Category Archives: Books

Spring Reading Thing 2010

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It’s time once again for the annual Spring Reading Thing sponsored by Katrina at Callapidder Days! The idea is to post some reading goals, whether a few pages a day or a list of books to read, just for yourself or with children, not to beat yourself up with if you don’t fulfill every single one in the time frame, but just as a guideline for more purposeful reading. It’s also fun to read other people’s goals and to get some ideas for more good books to read (though my to-be-read list is pretty long now…) Plus there are prizes! You can find the basics and guidelines at Katrina’s as well as a Mr. Linky to post goals now and a wrap-up post at the end.

I have no shortage of books on my shelves waiting to be read plus more I’d like to get to. It’s just a matter of choosing which ones to list!

Non-fiction:

I am currently reading:

Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross: Experiencing the Passion and Power of Easter, essays on various aspects of the death and resurrection of Christ from people such as Charles H. Spurgeon and Martin Luther to John MacArthur and Joni Eareckson Tada, compiled by Nancy Guthrie.

I’d also like to read:

Detour, a non-fiction sequel to Dr. Frau: A Woman Doctor Among the Amish by Grace H. Kaiser.
Port of Two Brothers by Paul Schlener, the name of a village along the Amazon in Brazil named for two brother missionaries and their families who worked there.
Beyond Prison Walls by Marian Bomm, about her interment in a Japanese prison camp in WWII.
My Heart Restored, a Bible study by June Kimmel.
Hoping for Something Better: Refusing to Settle for Life as Usual, a Bible study by Nancy Guthrie.

Classics:

I’d like to reread Emma by Jane Austen. I read it over 30 years ago in college and would liek to revisit it again after recently seeing the newest PBS production.  I’m also thinking about The Great Gatsby after seeing someone mention it this morning.

I don’t know if you’d call it a classic exactly, but I am currently reading Carry On, Jeeves by P. D. Wodehouse.

Christian Fiction:

I am currently reading The Hidden Flame by Janette Oke and Davis Bunn, the second in the Acts of Faith series set just after the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

I’d also like to read:

A Touch of Grace by Lauraine Snelling.
Take 3, the next in the Above the Line series about Christian filmmakers by Karen Kingsbury, due out next week.
The Telling, next in the Seasons of Grace series by Beverly Lewis, due out in April.
Where My Heart Belongs by Tracie Peterson.

That should keep me busy for a while, and if I happen to get through all these, I’ll get to some more that have been waiting for me.

Parting the Waters

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I first read Jeanne Damoff when someone (I’m sorry, I forgot to note who) linked to her articles “How fiction can powerfully inform the practical application of truth,” part one and part two. Both her insights and her writing style resonated with me. Since these articles were part of a writer’s blog called The Master’s Artist, I clicked around to see what else she had written.

I discovered her book Parting the Waters: Finding Beauty in Brokenness about her then fifteen-year old son’s near drowning. Such an accident is the stuff of parents’ nightmares. Jeanne takes us from the day before the accident, when unbeknownst to them at the time, they had their last “normal” conversation for a long while, straight into the events of the next day — hearing the startling news that one boy on a class outing had died and that Jacob was in the hospital, having been underwater for several minutes and then receiving CPR for twenty minuted before reviving.

After the first few weeks, the Damoffs were told that Jacob would likely remain in a persistent vegetative state. But doctors and friends continued to work with him, trusting that God would have the last say. I rejoiced right along with the family at Jacob’s first movement, first laugh, first weeping, first words.

Jeanne is transparent and truthful about all of the issues involved as well as the wrestling of her own heart, trusting that God was in control yet struggling with why He allowed this to happen. Early on she wrote:

I saw God’s mercy in the timing [at the beginning of summer, when their teaching responsibilities were over], and the thought upset me. Why did God time this at all? Even in these earliest hours of uninvited, undesired affliction, I feared for the potential damage to our faith and begged God to preserve it. We didn’t understand His plan, but we knew we couldn’t endure this hell without Him.

Yet all throughout the pain and struggle, many different people remarked that something beautiful and unusual characterized the whole situation: they could see the grace of God in action through provision of different items or just the right person, through the family’s, friends’, and community’s interaction and support.

Not only is the story compelling and inspiring, but I love how Jeanne has organized the chapters around a theme, with titles like, “A Pebble Falls,” “First Ripples,” “Breakers,” Deep Waters,” “Stormy Winds, “Undercurrents,” etc., with verses at the beginning of each, such as Isaiah 43:1-2a (But now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine! When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;And through the rivers, they will not overflow you.”) and Psalm 42:5a,7b (Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me?…All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.)

At the back of the book are two appendices: one contains thoughts and testimonials from others involved in the story, and the other deals with “God’s Purposes in Suffering.”

I am so thankful Jeanne shared their story with us.

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

Dr. Sa’eed of Iran

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Some months back I wrote about Dr. John Dreisbach, a modern-day missionary who recently went Home to heaven. I was listening to his memorial service online when I heard the following poem read:

Christ is my Life, and Christ is my light;
Christ is my guide in the darkness of night;
Priest and strong Advocate Christ is for me;
Christ is my Master, to truth he’s the key.

Christ is my Leader, he peace to me brought;
Christ is my Savior, Christ righteousness wrought;
Christ is my Prophet, my Priest, and my King;
My Way, and the Truth to which I firmly cling.

Christ is my Glory, and Christ is my Crown;
Christ shares my troubles when woe strikes me down;
Christ is my treasure in heaven above:
In every deep sorrow he soothes me with love.

Christ is my Savior, my Portion, my Lord;
All honor and homage to Him I accord.
Christ is my Peace, and Christ my Repast;
Christ is my Rapture forever to last.

In joy and in sorrow Christ satisfies me;
‘Tis Christ who from bondage of sin set me free.
In all times of sickness Christ is my Health;
In want and in poverty Christ is my Wealth.

Afterward I searched online to find out who wrote this poem and discovered it was titled “Dr. Sa’eed’s Hymn” and was contained in the book  Dr. Sa’eed of Iran: Kurdish Physician to Princes and Peasants Nobles and Nomads by Jay M. Rasooli and Cady Hews Allen. It is no longer in print, but Amazon.com has inexpensive used copies, so I ordered one. (If you don’t mind reading books on the computer, the text is online through Google books.)

Dr. Sa’eed’s is a fascinating story. He was born into a Kurdish mullah’s (an Islamic teacher) family in June of 1863 in what was then Persia, now known as Iran. He was uncommonly bright and well-taught, so much so that he was given the title of mullah at the age of thirteen when his father died.

As a child he once saw a foreigner wearing a hat with a brim, uncommon because Persians then wore brimless hats. When he asked his mother why the man wore that “funny hat.”

“He is an unbeliever,” she replied, “and they do not wish him to see the sky, which is the abode of God.” By such an answer was aversion to non-Moslems instilled in the receptive mind (p. 23).

Sometimes he might be in a Christian home and “accidentally” knock something fragile off a shelf so that it broke or sit on a rug and cut holes in it with his knife. “Such misdeeds, while inspired by bigotry, were done especially to earn merit with God by causing damage to an unbeliever or even to one of a rival Moslem sect” (p 24).

But he also had a thirst for holiness that led him to fervent study and extreme rituals. After years he was still “dissatisfied and restive” (p. 29.) His first encounters with professing Christians were with Catholics who disgusted him, as they drank alcohol (forbidden in the Koran).

When he was seventeen, some Protestant missionaries came to town and engaged Sa’eed as a tutor in the Persian language. He had heard even worse things about Protestants, but he acquiesced.

He was surprised by many things: they knew something of the Koran, they prayed for their enemies, they did not drink, lie, or gossip. Their behavior matched their teaching. They used the Bible for language study, and Sa’eed heard many discussions about Christian teachings. Over time he began to speak with Kasha Yohanan about religion and read the Bible for himself. He began to see his own failings and to doubt what he had always been taught. This was agony to him, causing him to burn himself with hot coals as a vow never to speak with Christians about religion again and to tell the missionary that he was no longer available. But the words he had heard continued to burn in his heart until he finally prayed to be led in the true way. He decided to study both the Bible and the Koran. “In Mohammed’s teachings and personal life I found nothing which would satisfy the longing soul — not a drop of water to quench the thirsty spirit” (p. 38). Finally he yielded to faith in God.

His heart was now at peace, but his persecutions began in earnest. Even his own brother planned to kill him. The rest of the book details his growth, his training as a physician, and his life as a testimony to the One who saved him. Though often in danger, he never failed to treat anyone who called on him, even his enemies. His faith and godly character were a witness and a reflection of the One in Whom he believed.

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

Booking Through Thursday: Grammar

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btt button The Booking Through Thursday question for this week is:

In honor of National Grammar Day … it IS “March Fourth” after all … do you have any grammar books? Punctuation? Writing guidelines? Style books?

More importantly, have you read them?

How do you feel about grammar in general? Important? Vital? Unnecessary? Fussy?

March Fourth. Ha! I don’t think I ever caught that before.

I do have my trusty Harcourt College Handbook from way back in college days. I haven’t read it through like a book, but I’ve probably referred to every part of it at some point over the years. I do have other grammar, style, writing books that I keep for reference, but these days if a question comes up while I am in the midst of writing, I usually look it up online. For instance, I can’t seem to keep straight when to use “i.e.” and “e.g.” — if I just search for “i.e. and e.g.” I get multitudes of grammar-related sites that can remind me in just seconds which is which.

I do think grammar is important for clear communication. Punctuation marks are somewhat like traffic signs. If everyone interpreted traffic signs differently, we’d have a lot of accidents and traffic snarls. I just saw somewhere recently the following example:

“Let’s eat, Dad!”

“Let’s eat Dad!”

Big difference. 🙂

I think all those elements of grammar can help the writer communicate more clearly, intelligently,  and effectively.

However, as a reader and listener, I think we have to exercise some grace. There are few things more obnoxious than for someone to correct someone else’s grammar in a social setting. Only parents, teachers, and editors should do that for people under their care. Sometimes I can get distracted by someone’s grammar mistake and miss the main point of what they’re saying. Unfortunately, grammar mistakes do have that effect, which is another reason to try to master them. But I do understand that in the heat of communication the subject matter can overtake good grammar. That’s what editors are for. There are no editors for public speaking, however, so I try to be a little for forgiving when listening.

Booking Through Thursday: Why You Read

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btt button The Booking Through Thursday question for this week is:

Suggested by Janet:

I’ve seen this quotation in several places lately. It’s from Sven Birkerts’ ‘The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age’:

“To read, when one does so of one’s own free will, is to make a volitional statement, to cast a vote; it is to posit an elsewhere and set off toward it. And like any traveling, reading is at once a movement and a comment of sorts about the place one has left. To open a book voluntarily is at some level to remark the insufficiency either of one’s life or one’s orientation toward it.”

To what extent does this describe you?

I’ve had to read this quote through several times. I often wish the questions were posted a day or a week beforehand to give more time to process them.

If I am understanding the quote correctly, I disagree with it, especially with traveling and reading being “a comment of sorts about the place one has left.” Travel is not always about insufficiency or dissatisfaction and does not always mean I don’t like where I am. There are multitudes of reasons to travel, but for me personally, I love most coming back to home base.

Reading is not escapism in the sense that there is something missing from life that I am trying to find in books. It does open up new horizons and allows me to visit places and people that I would not otherwise, it causes me to think and to process, but to me it is about enrichment, not insufficiency. There may occasionally be a book I read out of a felt need for the contents, like Changed Into His Image or How To Say No To a Stubborn Habit. And I “need” to read in the sense that that’s how I am stimulated mentally and intellectually and often spiritually.

On the other hand, reading us also partly about personal growth, so in that sense I can see the idea of movement. But I guess the word “insufficiency” bothers me here. You can have a plant that is fine in itself, but you can do things to it to enrich it, make it hardier, more fruitful, etc.

I don’t know — I guess I am still processing this one! It will be interesting to see what the others participants have to say.

What’s On Your Nightstand: February

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What's On Your NightstandThe 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.

I finished The Tartan Pimpernel, an autobiography of Donald Caskie, a Scottish pastor in France during WWII who helped establish safe houses and escape routes for Allied soldiers, and reviewed it here.

I also finished Words Unspoken by Elizabeth Musser about…a lot of things actually, but the main story line involves a teen-age girl who feels she caused the accident that killed her mother, and eighteen months later still has panic attacks when she tries to drive. But as I said in my review, it is about so much more. This was one of my favorite books of the year so far.

I reviewed Mrs. Dunwoody’s Excellent Instructions for Homekeeping here but did not read it completely since it is mainly a book of homemaking tips. I did read much the philosophy behind the book and dipped into several portions, and have it ready as a reference.

I also finished Interwoven about two missionaries whose spouses died and who were eventually led together and reviewed it here.

I am almost finished with Parting the Waters:Finding Beauty in Brokenness by Jeanne Damoff about her teen-age son’s near-drowning and can’t wait to tell you more about it.

I just started Dr. Sa’eed of Iran: Kurdish Physician to Princes and Peasants Nobles and Nomads by Jay M. Rasooli and Cady H. Allen (which I looked up mainly because a poem from it was read at Dr. John Dreisbach’s funeral).

I’m not sure what is next after those two, but I think I am in the mood for something lighter. I have several Christian fiction titles on my shelf, plus I am thinking about reading Emma by Jane Austen after recently seeing the newest PBS production. I read all the rest of Austen’s novels over the last few years, but had read that one over 30 years ago for a college course. I’d like to revisit it while the production I saw is still fresh in my mind. But…we’ll see!

Meanwhile, if you’d like to see what other people have been delving into or if you would like to share what you’ve been reading, head over to 5 Minutes For Books.

Book Review: Interwoven

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The cover of the book Interwoven by Russ and Nancy Ebersole shows cloth intricately woven by Igorot women in the Philippines to illustrate the interweaving of the lives of Russ and Nancy.

Russ and his first wife, Gene, were married in 1950, and after graduate school spent ten years as missionaries in the Philippines. After battling cancer for three and a half years, Gene passed away, leaving Russ a widower with five children.

Nancy and her first husband, Harry, were married in 1957. He studied in seminary, and then they were led to work as missionaries in Bangladesh (East Pakistan at that time). After just two short years on the field, though, Harry became suddenly and seriously ill, and the Lord took him home in 1965, leaving Nancy a widow at 27 with three children.

Though a few threads of their lives had intersected before, four years later Russ and Nancy were led to each other, married, and blended their families together.

This book shares the testimonies of their early lives and that of their first spouses as well as how the Lord sustained them during loss, brought them together, and used them for many years afterward in various forms of service. Included are adventures such as the rescue of the family of Russ’s first wife, Gene, in the Philippines from the Japanese during WWII on the very morning they were scheduled to be executed in what “General Douglas MacArthur called…’the most thrilling rescue in all of American history'” and Russ and Nancy’s later being on a plane that was hijacked to China. Particularly poignant to me were the sections dealing with Gene’s response to cancer and Nancy’s adjustments as a young widow as well as many stories of the people they ministered to who became strong, fervent believers, some in spite of intense persecution. Some of the struggles and adjustments for the family after Russ and Nancy first married illustrate that missionaries are ordinary people with problems like everyone else would have, yet the Lord helped everyone to adjust and blend together over time. Woven into every part is God’s faithfulness and love.

Though a book like this is not meant to read like a novel, I did find the style just a little dry here and there, reading somewhat more like a report in places. But overall I can and do highly recommend this book.

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

Booking Through Thursday: Encouragement

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btt button The Booking Through Thursday question for this week is one I submitted how to encourage non-reading older children to read.

Reading was one of our favorite activities when the kids were little. We read all through the day, every night before bedtime, took regular trips to the library, signed up for reading programs with fun prizes, end-of-summer parties, etc. They all loved to read as young children. Or maybe I should say they loved being read to. Only one grew up to read regularly, though. Beyond the star-on-a-chart types of encouragement, they didn’t seem open to suggestions about books they might like. One regularly responded to any suggestions about reading with, “I’m just not a reading kind of guy, Mom.” Which of course broke this book-loving mom’s heart.

Some years ago I read Ben Carson’s autobiography, Gifted Hands. One of the major factors in his life was that his mother required Ben and his brother to read a certain amount every day beyond classroom requirements. I’ve toyed with making reading a requirement in the hopes that it would “grab” them, but feared it would backfire, human nature being what it is, and make them resent a book that they might otherwise like.

Most suggestions for creating readers include:

Parents actively reading. √
Read to them as children. √
Take them to the library. √
Keep interesting reading material on their level. √
Read aloud to them. I did this for years but fell away as they got older and busier. I wish I’d kept it up.

What does it matter whether they read or not? Well, I just hate for them to miss out on all that can be gained by reading — enrichment, learning, broadening horizons, useful ways of passing time, even spiritual growth. My friend Janet came up with 25 great reasons to read, one of my favorites being that God relates to us through words; Jesus Himself is called the Word.

I have one teen-ager left at home. How would you encourage an older child, teen, or young adult to read?

Book Review: Words Unspoken

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I don’t remember where I saw a recommendation for Words Unspoken by Elizabeth Musser. I keep an ever-growing list of books I want to look into, and I usually note what led me to interest in the book, but I failed to this time.

But I am glad I saw it recommended somewhere.

In Tennessee in the mid-eighties, the mother of teen-ager Lisa Randall dies right in front of her in a traffic accident, and Lissa blames herself. Eighteen months later, every time she tries to drive very far, she experiences severe panic attacks. Life is at a standstill. A brilliant, competitive student, she can’t face the possibility of college now. Her father does not seem open to discuss anything and does not seem to acknowledge any underlying problems.

A casual mention of Ev MacAllister’s driving school leads Lissa to a kindly older man nearing retirement who seems to know so much more than driving, who seems to understand what is going on beneath the surface.

But then chapter 2 brings a whole slew of new characters who don’t seem at all related to each other or the main story:

A young, cocky, ambitious Italian editor.

A depressed missionary wife in France who has lost a child.

An overconfident stockbroker.

A Southern socialite trying to keep up appearances while her marriage is crumbling.

A wildly successful but reclusive author.

At first the introduction of all these other people and plot lines was a little jarring, partly because it was so unexpected. This is not an uncommon plot device, but there was nothing on the back of the book or in descriptions I read about it to indicate there was any story other than the main one. Yet as a reader I trusted that it would all come together somehow…and oh, how it did. One by one connections are revealed, paths intersect, mysteries unfold and then resolved. Everything is masterfully woven together.

I don’t want to take away from any of that discovery, so I’ll not reveal more than that of the plot.

In one sense, it is hard to sum up what the book is about. Depression in some. Ambition in others. Character, good and bad. But ultimately…hope.

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

Book Review: Mrs. Dunwoody’s Excellent Instructions for Homekeeping

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Some time back I found this quote somewhere online (I forgot to note where) from a book titled Mrs. Dunwoody’s Excellent Instructions for Homekeeping:

In these notes, I have endeavored to impart knowledge necessary for keeping a neat, well-ordered home. But beyond that, I wish for you to understand the larger issues of homekeeping — creating an environment in which all family members grow and thrive, a place where each member may evolve to the full extent our Creator intended.

I liked that, and I further liked the information posted with it, that  “Mrs. Dunwoody, the wife of a judge in Georgia, was the ‘Martha Stewart’ of her time during the Civil War. She started her journal (notes) on homemaking in 1866, and would spend the next 50 years to complete her notes.”

I liked this so much that I asked for this book for the next Christmas or birthday. When I received it and started looking through it, though, I found that it was not written by a real 1860s Mrs. Dunwoody: It was written by a modern Miriam Lukken in 2003 in the style of the “receipt books” “that nineteenth century Southern women penned as a record of all they knew and thought meaningful,” and Mrs. Dunwoody was a character based the author’s great-grandmother and other Southern women.

At first I was sorely disappointed. But then as I began reading, I realized that I still did like the philosophy of housekeeping represented.

She believed that the ordinary acts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest. Taking care of our home enables us all to feel nurtured and safe; it brings comfort and solace both in the fruits of our labor and in the freedom it affords to experience life to its fullest.

She taught that women were not just doing chores, they were creating — creating a home, a place of security, warmth, contentment, and affection (p. xii).

Home reflects the creativity, serenity, and beauty we hold dear (p. 7).

Homekeeping is a fine art. It grasps with one hand beauty, with the other utility; it has its harmonies like music, and its order like the stars in their courses. I fear really good homekeeping — which exhibits itself not in occasional entertainment or a handsome parlor, but in good housekeeping which extends from the attic to the cellar, and through every hour in the year — is far from common (p. 8).

I’ll admit that my home is not in complete order from attic to the first floor every hour…but I do see her point.

Organization has more benefits than mere efficiency…Knowing your life and home are in order reduces strife and anxiety, and increases confidences. In short, establishing your own routine for tackling domestic chaos makes the task less burdensome. And everyone feels the effects of that (p. 8).

Homekeeping is an ongoing art, a process, not an end product. It will never be “all done.” Bathrooms, clothes, and dishes, once clean, have a way of getting dirty again. But home is meant to be lived in, in the fullest, most potentially filling way for everyone in it. That means that every room does not need to be picture perfect and waiting for a perfect display, but rather, each room has a sense of order and calmness to it. The home looks like someone lives there, without appearing messy or cluttered (p. 8-9).

The rest of the book is filled with household tips and snippets of wisdom on everything from laundry, etiquette, health, garden, what to do for spring cleaning, etc.

In some parts of the book she sounds a little too rigid with her routines for my taste: I think an overly rigid housekeeper who only tolerates things done in specified ways and at specified times can make her household and guests as miserable as the lax housekeeper. Balance is needed.

And she mentions that home is “a place where even the everyday things in our lives were held sacred and should therefore be cared for and treated in a special and orderly way” (p. xii). We women do have our little treasures around the house, but I would not call them sacred. We have to remember not to “lay up treasures where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal” but rather in heaven. I prefer to think in terms of stewardship: the things we “own” are given to us by God, and we should therefore take care of them.

But overall her reminders help me refocus on the fact that housework isn’t just “drudgery” — it is a ministry to family and guests, it fosters order and tranquility, and it is a testimony of a God of order, creativity, and beauty.

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