Bookin' Along: Off the Shelves

As I frequently mention, most of my reading in the last couple of decades is actually re-reading -- that is, re-reading books whose meaningful moral values, encouraging inspiration, and/or unusual entertainment value I already appreciate. This latest reading review provides a clear example of this for of the last 15 books I’ve read, 12 of them have been re-reads. They include novels, plays, a collection of short stories, and some books specifically dealing with theology and the Christian life. So, since my latest catch-up post appeared here back on July 5, here are the latest.

The novels? Well, two of them were the July and August selections of our book club, The Notting Hill Napoleons. They were, respectively, Killer Angels, Michael Shaara’s fine story of the battle of Gettysburg, and Fire Over England, A.E.W. Mason’s adventure novel set in Queen Elizabeth’s England. Both were re-reads and I found both were informative, entertaining, and inspiring books...again.

Two more in the novel category were the chivalric works of Arther Conan Doyle, The White Company and Sir Nigel. They were okay but this time around I found them both a little tedious at times.

The other four novels in these last couple of months were all re-reads also: the three in the Dickson McCunn series by John Buchan (Huntingtower, The House of the Four Winds, and Castle Gay) and the other was Dashiell Hammett’s classic The Maltese Falcon. And though I like Buchan quite a lot, the only one of this group that I'd recommend highly would be The Maltese Falcon, a true classic of the hardboiled detective genre.

The short story collection I mentioned was The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories by Washington Irving. They were a mixed bag. The title story is superb as was “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Devil and Tom Walker” but most of the others were uninteresting.

The plays? Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe has been a favorite since high school even though it wasn’t until I became a Christian that I really got the message. Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmund Rostand is another favorite and it too has profound moral lessons. Finally, I also re-read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Love-Girl and the Innocent, a a very moving play set in one of the Soviet gulags. I recommend all three.

The books read in the past couple of months that dealt most pointedly with spiritual matters were a Bible study by John MacArthur (The Elements of True Prayer), a 1971 practical theology work by J. Dwight Pentecost (Design for Discipleship) and Peter Kreeft’s Jesus-Shock. These were all provocative and helpful but, to be honest, I would recommend many other Christian books before I got down to these.

Okay, that’s it until the next catch-up post. Keep reading!