Over the past month, I read a whole bunch of books not fit to mention here. Most I gave up on after 20-30 pages, but a few I finished, all the time hoping they would improve. Ugh. It was like eating an entrée at a restaurant and then wishing later I hadn’t.
Anyway, here are the ones I do recommend:
The Heart of Racial Justice: How Soul Change Leads to Social Change (Brenda Salter-McNeil and Rick Richardson) is excellent. Salter-McNeil and Richardson have been friends and (and were colleagues at Intervarsity for years), and their history together provides so much richness on this topic. Each chapter has both theological truths about racism and personal experiences of it. Every chapter made me think and examine my own life and thinking. But what I appreciated most were the meditations and prayers at the ends of the chapters. My heart isn’t done with this book, and I am hoping to use this with a small group for future study together. Highly recommended.
Don’t be deterred by the Dirty Dancing overtones in the title. Time of My Life (Allison Winn Scotch) is a thoughtful exploration of where one woman’s marriage went wrong, and what she would do differently if she could do it all again.. It’s R rated but not gratuitously so. I enjoyed it so much.
Dear Mr. Knightley (Katherine Reay) is a books of letters from a graduate student to the benefactor who funds her graduate studies. She is a great character, and the book doesn’t shy away from her challenges or the darkness in her past. I found the romance problematic and am not sure I loved the ending, but it was still a great vacation book, and one both my daughter and husband are enjoying, too. (Here’s my review of Reay’s other book, Lizzy and Jane.)
Katherine Paterson’s The Day of the Pelican is a fantastic book about a family in Kosovo in the late 1990s. I don’t want to spoil any of it for you, but the characters are well drawn, the ethnic conflict real without being graphic, and the conclusion is perfect without being easy. This was a real aloud with the kids, and no one wanted it to end. Highly recommended.
Be sure to check out Modern Mrs. Darcy for a link up of other Quick Lit!
Learning As We Go 
Is Dear Mr Knightly like Daddy Long Legs? With Emma overtones?
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Actually, I’ve never read Daddy Long Legs. I think Reay’s book refer to Austen without trying to emulate her. It’s more like literary name dropping than using a theme from a symphony in a new way (though I wish it were the latter.)
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I’ll be trying to get the Paterson book. I love her stuff as you know. “Perfect without being easy” endings are her specialty, I think.
I just finished Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant – which I picked up in the airport this Christmas. So beautifully written – a philosophical theological fable that is a little slow at times, but beautifully crafted. However…the last page broke my heart. I still think about it. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I don’t know that I want to recommend it for that reason…but for those who are into getting their heart broken… there you go.
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Ooo, I might not be up for having my heart broken right now…
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I’m intrigued by both Time of My Life and Dear Mr. Knightley. I’ll have to check whether my library has them!
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