Book Review: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
by Donald Miller
published in 2010 by Thomas Nelson

Summary: This is Miller's most recent publication.  It was birthed out of two gentlemen approaching him about making a movie out of Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality.  Since Blue is not a novel but more random ramblings on Christianity they realized they needed to turn it into a story.  Miller is a writer, but not of novels, screenplays or fiction for that matter and so he began to study the elements of story and what makes a good story.  He learned about characters and crisis points and conflict.  What really struck him as we was writing was the realization that the story he was writing in a fictional format was actually his life, hence the subtitle "what I learned while editing my life."  Amidst all of his new knowledge and realizations about his life he came to recognize that there were parallels between what makes a good story and what makes a good life.  This transformed the way in which he began to think about his own life and now instead of letting life just happen around him he began to be very purposeful about how he was going to live his life.  The filter for the way he moved forward in life was the question, "will this make a good story."  This book is his presentation of these revelations in his own life along with his commentary about how we can do the same thing.

Review: From the first chapter, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality became one of my favorite books of all time.  While this is not the second book by Miller, it was the second of his books that I have read.  I wasn't sure what to expect, especially based on my love affair with Blue.  On one hand I had high hopes that this would be another lifetime favorite, but on the other I was worried that it could never live up to Blue.  As I read I realized that Blue was a wrong comparison for the book.  This book is an incredible read yet it is completely different than Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality.  This book has Christian overtones but it is more about life and how we choose to live it than it is random thoughts on Christian spirituality.  Miller draws us into the story and inspires us to begin to think about our life as story.  He presents vinets about people he has encountered in his life who have deliberately made their lives a "good story," that warm your heart and make you want to try something incredible in your own life.   This is not a self help book, but it will interact in your life in the same manner as it will motivate you to begin to make changes in your life as you think about wanting it to be a good story.  The direction the book was moving made me think he was going to wrap up with the idea of locating the story of our lives into the bigger story of God.  He sort of hints at this but never fully elaborates which would have been the perfect ending.  That being said, the absence of that in no way hinders the quality of this book.  This is a must read for anyone, but especially for those wanting their lives to be something more.

Reading Recommendation: 100% YES, YES, YES