One of Buechner's best books. It is tiny, but it is just packed with wonderful quotes and insights. This is a must have for any Buechner fan or someone looking to get into his work. ( )

This is book that I enjoyed reading although it is dated as well as filled with politically incorrect language and sexist examples. These could be edited out in a revised version. The book is already short (only 98 pages) so accomplishing that would make almost a short essay altogether.
This work is a topic which I enjoy reading. There is now a genre called the Bible as Literature which is engaged in linking all aspects of biblical writing or interpretation with other forms of world literature. In cultural criticism, world literature is seen as racist and biased so this type of study is fading in influence to recent revisionist histories and other types of deconstructionist ideologies. This work "Telling the Truth" is a form of Bible as Literature study but with the emphasis on the Gospel as story. More specifically, the Gospel as literature. This is a very narrow area of study (and banned by today's Ivy League academics) but still worth exploring due to the lasting influence of the literary canon. This book uses as standards to compare the Gospel story with: Shakespeare, Tolkien, Kierkegaard, Twain, and Dostoevsky. Published in 1977, a year after the American Bicentennial celebration (I graduated from grammar school in '76) this book is accurate to how people saw the world back then, at least in stagnation America. ( )

Teaches the preacher to preach the truths of the gospels and revealing its various forms. ( )

This is a small book with a small story. The author tries to bring the Gospels into everyday reality: human nature is flawed (tragedy), God's overwhelming love (comedy), and transformation through God's love (fairy tale). ( )

The title is an unusually straightforward description of the contents of this short book written primarily for preachers. In the introduction he discusses how and why preachers should be transparent and truthful; then in the three main chapters describes the gospel as variously in the genres of gospel, comedy, and fairy tale.

The message of and about Christ is startling, human and dramatic though it is often conveyed in a way that strips it of these elements. Buechner shows how comedy, tragedy, and fairy tale--which show up in our most beloved stories everywhere because they speak so poignantly to the human condition--are embedded in the gospel in essential ways.

This is a book not just for preachers, but for all who want to talk about and appreciate Christ in a winsome way. ( )