Books like Lords of the Earth — picked by fans

I’ve always wanted to study literature at Oxford University. I never have and almost certainly never will, but Carolyn Weber is the friend I would have made if I had that opportunity, and thanks to this powerful, luminous memoir I still got to “meet” that friend and experience what our long conversations over tea might have been like. 

Weber’s deeply honest story of discovering Christianity while stumbling upon the footsteps of other seekers after truth and beauty at an ancient university made both an old, old town and the ancient truth of the Gospel seem bright and fresh. 

I read this book during a very intense summer a few years ago when I was trying to figure out if Christianity could possibly be true, and how a nerdy secular academic like myself could even begin to ask that question.

I found a kindred spirit in Sheldon Vanauken. In this memoir set mainly in the 1950s, he tells the story of how he took a sabbatical from his teaching job at a little college in Virginia to go to Oxford with his wife. Neither of them was religious at the time. In fact, the first part of the book is a very intense (some might say: cloyingly sentimental) account of their romance, when they basically worshipped each other instead of a deity.

If you’re like me, you’ll want to shout “get a room already” and throw the book at the wall during the first few chapters. But I’m glad… show more.

One of the rare, truly great political heroes of modern history emerges from this engaging biography as a deeply likable character whose pockets were stuffed with books, whose house overflowed with rescued animals, and who was completely aware of what an obnoxious, sarcastic know-it-all he had been as a younger man.

In an age like ours that tends to forget that integrity, conviction, humility, and humor should always go together, meeting William Wilberforce and spending time with an extraordinary leader behind one of the great humanitarian crusades of the last two centuries is a life-changing experience. 

I was shocked at how this book opened my eyes to the overwhelming challenges and difficulties of being an American missionary in India during the early nineteenth century. I felt as though I was reading a very personal autobiography of one of the first Christian missionaries as well as a history lesson about how people struggled to survive in a remote and often uncivilized part of the world.

I was left with a feeling of gratitude and perhaps a bit of guilt regarding those believers who gave everything they had, including their very lives, to help those less fortunate than themselves.

As with my other recommendations, I am making this one based on the impact the book had on me. From this novel, as well as the others that Jerry wrote, I learned how important it is to build a comprehensive world-universe when planning a book. And, when I sat down to pen the first book in what would become the Legion of the Damned series, I attempted to build a reality as fully realized as the CoDominium universe is.  

Told in first person as if God is talking, I Made the Earth is an exploration of the earth God created told in simple text young children can understand.

Engaging rhyme and rhythm with color illustrations show diverse child characters in different settings. The book begins, “So…can you guess what time it is? It’s time for Earth Day fun! You see the things in this big world? I made them—everyone!”

The book encourages readers to take care of the world God created, know God through His creation, and know that God created Earth because, “I love you.” The book closes with “Each time you celebrate Earth Day, you’re celebrating me.” Back matter includes ways children can help, fun facts about Earth Day, a note from the author, and a Bible excerpt from Genesis.

A perfect introduction for young children to learn about God’s creation and why we need to take… show more.

There is growing literature in both religious and secular circles about a needed sense of reverence for the Earth to counter an utterly utilitarian view that all life is present as resources for human use only. I commend Newell’s Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul to illustrate how a great tradition, Celtic spirituality, through its poetry, song, and way-of-life practices, draws deeply on the sense of the sacred that the soul knows and most people experience in some measure.

This book is a little more Space Opera than Sci-fi as it focuses more on the adventure than the impossibility of the technology. It takes place thousands of years in the future when man kinds had spread out across the galaxy and forgotten about Earth, for the most part. The characters are not deep, and the story relies more on action than complexity, but it’s fun. It moves from one event to another, the main character is a bit of a rogue that you can’t help but like and his female counterpart is smarter, faster, and deadlier than he will every be, so it's good she is on his side. One of the reasons I like these books (10 book series with some spin-offs) is because it is very different from my style. If my books were Angus Steaks, these would be an Ice-cream Sunday.   

Exploring an earth-centric view of business for the future, envisioning regenerative systems where fashion can support, rather than deplete our planet’s finite resources, this book challenges the concept of growth and offers real alternatives.

This book feels challenging, but is rooted in common sense, it may seem out there and unrealistic, but being about Earth it actually makes it feel not just possible but eminently doable.

I generally don’t enjoy works of fiction that feature writers as their main characters. The process of writing, while influenced by life, is nevertheless a solitary process, difficult to capture in an interesting and meaningful way. William Goldman manages to do that, mostly by focusing on the backstory of story, on the flow and emotions of existence that contribute not only to the tales a writer tells, but their need to do so. The Color of Light feels both fantastical and real, steeped in preposterous events and genuine emotion, in a way that traces both the artistic process and the vagaries of life.