About the Book:
Humans are story-shaped creatures. We make sense of our world, pattern our lives, and reflect on what is ultimately significant through language and the words that compose our stories. But how does this relate to the narrative of the Bible and the story that God is writing through history? In Nourishing Narratives, writer and professor Jennifer Holberg engages with words from the likes of Dante, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Flannery O’Connor, Marilynne Robinson, and more while also offering some of her own stories to reflect on the importance of story to our lives and our faith. Here, readers are encouraged not only to understand how stories nourish our faith, but to discover how our stories are part of God’s great story.
Advance Praise
“Pull up a chair and let this master storyteller gently question and correct the destructive stories we often rely on to make sense of our lives. In an age marked by narratives of stress-inducing scarcity and individual achievement, Jennifer Holberg invites us to instead live out truer narratives of abundant friendship and restorative hope. As the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has written, if we want to rightly answer the question, What am I to do? we must first answer the question, Of what story or stories do I find myself a part? Holberg is a wise guide to the faithful, life-giving stories that Christians are called to inhabit.”
-Jeffrey Bilbro, associate professor of English at Grove City College and author of Reading the Times
“Not only is Jennifer Holberg a clear, compelling, and beautiful writer, but her words in Nourishing Narratives are also filled with truth and goodness. I can’t remember the last time I read a book that made my heart sing along as this one did. Nourishing Narratives will open your eyes, grow your faith, and feed your soul.”
-Karen Swallow Prior, author of The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images & Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis
From Me:
This book looks fascinating and the premise resonates with me. I picked it up in July with the intent to write a review, but this summer had been a bit overwhelming, for a number of reasons, and I simply haven’t had the time to read very much of it, certainly not enough to give you an honest opinion. (I only really have capacity for reading light fiction at the moment – I haven’t been able to dive back into my non-fiction stack). So, I’m just going to say that I liked what little I’ve read and I look forward to the point when I’ll have time to pick it back up again. In the meantime you might like to check it out for yourself.
