Once again, Anne Mateer has given us a strong (and strong-willed!) female character who you can’t help but love. Alyce Benson, moved by compassion for children in Africa, pledges $3000 dollars to the missionaries working in the Gold Coast. One problem: the money isn’t hers to give, and her father is none too sympathetic to Christian causes. She must find a way to raise the money on her own. She uses the one skill she can: driving. Alyce begins competing in car races in Chicago and Indianapolis.

Intriguing and unusual as it is to have a female driver in Indy in present day, it was even more unusual (and slightly against regulations) to have a female driver in 1916.

More than an interesting story, Mateer delves into hubris, ideas of Christian calling and vocation, and views of Christian women and propriety.

I have two small quibbles with the book related to the love interest. While in her debut novel, Wings of a Dream, Mateer gave us an unpredictable yet inevitable love story, the love story in At Every Turn is more transparent and some of the elements (i.e. suspicions others plant in Alyce about the two love interests) more forced. Also, given the nature and discussion and the place, propriety, and role of Christian women, I would have liked to have seen some time and focus given to the idea of women serving independently of marriage. The story too easily gave into pressures of finding a husband in order to fully serve God. I understand that this was 1916, but many women have historically served in missions and at home as single women.

One final thing: in contrast to Wings, At Every Turn tied things up too neatly in the end. I felt more time was needed on some character changes (specifically with more minor character), or perhaps left more open to those changes.

But overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the book–a character who desperately wants to serve God and searches for how she is uniquely gifted to do so in a world where she fits in more in “the man’s realm” than the flirtatious husband searches of her classmates.

This week, Sarah Bessey is doing a 10 Books theme. In yesterday’s post, she shared 10 books that changed her faith. I’m a chronic bookshelf peruser (which I discussed in a recent post), so I love this idea of perusing one another’s shelves virtually.

(Side note: I’ll also join her on Thursday to talk about 10 fiction books because you know I can’t resist talking fiction, and we’ll return to the Church 101 series next week.)

About her post, Sarah says, “I wanted to share these ten books because they actually changed how I experience and understand God, and then, how I live my life in response.”

I don’t know that I can say this about the books I list below. I had a hard time thinking of books that actually changed how I experience and understand God because though I may read these books alone, I think about faith and theology in community. In other words, I’m not sure when the books themselves changed me or when God happened to bring them into my life as I was thinking and discussing about these things with others.

So I’m tweaking Sarah’s idea and talking about the books that have marked a change in my faith in some way. These books have helped shaped my faith, but not alone. Also, with a few exceptions, I limited myself to books I’ve read recently, as in the past 10 years. To go beyond that would’ve been an overwhelming and impossible task. These are the books that I’ve told others they have to, have to, have to read. I put copies in their hands. I emailed or blogged about these books. Most of them are on my dearly-loved bookshelf in my bedroom.

Without further ado, my books:

The Gospel of Luke: Teaching through this book recently slayed me (so much so, that I decided to gather these thoughts in the Church 101 series [shameless plug]). Luke (as do all the gospel writers, and really, all the NT writers) presents a life-changing, radical gospel message that reaches into and transforms every area of life (this one as well as the resurrected one). It compelled me to ask how I’m serving God’s kingdom in my comfortable suburban life. Okay, I could go on and on (and do in other posts), so I’ll shut up now.

The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (Canto) by C.S. Lewis – This book influenced how I regard culture and epistemology. It changed how I approach the Bible and truth, not because truth has changed but because I began to understand that I come to it with my own biases and premises. This book also helped me fall in love with the historic church because of how it has helped shape Christianity over 2000 years. (Two other books that shaped this area: A Matrix of Meanings: finding God in pop culture (Engaging Culture) by Craig Detweiler and Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church (The Church and Postmodern Culture) by James K.A. Smith.)

Character of Theology, The: An Introduction to Its Nature, Task, and Purpose by John Franke – This is another book that shaped how I approach theology. I could have listed it under Discarded Image but it deserves it’s own mention.

Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by N.T. Wright – So confession: I was raised with a strong hope in the resurrection of the body and an eternity on the new earth, so I can’t say that this book changed my view of the future, but it helped shape my thinking of how the future bleeds into the present.

Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (Wheaton Literary Series) by Madeleine L’Engle – Around the time I read this book, I read a number of books on art and faith that encouraged me and influenced how I think about the interaction of art and faith. But this book healed me. This book was more personal to me. This book I reread. (Another one of my favorites in this area: The Beauty of God: Theology and the Arts by a number of very smart theologians and artists.)

Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship (Cambridge Studies in Christian Doctrine) by Kevin Vanhoozer – This book is a beast. I have notes on scraps of paper in tiny handwriting from this book because for some reason, I didn’t have a full notebook while I was reading it. This book influenced how I think about God’s love, his self-communication, his covenant promises, and our interaction with all of that. I wish I owned this book so I could reread it, but it costs $127 because I guess the Cambridge Studies series only wants to be in seminary libraries. I don’t know.

Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions (Spire Books) by John Piper – Piper and I disagree on a number of theological areas, but I’ll say this: he’s passionate and committed to serving God. I read this book years and years ago, and it changed how I think about the Church’s mission and missions. (Also Global Missiology for the 21st Century: The Iguassu Dialogue (Globalization of Mission Series), which is a collection of pieces written by scholars from around the world.)

The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical by Shane Claiborne – You cannot take this book lightly. It calls for radical living, and I’ve been thinking every since about how to do this.

A Community Called Atonement: Living Theology by Scot McKnight – This book complemented my study of Luke and Acts, and it shaped how I think through the metaphors for atonement and how this influences our church communities.

Man and Woman, One in Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Paul’s Letters by Philip Payne – I’m currently making my way through this book, and I decided to list it not because it changed how I view the role of women in the church but because it’s shaping how I see Paul’s letters to the church: earthy, gritty letters written to people Paul loves about real issues these Christians faced in their daily lives. I never really liked Paul before reading this book. I wondered how we could be friends on the new earth. Now I can’t wait to meet this man who loved despite hurt and rejection, who wanted nothing else but to serve God’s kingdom and who desired the same for those he loved.

So there you have it. The 10 non-fiction theological (mostly) books that help explain who I am.

Books tell stories.

Obviously.

But I mean more than the stories on the pages. The books people own tell stories about who those people are. Once an acquaintance after browsing my books said, “Oh, we can be friends. You read Alexandra Fuller.” This is why–until Keegan pulled them off the shelves daily–I displayed the books important to my upbringing in the living room, Anne of Green Gables, Nancy Drew, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Madeleine L’Engle. Observing these books shows you a piece of me. (Of course, my current favorites reside on shelves in my bedroom, close to me where I can see them before I go to bed and when I wake up. You’ll most likely never see those shelves.) Now on my living rooms shelves, you’ll find Thomas the Train and Sandra Boynton and Papa, Please Get the Moon For Me. I suppose that tells you something about me as well.

As much as I love my Kindle (and spend more money on ebooks than on hard- or softcovers), we lose this aspect of knowing one another (although I suppose apps like Goodreads make up for it). When I walk into someone’s home, I look first at their books (if they have any displayed; if they don’t, that tells me a whole different story about them, unless, of course, they have toddlers who eat books). I want to know what they read, which authors they love. Then I feel like I know them in some way.

Almost every year, my parents rent the same house in Ocean City, NJ, and every year I inspect the shelves. I want to know what books have disappeared, what books have been left by previous renters, what books I never noticed tucked away in dusty corners.

This house has a strange collection, as I suppose any house would when it collects sundry beachers. It’s mostly made up of books from the 70s and 80s, which I suppose speaks to the owners: Christian living books by J.I. Packer and Chuck Swindoll and Corrie ten Boom, cookbooks, books on mathematics or finance or American Red Cross First Aid. Then you have your typical beach reads, though they seem to be beach reads from a past decade: John Grisham and Mary Higgins Clark and Sue Grafton. And, of course, the salty, sea-worthy books like Men, Ships, and the Sea and The Old Man and the Sea (the very copy I read at this very house many moons ago). I won’t note how many of these books had library stamps and cards–books forgotten by owners until they returned home to fines.

But into this mix, I find books that make me want to know the people who read them: Skin Diving Made Easy (really, made easy?), A Social History of Furniture Design, Bulletin of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collections, Inc. I want to know the stories of these book readers, of the skin divers and the furniture designers and the time collectors. I imagine a ten-year-old and his grandfather perusing the book on watches and clocks, combing garage sales for time pieces we no longer rely on in our cell-phoned world. Or a thirty-something single mom donning snorkel and pushing deeper and deeper into the water for treasures only she’ll know. Or the couple who owns their own business carving intricate designs into their rocking chairs.

I found four issues of Glimmer Train from the 90s, and I think, could the owners have subscribed and read for a time? It seems so unlike them. Has a fellow short-story lover been here? Or is there a side to the owners I’ve never known before, a dimension they hide for only a certain few, like a secret society meeting of short story writers and readers who gather at the Ocean City used bookstore I found many years ago. I remember the smell of wet pages blown through the store by the fan in the corner, the feel of sand in the cracks of the books.

These are the stories I find in these books with their tattered covers, torn covers, pages stiff from the sea. I wonder what tales I’ll discover next time.

I’ve always loved books.

I fell in love with books before I could read, when my parents would read story after story to me, and I’d memorize the stories, and my mom would tell her friends that I could read before I could because I not only knew the books word-for-word, but I knew when to turn the pages and where to look at which words. (Don’t worry–she always revealed her joke before they called the nightly news.)

Year after year, I handed my parents my Christmas list–a list of books. Then I’d spend Christmas day and the rest of the week finishing those books. At the annual school book fair, I’d dog-ear the catalog and make my selections, parceling out the little money I had to spend on lengthy books that would last longer.

I read books because I wanted to be like the people I read about (especially Anne of Green Gables, but that’s no secret). I wanted to live in their worlds. I wanted to bring something from their worlds into mine.

Sometime later, I noticed how all the smart people analyzed books, and I wanted to learn how to do that. I wanted to glean more and more from the book. I had learned how to analyze music, and it made me love and understand music deeper and wider. I had learned how to analyze Scripture and theology, and it made me love and understand God and his ways more. I wanted the same for books. I wanted to love books and short stories I hadn’t understood before. I wanted to see deeper into the books and stories I already loved. I wanted to know why I loved them, what made them so great.

At first, learning different ways that people tell stories and develop characters and unfold themes and paint images did just that. It opened up the wonders of a book and its construction and the genius of the writer. I began to learn how to discern between a fun read and something much deeper. But sometimes, it became something ugly.

It became a way for me to feel superior to people who only read those kinds of books. And it became a voice censoring the books I could read and enjoy.

There is something objective to art, what makes a book well-written, well-developed, and long-lasting, what makes the characters linger on our palates, the stories mingle with our memories, the themes sneak into our theologies and ideologies and all those other -ologies that guide how we choose jobs or clean our homes or love our neighbors. Analyzing a piece of art can help us understand its meaning and why it means something to us.

But here’s where I erred: I forgot to first enter into the story. Sometimes I forgot to enjoy reading. I looked first at what I was supposed to think about it, what the author said about the book, what the critics said about the book, what the smart readers said about the book. I forgot because I feared not looking smart.

We fall in love with reading because we enter into these stories, into the lives of these characters, and they mean something to us. The stories reflect our own. We realize we’re not alone. We understand something we didn’t understand before about ourselves, our world (micro and macro), or about the woman down the street.

When I enter into a story, I may (gasp) miss something that the author intended or the critics got, but I may also get something else entirely out of it. It may relate to me in a way that it never related to the author because we have different experiences, different backgrounds, different lives.

I learned to be okay with looking dumb when I read and talked about a book (or play, for that matter) because here’s the other thing: I can learn from a community of readers who also entered into the story and gleaned something entirely different than what I did. I learned to be okay with admitting that the most influential authors on my life and writing include, yes, Chimamanda Adichie and Richard Russo and Jennifer Egan and Anne Tyler and (now) Jonathan Safran Foer, but they also include Carolyn Keene (or the group of writers who make up Carolyn Keene) and L.M. Montgomery and (here’s the big reveal that may destroy my reputation [in my head, I have a grand reputation]) Janette Oke. I learned to be okay with admitting that some days I read a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, some days I read a whodunit, and some days I even read an Oprah-pick (don’t judge me).

I love books. The bookshelf in my bedroom is reserved for the books dearest to me (except for some that I purposely display in the living room because I think they’ll tell you something about who I am–books like Nancy Drew and Anne of Green Gables). I want to see them when I go to sleep and wake up. And this is why I read.