10 More Books

Some prominent, professional bloggers have taken up David Frum's challenge to post ten books that have influenced their worldview. (I first found out about this reading Ross Douthat's list) The rules are to go with your gut feeling, and not necessarily mention your favorite books. As a non-prominent, non-professional who occasionally updates his blog (and who often fantasizes about prominence and professionalism), I am going to list mine. Fair warning: anyone reading this will probably be more edified going to the pages of these pros, and my books will be less wonkish by comparison, but for what it's worth (in no particular order):

1. The Bible - Jesus. Church. Holy Spirit. Make disciples. I know, forgive the pat Sunday-school answer. But I've truly found it worth believing. It is the one book I have read, in very small parts, nearly every day since I was fifteen. Different parts have meant more to me in different seasons - the Psalms, the Gospels, Romans and Philippians have all featured prominently, and I am, lazily but beneficially, reading through 1 Peter at the moment. Sermons preached directly from its pages have influenced me as much as any of these books. A list of books that influenced me without the Bible would be a dishonest list. When I read some of the "high points" - the Sermon on the Mount, John 14, Romans 8, Psalm 40, what can I say? If only it influenced me more.
2. I just took a break for thirty minutes to find a paper I wrote in college on the Cyprus conflict. I could not find it, but it sites a book whose approach to history and international conflict is better imprinted on my conscience more than the name of the book or the author. (I think the name was something like Cyprus: Island in the Sun, my Google-search was not fruitful either. I remember that the author was British. In any case...) One of the difficulties researching the Cyprus conflict was to find a book that was not clearly biased to either the Greek or the Turkish side. This particularly nuanced book was the only one I found that could effectively explain and analyze both sides. It encouraged or affirmed my mistrust sources who fail to understand their opponents point of view. This affects my faith, my politics and my philosophy of evangelism.
3. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo - It's a 1400 page Gospel Presentation. The first seventy pages describe the character of a priest who only figures briefly into the main plot, and is a wonderful celebration of a Christian. It is blissfully long-winded, purposely poetic and edifying to the last page. If you are only familiar with the film or the musical, let me just say that if you have read the book, they will both come across as superficial. It's pages brought grace, healing and wonder to me in Freiburg's dark, smoky cafes.
4. "The Weight of Glory," C.S. Lewis - Ok, it's a sermon, not a book. But I read it in a book, and, unfortuately, I did not hear him preach it in 1940s Oxford. This serious meditation on heaven is an argument for Christian hope, and as its final paragraphs demonstrate, why Christian hope, true Christian hope, does not keep our heads in the clouds, but propels us to love others. Lewis haunts me with the fact that there are "no ordinary people," that everyone we encounter is either "an immortal horror or an everlasting splendor." This weight, paints the way I ought to treat strangers, colleagues, friends and family (with God's help).
5. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien - My first epic fantasy, I braved Middle Earth when I was thirteen. Deeper symbolism I did not grasp at the time, but often overlooked in this epic is the theme of the unlikely heroes. More than any battles of good v. evil, Gollum's complexity or Christian symbolism in resurrecting wizards or returning kings, the little Hobbits give us the idea that in our own journeys, we can make it, in spite of our inadequacies (with God's help).
6. The Accidental Detective Series, Sigmund Brouwer - While we're all the subject of books I read in Middle School, here is one (or, ok, a series) that actually was written for Middle Schoolers. I read through these books like kids today read through the Harry Potter series. It is certainly not high literature, nor high children's literature like the Chronicles of Narnia or the Wind in the Willows (both of which I better understood as an adult). It did, however, show normal Christian kids living in community with other normal Christian kids that had two very important things: fun and humor. The fact that Ricky Kidd and his friends got into extraordinary situations did not undermine this. In it's own way, they lived out what C.S. Lewis said about merriment in "The Weight of Glory": "We must play. But our merriment must be that kind (and in fact it is the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously." So many children in other Christian stories suffered through dry, stoic lessons that made Christian orthodoxy and morality seem insufferable. At the same time, many of my friends in Middle School played in ways that were cutting and vicious. Brouwer's thirteen-year-old heroes played and joked in the Lewis way, and that example made no small difference in my very young view of Christianity, community and friendship.
7. War and Peace, Tolstoy. I read that Virginia Woolf once commented that War and Peace is a story that leaves nothing out. I agree. Not a page is wasted, not a word is missing. Read it, if you have not. If you are intimidated by the book's length, read it anyway, because it is actually easy reading. The prose is gentle and does not confuse (unlike Dostoyevsky), and it is divided into easily-digestible chunks. Tolstoy simply understands the human nature of each of his characters, and this, in turn, has helped me understand my own.
8. The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard. Though I was raised in a Christian home and went to Bible-preaching churches all my life, I had never really heard much teaching from the Synoptic Gospels, including the Sermon on the Mount (outside, of course, the Passion and Christmas stories). I had plenty of Paul and John, of course. The Divine Conspiracy was assigned reading before I went to Germany, and I devoured every word of it. It taught me to understand and appreciate and truly believe the Sermon on the Mount, and I am indebted to Professor Willard, and Matt, who told us to read it. There may be better Sermon on the Mount stuff out there - my dad, who read it after my enthusiastic recommendation, thought it did not add anything new for him (though my dad has a Master's of Divinity). But no question it was my gateway to a deeper Biblical understanding.
9. Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller. Yes, I know. As a hip Christian, I should probably be over Blue Like Jazz, the same way hip people ought to get over anything that becomes too popular. But so much of evangelicalism seemed to exclude certain political philosophies, certain styles, certain areas of the country, certain lifestyles that Christianity never needed to exclude. In college and in my travels, I met all sorts of people who so needlessly rejected Christ's teaching for all of these reasons. Miller, in a kind, post-modern way, separated the Gospel from these unnecessary chains and looked lovingly at the excluded, saying, "I want Jesus to happen to you." A phrase worth repeating.
10. Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis. I could use a number of C.S. Lewis books for this last spot - the Narnia series, his apologetic works, the Space Trilogy, The Great Divorce. Till We Have Faces (along with Perelandra) was C.S. Lewis' favorite among his works, and for good reason. The best stories are the stories of a discipleship, and a reluctant, angry disciple making her case against God, what we so often do, finally surrendering into the arms of her Lord, is story I live and re-live so often. I love the scene where, in a solemn march to recover the body of her beloved sister, Lewis' heroine is seduced by the beauty of nature. She narrates, "You may believe I was sad enough; I had come on a sad errand. Now, flung at me like frolic or insolence, there came, as if it were a voice - no words - but if you had made it into words it would be, 'why should you not dance?'"

I am sure if I wrote the list again tomorrow, other books might be on it. The Father Brown Stories from G.K. Chesterton are a superb collection of Christian fiction (I really want to read The Man Who Was Thursday, but have not yet found it). Wendell Berry's essays challenge more than so many pundits. The Brother's Karamazov remains among my favorite books, and the brother's in question are three of the most compelling characters I have read. The Trial by Franz Kafka is such crazy paranoia that I could not stop reading (though I am not encouraged to re-read).

So, other non-professional, non-paid bloggers and internet surfers, what are your books? I hope my friends will make their own lists (perhaps Justin or Liz or Karin or Joshua).