On What Books to Read (From Daily Update 423)

Good Morning. 

Today, I would like to say a few things about reading books.  I like to read.  One of my biggest qualms that I have with myself is that I can't read as fast as I would like, enabling me to read more books.  The other problem that I have is that I can hardly remember what happens in a novel a month after having read it.  Its strange.  I remember the feelings, the connections that I made, and the overall tone of the story, but I have to be severely refreshed on the plot if someone wants to talk about it with me. 

With those stunning flaws in mind, I find myself often asked what books I think that other people should read.  I have an argument on this, and I'd like to present it briefly here for your reference.  Its only my opinion, not the Gospel Truth or anything close to it.  

Here it is:  Read Fiction.  Lots of it. Let most of it be what they call "Literary Fiction".  This generally means leaving out cowboy westerns, Nora Roberts and Dean Koontz.  There is great value in those books, I'm sure. Those books offer an escape and paint vivid scenes in the imagination, so that is definitely a plus. But, literary fiction is the way that I mostly prefer to go. This genre basically consists of classics and the books that are found on the finalists lists every year for such awards as the Man Booker Award, the National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize.

Here is why I'm such a fan of good fiction.  Many books on faith, life, relationships, money, etc, are written in such a way to tell you what to do think.  Fiction, the power of a well written story, has a quality that is uniquely enabled to teach you how to think.  You will be reading some story by Steinbeck or John Irving and there will be a character who has a certain kind of mood.  All of a sudden, you will come across a line of his that reminds you of something.  You will say to yourself, "You know, I think I've said something like this before", and then the next thing you know the character is saying something else and you'll realize that he sounds a lot like the Thomas in the Bible who had a hard time believing in some things and yet at the same time was willing to go and die with a friend.  Suddenly, very subtly, you will make the connection between your character on the page, the figure from Sunday school and the person who lives inside of you.  Fireworks are going off in your mind and you have found yourself squared firmly in the middle of an Idea.  It is your own and it is as true as the morning dew.  It's a beautiful moment.  No doubt, you know what I'm talking about.  We all experience those moments where we go, "Ahhh hah!" and some dark part of our mind all of a sudden lights up like a neighborhood at Christmas.  It is about making connections. The ability to make those connections is basically education at its best. The ideas come to you not by force, not like a raiding horde of Vandals sacking Rome, but in the way of a neighbor that showed up with a bottle of wine uninvited but ended up staying for hours where you had the best conversations of your life. 

With that, read good books that are not fiction as well.  Read biography and memoir so that you can learn from the triumphs and, more importantly, the failures of people that have tried this life ahead of us. Christian books are good, if not easy to pick.  My only advice is one that has been given before: test everything and keep the good stuff.  Don't judge a book by its cover.  I would rather judge it by what smart friends have to say about it.  When we read these books we find ourselves making connections back to the stories, legends, parables and fables that we have heard our whole lives or just yesterday.  We see something that was always there but we just now stumbled upon it, and then the lights clap on once more. 

So those are my thoughts, and you're welcome to take them with a grain of salt.  But where that expression comes from, I'd like to know.