Entry tags:

book recs, theology

I just finished reading Boundary by Eric Flint and Ryk Spoor. It's a sci-fi story set about mid-21st century, with Bug-Eyed Monsters, trips to Mars, and paleontologists. Lots of fun. You can read the first half or so at The Fifth Imperium. As the book is now in stores, the snippets are in the Inactive Collection. It's really good, and I enjoyed it. It's not a Great Work of Literature, but it is a very fun read and it does have substance to it. For those of you Baen fans out there, here's a shocker:Joe Buckley doesn't die!

For a classic that's fun to read, I'd suggest the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. They're a series of letters written by a demon to his nephew, full of advice on how to tempt the guy the nephew has been assigned to tempt. The book is snarky, interesting, and to teh point. If you don't see yourself in it somewhere, you're not looking. And it's fun to see things from the Devil's point of view, sometimes. I reread it regularly. Actually, I'd reccommend just about anything by C.S. Lewis. His novels are a lot of fun, and his theology is both interesting and accessible. (Not something one can always count on in theology or philosophy.)

I'm also reading Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, which is a manual on how a Christian fellowship community should live. It's the first thing of his I've ever read (shocking for a Lutheran on her way to seminary, I know, but there you have it). Don't know if I'd reccommend it. It's very dry, and more theoretical than practical (which is odd for a manual on how to live together), and I'm not sure if I agree with all of his points. For those of you who have never heard of him, Bonhoeffer was perhaps the great Lutheran theologian of the 20th century. He was martyred by the Nazis on July 20th, 1944. His most famous work is The Cost of Discipleship.