Friday Five: BOOKS!

FRIDAY FIVE: BIBLIOPHILES UNITE!!

(Over at RGBP, Jan offers…) I hope some of you received books for Christmas presents; I did and have been reading ever since. Then I discovered a new author from those recommendations that pop up on Amazon.com. Instead of buying those books, I've been checking them out at the library, which will not help Amazon's future recommendations for me at all.

So tell us what you're reading, what you would and would not recommend--five books or authors! 

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PERFECT TIMING! Our youth are having a book sale fundraiser this Sunday, and one of the bonuses of being in staff is that we get first perusal of the offerings! Last night (after the senior highs finished sorting), I spent quite a while over their efforts…

First book: I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer (a tome I purchased at last year’s youth book sale—I wanted to get it back to the racks for a second go-round). A friend has been goading me to read some BK (her favorite author) for years, but I just couldn’t find the desire. Finally, on a deadline, I began…and couldn’t put it down. I hated it (at the beginning, mostly), because of the multiple, theme-driven, extensive heterosexual sex scenes. But VERY quickly I realized this was the whole meaning of "prodigal" that summer... BK's imagery and depth of sexual understanding of the natural world blew me away and couldn't keep me from continuing to read. And I fell in love with (most of) the characters.

 

Book two: In the “for sale” stacks were about 5 copies of Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. How can people give that book away?!! Last year I purchased several copies to send to friends—it is one of my favorite books of all time, and I can read it over and over. Hurston has a way of drawing images that stay with you, and her understanding of and ability to capture the complications of life and spirituality illuminate some of my own experiences of the world.

 

Number three: I admit to being a fiction and poetry lover through and through. But I recently finished a newer biography of Emily Dickinson called Lives Like Loaded Guns (a reference to one of her poems). Again, this was a volume I couldn’t stop reading. It was as full of plot as any novel, and Lyndall Gordon explored new twists and interpretations of the people in Dickinson’s life (proposing that long-supposed friends really were not, and seeming enemies may have been true devotees). My only disappointment was that the book came to an end.

Fourth choice: I’m going off-lectionary in 2 weeks to preach another book that recently came to my attention: Sandy Sasso’s Cain and Abel: Finding the Fruits of Peace. Yes, it’s a children’s book that beautifully retells the violent and disturbing story from the Hebrew Bible—and every time I read it, tears flow. Joani Keller Rothenberg’s illustrations deserve as much meditation as the words Sasso has written. The ultimate message is that we all have anger, but how we use it makes the difference between engaging war or creating peace: it’s up to each of us. If you’ve ever given up on the Cain & Abel story, I highly recommend this book for its redemption.

And finally five: I posted a couple days ago on books for meditation… and I offer him again: Kilian McDonnell writes the most delightful, playful, faithful, accessible human poetry. He has 3 books (he started his poetry career in his 70s!), and I recommend each and every one of them: Yahweh’s Other Shoe; God Drops and Loses Things; and Swift, Lord, You Are Not.

….now, I’m off to see what other RevGals have recommended. You never know what may show up at this weekend’s book sale!!!