Some Interesting Reads

I’ve recently been tagged by my friend Amy to join in a book discussion which began through her connection to the Baptist Bloggers ring. So here goes…

1. One book that changed your life: A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren. I read this book (and made everyone in my life as well) the summer before I decieded to enter seminary. The way McLaren spoke of post-modernism made me want to step out on my own and be an agent of change in the church. I actually read and re-read it several times during that period of my life. However, now I look back on that period of my life as a phase. While I appreciate McLaren’s ideas, etc, New Kind of Christian is not one of my favorite books anymore. The book that has most recently changed my life is Barbara Brown Taylor's Leaving Church.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once: The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. I don’t know why I’ve always been drawn to this book, maybe it is my evangelical upbringing/ the history lover in me. It was one of the only books I took on a trip to Tanzania/ Kenya in 1999. I remember reading it in “rashions” so that I would have something to do every afternoon (do you get the pun?).


3. One book you’d want on a desert island: Isn’t this where everyone is suppost to say the Bible?

4. One book that made you laugh: Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life by Natalie Goldburg. I was assigned to read this book last fall in my class at Duke entitled: Writing and the Spiritual Life taught by author Lauren Winner. I laughed because of the spunky way in which this book describes how Goldburg approaches the writing process. She seems like such a spastic person. I would love to be a fly on the wall of her house, just to see her in action.

5. One book that made you cry: For some reason I don’t really cry when I read. But probably the closest I came to crying while reading was last summer when I read: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I totally recommend this amazing larger than life fiction story.

6. One book that you wish had been written: How to Live in the Fishbowl Called Ministry and Still Always Look Fabulous.

7. One book that you wish had never been written: I have to agree with Amy here and add my vote for Passion and Purity. It really scared the way I view relationships with men keeping me hanging with my freshman hall of girls only my first year of college. I would also like to add the book: Lady in Waiting by Jackie Kendall. It is an overly sexist book which tells women to be like Ruth and wait for your Boaz to come sit at your feet. The irony of this is quite funny isn’t it??

8. One book you’re currently reading: Normally, I would take this opportunity to boast about
what I’ve been engrossed in over the last couple of weeks, but I have to admit I’m kind of on a reading vacation. Maybe it the hangover from graduating from divinity school or maybe it’s a part of my protest of not having a job… but I have been skimming the book my friend Elizabeth gave me for graduation called Sabbath by Wayne Muller. It has an interfaith feel to it (which I love) and has some helpful things to say about our need to slow down in fast-paced, cosumer driven America.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Anything that is a classic. I sort of slept through 10th and 11th grade English and would love to re-read some of those great stories that I missed out on like Pride and Predjuce or The Grapes of Wraft.