I love to read. I find it helpful to summarize my thoughts on each book and I offer those thoughts in the hope that you will be encouraged to either read or pass over the given title.
The Privy Key to Heaven by Thomas Brooks. It seems to me that the best criteria by which to judge a book on prayer is whether or not it drives you to your knees in greater fervency in prayer. For intellectual increase in the Bible’s teaching on prayer is a good thing, but heart increase in storming the throne of grace is even greater work. By that measurement the best book on prayer I’ve ever read is Thomas Brooks’ The Privy Key to Heaven. The greatest seasons of devotion to closet prayer in my life can be directly traced to this book. Maybe it’s because Brooks rebukes my apathy for prayer. Maybe it’s because my love for the Puritans means I’m uniquely inclined to profit from his pithy pen. Or maybe it’s because the book is saturated with the earnestness of the Spirit and wisdom of Scripture. Whatever it is, I continue to owe a great debt to Brooks for helping me to frequent the closet each day. If you don’t want to purchase the Brooks’ collected works from the Banner (and you probably don’t), simply pick up the Puritan Paperback edition—The Secret Key to Heaven: The Vital Importance of Private Prayer—and see if Brooks doesn’t drive you to your knees.
Openness Unhindered: Further Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert on Sexual Identity and Union with Christ by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield. Butterfield’s incredible story of conversion to Christ from homosexuality and active lobbying in the LGBTQ community was the focus of Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, one of my favorite books of 2013. I thus came into Openness Unhindered with high expectations and, oh my, did she surpass them. What an incredible book! Her chapters on “Conversion” and “Repentance” are simply brilliant. Of particular interest, given the trajectory of our culture on homosexuality, are her thoughts on sexual orientation and some Christian’s self-representation as being “a gay Christian.” Biblical wisdom, warmth, and winsomeness permeate these most difficult of subjects. The final chapter on “Community: Representing Christ to the World” is perhaps the best treatment of Christian hospitality I’ve ever read. This is a book to read meditatively and prayerful; a feast for the soul awaits. Tolle lege!
The Art of Neighboring: Building Genuine Relationships Right Outside Your Door by Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon. In her fine chapter on community Butterfield recommended this work by Patak and Runyon, saying it offered some useful tips for engaging one’s neighbors. A light went off in my head as I suddenly remembered I’d downloaded a free Kindle edition of The Art of Neighboring a few years ago. “Kindle here I come.” Pathak (a Vineyard pastor) and Runyon (leader of a non-profit) each went through a personal renaissance in reaching their neighbors and this work offers wisdom from their experience. To be honest, I found the practical counsel predictable—throw a block party, overcome your fear, be intentional, etc.—but that doesn’t mean one can’t profit from the book. At the very least it will exhort you to know your neighbors better than you do, and that’s a most valuable consequence.
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. Those who know me best know I’m something of a hermit regarding pop culture (and I don’t mean this to be a badge of honor, it just is what it is). I never know what movies are out, what TV shows are popular, or what music gets the most spins. I do, however, know what books are currently runaway bestsellers—such is the confession of a true bibliophile. I’ve thus seen Hannah’s The Nightingale occupy a prominent place on the bestseller lists for months. Additionally, I’ve noticed it’s maintained five stars on Amazon after over 12,500 reviews; if that’s not impressive I don’t know what is. As a work of World War II historical fiction it has unique appeal to me, but my sense of it being something of a romance novel held me back from taking the literary plunge. But plunge I finally did and am here to tell you The Nightingale is quite good. The prose is compelling, if more flowery than the subject matter deserves, yet Hannah gets high marks for realism in her portrayal of two French sisters resisting Nazi occupation—the plot is full of pain and death, as it ought to be.
Gray Mountain by John Grisham. Grisham’s latest has all the makings for a courtroom thriller. Set during the recession of 2008, Samantha Kofer loses her job at the world’s largest law firm and finds herself relegated to non-profit work at a legal clinic in small town, coal mining Virginia. The nefarious coal mining companies quickly come into view and the reader would be forgiven of expected a showdown with Big Coal USA to ensure. But it never does. In fact, when the book ended I thought, “Where’s the second half?” The ending is too abrupt and unresolved for my mind. The pages do turn fast as one might expect they would, but in the end Grisham missed out on what could have been an admittedly formulaic, but fast-paced thrill ride. To which I conclude, “Oh well. At least I learned a lot about the sinister coal mining industry.”
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