Books that have made a difference to me

I've started thinking about what books have made a difference to me, and why. I think it'd be interesting to start a book club with the first theme of having people nominate books that have made a difference to them. I'd like to read what others have found, and to hear why they made a difference.

So here's a beginning to my list. I'll add to it as I remember more.

C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia and science fiction trilogy
Jane Goodall's Reason for Hope

The C.S. Lewis books have (maybe this is sacreligious) almost made more difference to me than the Bible. What they've done is helped to feel I understand beliefs that really aren't understandable.

Here's an example. Today our minister talked about God's holiness. He's doing a series on the Lord's Prayer. He talked about the paradox of addressing God as "Abba", almost like Daddy, the intimate name for our Father, and the awesomeness of God's holiness. How can we have both that intimacy and awe? For me, Aslan helps. Susan and Mary slept with Aslan when he was lying on the stone table. They lay on his warm, soft fur. They also rode him. Very intimate. But yet there's no lessening of his awesomeness, of the almost fear they feel toward Aslan, too.

Over and over again I find myself relating things to what I've read in C.S. Lewis' books when thinking or hearing about hard to understand beliefs. Last night I was talking with friends about how we imagine heaven. I said that Perelandra helps me with that. I like to imagine heaven as a place like Perelandra, in that it's a beautiful, exciting place where you feel completely satiated and content, and happy. Maybe it won't be a world of water and islands, maybe it'll be very different than that -- probably. But the book has made me feel like I have a small understanding of heaven.

Jane Goodall's book is a more recent read. Jane is like a hero to me. The main thing that's made a difference to me with her book Reason for Hope is the idea she presents that there is reason for hope because of people who do good in spite of so much evil and hopelessness. In the book she writes about a country in civil war. I can't remember what country it was actually, maybe Serbia. There was a woman on one side who had a baby and because of the war there was no milk for the baby. A man on the other side had a cow and every morning he put a bottle of milk on that mother's front step. He got no recognition or reward for it, in fact when she saw him later he was very poor and suffering from the war still.

This act of good in the midst of war is an example of a reason for hope. Often the news can totally depress me. In fact when I read this book I was in a down time because of 9-11 coming on top of some tough times for us with our son that were making me feel like there wasn't much to be happy about. But I realize that it's true that individuals do good things even in horrible times, and there is some reason for hope.

I saw Jane on a t.v. special and she said, "I have a mission...to give people reason for hope."