Yippee! Books!

One of the great milestones of living in New City was reached yesterday: finding a decent (actually quite good) Christian bookstore. We had no such thing in Previous City (though a so-so one in Bigger City Down the Road).

This one was a great Cokesbury store. Thanks, Methodist friends! Well done.

I managed to purchase only four things (especially difficult since we have a charge account there, and it's always easier to spend when you don't have to pay the bill directly). I'm eager to read each of them and wish there was more time this week to do so. Why, oh why, must people have kidney transplants and funerals on a week when I have all these good books to read?

[Editor's note: I am being sarcastic, in case there is any doubt. I am not such a book fiend that I begrudge fundamental pastoral care in favor of reading. And if I were, I would not admit it to you.]

Anyway. All I really wanted to do here was share my four books with you. Here they are:

Inscribing the Text: Sermons and Prayers of Walter Brueggemann. Can't get enough Brueggemann.

Credo, by William Sloane Coffin. Ditto the Brueggemann comment.

Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, by Frederick Buechner. This is where I admit with embarrassment that I thought Buechner was dead. So it's the perfect book in the Easter season because - he is not dead! He is risen! (To me.) And Buechner is a joy.

Take this Bread, by Sara Miles. The latest in a growing genre I would describe as "cool, generally non-religious women come to Christian faith via the mainline church but also keep their coolness and write about their faith journey with humor, humility and grace, which means you will not find them in a normal Christian bookstore and this is a good thing." Long description there. Hard to shelve under. This it the only one I know nothing about, but it got a rave review from Anne Lamott. I'll take that.

If you've read any of these, post your thoughts. What's on your reading list?