What Are You Reading?

One of the questions I love to ask when I interview someone is “What are you reading?” I find out so much about a person by hearing what’s on the nightstand.

What are you reading? I’d like to know....

Here’s how I’d answer the question.

The Secret Life of Bees. I splurged and got the unabridged CD. I’m convinced listening is the way to go on this one. The Southern accent and the attitude add so much to the storytelling. Author Sue Monk Kidd can make you feel the grits and smell the peaches.

Blue Like Jazz. At first I was put off by author Donald Miller saying Romeo’s description of wanting to be “baptized anew” referred to love changing him rather than being Romeo’s way of saying he wants to change his Christian name (that Capulet/Montague what’s-in-a-name thing). But then I got over my snootiness.

Full of grit and grace, this book makes you realize that if you were to meet Jesus on the street, you’d sense immediately that he liked you. And if you had a chain smoker and a drunk with you, he’d like them, too. But that’s not to say this is another Jesus-is-my-bud work. It’s a Jesus-is-full-of-grace book.

Gertrude and Claudius. I loved the writing in John Updike’s Pulitzer-winning Rabbit at Rest when I read it years ago. Since then whenever I see Updike’s name on an article in the New Yorker or something, I try to nab it. So I fancied myself somewhat literate on Updike. Silly me.

I was surprised me to learn recently during a summer-school class in Shakespearen tragedies that Updike had written a fictional work giving the “backstory” on Hamlet’s mother and step-father, Gertrude and Claudius. I’d never heard of such a thing, let alone such a thing with Updike’s name on the cover. A raucus good time.

The NET Bible. Now that I’ve gotten used to having all these textual notes, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to use a different translation. Lately I’m in Luke, and I’m noticing how many women are in that Gospel. Jesus has some pretty cool friendships with them. It amazes me that he had women traveling with him and paying for his ministry out of their own funds.

George Herbert: The Complete English Poems. This one is a Penguin classic. I had never heard of it nor George Herbert. But my favorite bookstore manager told me a trusted source recommended it to her and she loved it. George Herbert was a contemporary of William Shakespeare. His poetry is both stellar and decidedly Christian.

Gaudy Night. When I first heard of this, one of Dorothy L. Sayers’s best mysteries, I thought the title meant gaudy as in “that gaudy red dress you wore to the funeral.” I later learned that a “gaudy” is a sort of British-university equivalent to homecoming, only they have a feast instead of football. The mystery starts with the main character at a gaudy, hence the title.

I have to keep my dictionary of Greek mythology nearby so I can figure out all the similes that involve lesser-known gods, but I like an author who sends me to the dictionary once in a while. A good read.

Plot and Structure. The greatest strength of this book on fiction writing by James Scott Bell is in its numerous examples ranging from Moby-Dick to Gone with the Wind to Grisham thrillers. I’m reading it a chapter per week, digesting it slowly.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. My sweet sister stood in line at midnight last night and scored me a copy. Machiko Kadutani, writing for the New York Times today, said of this book, “Indeed, the achievement of the Potter books is the same as that of the great classics of children’s literature, from the Oz novels to The Lord of the Rings: the creation of a richly imagined and utterly singular world, as detailed, as improbable and as mortal as our own.”

What she points to as a major strength--the world or setting--is significant.

In the world of Rowling, wizards are not involved with the occult. But they do possess powers, which they can choose to use for good and evil. Harry chooses good.

Of course, the setting and the rules of the world are different from our own. Authors get to make fun choices when they do that speaking-worlds-into-being thing. They can, for example, make rabbits talk in stories such as Velveteen Rabbit. Or, as is the case with Harry books, authors can create wizards who celebrate Christmas. And main characters who have “extra power over evil because someone died to save” them.

That’s why I find it rather strange when the same people who applaud C.S. Lewis’s story that includes a White Witch condemn Rowling’s story that includes wizards. But I digress....