book club

i love reading. i do. i'm an obsessive reader. when i'm reading a book, everything else goes out the window: eating, sleeping, cleaning. So... that's why i thought we needed a book club on Cup Of Kitsch... and Blog This has a "what's on your bedside table" challenge this week. so: enter stage left, the first book club post!

i heard a beautiful quote recently from author Alexander McCall Smith, who was being interviewed for ABC Classic FM by Margaret Throsby. When asked "What's on your bedside table"... he replied

"towers of books.... my bedside table is actually a bit hazardous
to approach because there are large numbers of books..."

that imagery could just as easily applied to my bedside table. There you'll find my favourite books, ready to refer to when the moment calls. Books that i feel i should read, books i want to read.

some books i have read, and loved, and will love for all time...

Pride and Prejudice - J. Austen
Persuasion - J. Austen
Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres
Frederica - Georgette Heyer
A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson

some books i have sitting there, waiting to be read...
La's Orchestra Saves the World - Alexander McCall Smith
The Man who Ate the World: in search of the perfect dinner - Jay Rayner
Julie & Julia: My year of cooking dangerously - Julie Powell

but let me quickly tell you a little bit about a book i have read recently. this is a book that i had known about for several months. and i had an absolute aversion to it. DID NOT want to read it. and then i started dreaming about it, and it would come up in conversation. i felt i just had to read this book.

it's called the shack, by WM. Paul Young...
and it's a story about Mac, a father who's youngest child is abducted while on a family holiday. a series of terrible circumstances show this child was then abused and tortured in a small shack in the middle of the wilderness. and her body is never found.

sounds terrible? it is. i felt physically ill reading parts of this story. but you have to keep reading, because of what happens next.

Mac is traumatised. why did this happen. what could he have done to stop this? what if's...

and then a letter arrives in the mail. a letter inviting him back to the shack where his daughter was killed. a letter from God.

wow. what a book. i can't tell you the whole story. you need to read it to believe it. it is a fictional book, just a story. but a very powerful story. and in some ways it answers the question of "why does God let bad things happen". i think it shows how faith can be relevant to us, today. it's a story of healing. of empowerment. and it IS just a book - there's parts in it that didn't quite sit right with me. but a fantastic read...

and i would recommend it if you haven't read it. if you have read it, i would love to hear what you thought, too.

happy reading!

image: The Shack Book