Books, Recommended and Especially Recommended: Gilead and Home

I read Gilead a few years ago. It was, like everyone said, beautiful. Recommended, although I don't know that I would have mentioned it if I had made a habit of mentioning things back when I read it.

Just finished Home. One marvels that a person who has not lived a life like ours can invent it so well. Each child of the pious is a risk; by which I refer not to the immediate comfort which seems so important now and which we mostly discuss here, but to our deepest vulnerability. We are all enticed to take our one, two, maybe three perfect children, and run, call it quits. Healthy and good, so let's not tempt fate. Each child is a terrible risk.

Well. If even a fictional Presbyterian can find comfort in God's grace, how much more actual Lutherans. If it wouldn't weary you to read something so uneasily close to your own life and fears (though from a different perspective--another point of value), pick it up. Gilead too--I kind of wish I'd read it second.