Book Review: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller

It’s not very often I pick up a book and read from cover to cover in one sitting. This time I did. All 255 pages of it. ok…I guess I did stop to make myself some ramen noodle soup, but other than that I was completely overwhelmed by Donald Miller’s new book.

The truth is that I have a copy of his older book, Blue Like Jazz, but have never finished it. It wasn’t that it wasn’t good, it just didn’t overwhelmed me to finish it. I think I’m going to back and finish reading that book too.

I guess it wouldn’t be too much to say that Donald Miller is probably one of the best story tellers I’ve come across in a while. I haven’t been this mesmerized by an authors ability to pain pictures with words since I read Wilson Rawls’ Where the Red Fern Grows as a child. Why? Simply put, he tells a good story.

In the opening of his book, Donald writes this:

“…if what we choose to do with our lives doesn’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either.”

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years basically is set on explaining this principle. From sharing stories of how he when through the painstaking process of rewriting his life for a movie, to falling for a girl with a cute nose during a grueling trek through the mountains to Machu Picchu, he somehow inspires you to live for something more. And subtly yet profoundly her establishes that this is best understood in living the life of biblical faith.

So what would I say about this book? Probably what Max Lucado said when asked to submit a review of the book… “I already want to re-read this book.”