One of the perks of having spent a few years reading books, writing book reviews, and otherwise clogging up the internet with blogging, is that you meet some interesting people. The other perk is that sometimes nice people send you books to review. Today I’ve got one in front of me that is buy someone I know and respect. Glen Scrivener shouldn’t need much introduction – and its better for his humility if I don’t provide one. The book I’m reviewing today is his Love Story: The Myth that really happened, a little book from 10Publishing that invites us to consider the power of stories and the ultimate power of the ultimate story.
This is a lovingly-written book – inviting the reader to consider “the love story that really happened…” and also convince other readers of the power of writing, story and narrative to change and engage hearts and minds. And this book is very much about the craft of writing – Glen opens up the meaning of words, the power of pictures, and the grand sweep of the biblical narrative – all in a way that doesn’t exclude or confuse, but instead invites and tickles. In explaining the Bible, we are invited to consider the ultimate romance – and it is worth following the golden threads.
This book is shot through with reality. Whether using an entirely real-sounding atheist friend to provide a counterpoint to faith, or the awkward pictures of romance that show us part of what love is, Love Story is a very real, earthy, practical book. Constantly asking questions of the reader, inviting them in, leading them on, this is a book that wants you to read it. Which is a good thing! And this is ultimately because this little book is a lively, real and thoroughly engaged pointer towards the real good thing. Without making a terrible Coke reference, I reproduce probably my favourite paragraph from this book:
“You actually could not tell a greater love story than this. No other romance has such an exalted hero who plunges to such depths. Here is the Lord, our Maker, suffering our hell so that we might have heaven. As the Bible declares: ‘Greater love has no one than this …’ for ‘This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins’“.
In closing, this is a book well worth reading. It won’t take you long – but it might change your life. I loved how Glen reckoned that everyone observes the Easter story, that everyone (somehow) probably believes in Resurrection. I’d hope that every Christian I know can sign and shout and explain the love described in this short book. I also think that this would be a great giveaway over Easter – a meaningful invitation.
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