Sofa Spotlight - The Case for Faith, Lee Strobel

This being one that I had read before and not particularly enjoyed (I think it took me over a year to read it) I was interested to see if I would like it more the second time round. And I did appreciate it more this time, but I didn't enjoy it or benefit from it as much as I did from the other Lee Strobel books that I've been working my way through.

Why The Case for Faith is not as sharp or as hard hitting as the others I'm not really sure. Maybe it was the questions that he was raising were just not as appealing to me. What I did like about the book was the way it began and the way it concluded. At the very beginning Strobel goes to visit Charles Templeton who was a friend of Billy Graham but had since lost his faith in Christ. Strobel wants to know how he lost his faith and why he doesn't believe any more. Following that interview Strobel sets out to answer the objections that Templeton raised, and for me that had a lot of worth.

Overall it's a good book. I just didn't get pulled in as much as the others. Still worth a read though.

Sofa Shelf - Sleeping Murder, Agatha Christie

Well this was really fun to read. It's about a murder that takes place eighteen years before and at the start there is no body. Actually at the start it reads a bit like a ghost story. A young couple take a house in Dilmouth and it's not long before that Gwenda remembers that she's lived there before and possibly witnessed something sinister.

Miss Marple is at her best. Of course she works out more than anyone else but the way she goes about it is brilliant. Well it would be wouldn't - who could resist telling a little old lady with her knitting everything. She comes across as so harmless but is yet sharper than all of them.

So who is it that committed the murder? All that Gwenda remembers is someone with monkey paws. Creepy! Right at the end the tension is so high that, yes I was up late trying to get to the end of the book!

This is the last of the novels that I'm going to read with Miss Marple in them for now, but it has to be the best one that I've read so far. Anyway it's been so good that I decided to find a book of short stories with Miss Marple in them. My hope is that short stories will be short enough to read so that I won't stay up all night trying to get to the end of the story!

Sofa Spotlight - Plain Tales from the Hills, Rudyard Kipling

Plain Tales from the Hills is a collection of short stories. And they definitely fit the description of being short! All of the stories stand alone and are enjoyable in their own right, but there are a couple where characters reappear. In some ways it feels as though you get to know Rudyard Kipling through these stories and the way that he saw India when he lived there.

In the 336 pages of this book you get a picture of what India would have been like to the British people who lived there. It's not a book that you would go to if you wanted to get a broader idea of life in India at the time of the Raj. There is really only one point of view in this book, and that is the point of view of the white man. 

Even so these stories are worth reading. Behind most of them is a light humour, but some of them are rather poignant. As I like reading just before bed these stories have been a light way to unwind at the end of the day. It's something you could dip in and out of as you please. 

Anyway one I liked.

Sofa Shelf of Faith

One new book this week:

The Case for Faith - Lee Strobel

My final Strobel read and one that I have read before. The first time I read this book I found it hard work, but in hindsight I'm wondering if that is because I tried to read it too fast. Anyway given how much I have appreciated Strobel's other books this year I thought I would give this one another go and see how I got on.

Sofa Spotlight - The Case for Easter, Lee Strobel

It didn't take long, but then at 90 pages it shouldn't take long. I read it over the course of a week, but I think you could comfortably read it in one sitting of about an hour and a half. There are three chapters, an Introduction and a Conclusion. As I mentioned previously it is an excerpt from The Case for Christ and the chapters have been slimmed down, but haven't lost their punch.

The three questions Strobel sets out to answer in this book are:
1. Was Jesus' death and resurrection a hoax?
2. Was the tomb really empty?
3. Was Jesus really seen alive after His resurrection?

For me the first chapter on Jesus' death and resurrection was the hardest hitting. There was no holding back from the details and from the evidence put forward, there can be no doubt that Jesus died on the cross. I think EG is right when she said that everyone should read this book regularly. For Christians who believe that Jesus did die and later rose from the dead it is important to be reminded what Jesus suffered and why. Thinking about that brings home how serious sin is and what the cost was to make us right with God. It's not something we should forget.

Sofa Shelf

Two books this time round:

The Case for Easter - Lee Strobel

It's sort of the wrong season, but then I read The Case for Christmas in the summer so I don't see a problem. A short one, so shouldn't take too long. EG has read it and thinks it's one that everyone should regularly and at 90 pages that's probably not an unreasonable ask. Like The Case for Christmas it is taken from The Case for Christ so it's not unfamiliar territory.

Sleeping Murder - Agatha Christie

The final Miss Marple case. And one that I remember the outcome of, so I will be interested to see if watching the TV adaptation and knowing the ending spoils the book in any way. I hope that it won't. My copy has the reproduction of the Crime Club's original cover from 1976 - it is an interesting purple colour.

Sofa Spotlight - They Do It With Mirrors, Agatha Christie

Another Miss Marple adventure, and as expected it is brilliant. This one has Miss Marple going undercover at a house that has an institution for juvenile delinquents attached to it. So when murder happens there are about two hundred obvious suspects.

This was one that I couldn’t remember the ending but it wasn’t hard to work out who was behind it. There were still parts that I couldn’t work out so that it kept it interesting, but there is something nice about the story that it doesn’t matter whether you work it out or not. What I find more interesting are the characters that Christie creates. You know that there will always be one character that will work out too much and end up becoming a victim. In this case it was a character I really liked so I was rather sad when they met their end. I took comfort from the fact that I could know that they weren’t the murderer.

It took me a little while to cotton on that the title didn’t mean that the murder was done with mirrors. (Apologies if that is a plot spoiler or if you are just appalled by how slow I can be.) Because a murder actually done with mirrors would be tricky. But apparently it is to do with theatrical stuff that is rather clever. And it was with the clever theatre stuff that the murder was done.

If you want to know what on earth I am talking about you should just read the book. And if you have read it, what did you think?