Peterson's Annotated Bibliography: Take & Read

I've published a quick review of Eugene Peterson's book, Take & Read: Spiritual Reading: An Annotated List, on Goodreads.com. I also publish it here, below. I'm very anxious to read another book of his, Eat this Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading, but to do that it looks like I'm going to have to request another Interlibrary Loan from our public library. My review of Take & Read:

First of all, I love a book like this. What better way to learn about books that it might not otherwise occur to me to read than to get recommendation from a wide and careful reader, who also makes notes about the things he reads? I'm also developing an appreciation for Eugene Peterson, whose paraphrase of the Bible, The Message, while an excellent interpretation of scripture, hasn't always appealed to me as a reader because of its heavily personal style. It made me happy to see Peterson recommending some works that have meant a lot to me already, from authors you might not expect. I love that he sees certain non-Christian writings as worthy recipients of spiritually inflected reading. I also appreciate and approve his emphasis on theology that is lived, not merely thought.

I have some questions for Mr. Peterson, particularly concerning the intersections between scholarship and imagination, as he briefly describes his encounters with each extreme. I'd like to know more about the ways in which he has reconciled the two, since I have recently become very suspicious of imaginative interpretations that seem to exploit rather than carefully handle biblical texts. I expect he has written about this in some of his other books, which sets me on a quest to find out what he has had to say in his many writings.

Oh the thrill of finding more and more books to read and explore. Peterson even recommends certain mystery novels, which is exciting. He urges his readers to start compiling their own lists of books that have contributed to their own spiritual formation, a grand task that I look forward to embarking on, if only I could develop the discipline necessary to read and make notes with better intentionality.