so way back at the beginning of the year i made a half-whole-hearted commitment to read a book a season. for you quick people out there, yes, that equals 4. and lo and behold, i've gosh darn done it! so this post is not here for proof of my reading abilities, nay, it is for the benefit of all the readers out there who might be looking for something good to read. or want to discuss a book they've already read. book club, anybody?
faith on the edge
by paul tokunaga , kevin blue , amy brooke , robbie f. castleman , bobby gross and jon tran
i read through this book with ophelia, and to be honest, i had started the book before january 1, 2007, but to my defense, i did finish it this year and read every single page. so bugger off. anyhow, this book is published by IV press, and i suppose the general thinking behind it was, the more authors the better.
but it was a book filled with various "real-world" topics that try to get you to find out what it means to truly follow after Jesus in your own life. good book, i recommend it, especially for something like a discipling relationship or in a small group setting. all in all, the book gets a 7.47 out of 10.
kite runner
by khaled hosseini
when i first got this book as a gift from ophelia, i had very mixed feelings. i was glad i had a new book to read, but at the same time, one that goes through the history of afghanistan didn't really get me all psyched up.
but on that infamous spring break trip to new york (the one where jason and i missed our flight), i lugged the book along with me and just couldn't put it down. i finished the entire book in 2 days, and it is a lengthy one. now i can't say that speed reading class my parents made me take way back when never came in handy.
the author does an awe-inspiring job of connecting the reader to the protagonist and uses an amazing sense of irony and connectivity to make the story unbelievable, yet strangely believable, at the same time. i felt as if i was reading an autobiography, even while i knew it was fiction, but the book was just so, powerful. it's just one of those books that you really can't put down -- cliche, i know, but c'mon. it's coming from me. i don't read. period.
there have been at least 3 instances in the past few months that this book has been mentioned in some form or another, the most recent being in a sermon by pastor gideon. and yes, i felt so incredibly intellectual to have read the book before it got popular. and now there's a movie coming out! okay time to calm down before the nerd accusations rain down.
rating? 9.8. yeah, it was that good.
yogi, it ain't over..
by yogi berra and tom horton
last year, the aacm leadership team had a short retreat before school started at the house of one of andy's friends, james. then, on his shelf, i saw this book. i mean, i love sports, and baseball is probably my 3rd favorite sport, and it's a book about yogi berra, perhaps one of the most colorful characters in baseball history. can you REALLY blame me for borrowing the book?
well, andy can. and a few other people still do, but i am convinced that not only did james never notice it was missing, but he would probably never touch the book again in his life after putting it on that shelf. so in essence, i saved the book from a couple layers of dust.
anyhow, i brought this book with me to hong kong this summer, and it sure came in handy. over the entire 3+ weeks of my internship at pwc, my average commute time was about 45 minutes. that is a LOT of time to kill on a subway.
so i started and finished the book. i wouldn't recommend it to everybody, especially those who don't appreciate or understand the game of baseball. it's one of those books, obviously, being an autobiography and all, that y ou gotta be interested in the person to find the book interesting. as for me, i enjoyed the book for the most part, so i'll give it a 6.23.
the catcher in the rye
by j.d. salinger
jason tells me mrs. spradley hates this book. i love it.
yet another book that i conquered during my commute time, this book had a way of making a point without making a point. and there was just something about it that made me want to be an author or reconsider journalism. it wasn't really good or really bad, but in the end, i was glad i had read it. 8.3 rating, i'm feeling generous today.
so that's all for now. if you are interested in reading these books now that i've hyped them up a bit, then you should go check out barnes or amazon. i'm sorry, i have no books to lend out. i didn't bring the first one back to UT with me, jennifer is reading the second one, i feel as if i should return the third one, and the fourth one is jason's.
so until next year, good riddance to reading books (for fun).
