A million miles in a thousand years (by Donald Miller)

(Amazon UK link)

I very much liked the books by Donald Miller when I first read them, finding them quirky and a bit different from most Christian writing. I reread his best-known ‘Blue like jazz’ in 2021; it’s semi-autobiographical as well as having some honest, thought-provoking comments about faith. I then re-read ‘Searching for God knows what’ last year, but didn’t like it as much as I had the first time, although I thought the second half well worth reading.

At the start of this month, I embarked on ‘A million miles in a thousand years’, which I last read in 2011. I hadn’t remembered anything about it, just that I found it moving and very well-written. It was a busy period with visitors, so on some days I only read short sections; I did appreciate the way it’s divided into very short chapters (36 in all) making it easy to read in odd moments.

The basic idea of the book is that two film-makers are proposing making a movie of Miller’s life, based on his autobiographical account. He doesn’t give the title anywhere, but I assumed he referred to ‘Blue like jazz’, and just checked; there was, indeed, a film made with the same title. Unfortunately it only seems to be available in the United States. 

The first chapter is a general one about scenes that we remember in detail from our lives, usually because they are different from everyday life. Then the rest of the early part of the book recounts Donald Miller’s meeting with the two film guys, Steve and Ben. He knows nothing about making films at the start, and is rather puzzled as to why anyone would want to make a film of his life. But he agrees to discuss it, and several meetings are described.

The style is quite informal but very readable, if a tad long-winded in places. And as the book progresses, the author learns a lot more about story-telling and what makes a good movie. There are five ‘parts’ to the book, each one loosely covering a slightly deeper understanding of what draws people into stories, and why books often have to be changed for visual media.

Alongside discussion of film-making and plotting, Don Miller recounts some current activities in his life, which happen alongside the discussions. He explores some issues from his past, and decides to make some positive changes to his life. He tries to find his long-lost father, and he agrees to some challenging physical activities including a bike ride across the United States. 

It was quite readable and interesting, but I didn’t find it as riveting as I did the first time. The subtitle is, 'What I learned while editing my life', and that pretty much covers it. It seemed rather sad that the film-makers had to invent so many incidents - so much so that it didn’t sound as if they were making a film about Donald Miller at all, but another similar young man in a different universe. 

And while the author was able to embark on some new, memorable adventures as a result of deciding that his life was a bit dull, that's not an option for everyone. As someone with a pleasant, content but mostly unmemorable existence, it felt almost depressing in places. 

Still, the insights into storytelling and plotting are useful reminders, and I thought it was a good book to read sporadically during a busy period. But the spiritual insight is minimal, and I’m not sure I knew, even by the end, what exactly the author believes. 

I’d still recommend this in a low-key way if you want something reasonably light with a Christian theme without being at all pushy. But perhaps I’ve moved on from the kinds of questions being chewed over in this book. 

Review copyright 2025 Sue's Book Reviews

Searching for God knows what (by Donald Miller)

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It’s fifteen years since I read ‘Searching for God knows what’ by Donald Miller. I recalled liking it very much, and finding it both helpful and thought-provoking. But I couldn’t remember what it was about, or anything in it. So it was more than time for a re-read. 

Donald Miller is an American CEO and public speaker who has written a handful of Christian-themed books. He’s probably best known for ‘Blue like jazz’ which I re-read in 2021 and thought every bit as good as when I read it for the first time. So I was looking forward to sitting down to this one. I decided to read a chapter or so each day for a couple of weeks. 

I recalled that the author’s writing style tends to be quite informal, almost as if he is speaking. It’s a little jarring at first but I quickly got used to it, even if some of the long sentences took a bit of unravelling. The style is quite light-hearted, recounting Miller’s past, and why he started questioning almost everything. 

The book opens with the description of attending a seminar for Christian writers. He explains in detail - some of which is quite entertaining - what he does in the hotel, and what he finds in the first seminar. Everyone he chats to seems to be writing a devotional series. Whereas he has an idea for a novel about a nun taking over South American countries… 

He is a bit confused that the speaker talks about formulas for writing. I’m sure it’s exaggerated, but a lot of Christian books fall into the style described, so it made me smile. I was surprised that he didn’t instantly realise that the seminar was meant for non-fiction rather than fiction writing, and quite shocked when it turns out that he hadn’t even figured out the difference between these two broad genres.

The next few chapters talk about formulas in the Christian world, and how ‘everyone’ grows up knowing them, and missing the point that Christianity is about relationship. This puzzled me, too. I grew up with no idea of Christian formulas, and didn’t hear any of them until I was about nineteen and attending a university mission.  Even then, relationship was always the main thing. 

And then the author says he read a book saying that Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament, something that has long been discounted. Moses might have made some notes, and is mentioned as writing down some small sections. But the Torah is now considered to be written by a variety of different authors, even though it’s sometimes called the ‘books of Moses’.  

So I had a mild sense of incongruity each time Donald Miller talks about Moses as if he had sat down with a typewriter and come up with the entire contents of the first five books of the Bible. And I also got a bit fed up of his going on and on about Adam and Eve not wearing clothes. I would have shrugged and accepted it all, but I was still irritated at his insistence that everyone grows up knowing Christian formulas about salvation and doesn’t know that what matters is our relationship with Jesus.

But then, around the half-way point, I found that the book was going into greater depth. The writing became less informal - though still easy to read - and the examples more interesting. They still didn’t tally with my experience, however. Miller writes about ‘lifeboat theory’, where everyone tries to assign value to each other. I know there are many who look down on those who are less intelligent (or less attractive or less athletic, etc). Bullying in schools is at an appalling level in many countries. It had not occurred to me that Christians do this too. 

But he’s right. Even though we pay lip service to the need to respect down-and-outs as much as obviously wealthy people, it’s not always easy to do so if a smelly tramp comes into a church service. It’s much easier to donate money to people who suffer in other countries, or help out at local shelters, safe in the knowledge of being well enough off to give time or finance. And the point is made that on any Christian book the author’s picture looks attractive - there’s no room, apparently, for plain or ugly people to write books. 

At least, this was the case twenty years ago when this book was published. I hope we have moved on somewhat. Most churches I have come across (at least in the UK and Europe) are becoming more inclusive of those of every nation, and salary level; where refugees are welcome and people with disabilities are encouraged to take part. Nobody cares, any longer, how anyone else dresses. 

But maybe that isn’t the case everywhere. I don’t know what’s going on in the United States, which still seems to value beauty and wealth, if the media is to be believed. Not that it’s wrong to be attractive or well-off, but it makes no sense to allocate more value to people based on such frivolous attributes. Or, indeed, based on any attributes. Our value is as children of God, our calling to follow Jesus: to be caught up in him, to involve him in our day-to-day lives, to aim to imitate his life and love.

So on the whole I did like the book once again, though I would no longer class it as a favourite. It’s certainly worth reading by those who have read tracts but haven’t really got to know Jesus. And there are many interesting anecdotes, even if some of them had no relevance to my experience. 

But I loved this book the first time I read it. I’m learning that we appreciate different things about books at different stages of our lives. 

Review copyright 2024 Sue's Book Reviews

Blue Like Jazz (by Donald Miller)

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It was over twelve years ago that I read ‘Blue like Jazz’ by Donald Miller, and liked it very much. So it was more than time to re-read. I hadn’t remembered anything about it, other than that it was a fairly informal book written from an American Christian perspective.

The informal style is what struck me immediately when I started reading again. It’s unusually written, almost as if spoken rather than written language, yet somehow it works. There’s less punctuation than I’d like, and sentences that are longer or shorter than usual - but once I got over the slight jar to my mind, I found it a very readable book.

The informality makes it feel almost as if the author is chatting to the readers, and that seems to be his intention. He’s telling his story, in essence, and it’s full of not just anecdotes but personal reflections. He watches TV shows, meets books, goes on journeys with several different friends - and learns new things, which he describes, along with his doubts, worries and concerns that logic is sometimes missing.

The author came from a poor family with separated parents, so as he says, his image of God wasn’t very flattering, reflecting his own somewhat unreliable father. He grew up in a fairly wealthy church, one that was quite inclusive and strict, and which demonised anyone who was different. That included anyone who voted Democrat. At the time I first read this, I was probably amused at the idea of Christians being so strongly right-wing and intolerant, but in recent years I’ve realised that, sadly, this is true in some parts of the United States. And probably elsewhere, too.

Don Miller, however, realised quickly that those who are different are not necessarily sinners, and that all the political parties have their good and bad points. He describes a period when he lived with hippies who weren’t believers at all, but who offered far more compassion and acceptance than any churches he had been to. It’s sad, shocking even, but also encouraging that he was able to see this and yet not give up on God.

There are sections about admitting faults and sins - confession, as the jargon word has it - sometimes to other people as well as to Goe, and acknowledging that sometimes we are wrong. Yet it all happens without any hint of preaching or condemnation. The author makes it clear that we’re all part of the human race, we all make mistakes, and nobody has the entire truth at their disposal.

The subtitle to the book is ‘nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality’, and that’s a good description. Inevitably God is mentioned, but as a part of the author’s life, someone he is slowly trying to get to know and - as far as is possible - begin to understand. He talks about his own rather sporadic and random reading of parts of the Bible, and the effect it had on him when he started to read the gospels straight through.

I was particularly struck by the final sections, on loving other people, and what that really means, and then on loving oneself. That’s perhaps the hardest thing to do - and Don Miller’s writing feels very vulnerable and honest as he recounts romantic relationships and other ways in which, despite being quite self-centred, he finds it very difficult to accept love from other people.

Miller is clearly an Introvert - I loved his analogy of being an electric screwdriver, needing twenty hours to recharge for ten minutes’ activity. Hyperbole, perhaps, but I can relate strongly. As I can to much of the writing, despite my culture and circumstances being entirely different.

I don’t always love books when I re-read them after a gap of over a decade, but I thought ‘Blue like Jazz’ was excellent, and would highly recommend it to anybody.

Review copyright 2021 Sue's Book Reviews

A million miles in a thousand years (by Donald Miller)

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It's only in the last couple of years that I've discovered the books by the American Christian writer Donald Miller. I quite enjoyed the semi-autobiographical 'Blue Like Jazz', the book that became a surprise best-seller; I very much liked the more theological 'Searching for God knows what'.

I had 'A Million Miles in a Thousand Years' on my private wishlist for some time, hoping that it would eventually come out in paperback. But at last it was on special offer (in hardback) so I went ahead and bought it from the Book Depository. I'm very pleased that I did. One of the introductory bits of blurb said that I wouldn't 'enjoy' or 'like' the book. I disagree. I decidedly enjoyed and liked it, while finding it extremely thought-provoking in places, sometimes disturbing, sometimes amusing.

It's the story of what happens when two film-makers want to make a movie about Donald Miller's life. He learns - and explains, with sometimes lengthy anecdotes - about the ways film characters vary from real life, and in doing so explores some of his own hang-ups and longings.

He learns, too, about living a story, at a stage where his own life was somewhat paused after the launch of his previous book. He goes to seminars about story-writing, and delves pretty deeply into the concepts. He digresses into the stories of some of his good friends and their families... and finally decides that, as well as helping to write the story of the fictional Don Miller, he probably needs to kick-start a new sub-plot of his own life story .

So, amongst other things he finds himself on a physically painful long bike-ride to raise money for charity, and also on an emotionally difficult journey trying to find out about the father he never knew. Written in his apparently random way, with a simple, often rambling style and frequent digressions, there's a great deal to think about on almost every page.

Donald Miller is a Christian, and so there are references to God and the church and the Bible; but he doesn't write in jargon, nor does he preach. God is real to him in a way that isn't often presented in Christian books. Miller's style is down-to-earth, at times describing the minutiae of his life in a way which might make some traditionalists hold their hands up in horror.

Highly readable, often moving, frequently thought-provoking. I enjoyed it very much, despite the fact that I wasn't supposed to, and would definitely recommend it.

Review copyright Sue's Book Reviews, 7th February 2011

Searching for God knows what (by Donald Miller)

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I only came across of Donald Miller a few months ago, when I read and very much enjoyed 'Blue like jazz'.

So, since 'Searching for God knows what' by the same author was sitting on our shelves, I put it on my to-read shelf, and picked it up a couple of weeks ago.

I found this book riveting, although I only read a chapter or so each day, wanting to think about each one rather than moving quickly through the book. Donald Miller has a clear, chatty and almost simplistic style of writing that gets right to the heart of what many people are probably thinking. This book is partly biographical - although not as much as 'Blue like Jazz' - and partly theological and philsophical.

He uses examples such as Santa Claus, bearded ladies, spends a great deal of time thinking about Adam and Eve being unclothed, and also pulls to pieces the analogy of people in lifeboats deciding who is the most important.

These and other metaphors are used through the book, until he reaches the heart of what he's trying to say: that comparisons are pointless, and the world is shallow. That Christianity is not a religion of bullet points or formulae, but a living, loving relationship with Jesus Christ.

The familiar, almost casual writing style might annoy some theologians, and the simplicity of his message might upset or threaten those who like formulae and moral codes. But his thought-processes are clearly explained, and I very much enjoyed it.

All in all, I thought this book excellent and thought-provoking, and will probably read it again in a few years. Highly recommended.

Review copyright Sue's Book Reviews, 9th February 2009

Blue like Jazz (by Donald Miller)

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It's not often that I read a non-fiction book which is a modern best-seller. I hadn't even heard of Donald Miller - this book was given to my husband, as was another by the same author, and there it sat on our shelves. But it was recommended by someone else, and I thought I'd give it a go.

'Blue like Jazz' has 'Nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality' as its subtitle, and it sounded good to me. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. It turned out to be the author's thoughts combined with a bit of autobiography, in roughly chronological order. He covers topics such as love, giving, the church, faith, romance and community, in a refreshing style without using any jargon at all.

It took me a few pages to get into the style of writing. The sentences are short, and casual in the extreme. He writes almost like a teenager at times, delving into his innermost thoughts as well as relating what happened to himself and various of his friends, and the conclusions they draw. Because there are so many anecdotes, it's very readable - and also surprisingly thought-provoking.

I can't say this is my favourite book of all time, nor that it struck me deeply (as did some of the books by, for instance, Philip Yancey, Brennan Manning or Adrian Plass). But I enjoyed it, reading a couple of chapters at a time, and I found it interesting reading such an honest account of someone's life, and searching, and spirituality.

Fundamentalists might disapprove: Miller writes about drinking and smoking and swearing as part of everyday life. But, for many, that's true. If we look at the kinds of people Jesus mixed with two thousand years ago, they're not so different.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who dislikes religious jargon, or who wonders whether all Christians are hypocrites, or simply wants a different kind of take on Christian topics.

Review copyright Sue's Book Reviews, 24th October 2008