S
ummary: Part memoir, part life skills, part spiritual direction, lots of humor and heart.
I have seen Amena Brown perform her spoken word poetry live twice I think. She mixes deep thoughts with humor and great writing. I picked up How to Fix a Broken Record on audiobook when it was on sale a few weeks ago. I moved it to the top of my list after listening to Amena Brown interview Hillary Yancey about Yancey’s book Forgiving God.
How to Fix a Broken Record is the type of young-ish Christian memoir that I really like to read every once in a while. The 30-something’s thoughts on life and love and what is really important. I get down on Christian Publishing at times, but Christian Publishing does print a number of books that are really good but do not get wide readership.
How to Fix a Broken Record is a roughly chronological spiritual memoir, early life, dating, church thoughts, career, eventual marriage, more thoughts on art and calling, miscarriage, the learning to be an adult, health issues, maturing. I am guessing, but I think I am probably about 7 to 10 years older. Some of her experiences are ones that I have lived through myself, many others are not. But they are still identifiable as common to the human condition. But like many other memoirs it is the telling and thoughts on them that matters, not the uniqueness of the experiences.
What continues to be important in my quest this year to keep 2/3 of my reading by Black or other authors of Color is that I see that experience does matter. It matters that when Brown goes on a mission trip to Africa, that she has to think about slavery and what it means to be descended from slaves. It matters that she has to think about hair differently than I do. It matters that as a woman, she experiences thoughts about pregnancy and miscarriage differently than I would.
How to Fix a Broken Record was well written. The mix of deep spiritual thoughts and life advice with lots of humor makes the whole book a pleasure. Her narration of the audiobook is excellent, but equally good in print. She has five spoken word albums and I need to check those out as well.
How to Fix a Broken Record: Thoughts on Vinyl Records, Awkward Relationships, and Learning to Be Myself by Amena Brown Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook