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| Foto: Tabitha Griffin |
I read many of the classics in high school
and college and many moved me, but it’s so long ago, that I can’t really
remember what their individual effect was. Five books that have impacted me in my
adult years are:
1) Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah
Hurnard. A pastor gave this Christian allegory in 1983, when I was twenty-three
and had just had a spiritual encounter with Jesus Christ. This allegory,
published in 1955, illustrates the Christian journey from a person who starts
out fearful and learns to trust in the “good shepherd,” going from the valley
of all our hang-ups and fears, to the “high places,” where one is victorious in
life.
2) Persuasion by Jane Austen. I have read
all of Jane Austen’s novels more than once and loved them all. My favorites are
Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion. I first read them in high school and have
read them again over the years. They are probably what started me on my own
journey of writing regency romances—though I didn’t realize it at the time.
3) The Normal Christian Life by Watchman
Nee. This is a non-fiction work by a Chinese pastor and evangelist who wrote and
preached in the 1920’s and 30’s in China. This book is a study of the first
eight chapter of the book of Romans in the New Testament. An in-depth and
profound analysis of what it means to be a Christian, summed up by the verse in
Galatians “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” This book, read
in my late thirties, was very revelatory to me.
4) The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.
I first read this in high school and then to my children, when they were
younger. A rich story with meanings on many different levels.
5) Pere Goriot by Honoré de Balzac. I
reread this a few years ago and would love to read Balzac’s entire La Comédie
Humaine, just to revisit some of the characters that reappear in the other
novels in this serial. I love Balzac’s study of human nature, its greed and
pettiness against acts of sacrificial love.
Haar Goede Naam (Her Good Name) van uitgeverij De Banier is nu verkijgbaar.
