INDELIBLE INK
Edited by Scott Larsen
Crusade for World Revival (CWR) 253 pages. £8.99
ISBN 1 85345 358 7
This book contains 22 short chapters by Christian leaders and writers on the three or so books which they reckon have influenced them most. An appendix gives the choices and brief comments of more than 70 others. Most of the contributors, including a few British ones, are based in America and some are not well known in this country.
Many of the contributions were interesting. Some made me determined to read books which I should have read years ago. I enjoyed particularly the chapters by John Stott, Jim Packer and Joni Eareckson Tada.
The claim of one contributor (Calvin Miller) to have read between one and two hundred books a year for the past 50 years and to have been influenced by 7,000, both impressed and depressed me! Some of the choices surprised me, such as Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Christo and Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments chosen by Michael Card and Donald Bloesch respectively. C.S. Lewis received more mentions than any other author.
At a time when most Christians read far too little, this book implicitly warns us of what we lose thereby and encourages us to mend our ways. But would it be among the first 100 books I would encourage someone to read? Probably not.
Peter Seccombe,
retired pastor now engaged in itinerant ministry and based in Bodenham, Herefordshire
