Last weekend I attended Comic-Con and since that's like a long time ago now, I debated whether or not to write anything about it, but hey why not?
This was my fourth Con, and I love it every year though this year I thought they were mean and too strict and don't even get me started about their new pre-registration policy, it was terrible. Even so, I manage to be amazed that there's never too much violence on site, as EVERYONE is exhausted and has waited in line, etc. and probably skipped eating and emotions are high and you have no personal space, and you might end up bitterly disappointed, etc. I mean I always feel like slugging a few people over the course of the weekend.
But it's also really lovely because people are super easy to talk to and where else can you geek out over things like books and TV shows? I mean for me it's FAB because I can have an at length conversation with people about The Vampire Diaries that I just met two minutes prior, or discuss amazing YA books with book bloggers I had no idea existed previously. (You know book blogging is a THING when you go to an event and meet bloggers you don't know!)
Anyway there are always a ton of genre panels and I usually enjoy making it to a few of them. And once again I made it to a few this year but they were pretty underwhelming sadly. Book panels are always hard because they depend so much on whether or not the authors have interesting things to say and if the moderator is dynamic with really great questions.
Even so I enjoyed the panel on writing the apocalypse and hope to eventually read all the books by the authors there. I also enjoyed the various YA panels. One thing an attendee noted that I also thought was interesting is that on the YA panel one day there were all women panelists and on a middle grade panel following it nearly all men. Why would this be? It was interesting because I had been chatting with my sister about my niece who is ten years old and what she likes to read. She loves fantasy and she loves to read really big books, otherwise known as chunksters. But she also loves to read books with a girl main character. (who can blame her? not me) The problem is there just aren't very many books like that or if there are they are hard to find. I got some good recommendations on Twitter the other day, but I ALWAYS welcome more.
There were no real answers given to why female authors might dominate YA and male authors middle grade fantasy. I'm not going to pretend to know about this stuff, but it IS interesting to think about. I certainly welcome your thoughts!
I did learn a few other things watching these panels. Kiersten White is super bubbly and awesome to have on any panel. Apparently Laini Taylor's new book Daughter of Smoke and Bone is AMAZING. Taherah Mafi is completely gorg. Gene Luen Yang is funny. I need to read Anya's Ghost.
And I got some books, too! Yay! But overall I enjoyed the TV aspect of the Con a lot more this year...don't kill me!
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Books at Comic-Con
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Book Blogger Appreciation Week 2011
Book Blogger Appreciation Week (also known as BBAW) is four years old. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
In any case...yes it's happening again! I have to give Jason and Monica a huge thank you for getting tech stuff all worked out! There would be no BBAW without them.
Go check out the new blog, grab a button, register, start thinking about nominations, and please join in!
Friday, July 29, 2011
CFBA Book Spotlight: Love Finds You in Amana, Iowa by Melanie Dobson
The novel is set in the United States during the turmoil of the 1860s. As the rest of the nation is embroiled in the Civil War, the Amana Colonies have remained at peace with a strong faith in God and pursuit of community, intertwined with hard work, family life and the building of their colony.
Amalie Wiese is travelling to the newly built village of Amana in 1863. When she arrives in the colonies she finds that her fiancée, Friedrich has left to fight with the Union Army. Amalie fears for his safety as she also struggles with his decision to abandon the colony’s beliefs. Matthias, Frederick’s friend, stays back in Amana to work in the colonies. But there is something wrong with Matthias; he always seems angry at Amalie when there is no simple explanation for him to act that way.
The goods that colonies manufacture are much needed supplies for the war effort and Matthias decides to deliver the goods to the soldiers. When he leaves, Amalie realizes that her fear for Matthias’s safety is equally as strong. What will become of Friedrich, will Matthias return safely, and will Amalie marry Friedrich? LOVE FINDS YOU IN AMANA, IOWA is a richly told story of life in the Amana Society and the people who live and love there.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Discussion: Characters
One of the things I always find interesting when it comes to books is how important characters are to readers. People will often decide whether or not they like a book based on whether or not they like the characters--I'm certainly no exception. I fall for characters, hard sometimes.
I wonder, though, what makes you love a character in a book? Complexity? Heart? Goodness? Moral ambiguity?
Do you like characters in books based on the same reasons you like people in real life? If they share things in common with you do you find them more relatable? Are you more likely to love characters with the same traits over and over again, or do the specific circumstances of their story and the writing ability of the author matter?
Who are your favorite characters of all time?
I think I have a few different kinds of characters that I love. I love characters that are good, for example, Peeta in The Hunger Games. Peeta is the personification of hope, goodness, intellect, and creativity. I love characters that are so well written I feel I know them intimately, like Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. She can be utterly unlikeable but there is never any doubt about who she is, she's a fierce survivor. I love characters with a good heart like Go-boy in Sometimes We're Always Real Same-Same who means well and loves a lot, but is deeply troubled.
Taking the question further, what kind of characters would you like to see more of in books? I would love to see more characters of faith that are fleshed out as being more than just religious characters and being good or bad depending on the author's view of that religion. I'd love to see more single women who lead fulfilling lives. What do you want to see?
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
FIRST: Mirrorball by Matt Redman
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
and the book:
David C. Cook (July 1, 2011)
Matt Redman has been leading worship full-time since the age of 20. His journey has taken him to countries such as South Africa, Japan, India, Australia, Germany, Uganda, Croatia and the Czech Republic. He has worked with many church plants and is currently involved with St Peters, a new church planted out of HTB in London. His early compositions include "The Heart of Worship," "Better Is One Day" and "Once Again." More recent songs have included "Blessed Be Your Name" and "You Never Let Go" (both written with his wife, Beth). Redman is also the author of three books which all center on the theme of worship: The Unquenchable Worshipper, Facedown and Blessed Be Your Name (co-authored with Beth). Plus he has compiled two other books: The Heart of Worship Files and Inside-Out Worship. Redman and his wife currently live on the south coast of England with their five children.Visit the author's website.
God's Light Shines Through the Smallest PrismMatt Redman invites readers to reflect God's dazzling radiance.
When God shines upon His church, we become a dazzling testimony to His awesome radiance. You may feel ineffective. You might have lost confidence in your ability to shine. You may think you are too small or inconsequential to ever be of any value in the kingdom of God. But no matter at all—for, in the end, it is all a matter of light. His light. The life of worship never begins with you. It starts and ends with Jesus. In his newest book, Mirror Ball: Living a Life that Reflects God's Radiance, worship leader and songwriter Matt Redman reminds us that even when we feel insufficient to reflect God's glory, God can show through us as light radiates through a prism. Living in this truth will transform how we view our words, our relationships and our daily lives.
Passion is not only that which gets us up in the morning; it helps us see it through to the end of the day. And for anyone who has truly encountered the wonder of the cross, it soon becomes a way of life. If you're looking for a heightened way to tell God you love Him, the very best way has little to do with stringing poetic sentences together. It involves a life laid down in service and adoration. The concrete evidence of whether worship has lived or died in us will always be our lives. We sing our songs with good intent, but in the end our lives must become the evidence.
In and of ourselves we have no light. But in His bright and shining light we are transformed and begin to radiate the glories of our God to the world around us. You may be feeling totally inadequate for that task. But if so, you have simply forgotten the most important part of the equation. It is not about you and your best efforts. It is the light, power and love of Christ illuminating our fragile lives.
Through story, Scripture and practical inspiration, Redman encourages his readers to remember that, however inadequate they may feel to live out this passion, God will work in and through them. After all, the same God who said "let there be light" has made His light to shine in their hearts, illuminating their lives and the lives of those around them.
Product Details:
List Price: $12.99
Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: David C. Cook (July 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0781405785
ISBN-13: 978-0781405782
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
The Passion of the Christian
It’s New Year’s Eve in downtown Nashville, and things are getting crazy. There’s a mood of fun and festivity everywhere you look. And inside the biggest arena of all, two of the most popular country acts in the nation lead thousands of fans in a celebration of the end of one year and the beginning of the next. The music cranks up loud and the shouts of the audience respond in kind. The truth is, people love to party.
That night in Tennessee, we arrived to prepare for the Passion college gathering. Over the next few evenings the same arena would fill again, and we’d start a party of a different kind. No less volume
or excitement—hopefully more—but a whole different reason for letting out those shouts of joy. If people can get that excited over December becoming January, what on earth does it look like when over twenty thousand college students get their hearts and heads around the glory and grace of God? What does it sound like when we find ourselves caught up in the epic story of the One who came to this earth, endured the cross, and made a way home for us—all in the name of love and rescue? As loud and as fun as those New Year celebrations might be, shouldn’t they become just the faintest whisper when compared with the thunderous shouts and applause that accompany the praise of the King of all heaven? In the words of the old worship hymn, “Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own.”
I once met a man who’d survived a shark attack by screaming so loudly that he burst blood vessels in his neck. His ear-piercing cries gave the shark so much of a headache that it gave up the attack and swam away. Where did such a loud scream come from? It came from deep inside him—from the very depths of who he was, crying out for mercy and survival.
So on the last night of the Passion student gathering that year, my good friend Louie Giglio, the founder of Passion, decided we were going to throw the party to end all parties. No low-key affair with some semiloud music and a halfhearted whoop or two—but a full-on, turn-it-up-loud celebration of the Son of God. The point being that if we truly live in the light of Christ and all that He has accomplished, there’s a time to be a little bit outrageous in our gathered response to Him.
The day of the worship-fueled party arrived, and things were beginning to happen inside the arena. People hung extra lights and prepared song lists, and everything looked good for some extreme celebration. Apart from one thing, that is. Louie had been excitedly talking about a mirror-ball moment, which he’d planned for a while. At just the right time, during a joyful worship song, he planned to lower this thing, shine some lights on it, and give a little extra visually creative expression to these full-on celebrations. The first time I heard about the mirror ball, it sounded like a good idea—until I entered the arena, that is. Hanging above the center of the stage was a tiny spherical object, and as I strained my eyes to see it, I thought the object certainly looked like a mirror ball. But I was sure this couldn’t be Louie’s mirror ball: It was tiny—the kind of thing I’d seen every year from the age of seven at my school disco. Yet—I looked around—there didn’t seem to be any other mirror balls hanging up there. And so I had to conclude that this must be the one he was talking about. Quite frankly, I was worried. I decided that we were headed for the biggest anticlimax in the history of Christian worship gatherings. Louie had told everyone on the team about this great disco-ball moment that would help lead us in our joyful worship celebrations—when, as far as I could tell, it was going to be a moment of laughter for all the wrong reasons. I wanted to be a good friend and warn him—but he was so pumped about his little mirror ball, I just didn’t have the heart.
As it turned out, I needn’t have worried. The evening was wonderful. The thousands of students assembling that night to worship Jesus arrived in silence—as we’d been encouraged to do to prepare our hearts for gathered worship. Through songs and sounds and moments of ancient liturgy, we went to the cross. There we recalled the most amazing act of obedience and sacrifice this world has ever seen. We paused for a while, and I was reminded once again that God makes worshippers out of wonderers. As our hearts breathed in afresh the mystery of grace, we exhaled reverent awe and thanksgiving in response. The soul-gripping mystery of Calvary fueled the fires of our praise, and remembrance led us to rejoicing. Next, we began to turn up the volume a notch or two, with heartfelt songs of devotion resounding intensely around the room. In Scripture, Jesus Himself said that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks—and as we stood there in amazement at the grace and glory of God, sounds of joyful thanksgiving tried to find a way out of our hearts.
And then the moment arrived. Mirror ball time. Down from the ceiling came the world’s smallest disco ball. I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry … or get my binoculars out to actually see the thing.
However, in one bright, shining moment, all of my fears died. Powerful beams of light hit the face of the ball, and suddenly, in every corner of that massive arena, radiance shone all around. Light filled the room. It seemed to glow on every face and shine on every inch of floor, wall, and ceiling. A huge arena filled with light—by way of a tiny little mirror ball. And people partied. In that moment, focusing on the glory of the Savior and celebrating His victories, we shouted for joy and danced with abandon.
It turns out that in all my doubting and questioning of Louie’s mirror ball, I’d seriously underestimated the most important factor—the power and brilliance of the beams of light that shone upon it.
In the end, it was all a matter of light.
When it comes to a life of worship and mission, the very same rules apply. In and of ourselves we have no light. But in His bright and shining light we are transformed—and begin to radiate the glories of our God to the world around us. You may be feeling totally inadequate, far from ready for that task. But if so, you have forgotten the most important part of the equation. It is not about you and your best efforts. It is about the light, power, and love of Christ illuminating our fragile lives. As Scripture reminds us, the same God who said, “Let there be light,” has made His light to shine in our hearts.
When God shines upon His church, we become a dazzling testimony to His awesome radiance. You may feel ineffective. You might have lost confidence in your ability to shine. You may think you are too small or inconsequential to ever be of any value in the kingdom of God. But no matter at all—for, in the end, it’s all a matter of light. His light. The life of worship never begins with you. It starts and ends with Jesus.
Back to Nashville for a moment. I left the arena that night inspired by the shouts and the songs that had been poured out in that place. But the mirror ball left a really big impression. It reminded me of our ultimate call as we live on this earth—to shine all around for the glory of God.
Then another thought hit me: So often we equate passion with volume and energy, and surely that can play an important part. But when it comes to true passion, ultimately those things are just the tip of the iceberg—the part most on display. However, God looks beneath the surface, searching our hearts. Yes, God does call us to sing. He calls us to sing loudly, boldly, joyfully, and reverently before Him. Just check out the exhortations in so many of the psalms for evidence. God loves a shout of praise or a joyful noise brought in His name. These things are great and important ways of expressing the explosive celebrations happening in our hearts. But to complete the integrity of these offerings, God is looking for a people who will take their passion to the next level and begin to shine His light in their everyday lives. A people who will stand in the light of who He is and reflect His wonders for all the world to see. We see the light. We celebrate the light. And we send the light.
Lives Laid Down
Lives of passion step outside the normal and rational and give all they have gladly and generously. I love this definition of passion being made popular by Louie: “Passion is the degree of difficulty we are willing to endure to achieve the goal.” Defined in this way, passion becomes a life laid down in extravagant surrender—thoughts, words, and deeds thrown wholeheartedly into the mix even when it costs us something. Or indeed, costs us everything.
This definition also brings us right back to the cross. The passion of Jesus shows us the most heightened example we will ever see of “the degree of difficulty we are willing to endure to achieve the goal.” At Calvary we encounter the Savior of the world—who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross and scorned all of its shame. He underwent agonies we could never imagine. If we were to look at the cross simply through the lens of physical torture it would be grueling enough in and of itself. The cross was one of the most gruesome and painful forms of capital punishment this world has ever seen.
Yet this was no ordinary crucifixion. For here was the Son of God—He who was pure and faultless—becoming stained by our sin and shame. The One so accustomed to the peace and joy of heaven encountered the depths of earthly shame, suffering, and pain. He had no sin and instead became sin for us. He who existed in close communion with the Father felt the cruelty and dark loneliness of Gethsemane and Calvary. Add all of these factors together, and you are left with a cross that is not only physically heavy to carry—but one that is unfathomably heavy to bear in spiritual, emotional, and psychological terms. Yet Christ did so. And, astonishingly, He chose to do so. That is the ultimate display of passion.
Be assured, Jesus was not eager to face the agonies of that place. We do not find Him bubbling over with anticipation—completely the opposite. On the eve of His death, the Savior cries out:
“Abba, Father … everything is possible for you. Take
this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you
will.” (Mark 14:36)
A passionate obedience to the Father and an unwavering commitment to His mission see Jesus through the loneliness of Gethsemane and to the cross. This really is the passion of the Christ. And the passion of the worshipper must take on the very same characteristics.
The Scriptures are full of worship songs and devotional music—and in the right place, music can play such a wonderful and unique role in our worship. It’s part of how we’ve been made and a wonderful way to express our devotion to God together. Eugene Peterson writes:
Song and dance are the result of an excess energy.
When we are normal we talk, when we are dying we
whisper, but when there is more in us than we contain
we sing. When we are healthy we walk, when
we are decrepit we shuffle, but when we are beyond
ourselves with vitality we dance.
But passionate worship is never a matter of merely getting the words and tune right or raising a loud shout. The true test of our passion for God will always be our lives. If I’m looking for a heightened way to tell God I love Him, the very best way has very little to do with stringing poetic sentences together. It involves a life laid down in service and adoration. The concrete evidence of whether our worship has lived or died in us will always be our lives. We may sing our songs with good intentions, but in the end our lives must become the evidence.
Singing is easy. The proof is always in the living. Or even the dying. Will the music in our hearts subside when the going gets tough? Will we be distracted or discouraged from our cause when the conditions aren’t favorable? Will the fireworks of our excited hearts come to nothing more than a momentary spark that fizzles out, never to be seen again? Or could we prove the flames of our passion even in the furnace of difficulty, inconvenience, and endurance?
Passion is not only that which gets us up in the morning—it helps us see it through to the end of the day. Passion finishes what it begins and makes good on its promise of running the race with perseverance and turning good intentions into fulfilled dreams. Passion is always more than a party. It’s a story of guts and glory, pain and purpose. And for anyone who has truly encountered the wonder of the cross, it soon becomes a way of life.
Copyright 2011 Matt Redman. Mirror Ball published by David C Cook. Publisher permission required to reproduce in any way. All rights reserved.
How Do You Want the World to End?
Hello lovies!
I'm back after a much appreciated and needed week away in which I saw my brother get married, the sun burned me up, the mountains were beautiful, and I geeked out with thousands of other people over TV, films, books, comics, etc.
Since I spent some gleeful time thinking about the end of the world at Comic-Con and since The Walking Dead Season 2 trailer was released (yeeee!) and Falling Skies is getting more interesting, I thought I'd pose that all important question to you...
How would you prefer the world to end?
Aliens?
Zombies?
Robots?
Climate/Environmental Crisis?
War?
I think there are advantages and disadvantages to both I suppose, but the last one, war between humans is definitely my LAST choice. What's your FIRST choice?
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
CFBA Book Spotlight: Canary Island by Robin Jones Gunn
The surprise, however, is on Carolyn when she sees Bryan Spencer, her high school summer love. It’s been seven years since Carolyn lost her husband, but ever since that tragic day, her life has grown smaller and closed in. The time has come for Carolyn to get her heart back. It takes the gentle affection of her mother and aunts, as well as the ministering beauty and song of the islands to draw Carolyn into the fullness of life. She is nudged along by a Flamenco dance lesson, a defining camel ride and the steady gaze of Bryan’s intense blue-gray eyes.
Is it too late for Carolyn to trust Bryan? Can Carolyn believe that Bryan has turned into something more than the wild beach boy who stole her kisses so many years ago on a balmy Canary night?
Carolyn is reminded that Christopher Columbus set sail from the Canary Islands in 1492 on his voyage to discover the New World. Is she ready to set sail from these same islands to discover her new life?
Monday, July 25, 2011
In with the Old! by Jennifer Ziegler author of Sass & Serendipity
In With the Old!
Or … Why Jane Austen Looks Damn Good for Her Age
Young people, it seems, have an aversion to anything they perceive as old. I try to introduce my children to favorite books, music, or shows from my childhood, and their response is often an enthusiastic “Meh.” Anything that occurred before they walked the earth is regarded as primordial—be it dinosaurs, the Egyptian pyramids, or a Bruce Springsteen song. In fact, whenever we watch awards shows and I point out favorite actors or musicians from my youth, my son will invariably exclaim “They’re still alive?”
I came across this attitude as a teacher, too—especially whenever I tried to convince my students to read a book published more than a few years earlier. Any book with a three-digit age would be met with expressions typically reserved for delicate medical procedures and sipping sour milk. To them, classic novels were old tales about old people doing old-timey things. As if gripping stories didn’t exist before 1985. As if our species reinvented itself the year they were born. As if nothing on the pages of centuries-old books could possibly relate to their lives.
I’m ashamed to admit that I was also of this mindset as a teen—until I discovered 
Jane Austen. I read Sense and Sensibility and was astounded at how wonderful, witty, and smartly written it was. In particular, I connected with the two sister characters, Elinor and Marianne. It had never occurred to me that sister relationships in Britain’s Regency era could be so similar to sisterhood in the modern day U.S.
The book remained a favorite, and I reread it many times over the next several years. As a teacher and parent, I was relentless in trying to convince young people to read it. In fact, I adored the novel so much, it inspired me to write my own version of it: Sass & Serendipity.
There are good reasons why classic novels endure. In Jane Austen’s case, it’s because her characters are vivid to the point of seeming familiar. They deal with problems of love, identity, family, friendship, economic hardships, reputation, and peer pressure—all issues that we contend with in this day and age. Plus, Austen is funny. Her writing is always full of witty banter, oddball characters, and subtle irony.
So what, exactly, do young readers object to? The fashion? The semicolon usage?
Sure, the world has changed in two hundred years, but people really haven’t. In essence, the terms “old” or “new” are meaningless when used to describe literature, because good stories are timeless. It is my hope that Sass & Serendipity might serve as a bridge between the contemporary and the classic. If readers recognize the eternal truths of my story, perhaps they’ll want to trace its literary family tree back to Austen.
It’s always a thrill when someone reads and connects with one of my books. But if my novel can inspire young people to seek out the original version—the source of my inspiration—well, that would truly be . . . serendipitious.
Giveaway Info!
A Sassy Giveaway! Three lucky winners will each receive one copy of Jennifer Ziegler's SASS & SERENDIPITY along with Jane Austen's classic, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY. To enter, send an e-mail to SassandSerendipity@gmail.com. In the body of the e-mail, include your name, mailing address, and e-mail address (if you're under 13, submit a parent's name and e-mail address). One entry per person; prizes will only be shipped to US or Canadian addresses. Entries must be received by midnight (PDT) on 8/5/11. Winners will be selected in a random drawing on 8/6/11 and notified via email.
To learn more about Jennifer, visit her website or blog
Visit La Blog tomorrow for more from Jennifer!
FIRST: Tombstones and Banana Trees by Medad Birungi
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
and the book:
David C. Cook (July 1, 2011)
Medad Birungi grew up in the war-torn country of Uganda in the 1960’s. He was born to a hateful father. And, after years of abuse, his father abandoned him, along with his mother and siblings, on the side of the road when he was only six years old. His life became increasingly difficult—his poverty increased, his hope evaporated and his future was nothing but decay. For the first twenty years of his life, he lived on a staple diet of anger and bitterness. But God had his hand on Birungi’s life, and it would change beyond all recognition. Everything that was made ugly by pain and anger was turned to beauty by one incredibly simple yet revolutionary act: forgiveness. Though he started as a boy who begged to die by the side of the road, becoming a teenager angry enough to kill then a man broken and searching, he is now a testimony to God’s transforming power.
Currently Birungi is the coordinator for missions, evangelism and church planting in the Anglican Diocese of Kampala. He also lectures at the Kyambogo University. But one of his greatest passions is the charitable organization that he founded, World Shine Ministries. He is a father of nine children (five biological and four adopted). He and his wife Connie live with their children in Uganda.
Visit the author's website.
A Revolution of ForgivenessMedad Birungi faced pain few imagine yet speaks of forgiveness all can experience
“My story changed beyond all recognition. Everything that was made ugly by pain and anger was turned to beauty by one simple, revolutionary thing—forgiveness.” Medad Birungi was once a boy who begged to die by the side of the road, a teenager angry enough to kill, a man broken and searching, yet today he is a testimony to God’s transforming power. In his life story, Tombstones and Banana Trees: A True Story of Revolutionary Forgiveness, Birungi charts his outrageous journey through suffering, abuse, despair and revenge to unexpected forgiveness and healing.
Birungi grew up with a violent father in the war-torn country of Uganda in the 1960’s. His childhood was scarred by extreme poverty, cruel suffering and unbearable sorrow that few of us can even imagine. Yet from that trauma came the lessons that we can all appreciate: the impoverishment of life without Christ, the redemption of the cross and the revolutionary power of forgiveness. His story deals in nothing less than pure, God-given transformation. Tombstones and Banana Trees has the dual quality of being both uniquely individual yet universally relevant, holding together the grandest of themes and the most intimate of testimonies. Birungi’s life is so comprehensively renewed that any reader sharing in his journey will feel the impact.
Through his story of healing, Birungi calls readers to find healing for their own emotional scars. He reminds them that when they forgive others they are doing something truly radical—changing relationships, communities and countries. They are welcoming God into the hidden corners of the human soul, where real revolution begins, inspiring others to start again and work for reconciliation. Birungi is “fascinated by forgiveness, drawn to it, compelled by it and delighted when anyone wants to join me. That is what revolutionary forgiveness becomes after a while—a passion. It draws us in, yet it does not overrule us. We must still make the choice to overcome our reservations.”
Tombstones and Banana Trees will take readers back to their own tombs and funerals and help them ask how God might turn them into new births and celebrations. Their eyes will be opened to the revolutionary change that God Himself has in store for all.
Product Details:
List Price: $14.99
Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: David C. Cook (July 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0781405025
ISBN-13: 978-0781405027
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
The Power of the Family
Life is good and I laugh a lot. You need to know that about me before we make a start. You need to know that I think of myself as being blessed with so much of God’s grace—far more than I deserve.
You need to know that as I look at my life I see there is much that is beautiful and much that is good. You need to know all this because what comes next will probably remove the smile from your eyes.
This is a book about revolutionary forgiveness. And in order to write about forgiveness, you must have something to forgive. For there to be change, you must have something to leave behind. In order to know healing, you must first have received a wound.
I did not think I would ever experience such sorrow or despair as the day my father beat me down from the pickup trucks and abandoned us—my mother, my sisters, my brothers, and me—by the side of the road at Kashumuruzi. We had no food, no possessions, and no hope of a future. All we had was the smell of diesel from the aging pickup trucks loaded with possessions, retreating down the road possessions that, just minutes previously, had been our own.
All we could hear was the sound of rejoicing that came from the hands and mouths of the rest of my father’s wives and their children as they jeered from the trucks. All we could see were the villagers
slowly peeling away from the scene and returning to their tasks, now that the drama that had entertained them was over. All I knew was that my mother, my sisters, my brothers, and I were weeping into the dirt, hoping life would end soon.
I did not think life would ever get worse than this. I did not think there was worse to come.
Yet there was. Far worse. But those are other stories for later pages. Right now I need to explain about the road and the pickup trucks, and in order to do that, I must tell you about that day.
It had started the way many mornings did. I woke up to the sound of singing carried in and out of my home on the wind, like sunlight playing in and out of the clouds. The music was coming from the church or the school on the other side of the valley. They always started early. I had never really belonged to either of them.
I was a typical six-year-old boy from a typical village in western Uganda. I had no need for shoes, was naked from the waist down, and was beginning to be aware of making the transition from infant to child. That meant I was becoming more adventurous, starting to move away from the compound where we lived, and finding out what was on offer in the land that surrounded it. Out beyond the pressed, swept earth, I was learning how to use my hands to make things out of the broad leaves of the banana trees that flooded the valley where we lived. I would use the broadest, thickest ones as mats on which I would sledge down the muddied slopes toward the stream. The rocks added the element of danger, and our scarred and bruised buttocks were the scorecards, clearly showing how often our games ended in pain. Thinner leaves I would use to make slippers for my feet. They only ever lasted a day, but I felt like a man when I wore them.
I was getting stronger. That meant I was starting to join in with the older children in the twice-daily trips down to the stream to collect water. My clay pot was small, but even five liters was heavy enough to make the task of carrying it a challenge. Especially when there were consequences to arriving back at home with a less-thankfull load.
Our home was halfway up a steep hill at the north end of a wide open valley. Two generations ago there had been nothing in the area but forest; a sprawling forest that, if you saw it from the other side of the valley, looked like an ocean churned up by a storm. Up close you could see that the sides of the steep hills had created land at the bottom that was dark, musty, and alive with insects that fed on the rotting vegetation. That is what our village is called: Rwanjogori. It means maggots.
Why would anyone want to live in a place like this? Ask my grandfather—he was the one who first settled here, clearing back the forest and building the first home halfway up the hill away from the maggots that ruled the earth at the bottom. He had discovered it when he was looking for places to hide the cattle he stole from distant farms. He was the son of Bukumuura, son of Karumuna, of Bituura, of Ruhiiga, of Ngirane, of Kasigi, of Muntu. Every one of these men was a renowned polygamist, especially Ruhiiga, who had thirty-six wives. My grandfather’s name was Kasabaraara—and it means “one who grinds people who sleep in your house.” Yes, my grandfather was given the name of a killer and became a professional thief who colonized a land in which nobody would have dreamed of living. They say it is hard to get a clean bird from a dirty nest, that true change is difficult when you come from a difficult family background. I know there have been times in my life when I have wished the maggots would return and consume me for themselves.
The day my father abandoned us had started typically. The sound of children singing, cups of millet porridge to drink, a quick trip down the hill to collect the water that flowed out of the ground
when you poked it with a stick. But after that things changed. It was moving day, and we were leaving Rwanjogori forever.Or so we thought.
My father had been friendly ever since he had returned home after his year-and-a-half disappearance—which itself is another story that we will get to in good time. Of course, his warm smiles and happy chatter could not fool us, and we remained suspicious—even six-year-old me. But my father was full of talk of great plans and big changes, all told with wide eyes and grand gestures made by hands
that commanded the air. It did not take long for him to convince us that our overcrowding was a problem for which he had the perfect solution.
In Uganda, as in much of Africa, a home is made up of three elements: your house, the area immediately around it—often called your compound—and the land that you farm. My father owned a
large slice of land that ran down from the top of the hill, flowing through to the valley below as it flattened out. His father had planted hundreds of banana trees, some with black trunks that offered
matoke, or plantain, as you might call it—a savory type of banana high in carbohydrates, cooked and served with a groundnut sauce or red beans. The green-trunked banana trees grow smaller fruit, but
these little bananas are sweet and delicious. You have never tasted a real banana until you have pulled a handful from a tree and allowed their sugary sweetness to delight your taste buds.
Our house was made of mud that had been stuck onto a sturdy wooden frame. The walls were thick and the roof was thatched with dried grass from a nearby marsh. Because my mother was my father’s first wife, our house was the biggest, with three rooms: a bedroom for my parents, another for my sisters, and a main living area in which my brothers and I slept and where we all ate when it was too wet or cold outside.
Our compound stretched around our house, and in it could be found our goats, maybe the odd cow, a dog or two, as well as the charcoal fire where my mother would cook. The earth was hard and dark, flattened by the feet of so many people living there. A few meters along from our house was another, slightly smaller. In it were my father’s second wife and their children. Farther on still was another house and another wife and more children. And then another.
You could call our overcrowding a form of domestic congestion or an “overextended family,” but whichever words you use, the truth was simple: My father had taken too many wives. My mother was his first, but as his anger rose along with his drinking, so too did the number of wives. In one year he married five other women, and by the end of his life he had fathered a total of thirty-two children: twenty-six girls and six boys. So, yes, there were too many of us. Too many wives fighting for his attention, too many children desperate for a father, too many mouths left hungry by too little land. “I know how our poverty will be wiped clean,” said my father one day. On his travels away from us he had found a large piece of land, two hundred miles west, where we could all live in plenty. Each wife would have five acres of land, more than enough to feed us and keep hunger away.
So he had sold our home and the land we had been squeezed into. On the morning of our planned departure, every able body was loaded up with possessions and sent off down the hill, past the spring, through the banana trees, and out onto the valley bottom, passing by the unmarked boundary that signaled the edge of my father’s land. Once out on the valley floor we then carried our sleeping mats, cooking pots, animal skins, water jars, and low tables down the track for another mile to the village of Kashumuruzi.
Kashumuruzi was an exciting place. It was the link with the outside world. Where Rwanjogori was home to only a few families and nothing else, Kashumuruzi was different. Not only did it have a trading post—a shop that sold everything from home-brewed beer to pots and cloth—but its houses and compounds were all stuck on one side of a main road that, in one direction, ran to the distant local capital of Kabale, while the other way pointed to the waterfall of Kisiizi and, beyond that, the new land my father was taking us to.
At this time in my life I was not poor. True, all those extra wives and children had put a strain on our resources, so the move was something we all welcomed, even if we did so cautiously. But my father was a dealer in animal skins, and he was good at his job. He was a charismatic, attractive man. People listened when he spoke and readied themselves to follow when he led. We had status.
So there we were, sitting at the side of the road, our possessions piled high beneath the tall tree that gave a little shade in the gathering heat. It was a big day in the life of the local villages, and as the trucks arrived, so too did a small crowd of onlookers. My father spoke to the drivers as soon as they arrived, gave them instructions about where we were going and how to load the possessions. This was a side of him I had not seen much of before: commanding authority from other adults who seemed to lower their eyes and obey him quickly. I was used to seeing my siblings or my mother hurrying to obey his commands, avoiding eye contact and hoping to avoid his rage, but not other men. With the bystanders he was different: He seemed unusually happy, as if he was enjoying being the center of the show, like a magician preparing for a grand finale, smiling to himself at the knowledge that what was coming was sure to leave an impression for years to come on the minds of those watching.
We loaded everything we had onto the pickup trucks and then climbed on. We might not have been poor, but we were certainly not wealthy enough for me to have been in the back of a pickup truck before. We were certainly not that wealthy. As we prepared to drive through villages and even towns—yes, there would be towns on the journey!—I was excited beyond words, a six-year-old boy about to experience the most thrilling thing of all, on display for all to see as we made our way to our new life. To my mind this was already a very good day, what with all the excitement of carrying things down from our home and having so many people gathering to watch us. And it was about to get even better.
My mother was a kind woman, and a wise one too. She was also a woman of prayer. She knew how to pick her battles, and she had ushered my sisters and me up into the final pickup truck. Let the other wives fight for the status of riding in the first one with our father in the cab. It was probably best to keep a low profile anyway: My father had been acting strangely around my mother, my siblings, and me for months.
Before the engines started, my father got out and made his way back down the line. He stopped by our truck and looked at each of us in turn; my mother, me, my sisters, and my two brothers. Those wide eyes that had been sparkling and dancing for days were suddenly different. Darker. Narrowed. I did not want to look into them. “All of you,” he said. “Get down.”
I could not move. I had received so many beatings and scoldings from my father that panic was never far from my heart whenever he addressed me. Usually I would run or fight, but this time I remained still, frozen.
“You have been a problem to me. You fought against me, and I cannot migrate with problems.” He quickly stepped around the back of the vehicle, reached into the brush behind the tall tree, and pulled out a stick. He wielded the six-foot flexible weapon with skill, bringing it stinging through the air, lashing us across our cowed backs .I do not know whether I fell, jumped, or was pushed down from the truck, but it did not take long before we were facing the dirt, surrounding our mother, crying.
The beatings hurt, but they were nothing new. My father knew how to hurt us, and there had been plenty of occasions in the past when he had inflicted pain on us in cruel ways that left scars visible even today. But these beatings at the side of the road were not the main event; they were a warm-up to something big. He was merely tenderizing the meat so that we were truly ready for the fire to follow.
It had been six months since my father had returned from his self-imposed exile, and every day he had been back at home with us he had kept a particular bucket close by. Each morning he had filled it with ash from the fire, and my mother had always asked him, “What do you want this ash for?” He only ever gave the same reply: “One day you will see.”
As we crouched there, huddled around our mother, the tree towering above us, the hill stretching back behind, the trucks to our side, the road at our feet, and an increasingly large crowd watching from the other side, my father dropped his stick and reached down for the bucket that he had also hidden in the brush behind the tree. Suddenly he was not a raging father or a stick-wielding disciplinarian. He was an actor, playing to the crowd opposite, his body half turned so they could all see the bucket of ash swinging in his hand, hovering over our heads. His voice, loud and formal, rang across the road as he announced to everyone: “I am leaving my children with their inheritance.” With that he tipped the bucket upside down, the great cloud of ash getting caught on the wind before much of it settled on our bodies.
“My children,” he said, standing above us with an empty bucket swinging in his hand, “I am not leaving you with cows or property or anything else. This ash is your inheritance. And just as it has been blown away, may you, too, be blown away with your mother!”
I do not know precisely what happened after that. I saw my father’s feet carry him away, heard a truck door slam and three engines cough out their lungs like waking monsters that patrol a small boy’s nightmares. As the vehicles pulled away, his remaining wives and their children began to sing and drum their songs of celebration. They had our property. They had left us behind. They sounded happy.
We, meanwhile, started to weep. All of us—my mother, my three sisters, my two brothers, James and Robert, and I—wept with the pain of humiliation, of fear, of shock. But as the noise of the trucks
and the victorious wives diminished, another noise broke throughour sobs. The onlookers were laughing, cheering, and shouting their own abuses at us.
“Be careful, women: She will steal your own husbands! She’s a bad woman—she cannot be trusted.”
“Their time has come at last! She thought she was so superior all those years.”
“Typical Rwandese. Typical Tutsi: always bringing trouble with them.”
I was too young to understand all of their words, but I knew we were alone now.
My mother had fled neighboring Rwanda some years earlier, escaping the start of what would be a continuing campaign of genocide against her native Tutsi people at the hands of the Hutu. We had no family left to depend on, nowhere left to go. And now that our father had so publicly rejected us, we were utterly and completely alone. We were like dead dogs at the side of the road, devoid of rights, denied dignity, and completely worthless. The only difference was that we were still breathing. But what good was that doing us? In that moment it would have been better had we died right there and then.
Those trucks were carrying whatever was left of my own happiness. I was six years old—old enough to know that, as the oldest male in that heap of wretched bodies, it was my duty to do something to help us get out of the horror. For my father had taught me one lesson as he had brought his stick down fast upon me: When a man is consumed by anger and hatred, he can change the lives of those around him in an instant. Anger can rage like a volcanic eruption.
As our tears fell to the ground, it was as if they turned to blood. If you have ever been to Africa, you will understand what I mean when I say this. The soil in Africa is rich and red, stained by time and struggles. On this day, it was made darker by the tears of a small boy who wished he had enough anger and hatred within him to change the lives of his mother and siblings in an instant.
I wished things would change at that moment. I wished I did not have to look at the feet of the few villagers who remained nearby to watch us in our shame. Those feet seemed to taunt me, with their cracks and scars deeper and broader than my own. They had carried their owners through many struggles over many years. What hope could I have of surviving? What hope did I have of holding on to life? I could not even stay on a truck.
There is a saying that was written down by an African: “Time and bad conditions do not favor beauty.” It is true. For some of us, growing up in Africa has brought suffering and hardship, right up close, time after time. Life has been robbed of its beauty.
Yet is that really so different from the American family that is crippled by debt and held back by too many jobs that pay too little money? Or what about the child from the European inner city who grows up with his nose pressed against the window of privilege and opulence—who sees the cars and the money and the ease of living— and knows he can never achieve such wealth for himself? Africa does not have a monopoly on time and bad conditions, any more than the West has a monopoly on health and happiness. Beauty can be taken from us all.
My father had tried hard to take the beauty out of my life. As we crouched on the roadside, ash in our hair, tears leaving trails though the dust on our faces, we must have looked like the ugliest people on earth. Who would want us? Who would care for us? Who would rescue such miserable people? Surely we had been left to die. We were rejected, abandoned, disowned, and cursed. Our security, our self-worth, and our significance were crushed.
Eventually there were no more tears. We begged the ground to take us right there and then, but it did not. At that moment I wanted to die. I did not want any more of this life where one man could cause so much pain. I wanted the earth to become my tomb
If our lives are seen as stories, then this was the start of the chapter of bitterness that became my staple diet for twenty years. The poverty got worse, hope evaporated, the future was nothing but decay.
But my story did not stay that way forever. It changed beyond all recognition. Everything that was made ugly by pain and anger was turned to beauty by one incredibly simple yet unbelievably revolutionary thing: forgiveness.
These pages that you hold in your hand will show how a boy who begged to die by the side of the road grew to become a man who was able to forgive. These pages will take you and me back to our tombs
and our funerals and ask how God might turn them into maternity wards and celebrations. These pages, I hope, will open your eyes to the change that God Himself has in store for you.
Even today I remember that time at the roadside, beneath the tree, and wonder what God saw. Of course I know He saw our pain and our rejection. He saw the hatred that spilled over from our father and would continue to infect the lives of others in the village. He saw the rapid descent in our fortunes, from a family with a future to a collection of outcasts with no power, no voice, no potential.
But I also think He saw us stay with our mother. He saw us hold on tight to one another, remaining by one another, our tears and cries flowing together. It was a small step, and it did not feel as though there were any other choices on offer, but there is power in unity, power in the family. My father migrated and rejected, abandoned, disowned, and cursed us. But not Jesus. He is a caring God who stays closer than anyone else.
Our time at that tree by the side of the road did not last forever. Soon God brought a kind man to rescue us. Years later He would guide people to bring messages about His steadfast love to us in the midst of other periods of pain. And even after that, as an adult, I would one day descend from a bus at this very spot, my life having changed forever, forgiveness staging its dramatic revolution in every fiber of my body.
In time, everything would be different.
Copyright 2011 Medad Birungi. Tombstones and Banana Trees published by David C Cook. Publisher permission required to reproduce in any way. All rights reserved.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
CFBA Book Spotlight: Shadows on the Sand by Gayle Roper
When Carrie’s dishwasher is killed and her young waitress disappears, Greg finds himself drawn into helping Carrie solve the mysteries … and into her life. But Carrie has a painful past, too, and when the reason she once ran away shows up in town, the fragile relationship she’s built with Greg threatens to implode from the weight of the baggage they both carry. Two wounded hearts struggle to find a way to make one romance work. Failure seems guaranteed when Carrie locates her waitress but is taken hostage...
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
CFBA Book Spotlight: Falls like Lightning by Shawn Grady
Pilot Elle Westmore has been called up to drop the crew into the heart of the forest infernos. A single mother of a mysteriously ill six-year-old, she can't imagine her life getting any more complicated.
It doesn't take long for things to go very wrong, very quickly. A suspicious engine explosion forces Elle to make an emergency landing. Silas is able to parachute to safety but soon discovers his crew can't be trusted. They're hiding something, and now Silas is on a race to save himself and Elle from the flames--and from a more dangerous threat: his own team.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Author on Author Interview Between Kim Wright (Love in Mid Air) and Dawn Tripp (Game of Secrets)
I am so excited to share an interview between two great authors today, Kim Wright, who wrote Love in Mid Air and Dawn Tripp, author of Game of Secrets.
Kim: When I’d just sold my first novel you said something to me that I’ve never forgotten. You said “There are going to be a lot of surprises as you publish. And one of them is that not everyone is going to be happy for you.”
Dawn: I did say that. Not as a warning, but as something to remember. I think people are very aware that there are challenges implicit in writing and selling a book, but not as many realize the challenges of having a book ‘out.’ Those challenges can be mind-bending, yet are oddly divorced from the act and process of writing.
Kim: There’s no way to understand that though until you’ve been through it.
Dawn: No. There isn’t. And sometimes you can’t explain to friends who are still in the writing because they say: “You sold your book. Don’t you know how lucky you are?” And you do know. Of course. On one level, it’s thoroughly true—this is what you wanted and what you still want: your work, the world of your story, out there—you want it read, you want it seen—but at the same time, publishing comes with its own twists and turns. Publishing and writing are two separate things. That distinction is important.
Kim: I had a strong circle of writing friends, but when Love in Mid Air came out I quickly saw that I needed to be able to talk to people who could identify with what I was going through right at that minute. I met a whole group of women online through blogs and on Facebook and we became sort
of a sorority of the recently published. Everyone was telling me I needed these people because writers have to self-promote and network… and God knows, that’s true. But I also needed them to help me deal with the idea I was now a public person – to help me handle those waves of feedback and criticism that can knock you right off balance. 
Dawn: Every book you write will get good reviews and mixed reviews. And every writer has to figure out how to position herself in relationship to that. Are you the kind of writer who can let everything roll off your back? Are you the kind who can read a mixed review and learn from it? Or are you better off not reading any of them—the mixed or the praise?
Kim: My sorority sisters helped me to see that feedback as just part of the process. One time I spoke to the Book Club From Hell. They were so harsh and so personal with their criticism I was absolutely shellshocked. I drove home sobbing and immediately wrote about the experience on Facebook. Within an hour I had responses from over twenty writers, either saying that similar things had happened to them and how they handled it or helping me think of witty comebacks to those awful women – you know, all those great things you can think of to say when a situation is over. The memory of that book club stings to this day, but it helped to know I wasn’t alone.
Dawn: There are definitely writers who recognize that we’re all in this together.
Kim: And that was another surprise for me. Some of the people I thought would be there for me weren’t, just as you’d warned me was possible. But a new circle of friends stepped into that void.
Dawn: I am not as social as you are. But what
I do find about the close writer friends I have is that they remind me, again and again, why I do what I do, why I love it, why it matters. I think it’s easy to lose yourself in the months just before and just after a book comes out. Anyone can tell you: “Publishing is a roller coaster, so buckle your seatbelt, and hang on,” but it takes a certain kind of friend to remind you why you wanted to get on this ride in the first place. At the end of the day, all you really need to do is wake up the next morning, go back to your desk, and write your next book.
Scavenger Hunt for Chosen plus Giveaway!
I am hosting a stop on the fun scavenger hunt for Chosen by Paula Bradley. Please also visit Review from Here.
About the Book:
When Mariah Adele Carpenter attempted to end her own life with a handful of pills, she thought she had left the cares of the world behind. Somehow, her act of self-destruction became one of redemption when a mysterious figure healed her – and set her on a journey that would test her faith, her perceptions and ultimately her sanity in Paula Bradley’s heart-pounding debut novel CHOSEN (Fiction Studio, 2011).
The Excerpt
"Heat immediately spread through her body, accompanied by such serenity that Mariah briefly thought the pills had done their job, and, somehow, she was in heaven. But it was quite the opposite: she felt more alive than ever. Unconsciously, she straightened he legs, every muscle, every tendon, every bone relaxing as her mind began to register a myriad of other sensations."
The Giveaway
Fill out the form below by July 30th for a chance to win one of two copies of Chosen. You must live in the United States or Canada. Winners will be notified by email.
Friday, July 15, 2011
CFBA Book Spotlight: Pattern of Wounds by J. Mark Bertrand
Alienated from his colleagues and with a growing rift in his marriage, March receives messages from the killer. The bodies pile up, the pressure builds, and the violence reaches too close to home. Up against an unfathomable evil, March struggles against the clock to understand the hidden message in the pattern of wounds.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Review: A Need So Beautiful by Suzanne Young
Because life is short, I think a lot of us hope that we will be remembered by the ones we love. The idea that we have a sort of immortality by those whose lives impact our own and the lives we impact gives our own lives a sense of meaning.
I used to volunteer at an assisted living center when I was in college. I would visit one woman in particular. Every visit she'd tell me the same stories from her childhood, the ones that must have shaped who she was as a person more than any other. I only got rare glimpses of her adult life when her sister visited, but her childhood felt as real to me as any story I'd read, really. I still think of her from time to time, she passed on her memories to me, so as long as I live, in a way she lives, too. This is how we achieve a measure of immortality.
What if you could save people and give a great gift to the world, but the cost would be that everyone you loved would forget you? This is the question at the heart of A Need So Beautiful and this conflict is what made this book interesting to me. The idea that we'll be remembered by the people that we love is something we take for granted, but Charlotte is one of The Forgotten. She gets attacks that won't subside unless she completes a mission of helping people. I suppose in a way she's like an angel, but I this is an invented mythology. There's no God, just The Forgotten, Seers (the only people who remember The Forgotten) and Shadows--the Forgotten who have chosen not to fulfill their destiny.
I won't go into too much more detail but A Need So Beautiful is a very readable book about a girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders. It's about sacrifice and doing the right thing and love. And while I thought Harlin (her boyfriend) was a touch too perfect, and some of the transformation she underwent a bit gross, I enjoyed reading this book and contemplating the importance of memory and creating memories and living in the present while reading this book. A YA paranormal with an interesting premise that helps it stand out a bit from the crowd.
Rating: 4/5
Things You Might Want to Know: Some sex? Maybe a little profanity
Source of Book: ARC picked up at ALA Midwinter
Publisher: Balzar+Bray (Harper Collins)
Guest Review: Recovering Ramona by Kristin Russell
I'm happy to welcome my friend Stephen Lamb with his review of Kristin Russell's Recovering Ramona. Check out his blog for more thought provoking posts and follow him on Twitter.
The ad copy for Kristin Russell’s debut novel reads as follows: “Recovering Ramona is a road trip through one woman’s quest to find answers to her past so she can move forward with her future. Claudia Nichols discovers many indelible things along the winding path about family, the power of music, and the importance of forgiveness.” While that works as a suitable description of the book, I think it fails to capture what actually makes the book worth reading, or at least, why I enjoyed the book so much. For the past year or so, I’ve followed Kristin’s journey to publication as she finished writing her first novel, found an agent, didn’t find a publisher, and, in the end, decided to self-publish through 12th South Press, named after the Nashville neighborhood in which she lives and works as a hairstylist.
Kristin is the daughter of a pastor. Like many of us who were raised in the church, especially, I’d imagine, pastors' kids, Kristin went through a period in her teens and twenties attempting to make sense of her identity, trying to figure out who she was apart from her parents and her childhood where everything revolved around church. In fact, one of the best posts on her blog, Hair in My Coffee, deals with just this issue. In that light, knowing that Kristin is a PK - pastor’s kid, for the uninformed - helped the story make even more sense to me, especially looking at the dialogue about religion that Claudia, the main character, has with her mother, whom Claudia describes as a “religious nut,” always trying to quote a Bible verse or insert a prayer into every part of the day. The last thing I want to do here is make it sound like Kristin’s novel, a work of fiction, is a thinly-disguised autobiographical work, or, even more egregiously, super-impose my own memories of growing up onto her story, defining it in that way. But isn’t that part of why we love the stories we love? Because they tell us something about ourselves, because we see ourselves in them?
We learn, right at the start of the story, that Claudia uses music to make sense of her life - she has a stack of mix CDs in her car, a ready soundtrack for any mood she finds herself in, and has a habit of mentally singing along to a favorite song anytime she doesn’t want to engage with those around her. Gradually, it dawns on the reader that music fills the same roll in Claudia’s life that religion does for her mother. Like in any good story, this realization of how much we are all alike elicits empathy, empathy that in our better moments, carries over to our daily life, causing us to look at our neighbors differently, and maybe even to see our own family in a different light.
As a lover of food and of cooking, some of my favorite passages in Recovering Ramona revolve around the meals prepared by Claudia and Kate, the “good Samaritan” who rescues Claudia and her mother and invites them into her home in a time of need. But the best passage in the book, I think, is found after Kate has taken them to a special place in Joshua Tree that only the locals know about, a private oasis, so I’ll close by quoting it, mindful of the way it serves as a perfect example of what I wrote earlier, one reason I loved Kristin's story so much:
They finished the sandwiches. It was quiet, except for the bubbling of the spring. Kate hummed a low melody, and then sang the words, “Well I’ve been where you’re hanging and I think I can see how you’re pinned, Yeah, when you’re not feeling holy, your loneliness tells that you’ve sinned.”
“What song is that?” Maryanne asked Kate.
Claudia mumbled the answer without thinking, “Sisters of Mercy’, by Leonard Cohen.”
“That’s right,” Kate said. “One of my favorites of his.”
“You got that from your father,” Maryanne said to Claudia. “A great memory for music.”
“Songs are how I learned the meaning of words,” Claudia said. “Some of them, anyway.”
“I remembered something, sitting here - a Bible verse.” Maryanne said.
Of course. When does she not think of a Bible verse.
“It’s from Isaiah. I can’t remember the chapter. ‘Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See! I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.’ It seems fitting for this place, doesn’t it?”
Kate nodded her head and put her hands in prayer position under her chin. “Beautiful, Maryanne. Thank you.”
Claudia sat and thought about the words, and how critical she was of everything that came out of her mother’s mouth - how she couldn’t listen without already assuming it would be bogus. If Kate had said the same thing, Claudia would have exclaimed the verse’s profundity. But because it came from her mother, and the Bible, she instinctively dismissed it as trite.
...
On the way back to the truck, they walked in silence, like three nuns and a dog leaving mass.
Recovering Ramona can be found on Kristin’s website or at Amazon.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
CFBA Book Spotlight: Vigilante by Robin Parrish
Nolan decides to do what no one else can, what no one has ever attempted. He will defend the helpless. He will tear down the wicked. He will wage a one-man war on the heart of man, and he won't stop until the world is the way it should be.
The wicked have had their day. Morality's time has come. In a culture starving for a hero, can one extraordinary man make things right?
A Writer Faces the Strange New World of Books by Pam Jenoff
I emerged in 2011 from something of a bubble. Sure, I’d continued to publish a novel each year since my debut with The Kommandant’s Girl in 2007, but I did so in the blur of having one wedding, three babies, two house moves, two changes in the day job…you get the idea.
When I came back out into the world, I was wholly unprepared for the brave new world of book publishing. All the old measures of a book’s potential and actual success were gone or greatly diminished in importance. A sizeable print run? Much smaller now with e-books. My beloved Quill Awards, for which my first novel had once been nominated? They no longer exist. Author appearances at Book Expo and regional trade shows? Seemingly less important. Borders was on life-support. Still other questions persisted: Does co-op (the space in the front of the bookstore where new releases are displayed) still matter if everyone is buying e-books? What about the pre-publication reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus? I felt like Ichabod Crane waking up years later to find the world as he’d known it had disappeared while he slept. Except in this brave new world, we all seem to be Crane -- kinda clueless and trying to figure out the rules of an ever-changing game while the pieces continue to move beneath out feet.
As I began to study the book business in earnest in preparation for my latest, The Things We Cherished, one certain trend began to emerge: the empowerment of the reader. With so many writers self-publishing, the publishers seem less in control. There are endless avenues for authors to reach out directly to readers, diminishing the importance of traditional conduits such as the media. And it sure isn’t about the brick and mortar stores. No, it’s the readers, driving the online communities by the many thousands, using the new media to promote the books they love by word of mouth. The reader is king (or queen) and not just the readers with the big blogs. Everybody’s voice can be heard and I love it.
At the same time, I find it rather confusing. There are a million books, self published and traditional. There are also dozens of sites beyond Goodreads and Librarything and as I post the same content over again on each site I cannot help but wonder if I’m reaching anyone new or just the same folks on multiple pages. And more importantly am I reaching anyone deeper? I’ve heard of some towns and cities having “One community, one book” reading programs. Can’t we have one site for readers and writers to meet and really talk? Or maybe not, since the online reading communities are diverse as the readers themselves.
And with all of the changes, some of the old questions persist. Just like when I sat down with those book clubs years ago (usually by skype these days) whether they want to hear about the book or about me, or maybe just have me hear about themselves and their reactions to my work.
So I turn the question back to you, dear readers: How best to reach you? And what do you want to hear from us?
Pam Jenoff is the author The Things We Cherished an ambitious novel that spans decades and continents, The Things We Cherished tells the story of Charlotte Gold and Jack Harrington, two fiercely independent attoreys who find themselves slowly falling for one another while working to defend the brother of a Holocaust hero against allegations of World War II–era war crimes.
The defendant, wealthy financier Roger Dykmans, mysteriously refuses to help in his own defense, revealing only that proof of his innocence lies within an intricate timepiece last seen in Nazi Germany. As the narrative moves from Philadelphia to Germany, Poland, and Italy, we are given glimpses of the lives that the anniversary clock has touched over the past century, and learn about the love affair that turned a brother into a traitor.
Rich in historical detail, Jenoff’s astonishing new work is a testament to true love under the worst of circumstances.
You can learn more about her on her website.
Monday, July 11, 2011
FIRST: Saints Preserved: An Encyclopedia of Relics by Thomas Craughwell
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
and the book:
Saints Preserved: An Encyclopedia of Relics
Image (July 12, 2011)
THOMAS J. CRAUGHWELL is the author of Saints Behaving Badly, Urban Legends, Alligators in the Sewer and 222 Other Urban Legends, Saints for Every Occasion: 101 of Heaven's Most Powerful Patrons, and Do Blue Bedsheets Bring Babies? Every month he writes a column on patron saints for Catholic diocesan newspapers. In addition, he has written about saints for the Wall Street Journal, St. Anthony Messenger, and Catholic Digest and has discussed saints on CNN and EWTN. His book Stealing Lincoln's Body was made into a two-hour documentary on the History Channel.Visit the author's website.
In Saints Preserved: An Encyclopedia of Relics, author Thomas Craughwell takes us on an exhilarating journey through the life and death of over three hundred saints and enlightens us about the bits and pieces that were left behind (for example, a finger or a lock of hair) that are honored and revered by Catholics around the world.
Product Details:
List Price: $16.00
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Image (July 12, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307590739
ISBN-13: 978-0307590732
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Anyone who thinks that the cult of relics of the saints is itself a relic of the Middle Ages should log on to eBay. On any day of the week the online shopper will find a thriving business in the sale of relics, ranging from dust from the tomb of Christ to splinters of the True Cross to bone fragments of countless saints.
Among the faithful relics have an enormous appeal. In 1999-2000, when relics of St. Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897), popularly known as the Little Flower, traveled across the United States, millions turned out to touch or kiss the reliquary. The scene was repeated in 2003 when a tiny fragment of the cloak that bears the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was carried from parish to parish throughout the country.
Believers will go out of their way to see famous relics. An online search of Catholic travel companies turns up dozens of itineraries designed specifically to visit churches that exhibit renowned relics, such as the incorrupt body of St. Bernadette in her convent’s chapel in Nevers, France, and the basilica in Padua, Italy, where St. Anthony lies buried.
Though many of the most famous relics like [give a couple more examples] are associated with saints, relics are not limited to the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Buddhists venerates teeth of the Buddha; Islam venerates the sword, the robe, and even strands from the beard of Mohammed. In ancient times, when a farmer or an excavation crew unearthed dinosaur bones, the Greeks and Romans took them for the remains of the Titans, or a legendary hero such as Theseus.
Even secular society prizes relics: at the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois, I saw crowds press around a display case that contained the gloves Mary Todd Lincoln wore to Ford’s Theater, stained with the blood of her assassinated husband. No doubt morbid curiosity played a part, but I believe the desire to see Mary Lincoln’s blood-stained gloves represents something deeper—the longing to have a physical connection with one of the greatest men, and one of the most tragic moments, in American history. It is that same longing to connect on a physical and not just a spiritual level that draws the faithful to the tombs of the saints, the houses where they lived, the altars before which they prayed, even the prisons where they were tortured.
In the Catholic Church relics fall into one of three categories: a first class relic is the physical remains of a saint such as bones, hair, and blood; a second class relic is the personal possessions of a saint, such as clothing, devotional objects, handwritten letters, even furniture; and a third class relic is an object, such a cloth or a holy card, that is touched to first class relic.
Reverence for the remains and belongings of saints is rooted in Sacred Scripture. In 2 Kings 13:20-21 we read of a dead man being restored to life after his corpse touched the bones of the prophet Elisha. In Mark’s gospel we find the story of a woman who suffered from a hemorrhage for twelve years and was cured when she touched the hem of Christ’s garment (Mark 5:25-34). And the Acts of the Apostles recounts how Christians touched handkerchiefs and other cloths to the body of St. Paul; when these cloths were given to the sick or the possessed, “diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them” (Acts 19:11-12).
Even in times of persecution the early Christians made an earnest effort to recover the remains of the martyrs so they could be given a proper burial and their martyrdom commemorated annually with Mass celebrated at their tombs. A letter from about the year 156 A.D. describes the martyrdom of the elderly bishop of Smyrna, St. Polycarp. His body had been burned, but the Christians of Smyrna searched among the ashes for any trace of the saint that had not been consumed by the flames. “We took up his bones,” the anonymous author of the letter wrote, “which are more valuable than precious stones and finer than refined gold, and laid them in a suitable place, where the Lord will permit us to gather ourselves together, as we are able, in gladness and joy, and to celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom.”
After Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire, great basilicas were built over the tombs of St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Lawrence, to name only a few. In 386 St. Ambrose discovered the relics of the proto-martyrs of Milan, Sts. Gervase and Protase, and had them enshrined in his church where the faithful could venerate the relics and ask for the martyrs’ intercession. In the City of God, Book 22, St. Augustine bears witness to the many miracles that were wrought by the newly discovered relics of St. Stephen. In Tibilis, during a procession with a relic of the proto-martyr, “a blind woman entreated that she might be led to the bishop who was carrying the relics. He gave her the flowers he was carrying. She took them, applied them to her eyes, and immediately saw.”
There was always the danger, of course, that some Christians in their enthusiasm might treat the saints as if they were little gods and the relics as if they were magical. St. Jerome, in his letter to Riparius, writes of the proper veneration of saints and relics, “We do not worship, we do not adore [saints], for fear that we should bow down to the creature rather than to the Creator, but we venerate the relics of the martyrs in order the better to adore Him whose martyrs they are.”
During the Middle Ages a pilgrimage to a shrine was a popular expression of religious devotion as well as a kind of vacation or road trip. Journeys to the Holy Land, Rome, or Compostela in Spain could be dangerous (St. Bridget of Sweden was shipwrecked on her pilgrimage to Jerusalem), but there were many shrines closer to home where one could venerate relics. Cathedrals, monasteries, and convents began to build up impressive relic collections, the better to attract throngs of pilgrims. Pilgrims were an important asset to local economies: they needed food and lodging, they would make gifts to the church, they would purchase a badge, a holy card, or some other souvenir to recall their journey. In time, aristocrats began to amass private relic collections to which they gave the public access on certain days of the year. In Wittenberg Frederick the Wise kept his collection of thousands of relics in the Wittenberg Castle Church. It was on the door of that church in 1517 that Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses, an early step in the religious revolution known as the Protestant Reformation.
The Protestants reformers attacked the veneration of relics, but the Catholic bishops at the Council of Trent responded by explaining and defending the practice, saying, “The holy bodies of holy martyrs and of others now living with Christ—which bodies were the living members of Christ and 'the temple of the Holy Ghost' (1 Corinthians 6:19) and which are by Him to be raised to eternal life and to be glorified are to be venerated by the faithful, for through these [bodies] many benefits are bestowed by God on men.” Nonetheless, during the Reformation period vandals smashed countless shrines, burning or otherwise destroying the relics they contained. In Lutheran Scandinavia such violence was rare; typically the relics of a saint were removed from its shrine and buried in an unmarked grave in the same church. As a result, the relics of St. Bridget and her daughter St. Catherine of Sweden, as well as the relics of the martyred king St. Eric, have survived. In England, Scotland, and Wales the reformers destroyed almost every shrine, but in recent years some Anglican bishops have attempted to restore the shrines in their cathedrals. In Winchester Cathedral for example, a small contemporary shrine marks the spot where the shrine of St. Swithun stood during the Middle Ages. The shrine is empty, all of the saints’ bones were destroyed during the Reformation. But at St. Alban’s Abbey a bone of the martyr lies within the new shrine, the gift of the Catholic archbishop of Cologne who had a relic of St. Alban in one of the churches of his archdiocese.
As a rough estimate, the Catholic Church venerates about 40,000 saints. Most of these are local holy men, women, and children, virtually unknown outside the region where they lived and died. To try to catalogue the location of the relics of all of these saints would require the labor of several lifetimes. And to track down the tiny fragments of saints’ bones, the snippets from saints’ clothing, would be impossible. So I have been obliged to narrow my focus. This volume contains approximately 350 entries of the Catholic world’s most important, interesting, unusual, or rare relics. Most but not all of the entries describe the relics of saints. I have included Old Testament relics such Noah’s Ark and the Ark of the Covenant (said to be hidden in a church in Ethiopia); Holy Land relics such as the house where Jesus, Mary and Joseph lived and the stairs from Pontius Pilate’s palace; relics of Jesus Christ, including the Manger, the True Cross, the Shroud of Turin, the Crown of Thorns, Veronica’s Veil, the Pillar of the Scourging, and the Holy Sepulcher; relics of the Virgin Mary such as her veil (at Chartres Cathedral), her portrait (Poland’s Black Madonna and Mexico’s Our Lady of Guadalupe), and in her belt (at Prato Cathedral). For easy reference, the book is arranged in an A-to-Z format. Each entry includes the location of the relic, it history, a brief biography in the case of a saint, and the feast day.
The relics of all saints and blessed of the United States (current at time of this book’s publication date) are included, as well as the relics of many saints and blesseds of Canada and Latin America. I have also included entries for the two largest relic collections in America, Maria Stein in Ohio and St. Anthony’s Chapel in Pittsburgh.
Every year Maria Stein and St. Anthony’s Chapel welcome many visitors, who tend to be an amalgam of the devout and the curious. Probably very few have the level of enthusiasm for relics their ancestors knew during the Middle Ages, when monasteries, convents, cathedrals, and even nobles and kings succumbed to a kind relic-collecting mania. The craving to possess an important, even an exceptional relic, led to all types of abuses, from theft, to relic peddling, to the manufacture of bogus relics—hence the multiple heads of St. John the Baptist. Sadly, some churches claimed to possess relics that were spurious at best and at worst sacrilegious—a feather of the Holy Sprit, for example, or the shield of St. Michael the Archangel. Such “relics” I have not included. In most cases the churches that possessed these items disposed of them or retired them long ago.
Nonetheless, some of the relics included in this book may raise eyebrows. It is true that not all relics that are still publicly venerated can be authenticated with one hundred percent certainty. But if these relics are well-known and the church that possesses them has not put them away, I felt that they ought to be included here.
Every Catholic church and chapel contains at least one relic—it is a requirement of the Church under what is known as canon law that every altar consecrated for the celebration of Mass must contain the relic of at least one saint, preferably a martyr. This requirement links even the most contemporary church with the earliest practice of the Church, when priests offered Mass using the sarcophagus of a martyr as the altar. In addition to the fragmentary relic in the altar, most churches possess other relics, which are sometimes brought out for veneration on a saint’s feast day. On a recent Good Friday it was my privilege to venerate a relic of the True Cross—one of the treasures of the Church of St. John the Evangelist in Stamford, Connecticut.
In some cases years after a saint’s death, his or her grave was opened and the body found to be in a remarkable state of preservation. Generally speaking, the term applied in such a case is “incorruptible.” However, incorruptibility is often in the eye of the beholder. Gazing upon the bodies of some of these saints, the terms “mummified,” “embalmed,” or “desiccated” may also come to mind. The body of St. Bernadette is usually described as incorrupt, and her face is exquisitely beautifully. But the case becomes more complicated when one learns that the saint’s actual face has darkened over time, and so it has been covered with an lovely, utterly lifelike wax mask. The translation of the body of Blessed Pope John XXIII from his sarcophagus in the grottoes beneath St. Peter’s into a side chapel of the basilica set off a debate whether his body was supernaturally incorrupt, whether it had been embalmed at the time of his death. The question has never been resolved definitively. It is possible that Blessed Pope John’s body is so well-preserved because it had been enclosed inside three coffins, and then sealed in a stone sarcophagus.
No one should feel uneasy visiting a shrine or venerating a relic. In many respects it is similar to visiting the grave of a beloved member of the family, or cherishing a family heirloom—but on a much higher level. The shrine or relic is a physical link with someone who was so faithful to God in this life that he or she is now glorified in the Kingdom of God forever. Bringing out Grandma’s china for Christmas dinner stirs the emotions and makes us feel connected once again to someone we loved but who has since died. Relics work in the same way, but more intensely because in the case of sacred relics the connection is not only to someone we love, but to someone who was genuinely holy.
The Aachen Relics (1st century). According to Charlemagne’s biographer, Einhard, in 800 the patriarch of Jerusalem sent a monk to Aachen with four extraordinary relics for the newly crowned Holy Roman Emperor: the dress the Blessed Virgin Mary wore when she gave birth to Jesus Christ; the Infant Jesus’ swaddling clothes; the loincloth Christ wore as he hung upon the cross; and a towel in which was wrapped the head of St. John the Baptist. All four relics are kept in a golden chest that was made for them in 1238; the reliquary is on display in the Treasury of Aachen, Germany’s Cathedral of St. Mary. Once every seven years the relics are exposed for public veneration—the next exposition will be held in 2014.
Aachen’s Kornelimunster, or Church of St. Cornelius, has three precious relics: the cloth Christ tied around his waist when he washed the feet of his apostles at the Last Supper; the shroud in which St. Joseph of Arimathea wrapped the body of Jesus for burial (this is a different shroud than the much more famous Shroud of Turin); and the sudarium, or cloth that was laid over the face of Jesus at the time of his burial.
St. Afra (died 304). The bones of St. Afra are preserved in a simple stone sarcophagus in the crypt of the Basilica of St. Ulrich and St. Afra in Augsburg, Germany. The church is an important historic site: in 1555 the Peace of Augsburg was signed here, putting an end to religious warfare in Germany and establishing the right of individual princes to choose if they would be Catholic or Lutheran. The basilica is split between the Catholic half dedicated to St. Afra and the Lutheran half dedicated to St. Ulrich.
Before her conversion to Christianity Afra had been a prostitute in Augsburg’s temple of Venus. During Emperor Diocletian’s persecution of the Church she was arrested. “You were a prostitute,” the judge reminded her. “The God of the Christians will reject you.”
“Not so,” Afra replied. “Jesus Christ forgave the adulterous woman because her repentance was sincere. And he will forgive me, too.”
The judge sentenced Afra to be suffocated. Guards took her to an island in the middle of the Lech River, bound her to a stake, and built a large smoky fire around her. She choked to death in the fumes.
St. Afra is the patron saint of converts and is one of the patron saints of Augsburg. Feast day: August 7.