Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl

Wide-Eyed Wonder in God's Spoken World

By: N. D. Wilson

Narrated by: N. D. Wilson

Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

What is this world? What kind of place is it?

The round kind. The spinning kind. The moist kind. The inhabited kind. The kind with flamingos (real and artificial). The kind where water in the sky turns into beautifully symmetrical crystal flakes sculpted by artists unable to stop themselves (in both design and quantity). The kind of place with tiny, powerfully jawed mites assigned to the carpets to eat my dead skin as it flakes off.... The kind with people who kill and people who love and people who do both....

This world is beautiful but badly broken.

©2009 Tommy Nelson (P)2013 Canon Press

Outstanding! Deep! Real!

Nate takes his unique writing style and the concept of a nature documentary to creat a manifesto that stands out as something genuine and yet compelling.

An excellent vision for a grateful life.

This book stands in defiance of so much of the conventional "wisdom", and it's enthusiasm for life and creation is contagious. Also, the author's narration was very engaging.

Super fun & funky

I really enjoyed thinking about Christian worldviews from such a different perspective. Immensely enjoyable.

artful

this is one of those books that is better listen to than red I think. it's great that the author was able to read it and I even enjoyed hearing the pages turning.

Poetic reflection on observing life

N.D. Wilson has some amazing ways of interpreting reality. Has it ever occurred to you to see the perfection of snowflakes while considering at one point in history that drop of water was actually urine? Or that explaining to a young child why they cannot catch a butterfly can sometimes entice said insect to landing on your child's chest?

The power of personal observation is really burst open in this book. We all live with the same tendencies towards stubbed toes, splinters jammed under fingernails, and the possibility of a terminal prognosis. And yet we all have equal opportunities to see beauty in the midst of pain. Perhaps even, pain is the beauty of it all.

I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook and plan on returning to it in a few months to see if any of my personal reflections have changed.

Rhythm of the reader’s voice

I do not typically prefer audiobooks to be read by their author, but this is an exception. Because of the unique way in which this book was written, It could not be properly read aloud by anyone else. No one else could accurately capture the movement of the spinning, whirling thoughts. Nice job!

Solid

Great book! A little hard to understand at times. I think it was on purpose, but it made it difficult to follow. As someone who writes poetry, I enjoyed seeing how he illustrated using words. Haven't seen anyone do it better. In the though, I would definitely recommend it.

Chesterton back from the Dead

This work has all the pith and insight of Chesterton's "Orthodoxy", with the other-worldly beauty of Lewis's "Last Battle" in regards to eschatology proper (the eternal state specifically). This review would be longer except I'm really just wanting to listen again.

Very poetic.

Listened to the entire audiobook in two sittings. Such an amazing story of the tilt-a-whirl that we all live on. Probably going to listen again shortly.

Biblical worldview at it's best

This was an encapsulation of how a mind steeped in biblical truth should see the world around them! There were sections so deep it lead me to tears and sections I had to listen through twice just to understand the beauty of the creation being discribed. I highly recommend this book!