On Christmas Eve, some sweet friends invited me to their house for dinner after our church’s candlelight service. Over dessert, we took turns reading paragraphs from a Frederick Buechner sermon about advent. (These nerds used to read sermons to each other during their early dating years – isn’t that precious?) When I confessed that I’d never read Buechner, they loaned me this book, warning me that I’d want to read more.

Yep. More Buechner, and Shakespeare, and the Bible, and a few other works that he referenced, casually, throughout the book! This man loves a good story, and redemptive stories, and emotional highs and lows – this was much more engaging and evocative than I expected from a man with a name like Frederick Buechner! (Maybe I was picturing one of the von Trapp children? But, like, from the beginning of the movie? When they’re all proper and boring?)

Hopefully these friends can be convinced to loan me more books.