Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood

This is a very good book. Very very very good. That's a triple very. Very good. In this tale, "The Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood", George Macdonald recounts in very fine detail his first experience as Parson. After reading the book I almost wondered why it was titled "Quiet Neighborhood". Sounds boring doesn't it? Well, it's not. You'll discover some of the most remarkable and extraordinary people in the pages of this book, all with a story of their own. This is one of those books that offers the reader, however, more than a merely interesting story; though it is that as well. Some of George MacDonalds most core beliefs are revealed through the voices and actions of his characters, including the Parson himself (George Macdonald, or Mr. Walton in the book). How much of the book is fiction, and how much of it actually happened, I do not know and it doesn't really say. Nor do I think it matters a great deal. What I really love about MacDonald's fiction in general and this book in particular is how he manages to take the theology in his "Unspoken Sermons" (A great book too, in its own right), and translate it into every day situations. While "Unspoken Sermons" deals largely with the theory, Macdonald's fiction stories show practically how these truths can be lived and seen in every day life. Even so is this book. If you like anything else of Macdonald's you'll like this too. If you haven't ever read any Macdonald, well, your missing out. It's easy to see why this man had such a big influence on some of the leading thinkers of the 19th century such as C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton.