Greg the Reader


In association with Amazon.ca.	In association with Amazon.com.	In association with Amazon.co.uk.	An affiliate of ChristianBook.com.

[Home]
[the Christian]
[the Bookworm]

[Authors I know]
[Lois McMaster Bujold]
[C.S. Lewis]
[H. Beam Piper]
[Books on Temptation]
[Bookdex]

[the Joker]
[the Music Fan]
[the Wirehead]
[the Writer]
[Not the Greg you're looking for]

Greg the Reader

[Photo of Greg reading to his nephew]

My name is Greg, and I'm a reader. I've been a book freak since I was a kid. In fact, I drool when I walk into a well-stocked bookstore. I'm particularly interested in theology, of course, but I also have a passion for science fiction. This might come as a surprise to some people, but I have always seen science fiction as a very theological genre of literature.

The more I think of it, the more I'm surprised at how many authors I know personally. First, there's John Keith, long time General Secretary of the Canadian Baptist Overseas Mission Board (since renamed to Canadian Baptist Ministries.) Then there's David Lochhead, who ran Agora BBS for years, and got me hooked on electronic communications in the first place. Then, there's Dr. Bruce Milne, the pastor of my former home church, First Baptist Church Vancouver, who has written several books. And finally, of course, there is my brother Robert, and his books about computer viruses and other security issues.

My favourite living author is Lois McMaster Bujold. The first book of hers I ever read was Falling Free. What I like best about Bujold's work is the characterisation: her characters are not just two-dimensional cutouts for things to happen to, but fully-developed characters with their own strengths and weaknesses. Even minor characters are so well-drawn that the reader comes to care about what happens to them. One of Bujold's strongest themes is "honour." Often, her central characters are faced with some test of character, whether they will do what is safe, or easy, or in their personal best interest, or whether they will do what is "honourable" (or, I would argue, what is "right.") I find Bujold's books not just good stories, but inspiring as well. I believe that I am a better person for having read them.

My all-time favourite author would have to be C.S. Lewis. I consider his Mere Christianity to be a "must read" book for anybody. But I also love his science fiction and fantasy works, like the Space Trilogy and the Narnia Chronicles.

Another science fiction writer (deceased, alas) whom I have discovered and enjoyed in the past few years is H. Beam Piper. I picked up a copy of Little Fuzzy (again, because of the cover) at the airport in Halifax a few years ago, and was quite entranced. Part of the reason I like Piper's writing, besides his characterisation, is because Piper, who died in 1964, wrote according to the constraints of his time, and thus avoided much of the gratuitous sex and violence which later and lesser writers seem to consider necessary.

One of the things that I have noticed, and commented on, for some time, is that Christians are very good at telling people what not to do, but very poor at helping them how not to do it. As I put it once, "When people go to a doctor, they expect a little more help than a warning not to get sick. They should be able to expect help from the Church when it comes to spiritual health. It's all very well to tell people not to do drugs or unchaste sex, or whatever, but what tools do we give them to fight temptation?" So, it finally occurred to me that I should draw up a list of those few books I have found which are actually useful when it comes to fighting temptation.

For a full list of all the books I have mentioned on all my web sites, including the Christian Computing Bibliography, the Christian Telecommunications Toolkit, CAMsoc Update, the Computer Re-use Optimisation Project, and on the CHRISTIAN-FANDOM web site, consult my Bookdex page.