Ben came home from a Tuesday lunch at Disciples Fellowship a few weeks ago with an author recommendation. Apparently, one of the people at DF has a famous sister, fiction author,
Joshilyn Jackson. So I went online, reserved all three of her books from the library, and I've been hooked ever since.
I started with
Gods in Alabama which was her first novel. From the very first paragraph, I was enthralled. It's one of those books you don't want to put down, and you go back and re-read sentences because they're so cleverly written, you want to be sure you caught it all. (I don't do that much, I'm more of a speed-reader and skimmer).
The characters are wonderfully well developed and described through the eyes of a main character, Arlene (or Lena). You get her perspective and see the world through her eyes as she goes back to face her quirky southern family and a secret that has kept her from returning home for 10 years.
It's good stuff. A definite reccomend. Now I'm reading her next novel,
Between, Georgia.
Note: The language and content is a little rough, so I'd rate it "R".
Also, if your
book club would like to read one of her books, and you have access to a speaker phone, you can talk directly with the author about her book! Very cool.
Posted in
Submitted by Andrea on Wed, 04/30/2008 - 15:02.
I just finished reading
Those Who Save Us by
Jenna Blum. It was a book my grandmother recommended. Written by a Jewish author, it flashes between the late 90's and the 1930's - 40's and follows the story of a German mother and her daughter. The mother lived in Germany during WWII and falls in love with a Jewish doctor, has a baby, and so on... (don't want to ruin the story too much). The daughter is a German history professor (in Minneapolis, of all places) and is doing research on the experiences of Germans during the war.
It reads just like a
Lynn Austin book, which I love, teaching all about the history and pulling you into the time frame with a captivating story. Although the author is Jewish, I found it to be remarkably
un-religious. Actually there are very few Jewish characters in the
book.
I had never read a book about the Holocaust before, and it's very sobering to read about how awful people were treated. Hearing about it in school and in history books doesn't really pull you in emotionally like a story like this does.
I definitely recommend this book. Very interesting and easy-to-read. Thanks Grandma! :)
Posted in
Submitted by Andrea on Thu, 02/14/2008 - 21:40.
I just finished reading
Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. Ben has been telling me to read it for the past two years, so it was only fitting that in my resolution to read at least one non-fiction book per quarter, I started with this one. Besides, we own it, so I didn't even have to go to the library to pick it up.
Overall, I enjoyed it. Since it's written in a sort of heres-my-experience narrative, it's hard to summarize it. So instead of a review, I thought I'd present you with some quotes from the book that stood out to me:
“I believe that the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather to have us wasting time. This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious. If he can sink a man’s mind into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God.”
Habit--it's such a huge thing for me, and I can see it emerging in Ayla. She's all about routine and knowing exactly what comes next. I can only assume she's learned that from me. This was a good reminder that it's good to mix it up a little bit to prevent something important and meaningful like worship and prayer from becoming a mindless habit.
“So much of me believes strongly in letting everybody live their own lives, and when I share my faith, I feel like a network marketing guy trying to build my down line.”
This has always been awkward for me...telling other people about God. I think I'm better at it now, but probably just with certain audiences. I can relate to his comparison to a salesman...I don't want people to think I'm selling something everytime I talk to them.
“Rick said he thought it meant we should live missional lives, that we should intentionally befriend people who are different than us. I didn’t like the sound of that, to be honest. I didn’t want to befriend somebody just to trick them into going to my church. Rick
said that was not what he was talking about. He said he was talking about loving people just because they exist—homeless people and Gothic people and gays and fruit nuts. And then I liked the sound of it. I liked the idea of loving people just to love them, not to get them to come to church.”
This is a good description of the core feeling we've found at Disciples Fellowship, where we've been worshipping here in Birmingham. Missional...loving people...it's so basic, but so different than the typical "church" formula.
“I am something of a recluse by nature. I am that cordless screwdriver that has to
charge for twenty hours to earn ten minutes use. I need that much downtime.”
I just related to this because I feel this way sometimes. If I have a big day planned during the week, I need two days of nothing to recover. It's nice to know I'm not alone in that!
“At the end of the day, when I am lying in bed and I know the chances of any of our theology being exactly right are a million to one, I need to know that God has things figured out, that if my math is wrong we are still going to be okay.”
Amen. We don't have it right, but we're trying and I think that's what matters. I'm sure I've said that before....
Posted in
Submitted by Andrea on Wed, 02/06/2008 - 20:18.
Uncle Kyle must've seen that I had little to no blogging material this week, so he tagged me in a blogging game:
The RULES:
Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!)
Find Page 123.
Find the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people.
It wasn't really cheating, but I do have an entire bookshelf-worth of books sitting in my office (still in cardboard boxes). I picked one of the 10 or so that are sitting on top of all the boxes. It's a book my Aunt Susan gave me called "
Games to Play with Babies" by Jackie Silberg.
Then put the napkin on the baby's head, pull it off and say "Peek-a-boo". Put the napkin on the baby's head and see if she will pull it off herself. Keep pulling it off until she learns to do it herself.
My friends, consider yourself tagged:
Posted in
Submitted by Andrea on Fri, 02/01/2008 - 09:06.
I just finished reading The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs.
Now, typically I don't read non-fiction. No matter how often Ben "suggested" that I read something that was true, I frankly found it too nerdy and figured that couldn't be enjoyable at all. But, since this book was our pick for book club this month, and it did look interesting, I gave it a shot.
And interesting it was! It reads just like a year of daily blogs by A.J. (editor at large for the magazine Esquire and author of The Know it All). He spends a year trying to follow the bible as literally as possible, focusing on the Old Testament for 9 months and the New Testament for 3 months. He has a great sense of humor and the things he encounters trying to find the origin of traditions and examples of people following all the obscure rules and laws are beyond bizarre!
He's Jewish by heritage, but calls himself agnostic. His theory is that all people who follow the bible (there are so many names for these people besides "Christian" that I'll just say "people") are choosy about what parts they follow, picking only what fits their agenda. His experiences with all these people and their various beliefs, traditions and customs are proof that it may just be impossible to follow everything in the bible--at least literally.
I took away two things from reading this book...well, maybe three:
To follow the Bible, and essentially God, is difficult, complicated and mind-boggling to say the least. There are so many interpretations and perspectives on the meaning of nearly every verse in the bible, all (or most) with excellent arguments.
After reading this book and visiting a variety of different churches over the past two years, I have a much greater appreciation for God's grace. May he be merciful unto all of us who think we have Him figured out. I'm sure we don't, but we're doing our best and as far as I can tell, that's our mission--to do our best to follow Him. Somehow though, I get the feeling He's just shaking his head at us in Heaven because we are all so transfixed on the details and the little things that we were missing the big picture. I'm going to try and look at the big picture more in the future.
Second thing I took from the book: I'd like to be able to be dedicated and focused on a project like A.J. was for this book. Amazing commitment and in-depth research was essential to his success. I'm not sure what kind of project I'd like to do, but I like the idea of really focusing on something specific everyday to reach a long-term goal.
And finally, I'm going to read more non-fiction. I'll try for one a quarter next year and see how that goes.
Definitely a recommended read--it'll make you think--and laugh out loud, literally. The people in the cardio room at the rec think I'm the weird girl who laughs for no reason!
Posted in
Submitted by Andrea on Fri, 12/14/2007 - 16:59.
I used to read all the time when I was younger. Then high school hit and we were TOLD to read, so I stopped reading for fun until after college. Lately I've been on a reading spree again. Since we moved to Birmingham, I've read close to 20 books. I'm a regular at the library. I read almost all fiction, and lately it's been mostly Christian fiction.
I thought I'd recommend one of my favorite authors, Lynn Austin. She writes historical Christian fiction and I haven't read a book of hers that I didn't love. I like that I feel like I'm learning all about another time in history in addition to enjoying a great story when I read her books.
- Refiner's Fire Series (3 books) - These three books surround the Civil War and are told from three primary perspectives: the North, the South, and a slave. All three books are so fantastic.
- Chronicles of the Kings Series (5 books) - This series fictionalizes the reign of King Hezekiah and his son Manessah. It has made studying these people in church classes and bible studies more relevant to me, because even though it is fiction, she uses scripture as a firm basis for the stories.
- A Woman's Place - This book is set during WWII and follows the lives of four women who work in a shipyard building war ships.
- All She Ever Wanted is a multi-generational story about the women in a family who all make the same choices to run away. The stories span time from current day to early 1900s (I think) in Ireland.
- Currently, I'm reading Hidden Places, which takes place during the Great Depression and follows a family that owns an orchard.
They're all just so good I had to share! :) I'm always open to recommendations if you have any favorite books or authors to share!
Posted in
Submitted by Andrea on Tue, 11/06/2007 - 17:30.
I just finished reading a book called The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold for my MOPS book club. I've never read anything like it. The narrator of the book was murdered and the whole story is told from "her heaven" while she watches her family and friend (and murderer) live their lives on Earth. It's an odd take on the afterlife, but I found it interesting.
Posted in
Submitted by Andrea on Sun, 10/21/2007 - 21:13.
