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**Spotlight On Recent Books I've Read [June 2008]**
Since I’ve been on my Summer holidays I’ve been reading a whole lots of books ranging from classics and favourite authors (such as Jasper Fforde), to modern fiction and Christian books. Like Christian music, the range of Christian books is diverse. There are genres that are specific to Christian reading, and there are genres that crossover from mainstream reading into Christian reading. Two very different books that I have read from start to finish this month are ‘Red Moon Rising: How 24-7 Prayer Is Awakening a Generation’ by Pete Greig and ‘Me, Myself and Bob’ by Phil Vischer.
Red Moon Rising’ has been a gripping read. I’d originally set out to read it at the same time as ‘Prayer: Does It Make a Difference’ by Philip Yancey, as the latter is a bit more taxing, but by the time I’d finished Red Moon Rising I was only on page 56 of Prayer. Red Moon Rising describes first-hand, the story of the 24-7 Prayer movement which originated in 1999, and over the past ten years has grown and spread to more than 50 countries. Although the book is anecdotal, weaved into the different stories is practical advice on how to pray, and what happens when people pray. I have laughed and cried whilst reading this book and everything in it actually happened, and is happening now across the world. It is a book that will leave you challenged and wanting to pray more.
‘Me, Myself and Bob: A True Story About Dreams, God and Talking Vegetables ’ blew away all my expectations. I read it over three days, about an hour on Saturday, an hour on Sunday, and four hours (no break) on Monday. How to describe this book: an autobiography, but in nature a business guide; a humorous, tragic story of redemption; a history book... these are all true, but I suppose the book is essentially a record of what God has done in one man’s life.
As writer and creator of VeggieTales, Phil Vischer is a natural storyteller, which makes the book such a good read. His humour is interlaced through the really high highs and the really low lows. What I enjoyed most about the book is the way that the audience is told what will happen from the beginning. I’ll read you the blurb which tells you a bit of what you’re getting, “Starting with no money, no connections, and no clue what he was getting himself into, Phil Vischer doggedly pursued his dream to use his love of technology and slightly warped sense of humour to change the world for Christ. At the height of VeggieTales’ success he was well on his well to creating a media empire that could challenge Nickelodeon and Disney and fulfil what he was sure was God’s plan for his life. But somewhere on the way to becoming the next Walt Disney, Phil found himself instead in bankruptcy court, watching everything fall apart. What was it like to see a dream come to life so dramatically? And where was God when something so bad was happening to someone who only wanted to do good? The answers to these questions may change everything you believe about dreaming big, falling hard and getting back up again.”
Another thing that pleasantly surprised me was how revolutionary VeggieTales was, not just in Christian media, but also in mainstream computer graphics. [Vischer chose to animate vegetables as no company had worked out how to successfully animate limbs yet]. VeggieTales was at the forefront of computer animation, Vischer taking much of his inspiration from other pioneers in this field such as Pixar and, of course, Walt Disney. From a technical point of view, the book is a fascinating record, and insight into both early CGI and cinematography. Vischer’s mum gave him just two rules: that vegetables should not be capable of redemption, and that Jesus must not be a vegetable.
I highly recommend this book to, well, everyone - from a young Christian student, studying e-commerce’s point of view, it was an extraordinary story of how God can even work through computers, but on the other end of the scale, my mum thoroughly enjoyed it!
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