As I have discovered my own personal reading preferences, I have come to realize why I am attracted to certain types of books. The four types of books discussed by Daniel Taylor has had great significance for me. I have added a short description of his books. I hope it helps you in your reading choices!
There are four types of stories (as discussed in the excellent book The Healing Power of Stories by Daniel Taylor): Bent, Broken, Whole and Healing.
Bent stories portray evil as good and good as evil. Such stories are meant to increase the evil of the reader, such as pornography and many horror books and movies. The best decision regarding Bent stories is to avoid them like the plague.
Broken stories portray evil as evil and good as good, but evil wins. Something is broken; not right; in need of fixing. Such books are not uplifting, but can be very inspiring. Broken stories can be very good for the reader if they motivate one to heal them, to fix them. The Communist Manifesto is a broken classic, so are Lord of the Flies, and 1984. In each of these, evil wins. But they can be very motivating to heal something broken in the real world.
Whole stories are where good is good and good wins. Most of the classics are in this catagory, and readers should spend most of their time in such works.
Healing stories can be either whole or broken stories where the reader is profoundly moved, changed, significantly improved by their reading experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment