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Which book has rocked your world?
I am reading the galleys of a soon-to-be-published book by Mary Gordon. It’s called Reading Jesus: A Writer’s Encounter with the Gospels
Normally I don’t really like books on Scripture or theology that don’t come from a scholar in the field (yeah, I swing that way) but this book is a major exception and has proven not only to be a great read, but it has rocked my world. I think it is because Mary Gordon is an exceptional writer and has researched scripture scholars and has approached the topic from a unique perspective. Plus the topic is near and dear to my heart.
I will be writing more about the book but for now, since I am so taken by this book, I want to hear from you about which book has totally rocked your world. Maybe its something from an author you would never have read in a million years, maybe it’s a perspective that runs counter to your own, or maybe it’s just plain-old amazing writing that has somehow seeped into your very soul. Let us know!
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Most recently, “St. Francis and the Foolishness of God” by Marie Dennis et al
……..and all books of poetry by Mary Oliver and Dorianne Laux and Sharon Olds (all beautifully capture the paradoxes, the “both/and” quality of life). Jean
“Jesus of Nazareth” by Pope Benedict XVI because I want to know of Jesus as he really was; “Time Travelers Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger, a great love story; “My Cousin the Saint” by Justin Catanoso because the author rediscovers his faith; and “Weeds of the Northern US and Canada” (because I thought my back yard had every weed God created until I read this book, who knew there are so many weeds!)
Jean – Mary Oliver is one of my favorite! Just picked up Red Bird and used “Swimming, One Day in August” for the welcome at my Sister Rita’s funeral Mass. She loved the water and was all about the “deepening and quieting of the spirit”.
Suze – I got a lot out of the book Jesus of Nazareth. His writing is a bit circuitous but after I realized that I found that the circles kept going deeper with each pass. How fun to read about weeds! I’ve been reading about deserts, especially the Saguaro desert in Arizona. Fascinates me.
Shane – I’ve only read a bit of Radcliffe’s works but am interested to re-discover his work.
Tom – Wow! “huge, glorious, sprawling” well describe that opus! Javier is one of my all-time favorite characters.
Shannon – “She seemed to articulate so many things that I have wanted to say, but didn’t have the words for.” — That’s well put because I felt the same way about the Mary Gordon book I’m reading. It was less about the content her research and her research but in how she described her way of reading and writing and “knowing” that struck me and gave me new words for my own experience.
Timothy Radcliffe’s OP “What is the point of being a Christian?” and “I call you friends”, or any of his letters as Master of the Dominican Order which were collected in a book called “Sing a new song”, all powerful and deeply reflective readings which are written from a lived theology and challenge you whether you are laity or religious.
This summer I returned to a book whose beauty still moves me to tears: Les Miserables! This huge, glorious, sprawling novel touches on so much of the human condition and has such a large cast of characters that, as the story winds down, on the one hand you hate to leave these people, yet on the other hand , upon reflecting, you find you are a better person for having made the journey with them. Thank you, Victor Hugo.
I had read several books by Kathleen Norris, but a few months ago “Amazing Grace, a Vocabulary of Faith” became my favorite of hers, and one of my favorites of all time. She seemed to articulate so many things that I have wanted to say, but didn’t have the words for.
Sister Julie – I have not read any of Red Bird but will, having just read “Swimming”. Oliver is such a companion, I find. No matter my mood or my need, there is almost always a poem-friend in her Collected Works. A poem that gives me peace, again and again, whenever I am faced with Death is “White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field”. I think she and St Francis would have been great friends.
Coming down out of the freezing sky
with its depths of light,
like an angel, or a Buddha with wings,
it was beautiful, and accurate,
striking the snow and whatever was there
with a force that left the imprint
of the tips of its wings — five feet apart —
and the grabbing thrust of its feet,
and the indentation of what had been running
through the white valleys of the snow —
and then it rose, gracefully,
and flew back to the frozen marshes
to lurk there, like a little lighthouse,
in the blue shadows —
so I thought:
maybe death isn’t darkness, after all,
but so much light wrapping itself around us —
as soft as feathers —
that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking,
and shut our eyes, not without amazement,
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica,
to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow,
that is nothing but light — scalding, aortal light —
in which we are washed and washed
out of our bones.
~ Mary Oliver ~
(House of Light)
I like “My Life With The Saints”. It was interesting to see saints as ordinary people who wanted to do something beautiful for God.
My favorite book in the world is The Little Prince. I actually prefer reading the book in French, the original language of the book. This book is so profound, and the Little Prince and Fox’s messages remind me of Jesus’ lessons. I believe that this book is in fact a religious allegory. The Little Prince to me is a Jesus figure. The second half of the book makes this more evident. Though this book can be enjoyed by anyone, I see a spiritual message inside like in The Chronicles of Narnia.
Melissan, I’ve read Jim Martin’s book and like it too. Another good one of his is Becoming Who You Are: Insights on the True Self from Thomas Merton and Other Saints. Particularly good for those discerning their life’s calling.
Fariba, I read that a long time ago in English then in French. The Little Prince is a treasure!
Eily246, I’ve heard of Immaculee Ilibagiza but not read her … yet. Will have to rectify that!
Susan, Very cool to hear how inspiring Rumer Godden’s book is! Sister Maxine and I just got a copy of the DVD of In this House of Brede with Diana Rigg as the London-business woman who becomes a nun.
Peggy, Virgin Time: In Search of the Contemplative Life is the only one I’ve read. Maxine and I heard her speak at the Festival of Faith and Writing one year. Loved her.
Jeff, You had me at “wrapped up in velvet or cashmere” … am going to run, not walk, to the nearest book store to find The Secret Scripture. (UPDATE: I just ordered The Secret Scripture
from Amazon!)
2 books really changed the way I think and see the world.
Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza- It’s a autobiography about her life during the Rwandan Holocaust and how her Catholic faith helped her endure things more horrific than I could ever imagine. This book really rocked my world and it was the first time I think I really realized how universal Catholicism is. It’s more than the church I grew up in which I know, but couldn’t comprehend.
The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. Shane Claiborne set out to really live the Gospels in a radical way. I read it for the first time last summer and I remember thinking, “wow, people actually do crazy things like this.” Now, I wouldn’t do everything Shane Claiborne does, but it made me realize that we’re all called in some way to radically follow God.
Meslissan, I liked that book, too. It is well written and was quite a learning experience for me.
My personal favorite is “In This House of Brede” by Rumer Godden. This is the book that led me to become a Benedictine oblate and I have read it at least once a year since I was 11. The language of the book is poetic and the characters are finely drawn and complex. I find something new every time I read it.
Other favorite authors are Kathleen Norris, Jan Karon, Anne LaMott, Joan Chittister, and Henri Nouwen. Each of these authors is so insightful that I often have to stop reading just to breathe in their words and thoughts.
Other favorites are
Almost anything by Patricia Hampl, but especially Virgin Time. If you haven’t read it, RUN to get it. It is gorgeously written–one of the few books that has ever made me pause and just exult in the prose. It’s also remarkably funny…. If you don’t know Tricia Hampl’s work yet, you are in for a huge treat!
For me, it has to be The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry. The writing is absolutely gorgeous. It’s like being wrapped up in velvet or cashmere. The story is amazing. A 100 yearold woman, who has been placed by her inlaws in a psychiatric hospital for most of her life, writes down her life story. Her doctor finds the pages of her story and has to know more about her. Alongside this story, the author weaves the story of the doctor-his life, his disappointments.
The ending is absolutely glorious! I just loved this book!
I am an up and coming Oblate of St Benedict. One of our assignments is too read The Path of Life by Fr. Cyprian Smith OSB. I did a quick reading through the whole book and then we are to Lectio Divina – slow, sacred reading a chapter a month. It is one of the best I’ve ever read. There are 12 chapters and the titles are – Listening, Stability, Conversatio Morum, Obedience, Silence, Lectio Divina, Prayer, The Eucharist, The Liturgy of the Hours, Private Prayer, Humility and Making Life a Unity.–aweseome book!
Another great book that changed my life is The Sacrament of the Present Moment by Jean-Pierre De Caussade. This one is all about finding God in this present moment.
@fariba-”you are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” i adore that book.
traveling mercies by anne lamott is wonderful, and anything by frederich beuchner.
but a tree grows in brooklyn and the prince of tides and the divine secrets of the yaya sisterhood are just a few examples of the books that REALLY rocked my world, far more than any specifically spiritual book.
i read more than i do anything else. books are amazing.
Another great Kathleen Norris book is “The Virgin of Bennington”, in which she writes of her relationship with Elizabeth Kray (the mama bear of the American Academy of Poets and the mama of poetry readings and circuits and poetry in the schools and libraries and streets). Kray was Norris’s mentor and, I would say, her first spiritual director on her way to becoming a Benedictine Oblate. It is a beautiful book and, I think, an organic answer to the question: what is spiritual direction “like”? (and talk about a story of a
very complex very good very wild girl who makes her way to “the convent” and thrives and stays. I am thinking about something Sister Julie said months back about the women who find their raucous ways to religious life and stay to be rowdy Religious…)
Eily246, I did not know about Immaculee Ilibagiza but will order that book today. Your description if it reminded me of that addendum to St Francis and the Foolishness of God: Eloi LeClerc’s “The Language of of the Soul’s Night”, in which LeClerc – a Franciscan who was imprisoned with several other men in Nazi concentration camps – writes of a resurrecting of life and spirit breathed into being through the impossible and spontaneous words and music of St Francis’s Canticle of the Sun; breathing into these Franciscans and those dying and hanging on to life around a sudden awareness of God’s presence, impossibly constant even in that death train.
The reality of contemporary stories of this kind – the reality of Immaculee Ilibagiza’s faith as she lived the nightmare of the Rwandan holocaust (1994!); the reality of Sister Dorothy Stang’s life and death among the people and other creatures (plant and animal) and, through her death, new Life in the struggle of Brazilian rain forest and all its creatues (2005!) – remind me that we humans are no less capable of evil than we have ever been……..and that God is impossibly and constantly present to us.
Makes me want to go home to find my Pete Seeger tribute CD (Where Have All the Flowers Gone) to hear the Cordelia’s Dad version of “HOW CAN I KEEP FROM SINGING”
My life flows on in endless song
Above earth’s lamentations,
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
That hails a new creation.
Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear it’s music ringing,
It sounds an echo in my soul.
How can I keep from singing?
While though the tempest loudly roars,
I hear the truth, it liveth.
And though the darkness ’round me close,
Songs in the night it giveth.
No storm can shake my inmost calm,
While to that rock I’m clinging.
Since love is lord of heaven and earth
How can I keep from singing?
When tyrants tremble sick with fear
And hear their death knell ringing,
When friends rejoice both far and near
How can I keep from singing?
In prison cell and dungeon vile
Our thoughts to them are winging,
When friends by shame are undefiled
How can I keep from singing?
Jean
Many excellent books cited above. For a book that will really shake you up — don’t say I didn’t warn you — try Shusaku Endo’s The Silence. It is being made into a movie that will probably be out in the fall. Endo is considered the Graham Greene of Japan.
Hi, Sr. Julie–I’m changing my name so there is no confusion with the other Susan also posting here (hello, other Susan!)
I also have that DVD of “In This House of Brede.” It is decidedly inferior to the book. They took many liberties with the storyline, some of them very stereotypical, IMHO.
I would be interested to know what you think after you and Sr. Maxine watch it.
Oh my! There’s so many of them.
Story of a Soul by Saint Therese.
I believe in Love: A Personal Retreat Based on the Teachings of Saint Therese by Fr. Jean C. J. d’Elbée
Total Surrender by Mother Teresa
The Wonders of His Holy Name and The Wonders of The Mass by Fr. Paul O’Sullivan
The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
With Love and Laughter bu Sister Maryanna OP
JMJ+
~Betsy
Totus tuus Maria!
Jean– I love “How can I keep from singing.” It definitely fits with Imaculee Ilibagiza’s story and that of Sr. Dorothy Stang. I agree with you that God is impossible and contstantly present to us. I find it so amazing that people like Imaculee Ilibagiza go through these horrible things that we can’t even begin to comprehend and still have their faith in God.
Betsy- I just bought I Believe in Love… and am just starting it. Someone I was on a retreat with recommended it to me. I’m really excited to get into it.
“Generous Orthodoxy” by Brian McLaren (I believe the spelling is correct…I don’t have the book around me at the moment.) The book speaks of a Christianity that extends beyond the stained-glass windows of the church and extends into the very hearts of the Church–the Body of Christ. He talks about being charismatic, Protestant, liberal, conservative, contemplative and so on and so forth without finding things to be mutually exclusive.
The one element that rocked my world was when he talked about having seven (or so) different views on Jesus. Such views were the Catholic Jesus (focusing on the resurrection of Jesus), the Eastern Orthodox Jesus (focusing on the birth of Jesus), the conservative Protestant Jesus (focusing on Jesus’ crucifixion), and several others. Each view of Jesus formed the centrality of each denomination/view point’s theology and character. Each view was Scriptural, but was distinctly different from the rest. I totally recommend the book!
I’ve also read “Irresistible Revolution” and absolutely love it! Claibourne has written a few other books, which I also recommend!
Can we do a favorite film one of these days? One “religious”, one not?
Marla – I am with you. I cannot imagine life without books. I remember very clearly the day Laura Ingalls’ dog Jack was washed away in a river crossing as the family moved from the Little House in the Big Woods to the Little House on the Prairie. I was devastated and bawled my way through the house until I found my mother to tell her Jack was gone. I had just started third grade and my mother took pity on me and let me look in her cedar chest, where I found copies of “Farmer Boy” and, most important at that moment: “On the Banks of Plum Creek” with Jack on the cover. By that, I knew they would find him and, with that, I crawled back under my covers to read until bedtime (talk about suspense for eight year olds: Pa almost shoots Jack when he finally makes it home and they mistake him for a “wolf” sneaking up on them at the fire one night! Forty years later, perhaps to the month, I can still see Garth Williams sketch of Jack as he crawls to them through the grass).
You mentioned “The Prince of Tides”. ANYTHING by Pat Conroy is treasure (though I wasn’t crazy about his memoir “My Losing Season”; the cover of fiction for his autobiographical storytelling lends his writing a lyric narrative voice that was, I think, lost in that explicit memoir. But I devoured it because it was him and I am a little bit in love with him and the complicated love of family, place and the tragic beauty of human vulnerability. A wonderful New Orleans photographer, David G Spielman, has his gallery around the corner from my old place in New Orleans and, when I stopped at the coffee shop downstairs, I always walked upstairs to see the large black and white portrait of Pat Conroy that was the cover photo for David’s book “Southern Writers”. It is a beautful book but I would have bought it just for Conroy’s photo. By the way, a plug for David………….He has a new book Katrinaville Chronicles(2007). If I had not begun serious discernment re: religious life just before I wandered into his gallery the first time, I would have bought several from him and journaled the stories he told me as he introduced each photo to me that day. I loved the Conroy and several of the Katrina photos so much that they provided a very real process in discernment: do I covet beautiful original art on the walls – paintings and pen and ink sketches and B/W photography – so much that I could live without them? For a few days, I wasn’t sure who to resent most: David or God. Then I remembered libraries and museums and storefronts like David’s and continued discerning. He is a gifted storyteller with his lens and also when you visit him in his gallery on Prytania and Washington in New Orleans… I just looked at his website DavidSPIELMAN.com and there are photos I do not recognize…could be Catholic Church and some religious; will have to find out).
Jean
Jean
jean,
near the end of my bio, the one that gets tagged on at the end when i publish my stories, it says, “Marla’s dream is that one day her favorite author, Pat Conroy, will ask for her autograph.”
Does anyone have any suggestions for books about Saint Dominic or about Dominican spirituality? I am considering entering a Dominican order and I realized that I really don’t know much about Saint Dominic.
JMJ+
~Betsy
Totus tuus Maria!
Betsy – I just finished a couple of books and have two more that were recommended.
GK Chesterton on St Dominic…. good overview and Chesterton is, in style, an early 1900′s Christopher Hitchens: he made me laugh out loud, which Hitchens does, even when I think he is idiotic in his statements. ( I read this right after I read George Bernard Shaw’s absolutely delightful play Joan of Arc, in an edition that had a wonderful essay about “Joan and the men”, as I think of it. I could not believe I had lived so long without discovering the fun and just plain smarts of 20th century literature and commentary by and about Catholics/ism. Now I can’t get enough).
The Sinisawa Dominicans also have a great educational series (brief discussions) on a number of Dominican “topics”. I don’t know if the series is by them or just availabe through them. Haven’t gotten there yet.
Good luck. Jean
By association with St Dominic: “Catherine of Siena: Vision Through a Distant Eye” by Noffke
and the two I have scanned but not yet started:
The Dominican Tradition (From the Spirituality in History) by Zagano and McGonigle
St Dominic’s Family by Sr. Mary Jean Dorcy, O.P.
FROM AMAZON.com: “A momumental work. Some 335 biographies of the most famous people of the Domincan Order–priests, nuns, and Third Order members–from St. Dominic himself (1170-1221) to Gerald Vann (1906-1963), arranged century by century. Great stories of heroes and heroines of Christ–miracles, visions, martyrdoms.”
My incredible read was one some of you may not find appealing. It is the Missing Years of Jesus by Dennis Price. I nearly put it down when the author, an archaeologist said he was a Mystic. I read it in my first holiday in nine years, this year, after having an ill husband and an autistic son. It was lying in front of me in a bookshop and I felt it was the Lord saying you always have been fascinated by this part of my life, and have never had any answers. He knew I could imagine and the author gave so many facts, and made me think more about Joseph of Arimethea.
It made me look at Jesus likes and dislikes, and what the beliefs were before he transformed the world through his spirit. I do not necessarily believe it, but Jesus let me imagnine him on Phoenician ships and arriving on my English shores. It explained to me why I do not like some areas tourists flock to in our country, namely Stonehenge.
I do not believe that Mary died or travelled with Jesus, as the book claims. I am so catholic in my views, it did not change my firm love and beliefs in Mary’s story, but my did it make me think and realise just what Jesus had to cut through. Did you know if he had sailed with Joseph of Arimethea there were already faiths with Esus as a name in them?
I hope none of you are upset by this idea. It was published this year and my I wish more people were buying this, and not Dan Brown’s. People are afraid to read things like this, but it shows how things were and it suggests where Jesus might have spent his teenage years. It is not whether this was so or not, no one can prove it, but it the thinking and the fun of saying to the Lord, “did you stop there for a while?”
Margaret – This is new to me, and I hope no one allows themselves to be seriously upset by any piece of writing that is not malicious, and I cannot see how this could be so intended. If, however, there are those who are distressed by your book, my guess is they may respond the same way to my genuine appreciation of Anne Rice’s two recent novels, books I found to be loving, simply and genuinely so, and I enjoyed them for some of the same reasons you reasons mention re: The Missing Years. Jean
Oh Marla – i always knew i liked you. where can i find YOUR stories?
Jean
“Jane Eyre” is one. So is “To Kill a Mockingbird”. Also “Evensong” by Gail Godwin; the “Outlander” series by Diana Gabaldon, anything by Mary Pipher, but my favorites of hers are “The Shelter of Each Other” and “Finding Peace”. “To Quell the Terror” (the story of the Carmelite martyrs of Compiegne) by William Bush; “Divine Mercy in My Soul” by St. Faustina; “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls. The list gets added to a lot; I have eclectic tastes (or maybe I’m just an omnivore).
I agree with To Kill a Mockingbird, Jane Eyre, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Ah, I love books!
Jean, thank you so much for those suggestions. I’ll let you know what I think when I find them.
JMJ+
~Betsy
Totus tuus Maria!
THE VIOLENCE OF LOVE with forward by Henri Nouwen (1988 Plough Publishing Co) – selections from Oscar Romero’s homilies, beautifully formatted as either lines of poetry or brief prose passages. I have been waiting for this book and it arrived in the mail today…
It is definitely safe to say that we have a lot of book readers in the A Nun’s Life community! Wow. Can’t keep up with you all!
I think next week we’ll do the movie one and see what flicks flick your switch. For now, must agree with others about To Kill A Mockingbird. Rocked my world and is one of my all-time favorite books. Oh, and I’ll also add Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway — when I read that book I swear I could physically feel new brain synapses forming as my mind was stretched to think in brand new ways about writing!
Here’s a question — is there a book that you didn’t necessarily like or agree with or would ever read again but it still had a profound influence on you?
Great post… and *fantastic* blog comments. Go, Sister J!
Book that had profound influence, could (and have) read many times and love to share with others: Huckleberry Finn. I cannot wait for my son to read.
Book that had profound influence but would never read again: Lord of the Flies. Problems with group-think, bandwagon, crowd sourcing & “clubs.” But reading it once was enough. Not sure how I’m going to handle it when my son “needs” to read it. Should I make sure he reads it? Probably.
Peace to your day!
Personally, BarbaraKB I loved Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm that focused on the consequences of power. Of Mice and Men was the first book I thought of that has influenced me in some way but that I would not read again. This book is the saddest book I’ve ever read, and I always wonder if there were any alternative choices for Lenny at the end of the book. Was George actually acting in compassion? This book always makes me think. I would not read the book again, but I do recommend it to others to read.
SrJ asked, “is there a book that you didn’t necessarily like or agree with or would ever read again but it still had a profound influence on you?” I cannot think of a book but I can think of a music form: rap. I listen when I encounter it and then I actively make the choice not to encounter that specific instance again. It just bugs me. I am sorry that is the case but it most definitely is. But the film “Eight Mile”; a production of The Messiah I saw in Portland which alternated traditional arrangements/performances with rap adapations; Cornel West on rap; Franciscan Capuchin Father Stanley Fortuna’s profoundly loving spiritual and social justice ministries through rap; “my” kids in a homeless shelter jostling to procure the “prize” of choosing the rap recording for our next “painting party”. I love all that rap *****is****** and I want it to survive and thrive, even though it makes me crazy and I cannot “p.c.” myself into another response.
In a funny way, my complex relationship with the “lifeform” that is rap teaches me again and again that all life is sacred, whether I – little human that I am – have the eyes to see or the hears to hear…
Jean
Recently it’s been two books – Imaculee Ilibigiza’s “Left to Tell” which vividly describes the role of her Catholic faith in her survival of the Rwandan Holicost and her ability to forgive those who brutally murdered her family – left me literally vibrating with the Holy Spirit for days afterwards – and an oldie but a goodie – St. Francis DeSales’ Inteoduction to the Devout Life. May have been written in the 15th Century but still very applicable today – helped me grow tremendously in my prayer life and relationship to God.
Books are the breath of life to me. Favourites: Lord of the Rings (gotta inject some fantasy into this discussion!!); anything by Jasper Fforde (start with The Eyre Affair – laugh out loud funny and really profound, especially if you love books); The Called and the Chosen by Monica Baldwin; Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster; The Cloud of Unknowing (which I haven’t finished yet but is really changing the way I think about God and prayer); The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton; Story of a Soul by St Therese of Liseaux; The Nun’s Story by Kathryn Hulme (also adore the movie by the same name); In this House of Brede (read this for the first time about a month ago after someone recommended it here – loved it); The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge; and of course, Harry Potter.
Oh, I have so many favourites. After Jesus, I think reading is my best consolation and refuge and many other things
. Love Harry Potter, Jane Eyre, A Suitable Boy etc etc AND etc.
Spiritually, Fr Jim’s ‘My Life with the Saints’. It changed me and gave me hope for the crazy things I’m doing with my life. I want to read ALL his books but they’re a bit expensive and I need to save up. Hmmm…. can’t wait! Also I’ve made a list of all the books listed above and have resolved to get my hands on them. What would we do without books? Thanks Sr Julie!
Thanks for reminding me, Robyn. I forgot to mention Elizabeth Goudge; I like everything by her, especially “The Scent of Water”.
As for books that I found disturbing, but still left an impression; “Grapes of Wrath” is one, so is “The Handmaid’s Tale”. “Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich would be one, too.
I adore you, Sr. Julie, for posting a blog about favorite books. I LOVE to read. Although I’ve only had 17 years of life to read, I have read quite a few amazing books. Many of the books I read, somehow in one way or another have a spiritual aspect. . . either it’s obvious or I can find even the smallest coincidence. My favorites are The Staircase by Ann Rinaldi. Mrs. Rinaldi writes historical fiction, but this story records a miracle by St. Joseph. Another favorite is The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I’ve read others by Mr. Coelho, but The Alchemist is my favorite; certainly a spiritual read. The Shack by William P. Young. This book definitely instilled other views of God, how He can be anything we may need Him to be. But my ultimate favorite is Lying Awake by Mark Salzman. I can’t tell you how many times I quote that book!! Enjoy all the reading, and I plan to read some of the other favorites listed here. Blessings always!!
-Becca
Have any of you read The Shack? If so what did you think of it?
JMJ+
~Betsy
Totus tuus Maria!
GilChrist77,
I loved The Shack. The beginning broke my heart, but it was all about forgiveness. It was probably one of the best examples I have read fictionally about forgiveness. I liked the way the Trinity was portrayed, in particular God the Father. Never before have I read about or even heard of God the Father being portrayed as a woman. It changed my perspective a bit and opened my imagination. I really enjoyed this book; such a good read!
Blessings,
Becca
To be frank, I didn’t like The Shack at all. That’s not entirely honest. I didn’t finish The Shack, but what I did read was horrible. The predicament that Mack finds himself and his family in is heartbreaking–I’ll give it that. I wasn’t fond of the rest. It did a poor job condensing a whole ton of theological concepts into one book. Content aside, I didn’t like the writing. It was too…simplistic and almost diary-like. I did like the representation of Lady Wisdom (a blogger that I read said that she pictured Sonia Sotomayor when Wisdom was described.) I also liked the representation of the Trinity–it was unorthodox and got people to think, something I value (coming from the UCC, as I do.) I don’t mean to offend folks if they did like The Shack, I just didn’t. I was also looking at it through a more theological lens. Perhaps if I was looking for sheer enjoyment, it might have been better…
I thought The Shack was overrated, too. Drivel.
Immaculee’s book Left To Tell totally rocked my world. I think I gave out 10 copies to people. I had the pleasure of meeting her when she spoke at a church nearby. I might just have to re-read it.
Interestingly, at one point I devoured all things by Henri Nouwen. Now, years later, when I read his stuff, it just doesn’t speak to me in the same way anymore.
Others worth mentioning, Tuesdays with Morrie, The Middle Place and Still Alice.