100 Books Like We Were All Someone Else Yesterday

I love this book. I am, of course, tremendously biased as someone who believes that humor is the best gateway to truth, and this collection of poems contains a lot of humor and no small amount of truth, and even some truth about humor in the form of “Clowns”, a tremendously moving piece about comedians which proves what I've always said, the only important thing to be serious about is comedy. For anyone who has ever done stand-up, that poem is seriously a must-read. But the whole book is a much-needed shot to the heart and funny bone.

Nothing says humanity like vulnerability about the messy, imperfect creatures we are, and this book has that in spades. (Or I guess, more appropriately, hearts.) I could talk about how the book is darkly funny and reveals hidden depths of the soul, but I'll admit one thing I love about it is that it contains one of the most beautiful, inspiring poems I've ever heard, one I share frequently, with some devastating lines and a real sense of hope that it's okay to feel broken and still fight on, and the poem is titled, “I Can't Believe I Let You Touch My Balls”.  It's like if that old piano player joke was real life.

They say, “Don't judge a book by its cover,” but sometimes you can judge a book of poems a little bit by the titles if they're really good. That'd be a terrible quote, but it's still true, and some of the poem titles in this book of heartbreak are a whole journey in themselves, like “Not Doing Something Wrong Isn't the Same as Doing Something Right,” whose opening three words, “In my defense,” echo repeatedly throughout the poem and throughout my head. When it's heartbreak time, I'd suggest either listening to MC Abdominal's song “Broken” on repeat, or reading this book.

There's a good chance you're familiar with his poem “What Teachers Make”, from his other book. But this is the book that has his most poignant and human poems, including “Tony Steinberg: Brave Seventh Grade Viking Warrior”, which has long been one of my partner's favorite poems, and accomplishes in a few minutes of words what many Hollywood movies try and fail to accomplish with a full cast, two hours, and hundreds of millions of dollars: It alternately makes you laugh and cry. Which I say as someone who has seen it performed many times, and it still makes me laugh every time, and still makes me cry every time.

This jaw-dropping autobiography from Lisa will leave you wanting more on every page.

She bears her soul with everything that she went through being on the streets, dealing drugs, running away from home, being abused, and going to prison.

Throughout the book, her transparency of what she felt will guide you on an adventure and ultimately will show you who your true identity is with with Jesus.

First thing, even if she weren’t my best friend, I would choose Samantha Bee’s memoir. I read it years ago and I still have flashes of it come to me when I’m watering plants or whatever, descriptions of her life with her grandmother, like how she made Sam wear a one-piece cashmere sweat suit with a patent-leather belt to gym class and tell Sam she shouldn’t sweat in it because it was dry-clean only. As an atheist, I loved her fealty to Jesus Christ, and her vision that they would of course “listen to my disco records and eat Tang straight from the package, just like lovers did.” Yes obviously I’m her friend because I think she’s gorgeous. That’s the theme here, pure aesthetics and good with wordings. 

I enjoyed Anna's writing because of her courage to include missionaries in her work.

Often times those who love Christ refuse to speak of Him or include Him.

Anna does not have this problem and her work is better for it. I found here a rich world that parallels our own in creative ways.

I didn't want to put it down and I am excited to read the rest of the series. 

We believe that at the heart of Christian theology is the truth that God has chosen to reveal himself definitively in Jesus Christ. This is how we know what God is like!

We don’t just love our enemies as an abstract ethic that we hope will work. In looking at Jesus, we now know that this is also what God is like. This book is a beautiful introduction to the theological truth that Jesus really is the image and nature of God. 

Miley does similar things in Becoming Fire as Miller does in Friendship with Jesus but with her own flavor.

Every week, she camps on a different story of the Bible.

You walk a mile in the sandals of a different character each day. That way, you develop a deeper understanding of the passage than you would if you just read it once and connected with the characters you naturally understand. 

Take the story about the sisters, Mary and Martha. Everyone relates to Martha who's super busy. That's our culture these days, right? But not as many people relate to Mary who camps at Jesus’ feet wanting to take in everything He has to say. 

I certainly didn't until God Mary'd me so much so that I ended up writing a book about it.

Through Becoming Fire, God will personalize the Scriptures for you, too!

I found so much freedom in this book. Richard Rohr put words to things I had long felt but struggled to articulate—that Christ’s presence is not confined to religion, rules, or a distant heaven but woven into everything, here and now.

This book expanded my view of God, shattering the small, transactional faith I had been handed and replacing it with a love big enough to hold all things. Rohr’s words helped me see Christ in the ordinary, in the broken, in myself—and that changed everything.