Book Reviews on the way

We just received a big box full of wonderful books. This adds to the pile I'm currently working on. All that to say, I'll be writing some book reviews soon.

Due to the ever-growing pile and some of my selections (Don Quixote? What was I thinking?) this is a long-term plan. Until I finally finish one, here's a piece on some of my old favorites.

1. Life of Pi by Yann Martel.
It's promoted as "a story that will make you believe in God." Uh, I already did, but the protagonist's musings on religion and faith affected the way I believe.

Confronted with two stories from the survivor of a shipwreck, people are challenged to believe the better story. I believe the Bible is true, but it also contains the better story.

2. Freakonomics
Think of the scene in Patch Adams where the old guy challenges Patch to "see past the fingers." That's what this book is like. An economist screams at everyone, "You're not really looking." He challenges conventional wisdom. He also makes everyone mad, conservative liberal or whatever. He must be doing something right.

3. Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis.
Only Clive Staples can use a Greek myth to examine divine perspectives on love. Well done, Jack.

4. Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. Here's one perspective that reading this book changed.
Gluttony isn't about overeating, did you know that? It's about the obssession with food, "It must be done in such and such a way," etc. It sounds like a lot of fad diets these days.

5. The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Nighttime by Mark Hadden
I have to say this changed my perspective, because before I read this book I didn't have a clear idea of what being autistic would feel like. But this imaginative and entertaining read showed exactly that.

6. The Plague, by Albert Camus
It's a fictional case study of a quarantined village. There's nothing more challenging to one's faith than facing death.

7. The Lotus and the Cross: Jesus Talks to Budda, by Ravi Zacharius
It's an imagined conversation between Christ and the founder of Buddism. Ravi Zacharius lived with monks for a time to research for this book. That's dedication.

8. A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

The genious in his writing is that Hornby creates a story about four people who decide not to jump to their deaths, then makes us question for the next few hundred pages whether that was the right decision. And as painful as that sounds, it's laugh-out-loud funny. Before I read this, I never knew slapstick could be done successfully in a novel. Thank you, Nick Hornby, for proving it can.


Much more to come.

P.S. I'm enjoying Don Quixote immensely, and I'll have plenty to share. However, it'll take a while.