Elfira Yolanda S

This is my second book I own for the same title. The first one, an Indonesian-translated edition, is in Bandung. I had never got a chance to finish it. I bought the English edition last year. This book is by Rick Warren. Asides from this book, I have read his tweets and his daily article and I adore the way he writes. His writings are quotable for me.

This one is special because it’s the first book that I read together with 2 others, Astri and LDK. We read and discussed a chapter for our weekly sharing time. It’s not always weekly, sometimes we had to cancel it and postpone it for weeks but overall it was a special experience and experiment.

The Small Group

I don’t exactly remember the detail but I guess it started a year ago around the time we had the Menjangan trip. We shared common desire to have a small group, to share, to grow, and to pray together. We even did rather awkwardly pray together at our stay in Singaraja.

The detail on how we came to pick this book has escaped my mind, too. But I think it’s a good choice to help us prepare what’s so called the quarter life crisis. :D

The Purpose Driven Life

Most people struggle with three basic issues in life.
The first is identity: “Who am I?”
The second is importance: “Do I matter?”
The third is impact: “What is my place in life?”

According to this book, the answers to all three questions are found in our five purposes.

The book is designed to be read in 40 days, a chapter a day. But I guess that’s too fast a pace in reading something that holds a lot. Every here and there I find something that reminds me or tells me in a gentle way. I feel like reading it again in even slower speed. Scriptures are quoted a lot. That’s a good sign and another reason I should revisit the pages.

As it is a self improvement/self growing book, I’m grateful to read it not on my own. My friends can hold me accountable for each lesson I need to apply and that helps. Looking at the past experience, self improvement book is a nice reading but not quite a strong push to change. At least for me, it is necessary to have friends watching over me.

To finish this book does not mean I can answer those 3 questions above firmly. What I have from reading the book is a good start to calm the uneasiness for the future and to really live.

Living on purpose is the only way to really live. Everything else is just existing.

–

I promised myself to finish reading a book today when I decided to buy Sherlock Holmes The Complete Novel and Stories Volume II. The lucky book is in Bahasa Indonesia, 3 Cinta 1 Pria (bluntly translated: 3 Loves 1 Man) by Arswendo Atmowiloto.

Why This Book?

Not why I chose to finish reading this book but why I bought it. The synopsis. It said that this one man had special relationship with 3 women, the grandmother, the mother, and the granddaughter. So. I bought this book. The author was quite famous in Indonesia. I had never read his books so I picked this one to satisfy my wondering about both the author and the story. How can he craft story like that?

Spoiler alert!

My second book this year. SECOND! Yeah, I know, I’m keeping the dust in my bookshelves. Anyway, it’s a novel by John Connolly. I read the Indonesian translation. My sister recommended it to me. She liked it and even bought the other book from Mr. Connolly (I can’t remember which one). The book is, the story is, well, it’s scary and sweet. I mean it.

Spoiler flood alert!

Book No 1 Year 2010

This is the first book I finished reading in 2010. My manager at work recommend this French satire by Voltaire.

I downloaded the e-book at ManyBooks. The site was like a treasure cave to me. Most of the e-books there were from Project Guttenberg but more organized. The site also provides various file types that we could download.

The wikipedia article about this literature can be found here.

Spoiler Alert!