{"id":156,"date":"2014-04-11T00:24:08","date_gmt":"2014-04-11T00:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=156"},"modified":"2014-08-11T22:03:53","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T22:03:53","slug":"how-to-displease-everyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/how-to-displease-everyone\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Displease Everyone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The way to write a book in which displeases everyone.\u2026would be accomplished by creating a list of your favorites, such as <em>12 Books that Changed the World<\/em> by Melvyn Bragg.\u00a0 We are in an age of lists.\u00a0 The trend began with the first US nationwide popular newspaper, USA Today.\u00a0 All types of lists began showing up in vivid color, grabbing people\u2019s attention from airports to hotels.\u00a0 This was new, this was fresh, but this simple graphic communication generates controversy \u2013 similar to Bragg\u2019s book.<\/p>\n<p>I did like the way that his choices were limited to Britain and largely avoiding religious books except the Bible of course.\u00a0 And I liked that his premise was first, what societal issues changed society, and then secondarily, which books were instrumental in changing behavior and attitudes.<\/p>\n<p>As I noticed that novels weren\u2019t part of his list, I remembered back to my son\u2019s graduation commencement from Kansas State University.\u00a0 For his graduating business class, the University president proffered one of the speeches.\u00a0 In it, he challenged the students to read, but then surprised them by saying \u201cread novels.\u201d\u00a0 He believed that novels rather than non-fiction were change agents.\u00a0 Stories are what inspire, encourage and transform us.\u00a0 In novels we see who we want to be and act accordingly.\u00a0 We become the hero \u2013 which makes us better people.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/31.media.tumblr.com\/6f47c749af5fcca8fd9afc933ad3a2ce\/tumblr_inline_n3ubovgEZO1rsqmkf.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s right.\u00a0 My passion for life and far-away places and characteristics of a man who\u2019s true to himself and others, has come from authors such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Louis L\u2019Amour<\/li>\n<li>Clive Cussler<\/li>\n<li>Johnathon Archer<\/li>\n<li>J. K. Rowling<\/li>\n<li>Ken Follett<\/li>\n<li>Dan Brown<\/li>\n<li>Suzanne Collins<\/li>\n<li>Alistair McCLean<\/li>\n<li>James Michener<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Books that shaped me when I was younger included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Red Car by Stanford,<\/li>\n<li>Johnathan Livingston Seagull by Bach,<\/li>\n<li>Dune by Herbert<\/li>\n<li>1984 by Orwell.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Though not all fiction, my love for missions and different cultures has been stimulated and imparted to me by books based upon true instances, situations or far-off realities:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Kite Runner &#8211; Hosseini<\/li>\n<li>Neither Wolf Nor Dog &#8211; Nerburn<\/li>\n<li>Poisonwood Bible &#8211; Kingsolver<\/li>\n<li>The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down \u2013 Fadiman<\/li>\n<li>Shantaram \u2013 Roberts<\/li>\n<li>The Alchemist \u2013 Coelho<\/li>\n<li>In a Sunburned Country \u2013 Bryson<\/li>\n<li>Cycling Home from Siberia &#8211; Lilwall<\/li>\n<li>White Man\u2019s Grave \u2013 Richard Dooling<\/li>\n<li>An countless National Geographic Magazines<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Then, there are simple, non-scholarly books, which can change your faith and launch a person on a new spiritual direction:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mere Churchianity \u2013 Michael Spencer<\/li>\n<li>Velvet Elvis \u2013 Rob Bell<\/li>\n<li>Evolving in Monkey Town \u2013 Rachel Held Evans<\/li>\n<li>The Shack \u2013 William Paul Young<\/li>\n<li>Grace Awakening \u2013 Charles Swindoll<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I agree with Bragg about the inclusion of the FA Rule book.\u00a0 Sports can bring meaning and purpose and for many can change a life or add to life.\u00a0 He\u2019s listed these books because they can change behavior, political sides, consciousness and attitudes.\u00a0 But we all have those books which do the same for us, and our libraries are probably as distinct and different as our personalities.<\/p>\n<p>So what\u2019s on your list?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The way to write a book in which displeases everyone.\u2026would be accomplished by creating a list of your favorites, such as 12 Books that Changed the World by Melvyn Bragg.\u00a0 We are in an age of lists.\u00a0 The trend began with the first US nationwide popular newspaper, USA Today.\u00a0 All types of lists began showing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[69,70,68,66,71,72,2],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aut","tag-authors","tag-books","tag-bragg","tag-cliv","tag-clive-cussler","tag-dminlgp","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1476,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions\/1476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}