In this post, I share my July book club takeaways: one fiction and one nonfiction, both with perspectives on heaven. The first, a sort of heaven on earth, and the second a Christ-centered analysis of the afterlife.
As usual, my two July books seem to have nothing in common, but if you’ve been reading my book club posts, you’ll know that I always look for ways to connect the two randomly-selected books. I’ve discovered that this process is really quite easy because I look at everything I read (experience, watch, and hear) through my Christian faith lens. Even if it’s not a so-called Christian product, I look at it and ask lots of questions, especially this one: Where is Christ? If He’s missing, then I have a mystery to solve. It’s oh so fun.
This month’s books include one novel, a lovely story about a happy family, what many would call a slice of heaven on earth, and one nonfiction which actually asks the question: is there a heaven after earth?
Hang with me as we dive into our July book club takeaways and look at these two books and their perspective on heaven.
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July Book Club Takeaways
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
I’ll be honest and say that I chose Tom Lake by Ann Patchett for three simple reasons: curiosity, Michigan, and cherries.
I was curious because this was one of those must-read books since its release in 2023. Patchett is an award-winning and best-selling author – not because her work is sensational or edgy. No, her work is thoughtful, lyrical, and insightful. I don’t have to work too hard when I read Patchett. But I read with a pen so I can underline places where she says something simply and elegantly. As a writer, I’m in awe.
I also picked this book because it’s set in my home state of Michigan during cherry-picking season. And goodness, I could read this book while eating our Michigan farmer’s market cherries. Nothing better. A little glimpse of heaven right here on my back porch.
About the Story
The story is set in the spring of 2020 at the beginning of the lockdowns, and I was a little worried this would become a pandemic story with subtle and not-so-subtle political overtones. But it didn’t go there. Not at all.
In fact it’s relevant only because it gave her characters a time to be together. The mother, Lara, reflects “…the present–this unparalleled disaster–is the happiest time of my life: Joe and I here on this farm, our three girls grown and gone and then returned, all of us working together to take the cherries off the trees. Ask that girl who left Tom Lake what she wanted out of life and she would never in a million years have said the Nelson farm in Traverse City, Michigan, but as it turned out, it was all she wanted.”
Patchett beautifully used the setting as the vehicle for this hope filled family saga. It’s a lovely story of youth, love, one marriage, two people, and their family. Lara’s three adult daughters return to the family orchard and beg her to share stories about her romance with a now-famous actor, Peter Duke. We jump back and forth between the present and the past as Lara remembers her theater days playing Emily in Our Town at Tom Lake, falling in love–but was it really love?–, and discovering herself.
“Watching these men recite the same lines so badly while polishing their glasses with giant white handkerchiefs really made me think about my life.” And much later, “… until one morning you’re picking cherries with your three grown daughters and your husband goes by on the Gator and you are positive that this is all you’ve ever wanted in the world.”
Reflection on the Story
This book would probably receive an R-rating for some language and scenes and challenging subject matters (abortion and physical relationships outside of marriage). The characters don’t reveal any faith beyond faith in family, kindness, and hard work. Whenever I read stories like this, I’m always a little sad when the characters don’t have faith in the Resurrected Christ. (Maybe you don’t either, and if that’s the case, check out this next book or some of my other posts.)
Because ultimately, what we are living here today is just a glimpse of eternity. The beauty, the love, the joy, the splendor of creation? It’s all a little imperfect this side of heaven.
Which brings me to the nonfiction book for the month.
The Case for Heaven by Lee Strobel
Lee Strobel’s The Case for Heaven a clearly stated case for the existence of heaven and how to get there.
The author is an atheist-turned-Christian, a Yale graduate who worked as a legal editor for the Chicago Tribune. He’s best known for his 1978 classic, The Case for Christ. I remember reading that years ago and being impressed by the author’s objective examination of the Christian faith.
About the Book
In this heaven book, the same journalist continues his gift for digging, researching, and interviewing as he examines what will happen when we die.
But Strobel doesn’t offer a simple explanation, “this is what the Bible says.” In fact, the book challenged me as I wondered how I would present my case for heaven to a skeptic or an unbeliever. I wasn’t sure what I would say before I read this book. But now I have some thoughts. Strobel offers good evidence in this very readable book.
Strobel includes interviews and quotations from a number of well-known scholars, philosophers, and theologians, and the book leans to an academic examination with discussion questions, pages of endnotes as well as additional resources to read further on the various topics. He considers theories from other world religions and even within Christianity. I learned about annihilationism, universalism, and even reincarnation. But it’s not heavy-handed or overly academic. You won’t need to look up words or scratch your head too often. Most of it is not dry and clinical. It’s living and breathing with people’s stories.
For example, Strobel invites readers to sit with him across from Luis Palau, the “Billy Graham of Latin America,” as he faces his own death and talks candidly about it. When he asks him who he wants to see in heaven, Palau “swallowed hard. ‘I want to see my dad,’ he said, eyes glistening . . . And I want to spend time with my mother and with all the great heroes of the faith.”
Strobel also examines classic texts. In one chapter he looks at “The Logic of Hell” and opens with Dante’s The Divine Comedy, an allegorical journey through hell and to heaven. He looks at why hell is not a popular topic. Quoting a Bible teacher he writes, “The doctrine of ‘endless punishment’ has for centuries been the ‘crazy uncle’ that the Church, with justifiable embarrassment, has kept locked in the back bedroom.”
Ultimately, he’s a Christian making an argument for Christ. Yet skeptics and unbelievers will appreciate his respectful, objective, and professional approach to the subject.
The Ending
Interestingly, the final setting in Tom Lake is a small cemetery on the family’s cherry farm. “There is room up here for all of us, for me and for Joe and our daughters, for their partners and their children . . . “ It’s a satisfying and sweet ending for the story.
Yet it’s not a satisfying ending in real life.
I recently discovered this line from a hymn (often wrongly attributed to George Bernard Shaw): “A happy family is but an earlier heaven.”
Isn’t that a perfect way to connect these two books? I’m thankful for my imperfectly happy family. And because of my trust in Christ, I believe our joy and our blessings here on earth are just a glimpse of the New Heaven and the New Earth. An earlier heaven.
My prayer for you, dear readers, is that you too will know the ending.
“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.”
1 John 5:13 ESV
What’s all this about Beth’s Book Club? Let me fill you in.
In case you missed it, this year I chose 24 books to highlight for a “reading club,” two per month. One fiction. One nonfiction. Because that’s what I love to do. Then I write a blog post about those two books at the end of the month. I chose a variety of books, and I realize you might have zero interest in reading some. That’s okay. Read what you want, if you want, before or after I post. My blog post are filled with my Beth-review and takeaways. Nothing fancy. No quizzes. Just reading fun!
Playing catch up? Here’s what you might have missed:
