Mentioned I'd read this book last month and that I was interested in discussing it with a group; my book club has decided to take up that challenge. (Sorry to see Chuck Colson pan this book, here!)For those who liked this sort of work, see another take on similar themes which is less open to such criticism: Room of Marvels, by James Bryan Smith (also author of Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointed to Heaven.) I think Room of Marvels is a better book than The Shack (although it's more derivative, less original). I was disappointed that it didn't find such a wide audience - or I don't think it did. Looks like it went into a second printing, though, and that's a good sign.
Room of Marvels Product Description (Amazon.com)
In one tragic blow after another, accomplished Christian writer Tim Hudson lost his mother, his close friend, and his two-year-old daughter. Now he’s on the brink of losing his faith.
Room of Marvels takes readers on a silent spiritual retreat with Tim where he is swept up in a dream vision of heaven and given a guided tour by those he has lost. Reminiscent of the C. S. Lewis classic, The Great Divorce, the book carries a contemporary voice that made Library Journal declare it “a good companion to Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven.”
Remarkably, Room of Marvels mirrors author James Bryan Smith’s own heart-wrenching season of loss when his mother (Wanda), close friend (“Awesome God” singer Rich Mullins), and two-year-old daughter (Madeline) passed away within months of each other.
Updated with a new cover design and epilogue by Smith, the 2007 edition of Room of Marvels will continue to comfort those touched by grief and stir the hunger for heaven in every reader.
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I've never read anything by (the wildly popular) Mitch Albom. Anybody have something to say about his books?
2 comments:
Guess not.
Maybe I have driven my commentators away with all the Christian history stuff. Too bad - a few more posts of that coming!
As I said, I blog for meeeeeeeeee.
...although, it's not very kind and gracious of me to say so. I do know I have readers, so that provides enough satisfaction to tide me through times when nobody will leave a comment. It doesn't really bother me. Still, you're welcome to do so. I do screen 'em, but not much.
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