my list of influential books
working on my profile a little. i still have this nagging vanity that someday my blog will be widely read. what a schmuck, eh?
anyway, thinking through my "favorite books" just became painful, so i switched to "most influential". this is still difficult, for a few reasons.
1) several of my favorite books do not make this list, which troubles me. why do i like them so much if they don't seem to have had all that much influence on my life? of course, i can answer that, now that i think about it. a lot of my favorites, tell me what i want to hear, and reaffirm what i already am and think, so the influence is small. or, they were just great stories that i took a lot of pleasure in reading.
2) my influential list is almost 100% Christian, and skewed drastically to the non-fiction works. of course, as a follower of Jesus, books by fellow pilgrims should influence me, but i like to think that i'm open minded. seeing that "secular" books have had such little influence on me is mildly troubling, and the non-fiction skew makes me feel boring.
3) finally, some of the books that make my influential list are not all that "cool", and some even rank kinda low on my own favorites hierarchy. this, too, hurts my vanity. oh, the fickle self-image of a schmuck, what shall i ever do?
but hey, i just remembered a fiction trilogy that influenced me deeply : The Song of Albion by Stephen Lawhead. this trilogy began to teach me more deeply the value of a story, and moved me far forward in the rich, earthy variety of Christianity i seek to embody these days--alongside my mystical nature (that paradox is a whole cunundrum of its own).
anyway, thinking through my "favorite books" just became painful, so i switched to "most influential". this is still difficult, for a few reasons.
1) several of my favorite books do not make this list, which troubles me. why do i like them so much if they don't seem to have had all that much influence on my life? of course, i can answer that, now that i think about it. a lot of my favorites, tell me what i want to hear, and reaffirm what i already am and think, so the influence is small. or, they were just great stories that i took a lot of pleasure in reading.
2) my influential list is almost 100% Christian, and skewed drastically to the non-fiction works. of course, as a follower of Jesus, books by fellow pilgrims should influence me, but i like to think that i'm open minded. seeing that "secular" books have had such little influence on me is mildly troubling, and the non-fiction skew makes me feel boring.
3) finally, some of the books that make my influential list are not all that "cool", and some even rank kinda low on my own favorites hierarchy. this, too, hurts my vanity. oh, the fickle self-image of a schmuck, what shall i ever do?
but hey, i just remembered a fiction trilogy that influenced me deeply : The Song of Albion by Stephen Lawhead. this trilogy began to teach me more deeply the value of a story, and moved me far forward in the rich, earthy variety of Christianity i seek to embody these days--alongside my mystical nature (that paradox is a whole cunundrum of its own).
posted by Unknown @ 9:41 PM
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