February 21, 2012

"I Am Second" by Doug Bender and Dave Sterrett (Review)

This book is simply excellent. Contained within it, you will find short stories of a variety of individuals - from names you've read about in the headlines to those you have never heard of before. All share with you diverse tales from their lives but they all have one thing in common - that moment they realize that God is asking them to make him First.

There are twenty stories here and each is presented in a way where you can hear the storyteller's voice. The writers of each story do not  place themselves in a way that you can tell they are there, but they are. They perfectly fill in the spaces that simply a transcript of an interview would leave out.

The strength of this book is that the stories are short and engaging. I believe even a non-reader can thoroughly enjoy this book. At the end of each chapter, there are barcodes you can scan (or links) that take you to the I Am Second website featuring actual interview videos that feature stories in the same vein as the one you just read.

This book is a great one to give. As you are reading it, I'm sure you will have people in mind that might benefit from reading it. It is a perfect evangelistic tool for the modern crowd because it's engaging, techy interactive, and begins with a baseline of names that would be familiar to the reader. I can't think of a single way to improve it.

Five stars (out of five).

I received a complimentary review copy of this book from Thomas Nelson.