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DOUG ANDERSON of Signature Sound recently wrapped up the group’s European Tour during which he took plenty of time to engage in one of his favorite off-stage activities — reading! Here are three books that have found their way onto his all-time favorites list.
I am so thrilled to get to do this as I have been on a reading frenzy as of late. That’s partly because I have a lot of friends who are writers and readers who keep me up to date on the latest must reads and then partly because I have had a lot of travel time with nothing to do!
One of my favorite books of all time is
Pat Conroy’s Beach Music. That being said, I
read his book South of Broad and was blown
away by the story, but more than that, the
character development. I was intrigued with
each of these characters because I knew so
much about them. When you get done
with the book, you feel as if you know these
people on a first-name basis and are somehow
going through the story with them.
This made me fall into Beach Music that
much more. The cool thing about Conroy
is that it seems like he takes actual experiences
in his life and expands them into
characters and stories. It’s up to us to decide
what is real and what is not. All of Conroy’s
books are set in the Carolina coastal ways
and this one is no different. It spans a lifetime
full of backstories that take you from
South Carolina to California. It’s a story of
friends and how they remain a solid group,
loyal to each other through good times and
bad, success, tragedy and even acts of God.
I started this book on a Thursday and I finished
on Monday. I am a slow reader, so that
shows how much I am into Conroy’s books.
I could do a whole article on him — he is by
far my favorite writer.
Another writer I admire is Anne Rice.
Known more for her vampire books, she
also wrote a couple of non-vampire books
that I enjoyed. One was Christ The Lord:
Out of Egypt. It wound up being controversial
in some circles, but I loved it. It’s a fictional book, people — not the Ten Commandments!
I loved that it made me think.
I have always wondered what happened to
Jesus after He was born, what life He lived
before He knew that He was special. Did
He know? What conditions did they live
in? What were Mary and Joseph like? This
book takes you on a journey of “what ifs.”
In this story, Jesus as a 7-year-old boy is
the narrator and begins to explore and find
out that He is different. One of the first
things that happens is Jesus has an altercation
with a bully on the playground who
then dies, but Jesus brings him to life again.
Rice delivers basic historical fiction. The
book takes you all the way through His
early childhood to the point that He realizes
He is the Son of God. It has caused
some criticism as to whether Rice really
got into the head of a 7-year-old Jesus, but
I couldn’t put it down.
Recently, I have really enjoyed Gregory
Maguire’s book Wicked. I just finished the
book and saw the musical. It is a brilliant,
funny backstory to the famous Wizard of
OZ. There are always two sides to every
story. In the WOZ, we just heard Dorothy’s
side. In Maguire’s Wicked we hear the side
of the Wicked Witch. We find out where
she came from, the trials she dealt with and
what made this little green-skinned girl
named Elphaba become “wicked.” She will
change the way you think about good and
evil. The parallels to the original, and how
the story weaves in and out of time periods
is remarkable. I have to say, I was always
scared of the Wicked Witch. But I finished
this book understanding her and almost
feeling sorry for her. I guess it’s true — you
can’t judge a book by its cover. This, to me,
will become a classic.
