Room for a Different Point of View

Posted by Melissa Howard Jun 29, 2007

The book for my church book club this month was Interview with the Devil by Clay Jacobsen. It was a very fast-paced easy read. A friend of mine said in her review of the book that it was not boring. It was a good beach read but not a great piece of literature. If you want my thoughts on the book you can find them on my personal blog. However, my purpose here is not a discussion of the merits of the book.

My purpose is to ask a question. How often do we seek books that contain a different perspective? Since I read this book for book club, the assumption is that I share my position with the writer of the book. And to a certain degree, that is true. However, I will be honest; I tend to bury my head in my sand concerning certain issues such as terrorism and the Muslim faith, which were two large components in this book, but as this was the book for the month, I read it and learned some stuff from one point of view.

The book was not great but it was fast-paced and certainly interesting (in fact, I would recommend to any one who likes espionage/military type books) and it did provoke some excellent discussion at book club. It also yielded in me the desire to make some time to learn more about the positions surrounding this rather touchy issue.

We tend seek books we like; we seek recommendations from people whose taste resemble ours. We want to read stuff that makes us feel comfortable, we often read to escape reality so we seek the books that avoid topics that we don’t want to think too much or too deeply about. Which leads me to an interesting question, would you recommend a book to other people if you felt that certain aspects of it made it worthwhile (especially to them), even if you didn’t think it was a particularly good book, perhaps even if it made you think in ways you didn’t want too?

Recommending books to another person – especially specific books to someone you know well but are not necessarily close with can be a risky proposition. It is something like sticking your neck out and being vulnerable. What if that person hates the book? What if they think you are a freak for liking it? Perhaps that is why I seldom make personal recommendations. I like more general and intellectual recommendations – an analytical review of the book tailored for a general audience rather than an enthusiastic this is the best book I’ve ever read, you’ve got to read it approach. And I certainly steer clear of the read this it might enlighten you approach because if they don’t want to be enlightened but read the book you recommended – well, it would be uncomfortable.

So what is your position on recommending books to others? What is your position on understanding a different point of view? What is your position on sharing the insights that point of view might give you with others? What do you think? Join the discussion.