One of the hardest working students in my time at College, had come later in life after working amongst other things in merchant shipping. His enthusiasm was for ministry, his vocation to serve Christ in the church, and if that meant doing academic work, and developing different intellectual muscles so be it. I happen to believe that intellectual ability, intelligence, learning isn't only about academically tested standards and intellectual testing. Life is a highly efficient educator, work of whatever kind – manual, mental, skilled craft, administrative – they all require the learning of new skills and developing established skills, interpreting situations before or while applying knowledge, negotiating a way between the demands of work and people and our own resources of ability time and energy. To successfully do that year on year makes for a degree of learning every bit as impressive as any Degree obtained from learning.
So when such a student as mentioned above comes to College, they don't come to start learning – they come to begin learning differently, and they do so with considerable wisdom, knowledge and know how already in the bank. So when it came to meeting with our denominational Board of Ministry, our student was asked if he had enjoyed the academic work. His answer 'No'. 'But it's been good for me'.
When then asked for one particular thing he had learned that was important he replied,'The definition of a good book'.
Pressed further what that might be, his reply lives on because of the laughter the truthfulness of his reply generated: The definition of a good book? Here's the reply, delivered in a broad West of Scotland accent and with considerable conviction: 'A thin one'.
I've thought often about that answer – and the wisdom and honesty of a man for whom reading isn't the be all and end all of learning. I never thought it was – I've worked in a brickwork setting bricks, ploughed fields with tractor and multi-blade plough, done the best part of an apprenticepship as an electrical engineer, shared in the management of a small market garden. And I've known many learned people whose learning didn't come from hours spent reading, and for whom reading was a necessary precondition only for learning what they needed to know, in order to know how to do what they wanted to do. The connection between knowing and doing was central to who they were, how they lived their lives, and just as important, was a key component of the accumulated wisdom and learning that comes from a life well lived
A good book is a thin one. It doesn't try to intimidate you with its learned bulk; it won't take chunks of your life to plough through assiduously assembled arguments, nor spend zillions of words telling you what is interesting to the writer rather than what is important for you the reader; it will get to the point, say the essentials with minimum fuss, and because it is a thin book, will say it well in order to make the most persuasive case in the space available. And if you are lucky and blessed, it will change how you think, how you look at life, and make you thankful for thin books. Preaching for 50 minutes takes less time to prepare than preaching for 10 minutes. Somewhere in 50 minutes there will be things worth hearing, but what a lot of other stuff you have to live through to get there. But in ten minutes, to say what is worth saying, and worth others hearing, is a bigger ask. And if it is pulled off, it saves folk a lot of time and tedium.
Likewise books. Now I've read my share of thick books – big, bulky brieze blocks of Barthian dimensions. But I've also read thin ones – under 200, even under 150 pages, and could argue that what I learned from them could never have been as persuasively, effectively, life changingly accessed in a book two, three or even four times the size. So I'm going to do a series of posts soon in praise of thinner books, as a tribute to a man who once told us something wise about learning, and showed us he had used his time well in College. A definition of a good book – a thin one.
I'm hoping to have a few guest posts from those of you who wish to write a piece in praise of a thin book – no more than 160 pages – the odd choice of maximum pages is because one of the books I want to write about is 156 pages. Post a comment with your suggestion if you have an offer, and meantime I'm asking one or two to think about doing one.
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