Of all genres of books, memoirs may be the toughest to review. After all, how is a reviewer to evaluate the life experiences of another person? What is the measure of a good memoir and what is the measure of a poor one? Ultimately, as a reviewer, I can judge only the power and effectiveness of the writing, the truthfulness of what the author claims as fact, and, more subjectively, the personal impact of the person’s life-story. And with these criteria in mind, I turn to Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession by novelist Anne Rice.

I have often expressed my love of biographies. I consider them to be among the most helpful of resources in helping equip Christians in their lifelong quest for Christ-likeness. We can learn much from the examples of those who have run the race before us. We can learn from what God taught them, learn from their triumphs and learn from the times they were defeated. I have a passion for biographies. I also have a passion for the English language. I love to see how we can use the language to craft works of art. I cannot express myself in the fine arts - music and art are both disciplines that escape me. But I consider myself a wordsmith-in-training. These two loves come together in Jack, a biography of C.S. Lewis written by a veritable master of the English language.

The story has been told time and again. C.S. Lewis once walked into a room where a lively debate was in progress. A small group of people had been discussing the various world religions, seeking to understand what made them different from Christianity. As Lewis entered, they looked to him and asked for his response. His answer was simple and it was immediate. “Grace.” Grace marks the great difference between Christianity and every other religion. Grace is a concept foreign to religion; foreign, that is, unless granted by God. We seem to have a natural desire to work for our salvation—to offer to God what we have in repayment for His gifts. Christianity is the only faith that rejects works and insists on grace. Only by God’s grace, declares the Bible, only by God’s grace can we be saved; only by grace can we enjoy a right standing with God; our works merit us nothing.

I came very close to tossing this book away. With so many books coming my way these days, I need to move assess them quickly, determining which are worth a closer look and which are not. I cannot read them all. In this case, I saw the cover, I saw the title, I skimmed the back and thought “not likely.” But then I noticed that the author had included a little note inside. There she drew my attention to a couple of the endorsements that she felt would be meaningful to me—namely, Nancy Pearcey and Mark Buchanan, both authors whose works I am fond of. As I looked further I saw that it is also endorsed by Ray Comfort. Based on all of this I decided I would read it. And I’m glad I did.

Heaven Without Her is a memoir. It is the life story of Kitty Foth-Regner, who, until the year 2000, was living exactly the life she wanted for herself as an ardent feminist. She owned her own business, and a rather successful one at that, had a live-in boyfriend whom she loved, and owned a house with a beautiful garden. It was all she had ever wanted. But when she learned that her mother had a terminal illness and as she watched her mother succumb to death, her heart was stirred with questions of eternity. Was there something to her mother’s Christian faith, or was that faith really nothing more than wistful delusions?

Kitty set out to determine what was true. Her searching took her through most of the world’s major religions (and a few more). She saw quickly how each of them failed to offer good answers and true comfort. All but one, that is. As she explored Christianity through the guidance of sound pastors and theologians, she found a faith that offered answers to the toughest questions. She found a God who loved her as He had loved her mother before.

In this book, Foth-Regner documents hear search. In a fun and narrative style, she describes how the Bible answered all of her questions and how her heart was first convicted, then convinced, and finally renewed. The unthinkable happened—she became a Christian, and this despite so many years of feminism and agnosticism. Her old passions and desires fell away and were replaced with new ones; holy ones.

Heaven Without Her is a valuable read and I think an important one. i consider it an important apologetic work. Sure it presents truths that have been written in other books over and over again, but rarely have they been written in so readable a style. The innovation here is not so much the content as the style and its readily accessible format. This is an ideal book to give to a person who may have questions about the Christian faith. For that person who seems to be seeking or searching, this is a book that can provide answers and can show how God has worked in the life of another of His children. Despite my initial apprehension, having read the book I now highly recommend it.

(Interestingly, Amazon shows that people who bought this book have also bought Same Kind of Different As Me, another fantastic memoir. I recommend them both!)

I think it is safe to say that, of all theologians contemporary or ancient, few have had as profound an affect on my life as Francis Schaeffer. Though I've read little of what he wrote, though he died when I was only a young child, and though I have never heard even one of his sermons, I know that my faith has been shaped by him. He was, after all, a major influence on my parents and on so many of their friends. Shortly after their conversion, my parents went three times to various European L'Abri locations, spending upwards of a year at them. In so many ways Schaeffer shaped their fledgling faith just as they later shaped mine. I am indebted to him as I am to them. And in this I am hardly the only one. Though it has been almost twenty five years since his death, Schaeffer's impact is still felt throughout the Christian church.

A.W. Tozer is a man whose ministry has fascinated me. A man who held closely to biblical, Protestant theology, he was also a man who loved the old Catholic mystics. He had little formal education, yet had the ability to hold the most educated of men and women at rapt attention. He had a single-minded devotion to Christ and the highest respect for the Scriptures. Reading A Passion for God has only increased my fascination with him, for here we see more strange and seemingly irreconcilable opposites. Biographer Lyle Dorsett has written a study of the man that deals as honestly with his faults as with the areas that are laudable. And in this case the faults are almost shocking.

I knew I had to read Out of the Black Shadows after I came upon Philip Ryken's brief review of the book. Ryken wrote, "The book is a great read for Christians of all ages. The members of our book club would put Out of the Black Shadows in the very first rank of spiritual autobiographies." The book tells the story of Stephen Lungu, now an evangelist serving with African Enterprise.

I missed out on the Growing Pains phenomenon. Because my family had no television while I was growing up, the Seaver family largely passed me by. I caught occasional glimpses of the program but little more than that. It was only recently that I learned the show had propelled Leonardo DiCaprio's illustrious career. The truth is I know more about Cameron's post-sitcom career than the years he spent as Mike Seaver, one of television's best known and most loved characters. And it was those years that was my primary interest as I read Still Growing, Cameron's newly published autobiography.

I try not to make a habit of posting book reviews two days in a row, but in this case I felt this book was so special that I needed to bring your attention to it.

I am a little bit late to the party with this book. Released in hardcover in 2001 and paperback in 2002, John Adams is regarded as one of David McCullough's greatest achievements. This is no little praise for a man who had previously won a Pulitzer prize (for his biography of Harry Truman)--a reward he was to receive again for John Adams. The precursor to 2005's 1776, this is a stirring biography and one of the best I've ever read. Like McCullough's other titles, this book is not hard to read and never bogs down in detail. Instead it is fast-moving and gripping, reading almost like a novel.

I am no scholar and am unequipped to comment on the accuracy of McCullough's portrait of Adams. I will leave that to the historians. So rather than provide a blow-by-blow account of Adams's life, let me simply suggest a few of the lessons and observations I drew from this book.