Carrie posted a list of ten books she would like to reread, so the topic has been on my mind the last few days.

Why reread? Especially fiction, when the thrill of discovering what’s going to happen is gone? Well, why do we listen to the same music, rewatch a movie, tell the same stories at family gatherings? There is something comfortable and familiar about books we’ve read, like favorite old clothes or a cozy visit with a longtime friend. Each time we read them we either get something new, or we discover aspects we missed the first time. With some like the Little House books or Little Women, I find myself identifying with different characters at different stages in my life. Each time through is an enriching experience. With nonfiction, it can be hard to get all the good truths from the book in one reading, and each time through helps reinforce the old lessons learned and teaches us points we might have missed or glossed over before.

Here are a few books I have read multiple times:

1. The Bible
2. Some devotional books: Daily Light on the Daily Path, Spurgeon’s Morning by Morning and Evening by Evening
3. Les Miserables (the unabridged version only once, though!)
4. The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
5. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
6. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
7. Little Women, Little Men, Jo’s Boys
8. Changed Into His Image by Jim Berg
9. Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders
10. How to Say No to a Stubborn Habit by Erwin Lutzer
11. Isobel Kuhn’s books: By Searching, In the Arena, Second Mile People, Green Leaf in Drought
12. Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur by Frank Houghton
13. Goforth of China and Climbing by Rosalind Goforth
14. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
15. Rose From Brier by Amy Carmichael
16. Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot

Some of those I will probably revisit again in the future. Here are some that I don’t remember reading more than once but would like to read again some time:

1. C. S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy
2. Jane Austen’s books
3. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series
4. Jane Eyre
5. Gene Stratton Porter’s Freckles and A Girl of the Limberlost. I was quite captivated by them as a child, but when I have looked at descriptions of them as an adult, they don’t sound appealing. I don’t remember much about them, so it would be interesting to see what drew me to them in my youth.
6. When God Weeps by Joni Eareckson Tada and Steve Estes, one of the best books on suffering, born out of Joni’s questions and struggles after becoming paralyzed.
7. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stow. I was never interested in this until a former pastor described Uncle Tom as the kind of Christian you always wanted to be.
8. Spiritual Depression by David Martyn Lloyd Jones
9. Hudson Taylor: In Early Years – Growth of a Soul by Howard Taylor. There are shorter biographies of him — I may have read Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret more than once — but this one covers so much more.
10. Jan Karon’s Mitford series
11. Keep a Quiet Heart by Elisabeth Elliot
12. A Path Through Suffering by Elisabeth Elliot
13. End of the Spear by Steve Saint
14. Michael Phillips’ Stonewyck trilogy
15. Janette Oke’s early books
16. Sarah Sundin’s Wings of Glory series

I’m sure there are even more I could add to that list. The main problem with rereading is that there are so many new good books being published, it’s hard to make time to go back to the old ones. But any of these is worth another read, and I like to work them in here and there amidst the new ones.

The folks at 5 Minutes For Books host What’s On Your Nightstand? the fourth Tuesday of each month in which we can share about the books we have been reading and/or plan to read. You can learn more about it by clicking the link or the button.

Wow, I can’t believe we’re almost done with September! Here’s what I completed reading this month:

Masquerade by Nancy Moser, reviewed here.

Beyond Suffering: Discovering the Message of Job by Layton Talbert, reviewed here. Excellent.

The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God by John Piper, reviewed here. Very good.

Gospel Meditations For Men by Chris Anderson and Joe Tyrpak, with my son, not reviewed. Just thirty-one pages, a little too explicit in a couple of places for a teen guy, but very good.

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger, reviewed here.

The Shape of Mercy by Susan Meissner, reviewed here.

Lion of Babylon by Davis Bunn, reviewed here. Intense action concerning a missing American in Iraq and the formerly fired operative sent to find him. Very good!

Amy Inspired by Bethany Pierce, reviewed here. Mixed emotions.

A Penny For Your Thoughts by Mindy Starn Clark and The Map In the Attic by Jolyn Sharp, short reviews here. I actually read this during the summer but they were for a Secret Sister at church, so I couldn’t mention them before letting her know who I was.

Goforth of China by Rosalind Goforth, finished several weeks ago but just reviewed here this month.

I’m currently reading:

Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World edited by C. J. Mahaney. Should be done in a few days.

Boyhood and Beyond: Practical Wisdom for Becoming a Man by Bob Schultz with my son. About half-way through, enjoying it so far.

The Shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber, my first by her, just started. I was very surprised to find a four-letter word there. Decided to lay this one aside after a way-too explicit sexual encounter was described.

Next up, probably:

Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk by Dale and Jonalyn Fincher, recommended by Lisa.

Love’s Pursuit by Siri Mitchell.

The Little Women Letters by Gabrielle Donnelly, about three modern sisters who are descendants of Jo March who find a collection of her letters.

By Searching: My Journey Through Doubt Into Faith, autobiographical book by Isobel Kuhn.

Happy Reading!

Lion of Babylon by Davis Bunn isn’t the type of book I usually go for: action, adventure, intrigue, espionage, etc. But I picked it up as a possible present for someone whom I thought might like it. Wow. It definitely kept me on the edge of my seat at times.

Marc Royce is a former operative for State department Intelligence who was dismissed when he needed time to care for his ailing wife. Now suddenly his former boss calls him to for a special mission: his friend Alex is missing in Iraq along with an American woman he is rumored to have eloped with. Marc knows Alex has not eloped and agrees to travel to Baghdad to covertly search for him. He finds that both Americans and Iraqis officially know nothing but unofficially try to squelch his search.

He teams up with a Christian Iraqi lawyer to continue gathering information, and gets drawn into helping him recover some kidnapped children. They find that the kidnappings seem to be related to the missing Alex, two American women, and an Iraqi man. Unexpected allies and unexpected grace helps them navigate through the volatile politics and dangerous hindrances to finding those who are missing.

I have to admit that even with the American action in Iraq over the past several years, I have not really paid much attention to the region itself. Bunn’s descriptions of the different factions were enough to help understand but not enough to be tedious. His descriptions of the desert, dust, and heat almost made me feel like I was there. Sometimes the point of view was Marc’s and sometimes it was that of the Christian Iraqi, Sameh, and it was eye-opening to see what living for Christ would be like in that land. All in all a very good read.

Here is a trailer for the book:

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

I found Amy Inspired by Bethany Pierce while looking for bargains at Border’s going-out-of-business sale: the cover looked familiar and I remembered seeing it mentioned by a blogger or two.

Amy is an aspiring writer supporting herself by teaching in a college. But she seems to be piling up one rejection after another, both for her written work and in her love life, as her current boyfriend breaks up with her on his lunch break before class. She catalogs her rejections and is obsessed with lists. She lives with an eccentric housemate who brings home a friend, Eli, who needs a place to stay for a while. Amy finds herself strangely drawn to Eli though he is quite different from her and from her expectations of the kind of man she would be interested in. Meanwhile, Amy struggles with what the Christian life is truly supposed to look like, with her writing, which doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, with single life, with her family, with a lovestruck student, and even with her roommate and Eli.

I spent the first — oh, third or so of this book not really liking it very much. The plot seemed to amble along, not really going anywhere, though it was unfolding more about Amy’s character. But I had more serious problems with a couple of aspects of the book.

First, Amy comes from a Fundamentalist background, and there are several digs in the book at fundamentalists. As a fundamentalist myself, I do get tired of the stereotype and the fact that Christendom feels that fundamentalists are fair targets for such digs. On the other hand, I do have to admit there are segments of fundamentalists who give fundamentalism a bad name and who focus on stricter external standards than the Bible calls for, so I can understand someone coming from that background wrestling with exactly what Christianity is and how it’s to be fleshed out.

Secondly, the book is a little…edgier than much Christian fiction. There is a scene, for instance, when Amy and her house mate, Zoe, carry a conversation into the bedroom and continue while Zoe changes clothes. No problem there, but when the author goes on to give a description of Zoe’s body in her underwear — I just don’t need that mental picture. And in another brief scene, Amy is down to her bra and underwear herself when she tells her boyfriend that they have to stop and she can’t have sex with him. It’s good to stop yourself even at that point, but it’s better to not let yourself even get to that point, and Amy knows that and regrets it, but, still, the scene as described leaves a mental picture I don’t want to carry with me.

Besides those issues, though, I did like where Amy ended up in realizing where some of her compulsions were coming from and in finding rest in forgiveness. There is humor laced throughout the book and real pathos as many characters experience varying degrees of loss and growth.

And I liked some of Pierce’s phrasing here and there. For instance, “Grandma FedExed a Ziploc bag of crumbs that had once been homemade oatmeal cookies” (p. 145) made me giggle. A description of a painting (p. 168) almost made me visualize it and her insights helped me understand it. And this paragraph I thought was particularly beautiful (p. 252):

I couldn’t save Ashley. But I hoped I was the first of many people who would lead her step-by-step until her fledgling wonder turned to faith and took flight, one of many believers burning in rows like lights illuminating the length of an airplane runway.

There’s no doubt Bethany Pierce is a skilled writer. I think if some of the scenes had been written less explicitly I’d have fewer mixed emotions about the book.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

I read two mysteries this past summer but have not discussed them before now because they were gifts for my “secret sister” at church, and naturally I needed to keep them secret til after I let her know who I was. 🙂 She likes mysteries, so I checked out a couple to pass on to her.

A Penny For Your Thoughts by Mindy Starns Clark is the first in her Million Dollar Mystery series. Callie Webber had previously been an investigator but opted later to use her skills to check out charities her elusive but wealthy and well-connected boss wanted to contribute to. When her newest client, a friend of her boss, is murdered, her boss asks her to investigate the death as a personal favor. As Callie uncovers family and business secrets, soon her own life is in danger. I stewed a bit over not liking the murderer’s reasoning until I realized that, duh, any murderer is going to be a little warped in his or her thinking. I liked this book a lot, and though I don’t gravitate to mysteries generally, I am tempted to read others in this series mainly because I think I know who Callie’s boss might be (she knows his name but has never met him) and I want to see if I am right. 🙂

A Penny For Your Thoughts is Christian fiction; The Map In the Attic by Jolyn Sharp is not, but it is a very clean story. Annie Dawson is cleaning out her grandmother’s attic (I don’t know if the similarity in name is purposeful between Annie of Grey Gables and Anne of Green Gables, but the similarity is only in name) when she finds an old piece of needlework stuffed in a cookie jar in a box marked for a yard sale. She shows the piece to her fellow Hook and Needle Club members, and someone realizes it is not abstract art but a detailed map. The ladies then want to know, of course, a map of what. Evidently someone else knows or wants to know, too, because someone tries to steal the map — more than once.

Overall it was a pretty interesting book. It ended rather abruptly, suggesting it is leading to another book in the series. After a bit of research I discovered this book (which I had received in a book swap) is evidently part of a series in a book club, which I have no desire to join, but some of the books are available used in places like Amazon.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

I read Susan Meissner’s Lady in Waiting last year and subsequently wanted to read more of her books. So I recently picked up The Shape of Mercy which was published in 2008, and I remembered several bloggers mentioning it and liking it, so I decided to give it a try.

In The Shape of Mercy, Lauren Durough comes from a family of wealth and privilege, but wants to forge her own path, her own destiny. She defies tradition by going to a different college than expected and living in the dorms, and she takes a further step by looking for a job to take care of living expenses rather than depend on her father’s stipend. That leads her to an eighty-three year old well-to-do retired librarian, Abigail, who is looking for someone to transcribe a diary that was written by one of her ancestors, named Mercy, who had been arrested and convicted during the Salem witch trials.

Lauren learns that misjudgment and jumping to conclusions did not die in 1692, but she is especially startled to learn the extent those elements rule her own heart.

Overall I thought this was a marvelous, multi-layered book. Susan brilliantly wove together the diary entries with the contemporary story, and I was drawn in to Lauren’s growth and realizations about herself as well as her curiosity about Abigail’s life. There were times when I didn’t want to put the book down, times I was almost in tears for different characters.

This would be one of those five-star, two thumbs up reviews except for just a couple of things.

Major Spoiler Alert:

It doesn’t bother me so much that one character commits suicide — I think such a thing is always a tragedy, but I can accept it as part of the plot because such does happen in the real world. What does bother me, though, is that is is regarded by the other characters as something heroic, sacrificial, and done out of love when biblically it is never regarded that way. “Thou shalt not kill” certainly applies to one’s own life as well as others. There is a difference between taking a bullet for someone and aiming that bullet at yourself. Suicide is the ultimate taking of your own life into your own hands and the ultimate lack of faith in God to handle one’s life circumstances as He sees fit. There were Bible people who wanted to die, but they left the actual process to the Lord. I don’t want to turn this into a treatise on suicide, but felt I must explain why the response in this book disturbed me.

Secondly, at one point the author refers to “that bit of the divine still smoldering in us.” If she means that we’re made in God’s image and some of that can still be seen even though we’re marred by the fall of man and our own personal sin, I can agree with that. If she means some spark of divinity resides in every human being, I can’t agree with that.

But other than those two elements, I really enjoyed the book and I do plan on reading more of Meissner.

Something neat I just found earlier today is a blog where Meissner continued the stories of some of the characters as blog posts here. I poked around just a bit today and I am looking forward to reading a bit more.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

I had seen many bloggers refer to Peace Like a River by Leif Enger years ago, and I put the title on my TBR list, but only got to it the last couple of weeks: my family wanted ideas for my birthday, and I scanned my list of TBR titles and suggested this one and a couple of others.

The story is told by eleven-year-old Reuben Land, who almost didn’t survive his birth as a severely asthmatic child but was brought back after twelve minutes without breathing by his father calmly saying, “Reuben Land, in the name of the living God I am telling you to breathe.”

Thus begins a series of miracles at the hands of Reuben’s father. After many of them Reuben says, “Make of that what you will.” Honestly, I don’t know what to make of that, and that may be why I hadn’t sought out this title earlier, but figuring out the author’s theology of such isn’t really necessary to enjoying the story. Reuben narrates the book as a witness: “Someone to declare, Here’s what I saw. Here’s how it went. Make of it what you will.”

In Reuben’s eleventh year, his brother Davy kills two bullies, somewhat but not entirely in self-defense, and escapes jail when he seems sure to be convicted (not much of a serious spoiler there as the back of the book refers to Reuben’s “outlaw older brother who has been controversially charged with murder.”) There follows a strange dichotomy of heart for some of the characters and for me as a reader as well: you find yourself hoping Davy is okay, yet knowing that he has to face justice, and grieving that he seems to have no regrets or repentance. After a time Reuben, his nine-year-old sister Swede, and their father go after Davy to try to find him, only to discover after a time that the FBI is following them. Throughout it all the character of each unfolds through the events, especially that of Reuben’s father.

Leif Enger is a wonderful storyteller. The book feels as if you’re sitting across from him in rockers on the front porch, listening to him tell a story. One reviewer’s blurb on the back of the book says “his novel moves in a current that can be poetic and slow or as tumultuous as whitewater rapids,” an apt description. He’s no mean poet as well, as through Swede he shares segments of an epic Western poem (though it didn’t seem like this could come from the hand of a nine-year-old girl, precocious as she was). I also liked that the chapter titles were significant: this was the first book in a long time in which I paid attention to the titles and at the end of each chapter looked back and thought about the title designations. And at the end of the book, when I turned it over and looked again at the front cover, I realized with a start who the shadowy horseback rider was, and nearly came to tears.

Some of Enger’s phrases stood out to me as well: a description of a particular women who “resembled an opportunity missed by Rembrandt”: “Fair is whatever God wants to do”; a reference to something people say “as if they’ve been educated from greeting cards.”

There were humorous parts as well: in one incident when Reuben and another girl end up in the church kitchen during a long service and start to make pancakes, the smell floats up to the sanctuary, influencing one man to “prophesy” about heavenly smells at the Lord’s banquet table.

I probably should say for some readers that though there is a description of a charismatic service, I am not charismatic and not promoting that kind of thing, but I am not going to dissect all of that. One doesn’t have to agree with every little point in a book to benefit from it.

I did enjoy the book and it had me pondering for a while afterward. In a search earlier today I came across this interview which shed more light both on the author and the book. I am definitely planning to put his next one, So Brave, Young, and Handsome on my TBR list.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)