Saturday 31 July, 2010

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Buying a Christian book part 1: What to look for

Posted: Jun 22, 2008 by Matt

The other day I was in the local Christian bookshop (Wesley Owen) with a friend from church and he made an interesting comment. He expressed, with some frustration how hard it was as a young Christian who walks into a Christian bookshop, to know which books are worth buying. I’m not sure I helped ease his frustration when a while ago I said I thought that roughly 70% of the books they sold weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. I have no vendetta against Wesley Owen bookshops; I actually think they provide a great service to the Christian church. But Wesley Owen (and Christian book shop chains like it) are out to run a business. It’s in their best interests to be a ‘broad church‘ and sell as many units as possible. By that definition, they’re bound to sell rubbish books as well as good ones, because they’re trying to sell books to so many different traditions within the Christian church.

My friends problem is a genuine one. How do you sort the wheat from the chaff? I’m not putting myself forward as a book buying expert even though I’ve bought more than my fair share of Christian books (much to my wifes consternation). What I want to do however is to put a few tips out there as food for thought. They’re not exhaustive by any means, they’re just designed as a discussion starter to help young Christians avoid the frustration of wasting £9.99 on firewood. So here are my thoughts. I must stress right at the start of this article that these are *_my _*opinions and not necessarily the opinions of Trinity Baptist Church as a whole.

What to do

Here are the things I think you should look for:

• Is it a good publisher? Most Christian book stores sell books published by a wide range of Christian publishers. Some are great, some are not. Some are mixed (they publish some good some bad books). My general rule of thumb is to avoid a publisher I’ve never heard of until I’ve had the time to at least research them first. If I come across a book that looks good but published by someone I’ve never heard of, it makes me wonder why the author didn’t have it published by a more well known publisher. Not all small publishers are bad by any means, but do some homework before you buy from a publisher you’ve never heard of.

• Word of mouth. As Christians we often struggle to share our faith with the world, but we also struggle to share our faith with our Christian brothers and sisters. One great way to start talking about your faith with fellow Christians is to read and to talk about what you read. If a good Christian friend, who you trust, recommends a book, buy it as well and talk about it. And if it helps you recommend it to others and talk about it with them too.

• Go on the web. I’m not saying you should buy all of your books on the web, although that’s a valid option these days. At least read book reviews on the web. Amazon is a good place to look because they attract the most customers and subsequently the most reviewers. Be aware however that Amazon have different sites for different countries. www.amazon.co.uk is the UK store, www.amazon.com is the US store. Buying books in the UK is far cheaper through the UK site and they both have the same wide range of books, but reviews are far more extensive on the US site. When you read the reviews read some high reviews (4-5 star) and some low reviews (1-2 star) and also look to see how many people found a review helpful. As an aside I never understand people who bother to review a book on amazon and only give it a 3 star (average) review – who logs on and writes a review just to express an apathetic opinion? Back to the point – if everyone gives a book 5/5, this doesn’t necessarily make the book a good one, it all depends where the reviews are coming from, but it is some indication of whether you’re going to waste your money or not.

• Who praise the book? Most book have an ‘In praise of…‘ section, especially if they’re published in the US. It’s not important what they say – no-one is going to put: "This book is rubbish, I woudn’t use it for toilet paper" on the back. What’s important is who recommends it. If it’s someone you know and trust, that indicates that it might be a good book. If it’s people known for their controversial, wild and crazy views, that’s a warning sign.

• The daisy chain. When you find a Christian book you like, one of the best ways to work out which book to buy next is to see who the author quotes, sites and raves about. If a certain author or book comes up again and again and is given high praise by the author it might be worth reading in full. This is a kind of daisy chain approach. One author leads you to another author, who in turn leads you to another author etc.

• Bookstalls and conferences. As Christian bookshops sell such a wide range of books, one of the best ways churches can encourage their congregation to read good Christian books is to run a bookstall or have a recommended list of books to read. I know that Wesley Owen run a sale-or-return scheme and I’m sure many other Christian bookshops do the same. If churches want to protect their congregation from reading poor books, help them out by having a bookstall at every available opportunity.

To be continued (what to avoid)…