All posts in Nonfiction

George Whitefield: Evangelist for God and Empire Paints a Realistic Portrait

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

I recently was given a copy of George Whitefield: Evangelist for God and Empire, written by Peter Y. Choi.  Like a lot of people who know a lot about the history of the American colonies or of religious history, I knew who George Whitefield (pronounce WIT-field) was.  Whitefield is often portrayed as a preacher who played a huge part in the Great Awakening.  He’s often painted as a saint.  This book seems to paint a more balanced portrait of the preacher.

George Whitefield:  Evangelist for God and Empire tells of the life of Whitefield, not just as a preacher, but as someone who also was a flawed individual, like all of us.  Yes, he preached to the masses during the Great Awakening, but he also owned slaves, had questionable practices with regards to his orphanage, tried to found a college, and involved himself in politics during the War of 1812.

Even though I knew some things about Whitefield before reading this book, there was a lot more to this book that I didn’t know.  Although a lot of things in this book (looking from a 21st century perspective) were not good, like pushing for slavery in Georgia, it was good to learn about these other aspects of his life as well.

The book was a fairly scholarly book, so it wasn’t one that I could read straight through.  It wasn’t a book that I couldn’t put down, and I did read a few other books while I was working on this one, but the information in this book was interesting.  The book is worth reading if you want to learn more about this preacher.

I realize that there have been several non-YA book reviews over the last week and a half, and unfortunately, that’s just how it worked out… I really couldn’t move the dates of my reviews because I wanted the ARCs to get out in a timely manner, and I also wanted to keep my upcoming Throne of Glass and Red Queen reviews together.  On Thursday, we will resume our normal YA reviews with Strange the Dreamer.

Friction Won’t Rub Your Business the Wrong Way

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

I was at the library the other day and I picked up Friction: Passion Brands in the Age of Disruption.  I remember Glenn Beck talking about it a year ago.  At the time, it seemed like a book for larger companies with physical products, but it looked like a quick read, so I picked it up.  If you are a small business owner, I recommend you pick it up.  It’s not just for big businesses.  It’s for bloggers too.

I’ve been writing on the internet since college (and earning money from my writing for almost as long), but I still don’t earn enough to equal my pay at Walmart.  It doesn’t help that some of the places that I used to write for no longer exist, so that money is gone.  At least personal blogs don’t go away unless you want them too.  Anyway, I always feel that I can be more successful at what I’m doing.  Friction actually has pretty good advice for small businesses like bloggers.

One of the main premises of the book is this: people don’t like commercials.  Do you ever pay attention to banner ads?  Do your eyes glaze over like mine when you scroll past sponsored Tweets and Facebook posts?  I thought so.  Getting the word out about your product today is a lot different than it was 10, 15 years ago.

People like getting value for their time.  They don’t want to watch commercials.  They want personalized content.  They don’t like popup ads.  Removing the “friction” from a user’s experience will cause people to want to come back.  This is good advice, whether you are running a physical business where you want to make it easier for people to shop at your store, or if you’re running a blog and you’re hoping that people will want to come back.

The book is really easy to read.  I read it in a few hours.  The type is big and there are a lot of pictures.  Even though it’s not a densely packed book, it will get you to think, what can I do to reduce friction with my customers/readers/etc.?  That question that you will walk away with is probably the most important part of the book.

Whatever your business goals are, Friction is a helpful book to read.

My Mother, Barack Obama, and the USA

By Brookelorren on 4 Comments

My Mother Barack Obama coverAbout a month ago, I received an advanced review copy of Kevin Powell’s My Mother, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and the Last Stand of the Angry White Man.  It’s a long title for a book that’s only 281 pages long.  I think I won it in a contest.

For a book like this, it’s probably important to know a little bit about my political thoughts, because it might shape my perception of this book.  I’m a conservative libertarian.  While I think that Donald Trump’s policies have been a mixed bag, as a person, I think that he is an adulterous, racist, sexist, compulsively-lying braggart; I don’t like him as a person at all, and didn’t vote for him (I voted for Darrell Castle).

I didn’t know how I would feel about this book when I entered the contest to win it; however, I believe in listening to the opinions of others.  How are you going to learn if you live in a bubble and only read books by people that agree with you?  Nevertheless, I did find this to be an enjoyable book, even though I don’t agree with him on several issues.

This book is a collection of essays written by Kevin Powell over a period of several years.  It covers a variety of topics, including racism, sexism, music, and sports.  Evidently, Mr. Powell is a former cast member of The Real World, as well as a staff member of Vibe magazine.  I didn’t know that when I started the book, but I guess some people may recognize him from those sources.

I found this book an interesting view into another person’s thoughts.  I’ve never been the victim of sexual harassment before, but his mother has, and he speaks about her experiences, and about the experiences that he had, growing up and thinking that sexual harassment and domination was a normal thing.  His thoughts on racism from the perspective of a black man growing up in the ghetto was also interesting (my husband is also black and grew up in a poor neighborhood with a single mother as well, but his experiences were quite different).  His essays on music brought back memories.

I rated this book more highly on Goodreads than I did Harbor Me, which I reviewed last week.  They both cover similar topics, but I think that My Mother, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and the Last Stand of the Angry White Man did a better job covering the subjects than Harbor Me did.  Of course, this is a collection of essays, while Woodson’s Book is a fictional Middle Grade book, but I think that this book just seemed to work better.

Powell’s unique perspective did cause me to see things from a different perspective.  Although I don’t agree with him on everything, I can understand how he feels about the political situation that the United States finds itself in today.  I felt for his mother, who was abandoned by her baby’s daddy years ago, and never really found love in her life.  As I read about his mom and how he one day discovered how old she had gotten, I had to call my mom (I talked to my parents for over an hour this evening).

More than anything, I could imagine the cycle of despair that his family had grown up in, and I imagine how things like that continue to this day.  There are families where the kids grow up without a parent, and they are told that they are worth less for one reason or another.  I see how people might take someone’s ignorant or malicious comments personally.  I don’t know how we end this cycle, because children growing up under these difficult circumstances can sometimes grow up to become angry adults whose children have the same kind of childhood, but I do know that we can do our best to treat everybody with respect, and do our part to try not to contribute to the hate in the world.

At any rate, Powell’s book was good.  If you’re looking for a book that could potentially challenge your opinions, you might want to take a look at it.

This book is scheduled to be released on September 4th, but you can pre-order it now.

1,000 Years, 1,000 People, and 18 Years Late

By Brookelorren on 6 Comments

1,000 Years, 1,000 People Cover1,000 Years, 1,000 People is a book that ranks the 1,000 most influential people of the last millennium.  I just finished reading the book this week; you might be thinking “aren’t we 18 years into the new millennium?”  Well, we are, but I finally got around to reading this book.

This isn’t a book that you really sit down and read all in one sitting, like a lot of the books that I’ve reviewed here.  Even though I bought this book years ago, it was misplaced until just recently.  I decided to start reading it earlier this year.  I typically would only read about ten entries a day.

This book ranks the people who had the most lasting influence over the last millennium.  Since it’s hard to judge people’s lasting influence if they’re still alive, there are some people that were really influential in the 1900s that didn’t make the book (still, 136 people did).  There are people represented in this book from every century, although 417 people that lived in the 1800s made the list, so it’s still fairly skewed towards people that lived more recently.

Even though 1,000 Years, 1,000 People does represent worldwide influence, the book is still fairly heavily skewed towards the United States (267 of the people in the book lived there).  Then again, the US has been the most influential country in the world since about World War II.  This book was published in 1998, which was right after the Cold War had seemingly ended and was before 9/11.  It was a time when the United States seemed to have an unprecedented influence over the world.

Each entry has the person’s name, the years they lived, a short caption about them, and an approximately 150 word blurb about what they’ve done.  The only exception is Fernão Lopes, who was ranked 780.  Instead of a caption saying why he was important, there is a footnote notation after his name.  The footnote reads “1. father of the footnote”.  Each entry is fairly witty like this, as well as being informative.

With 1,000 people on the list, there’s bound to be some people that you don’t recognize.  The highest ranked people are bound to be people that you recognize: Johannes Gutenberg, Martin Luther, William Shakespeare, etc.  At the bottom of the list, there were a lot of people that I had never heard of, like Bernard Cornfield and Joseph Bramah.  Even at the bottom of the list, almost everybody did something that you’ll be familiar with, like inventing the stethoscope or disposable diapers.

All sorts of people are represented in this book.  There are artists, inventors, politicians, and even some sports heroes.  It seemed to be a nice balance.

1,000 Years, 1,000 People is a book that you can read and learn something interesting from.  If you’re interested in learning about a wide variety of historical figures, but don’t want to read a ton of biographies or peruse dry entries in Wikipedia, you might find this book worth reading.

Never Stop Walking Was Great!

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

Never Stop Walking CoverNever Stop Walking: A Memoir of Finding Home Across the World, by Christina Rickardsson, is an outstanding book.  It is a story that everybody with a heart should read.  This book may even cause you to see the world in a different light.

Never Stop Walking is the true story of a girl who grew up on the streets in Brazil and was later adopted by a family in Sweden.  In a way, it is a literal rags-to-riches tale.

Christina’s telling of her childhood growing up, first in caves, then in the slums of São Paulo, is fascinating.  She witnesses horrors that most first-world adults couldn’t even imagine.  In order to survive, she witnessed (and caused) violence, endured extreme hunger, and was treated worse than most people treat animals.  After she is adopted, she has to deal with fitting in with people that have no clue what she’s been through.  Her story ends as an adult, returning home to find out the truth about her family and what actually happened.

Never Stop Walking is a story that should make you think.  What Christina went through as a girl is still happening today.  There are still desperately impoverished children in Brazil, even today.  There are places in the world, like Venezuela, that are becoming more and more like the world of this story.  People are being displaced from their homes through war and terrorist activity; what are their lives like?

This book is not one of despair, however.  Never Stop Walking is, above all, a story about how love can carry people through even the most difficult of situations.  The love of Christina’s friends, of her mother, and even from the occasional caring adult, kept her from being completely torn up and destroyed, even after all that she had been through.  Most of us will probably never have to worry about being rounded up and shot by the police, or will have to fight over scraps of food after not eating for days, but when we do go through difficult times, the people around us can help us through.  We can care for others and help them through their difficult times.

Never Stop Walking is a book that made me feel thankful.  Bad things happen to everybody, but if you’re reading this book review, you probably will never have to go through what people living on the streets of Brazil go through every day.  I enjoyed reading this story, and I feel like I am a better person because I read it.  I hope you like it as well.

Indianapolis is a Harrowing Tale of Lost History

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Indianapolis CoverIndianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man (that title is a mouthful) by Lynn Vincent is an excellent story of a World War II naval disaster that you may never have heard of.  If you are a fan of World War II history, or military history in general, I highly recommend it.

The Indianapolis was the ship that was chosen to deliver the nuclear weapons that were used to help end World War II to Japan.  After the ship made its top secret delivery, it was sunk by an enemy submarine.  The captain was court-martialed, his career was destroyed, and the survivors felt that the whole situation was unjust.  The captain was finally exonerated about 75 years later, after most of the survivors had already passed away.  Indianapolis is the story of the delivery, the sinking, the destruction of Captain Charles McVay, and finally, his redemption.

I first heard of the Indianapolis last year, when I read Bill O’Reilly’s Killing the Rising Sun, which is another excellent book on World War II.  Although that book focused on the war in Japan in general, I remember reading about the fate of the Indianapolis (and its captain) and thought that it was really sad.  When I had the opportunity to read Lynn Vincent’s book on this ship in exchange for an honest review, I jumped at the chance.

Indianapolis tells the story of the ship from before the delivery of the atomic weapons to Captain McVay’s absolution.  It tells about how the crew dealt with the sinking ship.  It tells about how the crew fought off sharks, dealt with dehydration and hunger, and tried to keep from going insane.  It tells about the incompetence of the Navy in even recognizing that such an important ship was lost in the first place.  It describes what could potentially be thought of as corruption during McVay’s court martial, and the bureaucracy that prevented him from receiving justice for well over half a century.

The story was exciting.  Vincent helps us get to know many of the sailors over the course of the book, which helped me care about what happened.  The descriptions of the ship’s sinking and the sharks in the water were page turners, almost as if you were reading fiction.  You feel for the captain as he realizes that his career was sunk.  I cried tears of joy at the end when he was finally cleared of all charges, even though he had committed suicide years before.

One of the problems that I have with some military books is that they sometimes tend to use a lot of military terminology without adequately defining them.  As a former military officer, I’m familiar with terms like 1MC, forecastle, gunwale, bulkhead, and the like, but if you’re not familiar with shipboard terms, don’t worry with this book.  Vincent doesn’t introduce naval terminology without defining it for you, and she often even tells you how to pronounce it.  If you’re new to military books, this can be a great help.

If you like to read history and are familiar with the US fight against Japan in World War II, I highly recommend this book (if you need a refresher on the US fight against Japan, Killing the Rising Sun might be a good place to start).  Indianapolis is a good book if you want to delve more deeply into the war and want to read a good story of shipwreck and survival.

Indianapolis won’t be released until July 10th, but you can pre-order it now.

Best Books I Read in 2017

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I’m finally publishing my long-overdue list of the best books I read in 2017.  Now, you may be thinking “Aren’t we already halfway through 2018?”  You are absolutely correct.  At any rate, I’ve been publishing the list of my favorite books of the year for nearly 10 years, and I missed 2017, so I’m writing it now.  I did write this list down in my journal on January 1st, so I’m actually not relying on memory.

My annual best books list are for books that I personally read for the first time in a year.  So… you may find a lot of books that were published years ago that I just got around to reading.  Also, even though I read translations of books (for example, I read Carve the Mark in Spanish and Divergent in German earlier this year) they don’t count, if I’ve read the book before.  So without further ado, here’s my list.

The 2017 List

10) The Age of Reagan – The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order: 1964-1980 was #10 on my list of top books that I read last year.  I got this giant bag full of books from our library a year ago and this was one of the books that seemed interesting.  It’s not a book that focuses on Ronald Reagan as president, but it does talk about the circumstances that led to his campaign and how he ended up getting elected.  It’s on the scholarly side (I do end up with Erudite in all of the “which Divergent faction do you belong in” quizzes, after all) but if you’re interested in 20th century history, you might like this.

9) The Better Angels of our Nature – Ever wonder where the phrase “there’s more than one way to skin a cat” came from?  Or perhaps “cut off your nose to spite your face”?  Maybe you don’t want to know.  Anyway, Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of our Nature was a book that I had been meaning to read for a while, and finally got around to.  It was a fairly quick read (for a nonfiction book) and I learned all sorts of interesting things.  I also feel very fortunate to live when I do, and not in times where people literally did cut off each other’s noses.  This book makes a very good case that we live in the most peaceful time in human history.  Pinker is not a big fan of Christianity, but beyond that, there is a lot of good stuff here.  Maybe he does have a good case against huge religious organizations that would send people on crusades, however.  At any rate, this was a great book with a lot of interesting history in it.  If you like history, you may want to put this on your books to read.

8) Daily Life in Medieval Times – I bought this book years ago.  Daily Life in Medieval Times is one of those books that you can read for a little while and put down, not because it’s not interesting, but because it talks about one subject, then moves on to another subject.  I started this book before and “ooh, squirrel, I mean, a book!” found other books that I just had to read right then, and it never got read.  Until last year.  It made my top 10 books of the year.

7) The Third Target – The lowest-ranking fiction book that made my list, The Third Target is a thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat.  I don’t think that I’ve ever read anything by Joel C. Rosenberg that I didn’t like.  I reread his The Last Jihad series last year as well, but since I had read it before, it wasn’t eligible for this year’s list.

6) American Miracle – If you find American history and divine providence to be interesting, American Miracle by Michael Medved is a really interesting story about some of the amazing coincidences that happened that allowed the United States to form as a country and make it what it is today.

5) The Game of Thrones (books 1-5) – If I read multiple books in a series in a year and they all are worthy, I bunch them all together in my end of year list.  The Game of Thrones is a very complex book with a lot of characters and plot turns, and it’s not appropriate for younger audiences, but it is an exciting series of books.  The only downside to this book series is that book 6 still hasn’t been published, and who knows when it will.  By the time the follow-up book, Winds of Winter, comes out, I may have to reread this series.  Which is not bad, because there’s a lot going on and I’m not sure that I can keep all the characters in plot in my mind after only one read, but it’s something to keep in mind.

4) Deep Under Cover – Deep Under Cover by Jack Barsky is the story of how one man was recruited by the KGB (or was it the German Stasi… it doesn’t matter) and ended up spying in America.  It was interesting and kept me wanting to find out more.

3) Defying Hitler – I read a lot of 20th century books last year (some of which did not make this list).  Defying Hitler, by Sebastian Haffner, is the only book that has ever made this list that is unfinished (although the way things are going, The Game of Thrones might be finished by a ghostwriter).  It is the oldest book that made the list this year, at least in terms of when it was written.  Defying Hitler is a first-hand account of a teen and young man growing up in the years that Adolph Hitler was gaining in popularity.  It was very interesting, and worth the read.

2) Carve the Mark – When a book is released in the year potentially affects how high a book gets on this list, I suppose.  Carve the Mark, by Veronica Roth, was one of the first books that I read last year, and gets second on my best books of 2017 list.  If I read this book last, it might have made the top spot, because it is outstanding, but I read it first.  This is an exciting read and I couldn’t wait to read the ending (and I loved the second book in the duology).  I reviewed this book on my blog last year.

1) Warcross – The best book that I read in 2017 was also the last book that I read in 2017: Warcross by Marie Lu.  I read it on December 31st, finishing an hour or two before midnight.  There are just some authors that reliably write good books, and I wanted to make sure that it had the chance to get on my best books list for the year, so I spent most of the day reading it.  I wasn’t disappointed.  I loved this book, and I’ll probably read it a couple more times this year (I’ll definitely read it again before I read Wildcard, which I pre-ordered over a month ago).  I haven’t put out the review yet (I plan on publishing a review for it later this month).

So there’s the list of the best books that I read for the first time in 2017.  Better late than never.  I hope to not be so late with publishing my 2018 list.

Read Your Bible in 2017

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

American Patriot's BibleWe’re about a week into the New Year, and I hope that if you have New Year’s resolutions, that you haven’t broken them yet.  If you have goals that you want to accomplish this year, I hope that you are on your way to achieving them.

One of the goals that I try to accomplish every year is to read through the Bible.  I like to start in Genesis in January and then read through to Revelation by the end of December.  I don’t always succeed, but I have finished in the last couple of years.  Last year I read the Bible in Spanish (I’ll probably review that Bible on a different date).  This year, I plan on reading the Bible in English again, using the American Patriot’s Bible.

I’ve had this Bible for several years now, and have read through it a couple of times already.  This hardback version of the Bible has held up pretty well (as you can see, there’s only some minor wear to the dust jacket).  I’ve packed it on vacations, have taken it places, and it’s still holding up pretty well.

American Patriot's Bible (open)The version that I have is the New King James version of the Bible, but an old-school King James Version of the American Patriot’s Bible is also available.  Everybody has their preferences, and some years, I’ve read different versions.  One year, I read the 1599 Geneva Bible (I may review that at a future date as well).  I find this version pretty easy to read (and if you’re going to read about three chapters a day, you’ll want something that you’re willing to go back to every day).

The American Patriot’s Bible has all the text of the New King James version of the Bible (or King James, if you get that edition), but it also has a lot of inserts and tidbits about how the Bible has played a part in American history.  I’ve found the stories to be pretty interesting.  There are a few sections that are in color that speak in-depth about a particular topic (like Christianity in Colonial America, pictured here).  While I may not read through all of these as I go through the Bible this time, I have read all of these sidebars before, and I have enjoyed them.

If you already have a Bible, it’s not too late to read the Bible through this year.  I’ve actually gotten more than a month behind and have caught up by the end of the year!  There are many bible reading plans that you can choose from.  Some are short-term, others will take three years to go through the Bible (my church is doing a two-year plan, although I’m doing a one-year plan on my own again), and others let you go through the Bible at your own pace.  You can start where you are, or choose to catch up.  The main thing, if reading the Bible is a goal in your life, is to actually start.

The American Patriot’s Bible is a good choice if you plan on reading through the Bible this year.  It is not the only choice, of course, but it will be the one that I will be using to read through the Bible in 2017.

Shape Up Your Finances with Dave Ramsey

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US CurrencyWe’re still less than a week into the New Year, and perhaps, if we made New Year’s resolutions, we’ve already forgotten about them.  Or maybe we’re keeping them.  At any rate, it’s never the wrong time to think about improving our finances.  I’m sure that most of us can work in that area.

One of my favorite finance guys is Dave Ramsey.  He has a daily radio program, writes books, and has a Financial Peace University that goes through all the major aspects of household finance.  He focuses on getting out of debt, saving for emergencies and beyond, and then building up a nest egg.  He tells us to “live like no one else, so that later, you can live like no one else,” that is, sacrifice today, so that later you will have a decent amount of money and you can give to others like no one else.

If 2017 is the year that you want to get your finances in order, you might want to consider reading Dave Ramsey’s Complete Guide to Money.  It’s the same book that they use in the Financial Peace University classes, and it covers almost everything that you need to know (although the hard part can sometimes be actually living the principals).

The book covers everything that you need to know about getting out of debt, building a savings, and even dealing with creditors, if you’ve gotten into trouble in the past.  It talks about getting a home, getting a bargain when you’re shopping, and investing.  It also has all the forms that you’ll need to use to get a budget started in the back of the book (although you’ll probably end up using an Excel spreadsheet, since you’ll want to do a budget every month).

If you’re not familiar with Dave Ramsey, he suggests going though several different baby steps on your road to financial freedom:

  1. Put together a baby emergency fund of $1000 (in case something catastrophic comes up.
  2. Pay off all of your debts (with the exception of the house) from smallest to largest.
  3. Put 3 to 6 months of expenses into savings.  This is in case something catastrophic comes up, like a job loss.
  4. Invest 15% of your income into retirement.
  5. Save for your children’s college.

  6. Pay off the house.
  7. Build wealth and give a lot of it away.

The farther along you go down these baby steps, the better it feels.  Sometimes, unfortunately, things happen and you can slide backwards (it’s happened to me… we’ve had the baby emergency fund and then the emergency happens) but if you have don’t have a plan, it’s never going to get done by accident.

The Complete Guide to Money is well-written, easy to read, and if you live it, it really works.  The closer my husband and I live to this plan, the better we feel about what’s going on financially.  It provides inspiration with little sidebars about people that have lived the plan and have succeeded.

If you’re looking to win with money in 2017, and you haven’t learned the basics of financial planning yet, I definitely recommend this book.

How Could I Forget? The Hiding Place

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I couple of days ago I put out my list of my favorite books that I read for the first time in 2016.  I didn’t have a list in front of me of all of the books that I had read for the year, and was just going off the top of my head with the things that stuck out to me (this year I need to keep a record of the books that I read).  There was on glaring omission to this book list: The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom.

I apologize for the omission, but it truly belongs up in one of the top three books that I read this year.  I just read it earlier in the year last year and didn’t remember it.  So I’ll review it now.

“Thank God for the fleas.”

Whenever something bad happens in life, and I still want to try to be thankful, this is now the phrase I use.  It has its origins in The Hiding Place; more on that later.  I posted that on Facebook earlier this year and my mom was wondering why I posted it.  No, we don’t have fleas in our house… but it reminds me to try to be thankful in all things.

German concentration camp in World War II.
While obviously not the place where Corrie and her sister stayed, this is an example of how conditions must have been like while she was in the concentration camp.

Corrie Ten Boom grew up in a modest family in the Netherlands before World War II.  The early part of this book describes her childhood, all the family members that lived with her, the love that got away, and how she helped out at her father’s watch shop, which was attached to their house.  It was a simple life where she was taught to honor and love God.

When World War II started, the Ten Boom family went through hardships like everybody else, but they were more fortunate than the Jewish people, who started to disappear.  Corrie and her family end up getting involved in an elaborate scheme where they hid Jews until they could be moved to a safer place.  A few of the Jews that she helped couldn’t be moved for one reason or another, and they lived with the Ten Boom family.  An architect built a space in their house where the extra guests in their house could be hidden.

This was a dangerous business, because if they were caught, they could be killed.  They had to hold drills where they had to hide all of the evidence of what they were doing as quickly as possible.

One day, they were caught, and the Ten Boom family was rounded up and sent to jail.  Some of her family members were released; eventually, it was just her and her sister, Betsy, who ended up in a concentration camp together.

What the two sisters had to go through was horrendous, but one of the most inspiring things about the book is how they kept their faith through all of this.  The Ten Boom sisters managed to smuggle a Bible into their sleeping quarters at the concentration camp; Corrie was disgusted by the fleas in the room, but her sister Betsy reminded her to be thankful for all things; even the fleas.  The two sisters began to hold Bible studies in the concentration camp; I’m sure that there are several people today who are in Heaven today because of those Bible studies.  Later, Corrie learned that the only reason why the Nazi soldiers wouldn’t enter their sleeping quarters, which allowed them to hold their Bible studies, was because of the flea infestation.  They didn’t want to go near the place and the fleas.  So today, when I feel like something bad has happened and I want to be thankful, I try to “thank God for the fleas.”

I find Corrie’s forgiveness after the war to be amazing as well.  Instead of becoming bitter and wanting revenge, she showed forgiveness to her former Nazi captors.  It’s easy, in times where everybody else is doing wrong, to go on the wrong track and partake in evil.  Yes, the Jews needed healing after the war, but so were the former Nazis that got involved in evil because they were just trying to survive.  Corrie showed forgiveness to them as well, which completely awed me.

The book was easy to read, and it was required reading for my kids last year, after I found the book on sale on Amazon.com.  It’s not a happy book (I cried at times), but it is a beautiful, inspiring book.  If you haven’t read it yet, please put it on your list of must-read books for the new year.