Neil Gaiman once said "You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it. "
I'm six chapters into a book that I was once 10 chapters into but then I deleted 4 chapters and took a different direction due to an unfailing belief that sometimes the best things you will ever write happen when your just clicking away at a keyboard and not thinking about it and that sometimes in that same scenario you just click out crap no one wants to waste time with. I had done the second.
In the first six chapters a well defined character develops, she creates lasting bonds with other characters and they set off on an adventure and if I could just stop the book there I would...because let me tell you that at this point it's a fundamentally awesome book.
But, as it so happens a 6 chapter long book probably wouldn't sell much, what with people being found of spending $7.95 at the local Target for something with a beginning, a middle and most importantly for most of them...an END.
I have a middle. It dances around in my mind when I am nearly asleep or too busy to type (what with bouncing annoyed toddlers on my hip and fighting my bill collectors at bay through the front door screen while trying to avoid being dripped on by unknown sources of water while being bitter about having a broken tooth and talking on the phone all day).
But the end....oh the end... is it a romance? Is it just a story? Is it a drama? Or just a fishing rod? I could take it so many ways and I just can't day dream any one that is better than any other...
And so... I wait.
Showing posts with label Book Worm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book Worm. Show all posts
Friday, May 08, 2009
Thursday, April 02, 2009
"The Moment" - Fictional Writing Prompt
There are somethings you know you'll never forget. Those moments when your standing right in the middle of something and it clicks inside your head. I'll always remember this, you tell yourself. Sometimes you do really remember that moment forever. It becomes a switch in the back of your head waiting to be accidently hit. Good or bad, it is always with you.
In that long list of moments that you carry around with you forever there is always one moment. That moment, which most people refer to as "the moment" is usually the moment in life by which all other moments are defined. The moment for some people is the first time they knew real love, or hate, or happiness, or fear. The moment has an emotional connection that when triggered effects every moment around it. Most people know "the moment" when it happens to them.
Some figure it out several years too late.
Looking back I can tell you the moment I knew my life was going to be different than everyone else's life I knew. At the time it was just another day, and it swept passed me in the rush of chores to be done and tasks to accomplish. I missed the importance of it all. Looking back now, I can't even tell you what was so urgent of the daily life that I was trudging through. What I can tell you is this.
When met with the opportunity to change a life forever to a life easier, less worried and more free if you instead decided to pick the hard, broken and stressful path that will take you into doing the right thing just because it's the right thing thusly dragging yourself over and through a thousand obstacles both emotionally and physically to avoid the harm of another soul...well then... you've had a moment. Perhaps even "the moment" depending on who you are.
So when you look someone in the eyes and you know that you love them. When you can tell them in words and they can feel it consume them with hope. And you don't tell them...because you know if you do they'd be stuck forever with you in the struggle between good and evil. Know this, that may or may not be your defining moment. But more than likely, it's going to be theirs.
In that long list of moments that you carry around with you forever there is always one moment. That moment, which most people refer to as "the moment" is usually the moment in life by which all other moments are defined. The moment for some people is the first time they knew real love, or hate, or happiness, or fear. The moment has an emotional connection that when triggered effects every moment around it. Most people know "the moment" when it happens to them.
Some figure it out several years too late.
Looking back I can tell you the moment I knew my life was going to be different than everyone else's life I knew. At the time it was just another day, and it swept passed me in the rush of chores to be done and tasks to accomplish. I missed the importance of it all. Looking back now, I can't even tell you what was so urgent of the daily life that I was trudging through. What I can tell you is this.
When met with the opportunity to change a life forever to a life easier, less worried and more free if you instead decided to pick the hard, broken and stressful path that will take you into doing the right thing just because it's the right thing thusly dragging yourself over and through a thousand obstacles both emotionally and physically to avoid the harm of another soul...well then... you've had a moment. Perhaps even "the moment" depending on who you are.
So when you look someone in the eyes and you know that you love them. When you can tell them in words and they can feel it consume them with hope. And you don't tell them...because you know if you do they'd be stuck forever with you in the struggle between good and evil. Know this, that may or may not be your defining moment. But more than likely, it's going to be theirs.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
The Key
I held it out in front of me in one hand turning it over and over. The weight of it seemed heavier than I expected. It was a small key, and as I brushed the dirt away from it, a delicate tracing of ivy and vines became clear at the top. The key itself looked like it belong to a long lost door to a forgotten world and considering that it was stuck in the grass of some small town elementary school I found myself wondering what it was supposed to open.
I tucked the little key into my pocket, and later placed it on a key chain. I carried it around with me for over 10 years, trying it occassionally in antique store finds with rusty old locks that looked about the right size. I once even ventured to put it into a gate lock at a house that had been around long enough that it looked like it belonged. All the while the key in my pocket carried an energy of searching for something...so I kept my eyes open.
Like most things alive with only hope and belief, the strength of the keys whimsical entrance into my life faded from mind and with it the sense of searching to find home faded from my pocket until one day the key found it's way into my jewelry box instead of every lock I passed. It sat there untouched for 6 more years until one night in my living room it came up in an unexpected conversation.
"I dreamed once of a woman dressed in white," I told my mother, "I dreamed of her so much that she scared me. One day driving to Grandma's I swear I saw her on the side of the road. So I told Grandma."
My grandmother was the sort to believe a spirit on the side of the road was not only normal but expected. A trace of Cherokee blood trickled through her and it kept her aligned to things I had only just begun to understand at the age of 16 when I passed that hollow woman in white.
"You'll just keep seeing her...that's what Grandma said... so you might as well stop and talk to her." I said in my best Grandma voice. My mother seemed not at all suprised by my story or my grandmother's answer or my strange encounter...so I continued. "So I did. And she just walked slowly in front of my car. So I drove behind her for over 5 miles from the river to the middle of town and then parked my car and followed her around the chain link fence that she walked through at the elementary school until she took me to the corner with the brick wall. The wind came up and the it danced around me like a chapter in the The Secret Garden and there on the ground was a key."
I described the key upstairs, I knew it by heart. And my mother listened intently while I talked about how I felt like I had to carry it around forever and how I never saw the woman in white again.
"I know that key," my mother said with a grin, "it opens the door to your great grandmother's house." A house long since torn down, but which would have at the time been standing alone and vacant. "I wonder what you would have found if you went in."
I tucked the little key into my pocket, and later placed it on a key chain. I carried it around with me for over 10 years, trying it occassionally in antique store finds with rusty old locks that looked about the right size. I once even ventured to put it into a gate lock at a house that had been around long enough that it looked like it belonged. All the while the key in my pocket carried an energy of searching for something...so I kept my eyes open.
Like most things alive with only hope and belief, the strength of the keys whimsical entrance into my life faded from mind and with it the sense of searching to find home faded from my pocket until one day the key found it's way into my jewelry box instead of every lock I passed. It sat there untouched for 6 more years until one night in my living room it came up in an unexpected conversation.
"I dreamed once of a woman dressed in white," I told my mother, "I dreamed of her so much that she scared me. One day driving to Grandma's I swear I saw her on the side of the road. So I told Grandma."
My grandmother was the sort to believe a spirit on the side of the road was not only normal but expected. A trace of Cherokee blood trickled through her and it kept her aligned to things I had only just begun to understand at the age of 16 when I passed that hollow woman in white.
"You'll just keep seeing her...that's what Grandma said... so you might as well stop and talk to her." I said in my best Grandma voice. My mother seemed not at all suprised by my story or my grandmother's answer or my strange encounter...so I continued. "So I did. And she just walked slowly in front of my car. So I drove behind her for over 5 miles from the river to the middle of town and then parked my car and followed her around the chain link fence that she walked through at the elementary school until she took me to the corner with the brick wall. The wind came up and the it danced around me like a chapter in the The Secret Garden and there on the ground was a key."
I described the key upstairs, I knew it by heart. And my mother listened intently while I talked about how I felt like I had to carry it around forever and how I never saw the woman in white again.
"I know that key," my mother said with a grin, "it opens the door to your great grandmother's house." A house long since torn down, but which would have at the time been standing alone and vacant. "I wonder what you would have found if you went in."
Friday, November 14, 2008
The Preface...
She was pale and her face looked hollow and her eyes were vacant but on closer examination I could see she had a hidden strength inside her. Wet hair still warm from the shower made a halo of steam around her face. Battered arms peeked out from an oversized t-shirt and her body had a broken slump to it. It was visible that she was a product of a beating… both physical and mental. My heart poured out to her as I recognized the signs of a life abandoned in the pursuit of survival.
“Poor small town girl, what have you gotten yourself into.” I said to the face starring back at me.
She said nothing. Her exasperated face eyed me for something more. But there was nothing more to show her.
“You should stop doing this to yourself you know.” I said with an exhausted sigh of contempt.
I watched her sigh, still watching me, expecting something. But there was nothing to expect. I had given her all I could and I was walking away this time. She knew it, you could see it in her stance. Her body language said goodbye even when she said nothing.
I stole one last glance at her before I turned to leave. I half expected her to yell out to me, to tell me something to make me stay but she didn’t. She couldn’t she was frozen and powerless. This time I was stronger than her. I could feel it when I turned away, my back to her as I walked out the door.
Today I was gone. That shattered girl in the mirror might as well have watched me walk away, I don’t know if she did… I didn’t look back.
“Poor small town girl, what have you gotten yourself into.” I said to the face starring back at me.
She said nothing. Her exasperated face eyed me for something more. But there was nothing more to show her.
“You should stop doing this to yourself you know.” I said with an exhausted sigh of contempt.
I watched her sigh, still watching me, expecting something. But there was nothing to expect. I had given her all I could and I was walking away this time. She knew it, you could see it in her stance. Her body language said goodbye even when she said nothing.
I stole one last glance at her before I turned to leave. I half expected her to yell out to me, to tell me something to make me stay but she didn’t. She couldn’t she was frozen and powerless. This time I was stronger than her. I could feel it when I turned away, my back to her as I walked out the door.
Today I was gone. That shattered girl in the mirror might as well have watched me walk away, I don’t know if she did… I didn’t look back.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
A Closer Look 1 Peter 1:13-16
1 Peter 1: 13-16 “Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
Every Christian is on the same basic path. The path to take the circumstances they are in and use them to love people well, to love God with all their hearts, to share his word with all the kingdoms and all the tribes on earth and to strive to be more Christ-like. This passage is a good one for those of us who need a two second reminder every once and awhile that you have to strive to be more like Christ.
Be holy because I am holy. It’s a good line. Not because it tells us how to be. Not because we can actually become holy. We are not holy by nature and although we try we will never be as holy as God. Be holy because I am holy is the biblical equivalent of “because I said so” or “because I’m your mother that’s why”. Be holy because I am holy.
God must have known we’d grow into a world of symantics lovers and grammar gurus. God preceded his “because I said so” passage with the facts. Plan and simple facts. Just a paragraph long, he gives us the advice any good parent would give a child going out into the world.
Prepare your mind for action. The lord put it there for us in a way very similar to our own parents. He wants us to be smart. Stay in school. Learn and grow. Have logic, seek to be wise and be prepared to use those skills.
Be self controlled. Throughout the bible the Lord tells us to be watchful for gluttony, greed and jealousy. Throughout life our parents echo him. One cookie is enough, times up for free play, it’s not nice to hit people. It’s all the same rule.
Set your hope fully on the grace to be given to you when Jesus Christ is revealed. That’s what I like to call the new testament classic. Keep your eye on the prize. Not a prize of earthy measure. Not a trophy or a metal. Keep your eyes on the grace of the Lord. Like a good parent the Lord wants us to focus not on the material but on becoming a better person.
As obedient children, do not confirm to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. That’s my favorite line of this passage. It’s the parental equivalent to “and now that you know don’t let it happen again.” I picture Jesus later in the bible sitting someone down and telling them… “do you remember what daddy said about talking to strangers.”
Be holy because I am holy. Do what I do not what I say. Be good because I AM GOOD. Love because I AM LOVE. Have hope because I AM HOPE. Share grace because I AM GRACE. BE HOLY BECAUSE I AM HOLY.
Every Christian is on the same basic path. The path to take the circumstances they are in and use them to love people well, to love God with all their hearts, to share his word with all the kingdoms and all the tribes on earth and to strive to be more Christ-like. This passage is a good one for those of us who need a two second reminder every once and awhile that you have to strive to be more like Christ.
Be holy because I am holy. It’s a good line. Not because it tells us how to be. Not because we can actually become holy. We are not holy by nature and although we try we will never be as holy as God. Be holy because I am holy is the biblical equivalent of “because I said so” or “because I’m your mother that’s why”. Be holy because I am holy.
God must have known we’d grow into a world of symantics lovers and grammar gurus. God preceded his “because I said so” passage with the facts. Plan and simple facts. Just a paragraph long, he gives us the advice any good parent would give a child going out into the world.
Prepare your mind for action. The lord put it there for us in a way very similar to our own parents. He wants us to be smart. Stay in school. Learn and grow. Have logic, seek to be wise and be prepared to use those skills.
Be self controlled. Throughout the bible the Lord tells us to be watchful for gluttony, greed and jealousy. Throughout life our parents echo him. One cookie is enough, times up for free play, it’s not nice to hit people. It’s all the same rule.
Set your hope fully on the grace to be given to you when Jesus Christ is revealed. That’s what I like to call the new testament classic. Keep your eye on the prize. Not a prize of earthy measure. Not a trophy or a metal. Keep your eyes on the grace of the Lord. Like a good parent the Lord wants us to focus not on the material but on becoming a better person.
As obedient children, do not confirm to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. That’s my favorite line of this passage. It’s the parental equivalent to “and now that you know don’t let it happen again.” I picture Jesus later in the bible sitting someone down and telling them… “do you remember what daddy said about talking to strangers.”
Be holy because I am holy. Do what I do not what I say. Be good because I AM GOOD. Love because I AM LOVE. Have hope because I AM HOPE. Share grace because I AM GRACE. BE HOLY BECAUSE I AM HOLY.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
MVC Women's Book Club
Last night was the second meeting of our church's women's book club. We talked about the JP Moreland book, Love God with All Your Mind. Most people seemed to find the book rather difficult. Apparently everyone felt obligated to finish the book being as they knew a group of women would be talking about it. So that part was good right? The next book is called Knowing God. It's one of those religious book classics and one or two of us have read it before. But... I'm still looking forward to it. Ok so maybe more of what I look forward to is giving a bunch of housewives and mommies a place to go to have an adult conversation, hot coffee and debate.
We met at my house this last time. I don't know if we are going to meet at my house again or at someone else's but either way you are invited if you'd like to come. The next meeting is December 5th. Just let me know!
We met at my house this last time. I don't know if we are going to meet at my house again or at someone else's but either way you are invited if you'd like to come. The next meeting is December 5th. Just let me know!
Thursday, November 02, 2006
I Love a Good Book
I love to read. I grew from a kid who spent the hour before bedtime with a bed lamp and a book to the highschooler who had the heaviest bookbag to the adult that loves to make long lists of books and then read them one by one. This week for Love Thursday I thought I'd share my love of books with you.
The ALA has a list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000. Those are the books that people request to ban in the Library system so that they aren't available for people to check out.
I made it my mission between 2001 and now to read all the books on that list. Praise the Lord I am done! I finished shortly before I got married. Some books were better than others, some where awful but at least now I can argue if I agree or disagree with them.
So that got me thinking that there are probably a few other top 100 lists that I should read. I found a list online somewhere of the Top 100 books bought (excluding the bible & Shakespeare). I had already read the bible and the complete works of Shakespeare so it was the perfect list for me. As much as I would like to include a link for that site I can't seem to find it in my favorites but I do have a printout so I'm going to list the books below... I put the ones I have read already in bold. I plan on reading them all (although it's not on my 40 before 40 list). Which ones have you read? Are there any books you think should be on the list that aren't?
1. Don Quixote Miguel De Cervantes
2. Pilgrim's Progress John Bunyan
3. Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
4. Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift
5. Tom Jones Henry Fielding
6. Clarissa Samuel Richardson
7. Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne
8. Dangerous Liaisons Pierre Choderlos De Laclos
9. Emma Jane Austen
10. Frankenstein Mary Shelley
11. Nightmare Abbey Thomas Love Peacock
12. The Black Sheep Honore De Balzac
13. The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal
14. The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas
15. Sybil Benjamin Disraeli
16. David Copperfield Charles Dickens
17. Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
18. Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
19. Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray
20. The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne
21. Moby-Dick Herman Melville
22. Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
23. The Woman in White Wilkie Collins
24. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland Lewis Carroll
25. Little Women Louisa M. Alcott
26. The Way We Live Now Anthony Trollope
27. Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
28. Daniel Deronda George Eliot
29. The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky
30. The Portrait of a Lady Henry James
31. Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain
32. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson
33. Three Men in a Boat Jerome K. Jerome
34. The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde
35. The Diary of a Nobody George Grossmith
36. Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy
37. The Riddle of the Sands Erskine Childers
38. The Call of the Wild Jack London
39. Nostromo Joseph Conrad
40. The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame
41. In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust
42. The Rainbow D. H. Lawrence
43. The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford
44. The Thirty-Nine Steps John Buchan
45. Ulysses James Joyce
46. Mrs Dalloway Virginia Woolf
47. A Passage to India E. M. Forster
48. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
49. The Trial Franz Kafka
50. Men Without Women Ernest Hemingway
51. Journey to the End of the Night Louis-Ferdinand Celine
52. As I Lay Dying William Faulkner
53. Brave New World Aldous Huxley
54. Scoop Evelyn Waugh
55. USA John Dos Passos
56. The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler
57. The Pursuit Of Love Nancy Mitford
58. The Plague Albert Camus
59. Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
60. Malone Dies Samuel Beckett
61. Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger
62. Wise Blood Flannery O'Connor
63. Charlotte's Web E. B. White
64. The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien
65. Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
66. Lord of the Flies William Golding
67. The Quiet American Graham Greene
68 On the Road Jack Kerouac
69. Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
70. The Tin Drum Gunter Grass
71. Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe
72. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark
73. To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee
74. Catch-22 Joseph Heller
75. Herzog Saul Bellow
76. One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
77. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont Elizabeth Taylor
78. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy John Le Carre
79. Song of Solomon Toni Morrison
80. The Bottle Factory Outing Beryl Bainbridge
81. The Executioner's Song Norman Mailer
82. If on a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo Calvino
83. A Bend in the River V. S. Naipaul
84. Waiting for the Barbarians J.M. Coetzee
85. Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson
86. Lanark Alasdair Gray
87. The New York Trilogy Paul Auster
88. The BFG Roald Dahl
89. The Periodic Table Primo Levi
90. Money Martin Amis
91. An Artist of the Floating World Kazuo Ishiguro
92. Oscar And Lucinda Peter Carey
93. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera
94. Haroun and the Sea af Stories Salman Rushdie
95. La Confidential James Ellroy
96. Wise Children Angela Carter
97. Atonement Ian McEwan
98. Northern Lights Philip Pullman
99. American Pastoral Philip Roth
100. Austerlitz W. G. Sebald
The ALA has a list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000. Those are the books that people request to ban in the Library system so that they aren't available for people to check out.
I made it my mission between 2001 and now to read all the books on that list. Praise the Lord I am done! I finished shortly before I got married. Some books were better than others, some where awful but at least now I can argue if I agree or disagree with them.
So that got me thinking that there are probably a few other top 100 lists that I should read. I found a list online somewhere of the Top 100 books bought (excluding the bible & Shakespeare). I had already read the bible and the complete works of Shakespeare so it was the perfect list for me. As much as I would like to include a link for that site I can't seem to find it in my favorites but I do have a printout so I'm going to list the books below... I put the ones I have read already in bold. I plan on reading them all (although it's not on my 40 before 40 list). Which ones have you read? Are there any books you think should be on the list that aren't?
1. Don Quixote Miguel De Cervantes
2. Pilgrim's Progress John Bunyan
3. Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
4. Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift
5. Tom Jones Henry Fielding
6. Clarissa Samuel Richardson
7. Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne
8. Dangerous Liaisons Pierre Choderlos De Laclos
9. Emma Jane Austen
10. Frankenstein Mary Shelley
11. Nightmare Abbey Thomas Love Peacock
12. The Black Sheep Honore De Balzac
13. The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal
14. The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas
15. Sybil Benjamin Disraeli
16. David Copperfield Charles Dickens
17. Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
18. Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
19. Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray
20. The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne
21. Moby-Dick Herman Melville
22. Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
23. The Woman in White Wilkie Collins
24. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland Lewis Carroll
25. Little Women Louisa M. Alcott
26. The Way We Live Now Anthony Trollope
27. Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
28. Daniel Deronda George Eliot
29. The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky
30. The Portrait of a Lady Henry James
31. Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain
32. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson
33. Three Men in a Boat Jerome K. Jerome
34. The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde
35. The Diary of a Nobody George Grossmith
36. Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy
37. The Riddle of the Sands Erskine Childers
38. The Call of the Wild Jack London
39. Nostromo Joseph Conrad
40. The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame
41. In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust
42. The Rainbow D. H. Lawrence
43. The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford
44. The Thirty-Nine Steps John Buchan
45. Ulysses James Joyce
46. Mrs Dalloway Virginia Woolf
47. A Passage to India E. M. Forster
48. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
49. The Trial Franz Kafka
50. Men Without Women Ernest Hemingway
51. Journey to the End of the Night Louis-Ferdinand Celine
52. As I Lay Dying William Faulkner
53. Brave New World Aldous Huxley
54. Scoop Evelyn Waugh
55. USA John Dos Passos
56. The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler
57. The Pursuit Of Love Nancy Mitford
58. The Plague Albert Camus
59. Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
60. Malone Dies Samuel Beckett
61. Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger
62. Wise Blood Flannery O'Connor
63. Charlotte's Web E. B. White
64. The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien
65. Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
66. Lord of the Flies William Golding
67. The Quiet American Graham Greene
68 On the Road Jack Kerouac
69. Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
70. The Tin Drum Gunter Grass
71. Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe
72. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark
73. To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee
74. Catch-22 Joseph Heller
75. Herzog Saul Bellow
76. One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
77. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont Elizabeth Taylor
78. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy John Le Carre
79. Song of Solomon Toni Morrison
80. The Bottle Factory Outing Beryl Bainbridge
81. The Executioner's Song Norman Mailer
82. If on a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo Calvino
83. A Bend in the River V. S. Naipaul
84. Waiting for the Barbarians J.M. Coetzee
85. Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson
86. Lanark Alasdair Gray
87. The New York Trilogy Paul Auster
88. The BFG Roald Dahl
89. The Periodic Table Primo Levi
90. Money Martin Amis
91. An Artist of the Floating World Kazuo Ishiguro
92. Oscar And Lucinda Peter Carey
93. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera
94. Haroun and the Sea af Stories Salman Rushdie
95. La Confidential James Ellroy
96. Wise Children Angela Carter
97. Atonement Ian McEwan
98. Northern Lights Philip Pullman
99. American Pastoral Philip Roth
100. Austerlitz W. G. Sebald
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Love God With All Your Mind
The Monte Vista Chapel's Women's Book Club started this week. We'll be meeting once a month (each time at a different members house) and reading books about philosophy, religion, apologetics, relativism etc. The first book we'll be reading is J.P. Moreland's "Love God With All Your Mind".
The following is a review of the book from Amazon:
The mind plays an important role in Christianity. Unfortunately, many of us leave our minds behind when it comes to our faith.
In Love Your God with All Your Mind, J.P. Moreland presents a logical case for the role of the mind in spiritual transformation. He challenges us to develop a Christian mind and to use our intellect to further God's kingdom through evangelism, apologetics, worship, and vocation.
If you are interested in joining the book club you can sign up on Monte Vista Chapels website or by letting myself or Nicole know. Our next meeting will be on November 7th. We;ve got about 6 group members already but I think that all women could gain from having an educated response to apologetic arguments. If anyone has any questions just let me know... I'm just getting the word out.
The following is a review of the book from Amazon:
The mind plays an important role in Christianity. Unfortunately, many of us leave our minds behind when it comes to our faith.
In Love Your God with All Your Mind, J.P. Moreland presents a logical case for the role of the mind in spiritual transformation. He challenges us to develop a Christian mind and to use our intellect to further God's kingdom through evangelism, apologetics, worship, and vocation.
If you are interested in joining the book club you can sign up on Monte Vista Chapels website or by letting myself or Nicole know. Our next meeting will be on November 7th. We;ve got about 6 group members already but I think that all women could gain from having an educated response to apologetic arguments. If anyone has any questions just let me know... I'm just getting the word out.
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