I like the way a couple books can get a three-way conversation going. A few days of experience in the books can get me immersed and feeling like, yes these really are Friends of mine. After a few nights into A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J Gaines and Diary Of A Country Priest, by Georges Bernanos, I felt a sort of companionship among the three of us owing, in part, to the personal conflict of these men as teachers in local, rural life. And I myself am not a teacher. I have lived rurally, however, for decades.
Yes! One of the great treats of reading is creating spaces in our minds for those kind of conversations—conversations that would never take place in real life.
I’m constantly reminded of this line from James Fallows: “ To read books seriously is to be staggered by the knowledge of how many more books will remain beyond your ken. It’s like looking up at the star-filled sky.”
I don’t think I’ve actually read PP all the way through. I read “in it,” as Bill Kristol used to say, back when I was a teen—largely for school. And then I started reading it about six or seven years ago. But I don’t think I finished it. I need to come back to it.
Spurgeon read The Pilgrim's Progress 100 times. I'm only on my sixth read through at 65, but it keeps giving me things. I have taken an entire church through its riches, and I use it in my teaching and in my discipleship with men. A few years back I was delighted to find that both Samuel Johnson and John Newton listed these Augustine and Bunyan's works as two of their very favorites.
I like the way a couple books can get a three-way conversation going. A few days of experience in the books can get me immersed and feeling like, yes these really are Friends of mine. After a few nights into A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J Gaines and Diary Of A Country Priest, by Georges Bernanos, I felt a sort of companionship among the three of us owing, in part, to the personal conflict of these men as teachers in local, rural life. And I myself am not a teacher. I have lived rurally, however, for decades.
Yes! One of the great treats of reading is creating spaces in our minds for those kind of conversations—conversations that would never take place in real life.
My two friends, Jayber Crow and Jane Eyre 🤍
I’ve not read either so far.
I’m constantly reminded of this line from James Fallows: “ To read books seriously is to be staggered by the knowledge of how many more books will remain beyond your ken. It’s like looking up at the star-filled sky.”
Augustine's Confessions and The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan.
I don’t think I’ve actually read PP all the way through. I read “in it,” as Bill Kristol used to say, back when I was a teen—largely for school. And then I started reading it about six or seven years ago. But I don’t think I finished it. I need to come back to it.
Spurgeon read The Pilgrim's Progress 100 times. I'm only on my sixth read through at 65, but it keeps giving me things. I have taken an entire church through its riches, and I use it in my teaching and in my discipleship with men. A few years back I was delighted to find that both Samuel Johnson and John Newton listed these Augustine and Bunyan's works as two of their very favorites.