6 Not-About-God Books To Get You Thinking About God

I love an about-God book as much as the next God-loving gal. I also love, love, love reading a book that isn’t so much about God and yet finding God on every other page. 

Since it’s summer and you might be looking for a book to read beside an ocean, a pool or a sprinkler, I figured I’d make a list.

Here are six books you might like if you want to encounter God in an unexpected and enlightening way:

#1 Candide by Voltaire

Candide is the funniest, strangest, and most delightful 250-year-old French novella. It’s short and epic. Reading it, you can’t help but re-evaluate the the way you see the universe. You also might laugh so hard sweet tea comes out your nose.

#2 The Flavor Bible by Karen Page, Andrew Dornenburg

This is a cooking resource for the kitchen creative. It’s basically a culinary matchmaker, explaining the basic properties of ingredients and listing potential complimentary partners. Every time I pull out this book I’m reminded of God’s creativity, playfulness, and lavish love. 

#3 Wonder by R.J Palacio

Here’s a book for your middle schooler. Okay, I read it and I don’t have a middle schooler. I suppose you could read it, too. :) Wonder is a great book about kindness and difference, about choosing to proactively love the difficult to love. You’ll see God in August Pullman’s face.

#4 Tinkers by Paul Harding

This is a book about dying. Just a heads up in case you were looking for something perky (The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood it is not). Man, this book is beautiful—so rich and layered and perfectly-composed I couldn’t help but read most of it aloud. It’s one of those re-orienting, soul-scraping books that’ll have you talking to God with every turn of the page.

#5 The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride

Here’s the feel good book on the list. I read this true story in New York with an agnostic  friend and both of us saw God in it. It’s light-soaked. 

#6 Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs by Mo Willems

Y’all, this book is hilarious. It’s a picture book depicting what the Goldilocks story might have looked like had the bears been dinosaurs. Ha! Anyway, it’s in the moral of the story where I see God. It’s totally something He’d say.

Any thoughts from you guys? Suggest a not-about God (but God-soaked) book in the comments!