I have finally finished John Stott’s magnum opus, The Cross of Christ, and very good it was too. The final chapter was rather surprising, too. Meanwhile, I managed to wolf down two books by Jeff Lucas, because his stuff is considerably lighter than Stott’s (and I don’t think he would be offended by my saying so).
They were called Helen Sloane’s Diary and Up Close and Personal: What Helen Did Next. They deal with the everyday tribulations and frustrations of a twenty-something Christian singleton. Any resemblence to Bridget Jones is entirely deliberate. The first book was absolutely amazing. The second wasn’t as good, and at first I thought it was going to be a real let-down, but it got going after a shaky start. The first one was still much more fun and, importantly, more believable as well. I would thoroughly recommend it – not just for Christians, but also for anyone who wants to know what the day-to-day business of being a Christian and a real person is like.
My favourite quotes from Helen Sloane’s Diary:
“I can’t pull off skinny jeans. Well, more accurately, I can’t pull on skinny jeans – not past my knees, anyway.”
(about a flag-waver in church) “I’ve read that the army of God is terrible with banners. She’s terrible with a banner.”
I saw at the end of the book that Jeff Lucas has a blog. “Great,” I thought, “more of his ascerbic yet helpful wit!” No, just a list of when he’s appearing and where he has appeared on his book tour. He might be surprisingly good at writing the inner life of a 27 year old woman, but he’s not quite caught up with the modern world when it comes to the definition of a blog.
K C Murdarasi 
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