WHAT I'M READING V. 42

1. The God Who is There by Francis Shaeffer

This one was a whopper! A work of Christian apologetic by a person who apparently had great influence on Christian thinkers the past few decades.  It took me a while to really dig in (it's philosophical aspects took a while to get used to; made me think I would like to read more philosophy to get in the habit of thinking this way), and I don't know if I agree with all his points, but ultimately he did a worthy job of emphasizing the need to maintain the existence of God in all of our dialogue and thinking, and to be able to explain the reality of this existence in tangible ways. I took it as an encouragement to really think and to continue to formulate words to communicate the reality of God to others, and I especially liked his appendices at the end which goes into how to apply some of these things to our communities and conversations.

2. On Reading Well by Karen Swallow Prior

I LOVED this book. This will definitely make it on my five-star shelf (which I'll be working on organizing this weekend! Very excited.) When I started it, I couldn't believe such a book existed; it's one of those books that I wished I had written myself. Prior goes through and describes the classical virtues, in a compelling way, and looks at them through the lens of great literature (some of them by favorites) - Fielding, Fitzgerald, Dickens, Twain, Endo, McCarthy, Tolstoy, Wharton, Bunyan, Austen, Saunders and O'Connor. I read it on Kindle, and as soon as I approached the final pages, I ordered the hard copy of the book because I know it's one I'll refer back to again and again.

3. Pilgrim's Regress by C.S. Lewis

I have had this book for a long time but had never cracked it open until a few weeks ago. It wasn't what I was expecting at all, and at some points, it felt a little bizarre, but I didn't dislike it overall. Apparently, it was his first published work of prose fiction, and it almost feels like an experiment of sorts. It's an allegory, which I'm not the biggest fan of, but he is playing with the form (also apparently in the homage he's paying to Bunyan's A Pilgrim's Progress) and there seems to be a sort of snark or something here that felt both familiar and unfamiliar. I was also a little perturbed by the use of "the brown girls" as a metaphor of lust and desires, as that is a loaded thing which Lewis may or may not have been aware of. Overall, what was interesting to me about it was the form and tone, which I am still mulling over now.

4. Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones

I read An American Marriage a few weeks ago and liked it so much I immediately went to go see what else Jones had written.  I found this one and liked it immensely, though not as much as An American Marriage.  This particular one is about two girls who share the same father, but only one of them knows about the other.  The book shares with us both perspectives of the girls, and I loved the way Jones wrote these girls' voices - it felt so real and intimate and vulnerable.