Finding God in Unexpected Places (by Philip Yancey)

(Amazon UK link)

For many years I have enjoyed Philip Yancey's Christian books, and we have most of them on our shelves. I decided to start re-reading them, and picked this one up, thinking I hadn't read it for probably six or seven years.

I first read 'Finding God in Unexpected Places' in 2005, and liked it very much indeed. It consists of a good number of short chapters, mostly based on Yancey's travels as a journalist, as he finds different expressions of the Body of Christ around the world.

However, although I had forgotten most of the details of the various anecdotes and thoughts (other than what is possibly my favourite chapter title, ever: 'They also serve who only sit and click' - tremendous encouragement to writers!) I found myself glossing over some of it on re-reading recently. I read just two or three chapters each morning, and sometimes had to re-read a paragraph which I had not entirely taken in.

It's not that there's any problem with the writing - which, as ever for Yancey, is excellent - nor that the book was uninteresting in any way. Far from it. But it all seemed rather too familiar - as if it were me that has become jaded, rather than the book.

It was, then, not quite such a surprise as it might have been to discover that I actually re-read 'Finding God in Unexpected Places' as recently as November 2010. No wonder it didn't seem as if there was anything particularly new in the book - although, perhaps, a little concerning at how much I had forgotten!

Still, well worth reading anyway, and highly recommended to all. Available in Kindle form as still as remaining constantly in print in paperback, on both sides of the Atlantic.

Review copyright Sue's Book Reviews, 13th July 2012