Tuesday, November 30, 2010

What is Donna VanLiere reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Donna VanLiere, author of the recent book, The Christmas Journey, a modern retelling of the Nativity with brilliant watercolor paintings inside.

Her entry begins:
As usual, I am reading several books at one time (what is that about my personality?). Azar Nafisi's memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran is not only the author's own story of life in Iran but also a book of social history. For two years Nafisi gathered seven of her female students (she taught at a university in Tehran) to secretly read forbidden Western classics like The Great Gatsby and Lolita. I was drawn to this work because, while Iran's leaders were calling America The Great Satan, Nafisi's life and the lives of her students were becoming intertwined with the ones they were reading about in the pages of each "forbidden" novel.

I'm also reading...[read on]
About The Christmas Journey:
The eighty-mile journey of a common carpenter and a simple peasant girl is one of the most powerful stories in history. As books go out of print and stories fade from memory, the journey of Joseph and Mary and her delivery inside a common barn continues to bless and inspire hope in people around the world.

Accompanied by moving and beautifully rendered original watercolor illustrations throughout, Donna's signature voice retelling shows that the story of the Nativity is alive in our modern world.
Donna VanLiere is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Christmas Hope books and Angels of Morgan Hill.

Visit Donna VanLiere's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Christmas Secret.

The Page 69 Test: Finding Grace.

Writers Read: Donna VanLiere.

--Marshal Zeringue