theresa Frasch
10Yeah - I am a book-a-maniac, I tend to have a book at work I read on my break, a book by me bed that I read before going to sleep and one in the bathroom that I read…well, you know.
Pam, I was in Powell Books a lifetime ago. I should make it a point to get there (I live in Seattle, so it’s not that far). I have family in Vancouver so I even have a good excuse to go down there. I am going to have to get A Field Guide to Evangelicals by Joel Kilpatrick. I just looked at it on Amazon and it looks great.
The History of God by Karen Armstrong is a good book like Helen said. It was one of those books that definetly shaped my way of thinking and helped me step out of the box of fundamentalism.
This is Banned Book Week. Anybody out there read any banned or challenged books lately? Check out the American Library Association’s lists: http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bannedbooksweek.htm
Comment by: Pam Hogeweide
11my nine-year oldson is reading banned books by author Dav Pilkey. He is writing books with such dangereous titles as Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People.
julie marie, Blue Like Jazz is very popular here in Portland, for obviuous reasons. my family attends two churches including Imago Dei that Miller writes about. I have not seen him at church yet but I did attend a couple of readings he did in town including one last spring at Powell’s. He’s a very likeable and personable guy and handles hard questions from the audience with grace and wit.
Theresa, you gotta come!!! I’ll meet you for coffee or pizza across the street at Rocko’s if you like.
Will you be at the conference?
Comment by: Helen
12Theresa, I was also wondering whether you’re coming to the conference.
I’ve read all the Harry Potters. I think the complaints about it miss the point. I’ve also read the Pullman His Dark Materials Trilogy which I think Christians really would have reason to complain about, because of how it portrays God and the church. But I suppose it’s not nearly so well-known in the US as Harry Potter, so that’s probably why I haven’t heard more complaints about it.
Comment by: Eliza
13Not lately, but I’m pleased to see we have a number of the “top 10″ most challenged books of 2000-05 at home (& have read them) - including the Captain Underpants series (start ‘em off young, I say!). The Chocolate War is impressive for how many times it appears on different “challenged books” lists on the site you linked to - has anyone here read it? I like “buck the system” stories, but this one looks violent.
After Brian McLaren’s A Generous Orthodoxy, I moved to Sam Harris’s Letter to a Christian Nation (short) & am now reading Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. I also got Dawkins’ books The Blind Watchmaker and The Selfish Gene. My 8 yo son was intrigued by the title of the latter, so we started in on it last night for bedtime reading.
I haven’t read any fiction for several months, since my book club took a hiatus for summer and there have been so many good book recommendations here. Flip side of that is, I’ve never read so much nonfiction at one stretch (well, since school). It’s more interesting than I remember!
Comment by: Julie Marie
14That has got to be the most cerebral bedtime story ever! I imagine it gives him plenty to think about as he drifts off to sleep :)
Comment by: Doreen
15Besides all the wonderful books I “have” to read for seminary this semester, I’m reading
The Secret Message of Jesus - McLaren
The Working Poor - Shipler
The Complete Works of Emily Dickinson
The Rivals: Chris Evert vs. Martina Navratilova Their Epic Duels and Extraordinary Friendship - Howard
Comment by: Theresa Frasch
16Sorry…I wont be at the conference (I assume you are talking about the Revolution). My Toastmasters conference is the same weekend.
What is Blue Like Jazz? I haven’t heard of it before.
Comment by: Eliza
17Here’s amazon.com’s info on Blue Like Jazz (BLJ).
I read BLJ and When Bad Christians Happen to Good People (WBCHTGP) a few months ago, on the recommendation of people on one of the OTM blogs. For me (so take this with a grain of salt!) BLJ was kind of irritating because the author/narrator kept making statements like “God is…” and “God wants us to…” - which imo are more definite than anyone can objectively claim to know. Whereas the author/narrator of WBCHTGP qualifies his comments, like “I think God wants us to…” and “it seems to me that God is probably…” - which strikes me as a more realistic (& humble) way to phrase it. But again, you may want to take my book reviews with a big grain of salt! ;-)
Comment by: Rachel
18I read Blue Like Jazz a few years ago and enjoyed it. One particular line from that book really stuck with me: “What I believe is not what I say I believe; what I believe is what I do.” I also have Miller’s book Searching for God Knows What and I liked it even more than BLJ.
Helen, I didn’t find The Purpose Driven Life to be very interesting, either. I had heard a lot of people say how wonderful it was but I just didn’t connect with it. In the few years since the publication of PDL, Rick Warren has experienced a real awakening of his social conscience. He and his wife have become activists on poverty and AIDS. I really wish PDL had been written later and had reflected that.
I recently read Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church by Becky Garrison, who is a writer for The Wittenburg Door. The subtitle is “Eyewitness Accounts of How American Churches are Hijacking Jesus, Bagging the Beatitudes and Worshipping the Almighty Dollar.” It’s part satire, part thoughtful reflection.
Over the summer, I read two books written by former Senator Mark Hatfield: Conflict and Conscience (1971) and Between a Rock and a Hard Place (1976). I thought both books were excellent and I was struck by the relevance to the political and social issues of today. I also read his biography. Then I sent him a letter and got a very nice reply.
Right now I’m reading Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ronald Sider and My Grandfather’s Blessings by Rachel Naomi Remen, MD. My daughter and I are working our way through the “A Series of Unfortunate Events” books. They are very cleverly written, very campy and over the top, perfect for reading aloud.
I also just finished reading a book on fibromyalgia as I was just recently diagnosed with it. It wasn’t exactly a fun read but it was good to educate myself about the condition. And I’m currently waiting for my latest Amazon order to arrive: Living God’s Politics by Jim Wallis and A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity by Spencer Burke.
Comment by: Helen
19Eliza wrote:
Yes - that might bother me too. It takes me a lot of emotional energy to read Christian books because they say these sorts of things and assume I will agree - when in fact I’m not sure I do agree.
Comment by: NCxian
20I’ve just finished a book called Bruchko. It is not the sort of thing that I would pick up on my own (I’m reading it with a book club) but it has turned out to be more than I expected.
It’s the autobiography of a guy who was “called by God” to be a missionary to a group of Columbian indigenous tribes. He was 18 or something. What is interesting is that he really seems to let you get inside his head about the thing. And its also pretty amazing that he survived–there is no good reason that he should have. It’s cool the way he describes the changes in himself over time (we’re talking decades here!). There is not much philosophical discussion about missiology, you just get to see how he lived and behaved.
I don’t give it 5 stars–it’s strangely put together–but if you find it at a yard sale, definitely pick it up! It is a compelling read.
Comment by: Meg
21I’ve just finished ‘mountains beyond mountains’ by tracy kidder. it’s excellent. it’s about the work of paul farmer, an infectious diseases doctor based in haiti … in the book we travel to cuba, boston, peru, russia…
it was particularly helpful to me, as cange, haiti (pre paul farmer) was very like kirema, uganda, where i worked 10 years ago. the health care centre i was at wasn’t meeting the needs of the community - the people were very, very poor, and the centre charged for their services, and basically nobody had any money so nobody got health care. which was dreadful. in the book, paul farmer works to provide a preferrential option for the poor (o for the p!) and creates zanmi lasante, a health centre in the central plateau of haiti, where the poor are treated for free, and people with aids and tuberculosis are given the same drugs as people in the first world (which until paul farmer was considered to not be cost effective.) and he’d walk in the mountains all day just to see one family because people matter, and lives everywhere are valuable, poor or rich, 3rd world or 1st.
this book was exceptionally helpful for me. processing my experiences in the third and developing world - mostly different countries in africa, and latin america, and asia, i have been angered, frustrated, helpless, despairing, by the sense that nothing can be done to make any difference. in each world, it’s almost impossible to believe the other is real.
standing on the dusty red road in kirema, uganda, surrounded by delightful, shiny-skinned undernourished, big-eyed children, it’s almost impossible to believe there’s a place of wealth and cleanliness and nourishment and creature comforts. Snug in bed after a hot bath and a block of chocolate in the first world, it’s almost impossible to believe there’s a place of poverty and helplessness, where children die of dehydration and fever and malnutrition and malaria and diarrhoea.
in the west, a baby is welcomed with a room set aside especially for her, painted, decorated, a crib, a mobile, a dozen teddy bears, shelves of books, days on end with mother.
in the 3rd world, a baby is welcomed by her siblings squeezing together a little closer on the floor where they sleep in their mud hut. mother is so busy trying to feed and cloth her children she doesn’t have time or energy to stop and gaze at her baby.
this injustice has been hiding in my heart ever since i lived in uganda, and tracy kidder’s ‘mountains beyond mountains’ has helped a little of my ache leak out of my private world and into the realm common to humanity.
Comment by: ncxian
22Meg, I had heard about this book and was interested, but it slipped off my radar. I think I will now find me a copy. Thanks for the recommendation!
Comment by: Helen
23Meg, thanks for sharing. I think it is so valuable for us to experience other cultures first-hand and get some perspective on how privileged and wealthy we are in the West.
NCxian - I have Bruchko! I have other books by the same author. I love how instead of imposing his whole worldview on other people, he looked for symbols in their own culture/belief system - which he truly believes God placed there for this purpose - which he could relate his message to. He shares how this made a huge difference because then his message became “this is more about what you always believed” rather than “this is about another God which is new to you”.
I read those when I was more Christian and I’m not sure how I’d feel about his strong belief that God prepared every culture with symbols and beliefs that give missionaries who pay attention easy ways to share the evangelical gospel of salvation.
However, I do very strongly believe that being sensitive to what is already in place and meaningful in a culture is a good thing. But if a culture has beliefs which drive harmful and cruel practices then certainly we should seek to help them move beyond those beliefs.