Books, Books, Books

I'm reading Donald Miller's Searching for God Knows What for the second time currently and am just about done. After the first reading, I loaned it to a good friend. She enjoyed it through several readings on business trips through multiple states and loved it into a Velveteen Rabbit state. (That's right, furless and missing one eye.) She bought me another copy for my very own second reading.

I'm a fiction junkie. It's exceedingly rare that I re-read anything, particularly non-fiction; in fact, this may be a first for me. Miller writes so casually that it's almost a conversation between writer and reader; I felt as if he was speaking directly to me. His candor and humility are disarming and, one hopes, contagious. It's also one of the few books that have made me want to pick up the Bible and re-examine passages or chapters or entire books for myself, in context, to see for myself what he's seeing. Several of the amazon reviewers have mentioned reading scripture in a renewed light, and I agree.

His main point in the book is that there is no list, no formula, to a relationship with Jesus. It's just that -- a relationship. It's knowing Christ. He talks a lot about the systems society has in place and how crazy they are seen in the light of eternity, how Jesus turned that economy on its head. And yet we forget all too often. Pretty much daily really, at least in my case. It's a good reminder of what's real, lasting, permanent.

I think I will have to pick up his other widely sold book, Blue Like Jazz, and explore an author he's often compared to but who I've never read: Anne Lamott.

So many books, so little time.

Also just finished another book by a favorite fiction author who I will always recommend, from the psychological thriller genre: Jonathan Kellerman's Rage. For those unfamiliar with Kellerman, most of his novels involve main character Alex Delaware, a psychologist who frequently assists the LA area police, and his detective friend Milo Sturgis. They get into a great deal of grisly trouble whenever they get together, but it's always a great read. I was a psyc major the first time around (before the insanity of the engineering degree), so I dig that stuff. I have read all the Alex Delaware books, and they are in fact re-readable. Kellerman's wife Faye is also a novelist -- similar style and topic -- and I read her obsessively as well. I found out on my last trip to the bookstore that one of their four children is now publishing novels as well. Ack! I really must get a job just to keep up with the Kellermans' output!