book thoughts

I suspect I will not make it to my goal of reading 50 books in 2010. However, I've read several recently:

3 and 4 The Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through by Stephen R. Donaldson

Handsome one-volume edition given to me by Loving Husband, these books were my favorites in high school. I pored over them in multiple readings, certain that they held the spiritual truths that would help me understand God, Christianity, my faith, and why the world was so bizarrely crappy and beautiful. They did help. And upon an adult reading, they're still good. Not as life-changing as before, but well worth the read.

5 Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale by Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook

Interesting look inside not just Dr Who but a writer's process. Collected emails from a year of writing the TV show.

6 The Hunger Games and 7 Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Amazing. Absolutely fantastic. If you like things that are awesome, why haven't you read them yet?

In the future, North America has been destroyed and rebuilt as the Capitol and the Districts. The Districts (only twelve, now that District 13 was annihilated for insurrection)live hardscrabble, unstable lives under the thumb of the Capitol, constantly on the verge of complete starvation. Every year, the Capitol puts on the Hunger Games for which each District must supply two Tributes--a boy and a girl between the ages of 12 and 18--and in which they must kill one another. The winner and last one standing will live a life of luxury.

Very well written from page one on. Engaging, complex, and a propos for our world of greed and environmental challenge.

8 The Teaching of the 12 by Tony Jones

A new translation and commentary on the Didache, a very early church "how to" document from one of the earliest Christian house-churches. The commentary is not particularly inspired, though it constantly points me back to the included text which is itself fascinating.

The Didache is probably contemporaneous with Paul's writings but seems to have no knowledge of him. It includes a brief order for the Eucharist which includes no references to the Last Supper or Jesus' death and resurrection.

What to make of this little document? Ought we take it's insights to heart because of its age? Or is it just a small off-shoot of Christianity which was left behind for a better way?