Spiritually Speaking Challenge

I like to seek and explore. My favorite area to do just that is the spiritual realm of our lives. Therefore, I have decided to turn it into a challenge. Why not! The rules of the challenge are:

1. Read 6 books from January 31st, 2009 to June 30th, 2009.
2. The main theme of all the titles you choose must be spiritual, metaphysical or self-help.
3. The books can be both fiction & non-fiction.
4. You don't have to have a blog to participate* (read up for a small amendment)
5. A new copy of 'Happiness is a Choice' by Barry Neil Kaufman will be raffled away at the
end of the challenge among the participants. You don't have to do anything special, just have
fun! And let's fate decide who gets the prize.

To give you an idea of what books are allowed in the challenge, I am posting my list:

1.'The Witch of Portobello' by Paulo Coehlo (fiction)

2. 'The Last Lecture' by Randy Pausch (non-fiction)

3. 'Color Me Butterfly' by L.Y. Marlow (non-fiction)

4. 'Autobiography of a Yogi' by Paramahansa Yogananda (non-fiction)

5. 'Blessed Are The Meek' by Zofia Kossak (fiction)

6. 'Such A Pretty Fat' by Jen Lancaster

7. Elijah's Coin by Steve O'Brien

For the Love of Reading!

I have always loved reading and books. I make a distinction here as it is possible to just own books without having read them yet and just look at them and give a sigh of pleasure and content that they are yours, feel a stirring in your heart at the thought of so many secret worlds waiting to be journeyed through, so many beautiful stories to live through and the abundance of words, beautiful, tricky, sometimes tongue twisting words to learn, rediscover their meanings and just enjoy them.
My love for books is unconditional, non-discriminatory, I love them one and all. And then I read them and I realize that they love me back. They give back the love I have for them. How is it possible? Well, reading is my therapy. And I do not use this word lightly. In my short to medium length life, I have gone through many therapies, I have suffered many bouts of two crippling mental illnesses (one is depression, the other I will not mention for there is still too much stigma attached to it in my opinion) and I know I will suffer many more. I know today that reading has gotten me through all of that. When nothing else worked I would read. When the outside world was too much, I read. When I thought I would go irreparably insane I escaped into reading. Books gave me, over and over again, what the real world couldn’t give, books were to me what the real people couldn’t be. And then what a blessing! After having suffered destructive episodes, I would go back to the normal world and discover that I could read books for the sheer pleasure of it.
Yes, books and reading were and will still be my saviors. I owe much to them, they owe me nothing and yet they still keep giving.

What's In a Name-2

That was fun, looking for the titles and a challenge in itself already:

1. 'Captain Alatriste' by Arturo Perez-Reverte ('profession' in the title)
2. 'Night Work' by Steve Hamilton (time of day)
3. 'Father Melancholy's Daughter by Gail Godwin (a relative)
4. 'The Fourth Hand' by John Irving (a body part)
5. 'House of Sand and Fog' by Andre Dubus III (a building)
6. The Plague' by Albert Camus (a medical condition)

Well-Seasoned Reader Challenge

Here are the titles:

1. 'Chocolat' by Joanne Harris (food name in the title)
2. 'Andorra' by Peter Cameron (place name in the title)
3. 'Reading Lolita in Tehran' by Azar Nafisi (about a specific culture and/or author whose
ethnicity is different from mine)

'Road To Cana' by Anne Rice

I have just finished reading Anne Rice’s second installment on the life of Jesus Christ, ‘Road to Cana’ and I must say I have mixed feelings on this one. The only reason I read it was because someone lent it to me saying that it was a great book and I absolutely had to read it. Since I am not the assertive type, I have problems with saying no to people I took the book and read it.
The premise of the book is admittedly a difficult one to grasp and to draw considerable readership at the same time. It is a religious novel, it is about God and His Son, and one thing I personally am grateful for, being a Christian, is that it was not blasphemous in any way. However, the writing style of Anne Rice did not appeal to me as much as it did while reading ‘The Witching Hour’. It somehow felt lacking and it isn’t even something specific I could put my finger on. The novel was maybe a little too short, it felt at times that the author just wanted to breeze through the life of Christ without really getting too deep into anything. The story is told in first person, that person happens to be Jesus and it was interesting to look at His life from His perspective. The things I did enjoy were the portrayal of Jesus as a human being, a person who didn’t quite grasp Himself who He really was and the success of Rice to show how Christ was at the same time just like everybody else, had the same temptations and emotions yet He was different without even trying to be from the very beginning.
All and all, I would recommend this book to people who believe in God, in Jesus, to people who are looking for a spiritual uplift. However, the agnostics and atheists, the skeptics and non-believers will most likely not fall in love with this novel.