3 books

Good books move you. Shake you. Linger.

This month - after a very long time - I have been able to read 3.

Each one of them valuable in their own way.

To start with one that we have been reading together as a couple for some time now - This Momentary Marriage by John Piper. Meaty. Grace-filled. I have come back to it again and again. The exerpts from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's letters from Prison itself is worth the price of the book - and to think that Piper is letting us have it as a free download! This month saw me dig deep into this book while teaching on marriage for couples and mature singles at the JSK Family Bible Camp, as well as holding a special session for marrieds at the Nav Jivan Hospital where we used to serve in Jharkhand. This one is a keeper - a paradigm shifter.

Andi with HIV positive couples at the JSK Family Bible camp - Sheba was taking a concurrent session for widows.

Next up is Don't Ask Any Old Bloke for Directions by P.G. Tenzing. A Sikkimese gent, PG was part of the brightest and the best who make up our premier civil service - the IAS. After serving in Kerala for 20 years he handed in his papers at the ripe young age of 43, bought an Enfield Motorcycle (made by Eicher motors no less) and zoomed across India for a year. The book is his diary. Pithy. Hedonistic. Boozy. Sardonic. Hilarious at times. Tenzing has a wicked wit - and skewers friends and foes alike. Curiously, the portion about us (he dropped by Thane 2 years ago - see here) and his visit to his cousin Dr. Chering at the venerable Nav Jivan Hospital are among the kindest and tamest parts of the book. At the end of the book, however, I felt bit hollow. Tenzing's desire to break free somehow doesn't take him farther than the ubiquitous IAS pals who lurk around every corner. Having just been for a week as a family with his hilarious and totally driven cousin Chering, I felt that the whimsy could have been replaced with meat. Tenzing talks about twice cheating death in his book. His journey is clearly not over.

Finally A Leg to Stand On, by Oliver Sacks. I had to smile when I noticed that the Picador paperback edition had misspelled the author as 'Olivers Sacks' on the spine. The book was gripping. Magical. Sacks recounts how he had survived a terrible knee injury in Norway - and was then medivacked to London for surgery - only to find that his leg has 'dissappeared' - that while he saw some obscene object grafted onto him - that his real leg was gone. As a neurologist, to be a patient - and then to experience the shock of losing the body image of his leg - and then amazingly regain it fully - was a humbling and ennobling experience. Reading about what it feels like for a doctor to be a patient - and the road to recovery was delicious. Sacks writes with empathy and a beauty that verges on the ethereal - all reasons for me devouring this book. Here we were in Jharkhand - but through the pages I was able to explore multiple worlds - something that every great book allows.

What books drive you? I always find that finding out what a person is reading now - and their reactions to the books - gives a pretty good picture of where they are growing.