The Time Traveler's Wife

I'm on a roll... I finished my second book of the year; The Time Traveler's Wife.



It came at the recommendation of a friend of mine... I was hesitant to read the book, mainly because the movie trailer didn't appeal to me.

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. It was a sweet book about companionship, love, and commitment.

If you haven't seen the movie yet, read the book first. Now I'm interested in watching the movie...

The Unlikely Disciple

I just finished reading my first book of the year. It's a thought-provoking book by Kevin Roose.
In April 2009 I went to a youth leader event at Grace Chapel in Lexington, MA. The speaker of the day was Mark Helsel. Our group of youth leaders from Calvary ended up sitting on the steps of Grace Chapel eating lunch with Mark during the lunch break. Our conversation was about church, college, rules, etc and he started talking about The Unlikely Disciple, a book he started reading. After our conversation, the book was on my "to read" list. It wasn't until recently that I was able to get a hold of the book to read it for myself.

It's the first book of the year and it's already on my favorite books list. It was a quick read and roughly 350 pages. Kevin writes in a style that is easy for most people to understand.

Kevin hadn't graduated college and he already wrote a fabulous book... quite the achievement if you ask me.

After finishing the book, I started to think about my own life. What do I REALLY believe? Why do I believe what I do? Is it because of how I was raised? Did I choose for myself what I believe? What would life have been for me if I hadn't been raised in a Christian home? Would I even be a Christian? Do I approach Christianity the same way a "typical" Christian College grad would?

Maybe I should give a little background...

My parents became Christians during their college years and I grew up in an evangelical Christian home. We attended Sunday School and church every week. My parents were quite involved in church; as I got older my involvement in church increased. I wasn't one to attend youth group regularly, but I enjoyed helping out in the nursery, children's church and teaching Sunday School to younger kids.

As I looked into WHERE I would attend college, my three choices were UMass Amherst Isenberg School of Management in Massachusetts, American University in Washington DC, and Gordon College in Massachusetts, north of Boston. As the deadline neared, I decided to go to UMass. The day the deposit was due, I decided, no, I need to attend Gordon College.

I graduated from Gordon College, which is considered a "liberal" Christian college by Liberty's standards.

• There are coed dorms - not coed floors though
• There is both a democrat AND a republican club.
• The professors lecture AND then press us to THINK for ourselves 'WHY do we believe what we believe'.
• Gordon is a dry campus, but you're not expelled for drinking off-campus.
• Gordon does NOT limit male-female contact to hand-holding; although if you spend the night with someone of the opposite sex on campus AND are found out you will get in trouble.
• They have mission's trips, but nothing like the mission's trip described in The Unlikely Disciple
  

Where was I? Oh yes, the book. It was a thought-provoking read and I highly recommend the book to anyone who would like to dig a little deeper into what they believe or who would like to know what it's like to spend a semester at a strict evangelical college.

Of course, as I wrote above, there were many questions I asked myself, but I will review those in a later post.

Read the book.

Water For Elephants

Recently I finished reading a book called: 'Water For Elephants'

It was such an interesting read. It's about 350 pages long, but it's a fast, easy read. The author, Sara Gruen, wrote a page turner. She chronicles what it's like to be involved in a circus during the Great Depression. Growing up I attended a few circuses at the Barnstable County Fairgrounds and even in Siljansnäs, Sweden when visiting my grandparents, but I often wondered what it would be like to travel with a circus.

She writes about a young Polish man who jumps aboard a moving train to escape a painful life circumstance; the train he jumped belongs to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. He attended Cornell, but he left in the middle of his final exams in his fourth year. Call it happenstance, he ditched school and jumped upon a circus train in need of a vet. Benzini Brothers didn't care about his diploma, they were satisfied to say they had a "vet" as part of their circus. During a lonely time in his life, Jacob finds companionship and rivalry. He meets Marlena, the beautiful and show-stopping equestrian performer, however she is married to August, the charming but moody animal trainer. Another person Jacob ends up befriending is the circus dwarf who is forced to share a "train car" with him. He is the circus vet, he ends up caring for Rosie, the "stupid" elephant who was a ray of hope for the second rate circus.

It was such a refreshing and fun book to read. Opens your eyes to what circus life may have been like almost 70+ years ago... Recommend.