If you know me you know that I don't really like to review books. I don't feel I am able to do them justice, and it doesn't help that I finished this book awhile ago and am just now getting around to doing it. However, I felt this was a book I wanted to offer even a poor review on (as reviews go).
I recently read Eugene Peterson's 'Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading.' This is not something I would recommend for casual readers or reading. It's a tad on the heady side. However, for anyone interested in studying and/or understanding the Christian Bible on a deeper level, and being impacted by it, I would highly recommend it. Especially for people who believe the only Word that is God's is the King James Version.
My guess is 'Eat This Book' was written largely to explain why Peterson wrote his very popular paraphrase "The Message." He shares several stories of how and why it came to be, and part of the process he went through to create it. It is also written from a very pastorly standpoint - which is what he was when the journey began.
There is more I wanted to write, but basically I want to stress how good his explanation was for needing the bible written in common language - which is what the original bible was written in during its day. So... read this book (if you're interested), and read an *understandable bible translation (if you're interested in that). That's my sum-up.
*I will write about what I mean by "understandable translation" at a later date. For now, I basically mean not-the-King-James-Version. Not that it is bad, necessarily, but there are much better (imho).