Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

My mother lent me Janice Kapp Perry’s Songs From My Heart:  The Stories Behind the Songs years ago; I was intrigued by the idea, started it, but didn’t finish at the time.  I recently restarted it and read it through this time, but I have mixed feelings about the process.

Here’s the thing.  It’s absolutely an interesting book if you are at all familiar with her music (she is a well-known composer in my own faith, but much of her music is non-denominational and part of the wider Christian community), and I enjoyed it.  The background about her life was engrossing, and I loved learning just how many songs I love were composed by this down-to-earth, unassuming woman.  The bits about the songs I didn’t know, however, were less interesting than the bits about the songs I did.  Not NOT interesting, mind you.  Just not AS interesting.  Reading it through, though, meant that I was reading bit after bit after bit, and most of the songs I knew were in the first half of the book.  It would really be ideal as a reference book, or one to pick up on Sunday afternoons, but I’m not in a stage of life where that is going to happen enough to finish the book and return it to my mother sometime in the next decade.  Owning the book would be more conducive to the most enjoyable way to read it; on the other hand, it isn’t a book I’d use enough to purchase.  Hence, the reading it through–and the conclusion that less than ideal is, sometimes, unavoidable.