Have you ever considered which books have had the greatest impact on your life? Besides the Bible, which obviously is the most important Book, I have read hundreds, maybe thousands, of books and they all have more or less helped shape my thinking, but in considering which ones really impacted my thinking, only a handful stand out distinctly. Some are thoroughly Christian, such as The Pilgrim's Progress, and some are classics, like Ben Hur. A few are comparatively unknown, or like The Heir of Redclyffe, were once bestsellers, but now receive only a passing mention in some encyclopedia and are almost entirely out of print. Please note that I do not recommend all these books for all readers; this is simply a list of the books that rise above the crowd when I mentally review the literature I have read. They are not listed in order of importance, because I could not decide on which were the most important. Read them, and see for yourself.
John Bunyan
I don't think this one requires much explanation. If you haven't read this classic of Christianity, you should. If you have read it, you should probably read it again. It's not perfect because it is not Scripture, but it is very helpful.
For those who have a hard time sitting down to read such a long book, or who struggle with the old language, there are multiple "translations" into modern English and a number of recordings. Our family favorite is the version read by Nadia May, but there are several free versions on Librivox. Joy Chan is a good reader.
John Bunyan
The Holy War is just slightly less well-known than Bunyan's greatest work, The Pilgrim's Progress, but of the two, The Holy War best describes the struggles of some Christians, in my opinion. It details the battle with besetting sin, the world, the flesh, and the Devil, and shows Jesus' forgiving love to His people, even when they struggle and fall.
The Holy War is widely available. Joy Chan reads it for Librivox.
Martha Finley
I do not consider the Elsie books to be great literature or (by any stretch of the imagination) flawless, but they certainly made a great impression on me between the ages of about 10 and 15. It was the Elsie books which first showed me a really high role model - highly idealized and rather impossible to copy, in some respects, it is true, but a role model, nonetheless.
Elsie Dinsmore is a fictional Southern heiress in the years immediately preceding the Civil War. Her early childhood is marked by the dislike, sternness, misunderstanding, and neglect of her father, an immensely wealthy young widower. Elsie herself is heiress to her mother's immense fortune, but all the money in the world means less to her than her father's love. Yet, far above her father's love, she prizes the love of God and serves Him with her whole heart. As time goes on, her father learns to love her and is eventually saved, but only after a long and painful struggle. Elsie grows up, marries, has children, and watches her children grow up.
I don't remember how many books are in the Elsie Dinsmore series, but there are a lot. I have not read them all and, in my opinion, the first six are the best. (Elsie Dinsmore, Elsie's Holiday, Elsie's Girlhood (one of my favorites), Elsie's Womanhood, Elsie's Motherhood, Elsie's Children).
A.L.O.E. (Charlotte Maria Tucker)
All of A.L.O.E.'s books are more or less thought-provoking (mostly more) and The Giant Killer is one of the best. In this book, the author does not content herself with simply "preaching" against the five giants of Sloth, Selfishness, Untruth, Hate, and Pride in a general sense, but reveals the way that these faults can disguise themselves, creeping into the lives of even strong Christians. Click the title above for the full review.
A.L.O.E
I personally like The Haunted Room even more than The Giant Killer and it has certainly been one of the most influential books I have ever read. Click the title to read more and see the full review.
Charlotte Mary Yonge
The Heir of Redclyffe was once an immensely popular book, as were most of Yonge's works, but it has dropped into obscurity. It is practically out of print and few people even know of its existence. From Wikipedia: According to J. B. Priestley The Heir of Redclyffe was "the most popular novel of the whole age…Its popularity left Dickens and Thackeray far behind."
This book would fall into the "Role Model" category for me.
Seventeen year-old Guy Morville, heir to Redclyffe castle and estates, is sent to live with his guardian after the death of his grandfather. He finds himself placed at once in an entirely new setting - a real family, complete with mother, father, three sisters, and a crippled brother - and sometimes his cousin, Philip Morville, who is heir to the estate after himself. Guy is of a naturally kindly disposition, but has a swift and powerful temper. Philip, on the other hand, is much like Bruce of The Haunted Room: strictly upright, determined, steadfast, cool-headed, but prone to judging others too hardly, although he holds himself to the same strict standard. The result of this combination is an interesting story, full of twists and turns, and lots of opportunities for forgiveness.
Philip and Guy are powerful contrasts. Guy loses his temper sometimes and hates it because it is a sin against God; Philip holds his temper in because it is not right to give way to anger, and because it satisfies his pride to never do so. Guy forgives; Philip sternly holds to what he believes to be the right - and unforgiving - course. Guy is ready to sacrifice his own plans, wishes, and life, if necessary, for the good of others; Philip thinks he is willing to do so; and so on through the book.
Throughout the whole story, the whole cast of characters undergo change. Some are led to see their own hearts in ways they never saw them before, and in particular, the heir of Redclyffe finds his life changed forever.
Pansy (Isabella Alden)
I only read Ester Reid once, about four years ago, but it was a timely wake-up call for me. Pansy's books often focus on the need for Christians to live their faith, not simply profess it. Ester Reid is not a splendid work of literature but simply shows how a young woman (who reminded me uncomfortably of myself in the first half of the book) is renewed in her faith and how she helped change others by the change in herself. We are not ultimately responsible for whether or not those around us believe the Gospel, but we most certainly are responsible for how we display it in our words and lives. This is the point which is brought home by Ester Reid and it dramatically woke me up.
(By the way, most of Pansy's other books are very good too. Quite a few are available on Gutenberg and Librivox.)
Ben Hur
Lew Wallace
Ben Hur, A Tale of the Christ, is a well known classic - or at least, it was. When they hear the name, Ben Hur, most people nowadays think of the 1959 MGM film (available free on Archive.org), but the film and the book are very different. I cannot fully recommend either, but both have some value.
I have read or listened to Ben Hur about once per year for the last five years. Why? Because this book is so packed that it takes multiple readings to get the most out of it.
I hope to someday write a more extensive review on Ben Hur, but I don't want to clutter up this blog post by attempting one here. When I do write the review, I will link the above title to it. The focus of this post is how this book influenced my life, and the answer is simple: It transported me to Palestine as it was during the life of Jesus Christ and showed the world as it was then.
The earth as a whole was dark, crushed by the weight of superstition, cruelty, and unbelief. Only the Jews had the revelation of God and held a religion that was pure from foolishness, excess, cruelty, and mythology, but they exalted themselves instead of God, and held their religion for themselves, looking down on the rest of the world as heathen, instead of sharing the light which God had given them. Their religious leaders we know from the Bible. Most of them, the Pharisees, especially, were self-righteous hypocrites, and although many of the Jewish people did indeed love the God of their fathers, they were, as a class, proud. The Romans, who held the world in subjection, were also proud - and deeply corrupted. The wealthy citizens of the earth gave themselves up to pleasure; the poor were crushed to the dust and few cared for them. Lepers were the cursed of God and considered worse than dead.
It was into this world that Christ came, at a time when one world power, Rome, had built a system of intercourse between nations and defended it with her iron power. Jesus brought love and light into the world, as no other ever has, will, or could do.
Ben Hur is a book only for mature readers. Those who have watched the film will remember Esther, daughter of Simonides, but will never realize that there were actually two women in the book. In fact, Judah ben Hur, Esther, and the second woman form a sort of love triangle, with Judah in the middle, so to speak, the heroine on one side, and the antiheroine on the other. Judah is more realistic than ideal and finds that even his "good" impulses and decisions are not all that he believed them to be. In other words this is the kind of story where the reader is encouraged to learn from both the mistakes and triumphs of a realistic character, instead of learning solely from the portrayal of a highly unusual, idealized hero.
*Note: The story is divided into eight books. The whole of the first book is devoted to a highly unrealistic portrayal of the meeting of the three wise men, their journey to Jerusalem, and their finding of Jesus as a baby. There is some very wrong theology mixed in and this book is quite slow-paced, so it is tempting to skip it. However, if you can get through the first book, the rest of the story flows much better. And one of the wise men is re-introduced later, so it is somewhat necessary to read the first book.
The Librivox recording is read by Mark Smith, a good (now professional) reader.
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