entourage

"What have you read?" The question is not "what have you read?" but "what are you reading?"

I have a friend who always finishes one book before starting another. He even finishes one book before he BUYS another. I could never live like this. For me, this would be akin to going through my whole day only talking to one person; in the case of a long book, a whole month in the company of only one.

I have another friend who says she doesn't feel like she has really ready anything because she has 20 unfinished things. I don't agree with this, either, because it makes reading and books some kind of to-do list: I don't have to finish something for it to mean anything. For me, books are living things that walk with me, drawing me into a deeper reality.

So each day, I actually have this invisible entourage of authors and ideas going along with me. You don't put friends and mentors on a to-do list, and what kind of entourage only has one person?

Of course, the Red Beacon of Crazy flashes when you tell people, "I don't read. I have an entourage."

Nonetheless, here is my entourage for this month:

Orthodoxy--G.K. Chesterton
Real Christianity--William Wilberforce
Velvet Elvis--Rob Bell
Liberty, Equality, and Power-- Murrin, Johnson, et al.
Letters from London--Julian Barnes
A Long Way Down--Nick Hornby
The Metaphysical Poets--Penguin Classics
New Poems on the Underground
Jane Eyre--Charlotte Bronte. (Actually, this one has been walking with me for a decade. It is my favorite book. I am always reading it just a little bit.)