Am I inappropriate for this thread? I don't read much theology (bad Puritan!!). Recently I've enjoyed:
- Time's Arrow. What a thought provoking book. It begins with a man at his death and goes backwards, like film reversed in the loop, until his birth/conception. All sorts of fascinating things (imagine reverse nail clipping, reverse eating. . .) but the way sin is reversed! For example, as a doctor, he is working backwards so an accident victim comes in and he actually injures them, etc. But then sin is reversed, too; for instance, rather than drowning a man, he'd be saving him from drowning. It is really well done, from that point of view, and I'd love to hear others' response to this unique book.
-Suite Francaise, another winner, written by a woman as a five part series about France during the Occupation. Fascinating! The author was a Jew who converted to Catholicism; however, she was murdered in a concentration camp before she could finish her book (published posthumously by her daughter). It's just a tour de force trilogy, none the worse for being unfinished in the sense that her death sort of becomes part of the story. Well worth reading.
- Gilead, 5 stars, a very interesting book for the Christian reader. Here we have three generations of preacher men - one a violent abolitionist, one a pacifist, and one trying to work it out. Long lost and true Christian love in marriage is beautifully portrayed, etc. Highly recommended.
On my current shelf:
A Good and Happy Child (starting out dark, but not TOO dark, I'm sticking with it), Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, A Confederacy of Dunces, Bent Road, and here's a good one for the Puritan reader: Good Wives, Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Puritan New England. A scholarly and dusty little book, but I've gleaned some interesting insights.
. Two of Iain Murray's (The Forgotten Spurgeon and vol 2 of his biography of Lloyd-Jones) are in the pile at the moment, and so is John Piper's Don't Waste your Life. Yesterday the copy I ordered of 
