2011 Reading Finale and Glance Forward.

I have almost finished Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins but it doesn't look like I will be able to finish it today. That's Ok because it is a great book to start out the Southern Literature Challenge I plan to participate in during 2012. Add in the biography of Wendell Berry  I am reading and the challenge is smooth sailing and one I am greatly looking forward to.

I am also thinking of returning to an Oxford Christians set of reading with Till We Have Faces leading the pack. I am hoping to reread a couple of Charles Williams books that I read 30 years ago which went right over my head. Are there any Oxford Christian reading challenges out there?

I wanted to highlight 3 books I finished in 2011 that I missed in the previous posts.

1. Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John and the Praying Imagination by Eugene Peterson












I greatly appreciated this book. I come from a tradition where we were exhorted over and over again that a literal interpretation of the Bible and especially The Revelation of John  was  the only orthodox view. I long ago pushed away from those waters but had never comfortably found any other moorings. Peterson's book was that mooring for me. It gave me courage that imaginative language and orthodoxy can be friends.

2. Byzantium By Stephen Lawhead







This was my first Lawhead book, believe it or not. I found it to be very slow going at first and the 800+ pages seemed daunting. Even now I am not sure what I think about it and it has had me thinking about the difference in the way to approach a long book and also the way to judge it. It took me 2 years of slow reading to conquer War and Peace and I felt like that was the best way to read that tome. Byzantium is not a page-turner which can often make reading huge volumes enjoyable but in the end it was a satisfying read and I will look for other Lawhead books.  While perusing Lawhead on Amazon I noticed reviews for an author named Frederick Buechner. I am especially interested in his fiction and wonder if any of y'all have read his books?

3.  Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It (Vintage) by Gary Taubes





Here is a book that I cannot recommend highly enough to anyone who has ever struggled with weight and weight loss. Taubes says things I only imagined to be true in my own mind and never, ever would have said out loud. The book is controversial. If you are a disciplined person who has maintained your weight over the years by hard work or so you thought, you probably won't like the book.  But if you are someone who has fought the fight with an uncooperative body and a disbelieving medical establishment then I recommend this book. I lost 80 lbs years ago doing exactly these things and have lost weight this year returning to this model.   Besides all that the book is fascinating.


Now hop on over to Sherry's house for all those great book lists!!
My other year end book posts can be found below:

2011 Year in Review
2011 Fiction
2011 Non-Fiction