2008: Year of Non Fiction

I have been a reader my entire life. I love escaping into other worlds, getting glimpses of how people live, think, love. I love ingesting the artful, delicious language of writers, allowing their words to transport me across time and space. I love being a part of the creation of new worlds, partly based in reality but focused on the characters' specific needs.
I have always been a fiction reader.

As I spend more time with non-fiction texts, however, I am learning how they can serve the same purpose. They are telling a story; they are creating a world for me to enter into.

My reading goal for 2008 is to read 15 works of non-fiction.

• Pankaj Mishra's An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World
• "I wholeheartedly recommend the two books by David Hilfiker that find reference in this program: Urban Injustice: How Ghettos Happen is an extended version of his early booklet that caught my imagination. It has a long and helpful bibliography in addition to all the information it contains. Not All of Us Are Saints: A Doctor's Journey with the Poor is an eloquent and moving account of his family's experiences. "
• 
  
  Memories of God: Theological Reflections on a Life Roberta C. Bondi Abingdon Press, 1995 ISBN: 0687038928
  
  To Pray and to Love: Conversations on Prayer with the Early Church Roberta C. Bondi Augsburg Fortress, 1991 ISBN: 0800625110

I learned of these from Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett, my favorite public radio show!

I want to choose works that will make me uncomfortable, works that will force me to enter into the worlds of those who are suffering. I want books that will strengthen me and give me guidance on my path. I want books that will challenge me--challenge me to work harder, be better, do better, live better. I want books that show me the world, not through the beauty of a created person and landscape, but through the beauty and ugly of the world already created by God.