Customer Reviews

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: How I Learned to Live a Better Story

5 star:		(278)
4 star:		(87)
3 star:		(32)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

"...to know there is a better story for your life and to choose something other is like choosing to die."

This is a great book. A book that's fun to read and pulled me in and whose pages flew by. A book that cracked me up and brought tears to my eyes. A book that challenged and inspired. It sounds overly dramatic and just a tad hyperbolic, but I'll look at life (and hopefully live life) a bit differently as a result of this read.

In the choppy/direct/engaging writing style of his best-selling "Blue Like Jazz" (but with some additional maturity and depth), Miller describes the experience of looking at his life as he works with others in developing a movie (loosely) based on his life. The result is a bit distressing for him (as his life is a bit boring), but the lessons from the screen-writing experience have some wonderful applications in real life (A Character is What He Does, A Good Character Listens to His Writer, The Importance of an Inciting Incident, and others). Significant life-change takes place.

Miller teaches almost incidentally as you watch him learn and grow, and his candor about the pain and awkwardness and joy of the process is endearing and appreciated. And encouraging.

There's a lot to chew on in "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years," and I'm not quite with Miller in all of his rifts and conclusions, but I'm grateful that he shared his journey with me.

"...in living a great story, we defy a dark force propagating what I believe to be a lie, that a human life is not worth living, that the story you have living within you is not worth living."

Your life is basically you... telling a story... and for most of us, it's not a very good one. It doesn't have the pain, conflict, resolution, and joy we'd like it to have. In fact, for most of us, we're just trying to stay comfortable and boring.

This is exactly the temptation that Don Miller is fighting against in this marvelous book. Through loves found and lost, family lost and found, and dreams pursued, lost and shattered, Miller takes us through his story even as he's "re-writing it" to tell on film. This book is a great companion to his book "Blue Like Jazz" and although it may be a little less engaging than that former work, in all honesty, it reads and feels like it might make an even better movie than "Blue Like Jazz" is going to make.

Find a way to tell an interesting story with your life, and make a positive difference in the world around you. This book challenged my thinking that way, I hope it challenges you, too. All in all, a gutsy, honest, warts-and-all memoir that is actually so naked in its honesty that I'm surprised a Christian publisher like Nelson took it on. Miller's decisions, lifestyle, and perhaps beliefs won't be everybody's cup of tea, but it's good to be challenged to understand my own decisions, lifestyle and beliefs. Miller does a great job of that.

It's been too long coming, but well worth the wait.

Donald Miller was in a funk. He had written a bestseller, and was now a much sought after speaker. He was accomplished. But for some reason, all of his success didn't bring the climatic ending that he was hoping for. He felt lost. Then he received a call from two men who wanted to turn his book, Blue Like Jazz, into a movie. Miller was unsure of how to turn his book, part memoir and part collection of essays, into a movie. So the two men came to visit him, and teach him about story.


From there Miller uses the elements of story to describe how people can paint a different picture of their life. Miller realizes that the majority of his life has been spent watching stories and making them up. He decides that he will turn his life into a story worth watching, rather than spending his time making up fictional stories.


Miller once again muses on his life, faith, and the human condition, all the while telling the story of his move from writing stories to living them. When he learns that characters are their actions, he resolves to do things with more meaning. He hikes in the Andes, asks out a girl he likes, and eventually meets his father for the first time ever. The comparisons he makes between stories and real life are phenomenal. I found myself reading through certain sections over and over, trying to grasp the depth of the prose. Some of his thoughts that are complex, taking a while to jog their way through your mind; others are simple and profound in their brevity.


For those that have read Miller's previous books, a couple of things will be familiar: his dry sense of humor and superb writing are prevalent throughout the book. What is new is hope. Miller no longer writes like a person wandering through his journey in life honestly searching for answers. He now writes like a person wandering through his journey in life honestly searching for answers, full of hope that one day they will be answered.

Ok, I'm a word snob. I write a lot and read even more. I know that Donald Miller is a good writer. A d-mn good writer. And there were many spots of superb prose on enough pages that kept me on the lookout for the next beauty of a passage. Like this one, for example, on page 155:

"And once you live a good story, you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life, and you can't go back to being normal; you can't go back to meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time. The more practice stories I lived, the more I wanted an epic to climb inside of and see through till its end."

That is great writing. Miller is totally on his A-game with his craft in AMMiaTY.

Yet the whole time I was reading, there was a tension in my mind.I could not completely enter the dreamland that a book can take you to. I was distracted by a kind of angsty resistance to my perceived takeaway message of the content. The above passage is an example of what I mean.

Normal and ordinary living seem devalued in the premise of the Story about story. Epic living, like hiking the Inca Trail, biking across America, starting a non-profit....all great endeavors, and God knows we can all use a bit of epic goodness in our lives. Yet I can't help but wonder about celebrating normal and steady.

Most of us most of the time must make the best of the story we find ourselves in and make peace with the lack of epic drama. Most of us work at jobs to pay our rent and provide for the people we care for. We are kind to our neighbors and give at the office. This is our epic: that we show up everyday.

My tension with the author's premise about changing your story if you are living a boring life is perhaps just my own effed up issue. But art is in the eye of the beholder and for me it was almost a message of shame. "Live an interesting life or else all is meaningless."

I don't know what page it's on, but there was even a passage about if the people all around you are living boring lives then you are, too. Sheesh. That was harsh.

Let me end my review on a positive note. Most books I can't tell you a favorite passage. But this book I can actually tell you a favorite page: 76. The honesty and self-discovery coupled with descriptive, magical writing of this page was mesmerizing. If you only read one page in this book, make it 76.

I give this book four stars. Great style; he is undoubtedly a Writer and I hope he'll someday write a book on the craft of writing, like in about ten years when he's gone further and deeper and has some distance from the cockiness of youth. (Not a judgment. We're all like that in youth!) I was not sold on the premise of the content. But that's probably my own weirdness. Maybe I need a trip to the Inca Trail to sort my story out.


**note: I catch typos and errors in books all the time, but this one had some glaring mess-ups including misspellings and punctuation issues, like missing quotation marks, etc... I don't think this reflects on Miller's writing at all, but kinda wondered where was the copy and line editors on this one? Most glaring is top paragraph page 172. I live in Portland so it was super obvious to me that not only was the Willamette river misspelled {twice!}, but so was Fremont Bridge....I'm such a spelling geek...but that's my story. Epic. I know.

If I had known this book was written by a Christian evangelist, even a post-modern hip Christian evangelist I would never have picked it up. I thought it was a memoir, and it really is a memoir /part essay. But it is written so well, the metaphors are so great, that reading it was a cinch. After slogging through a bunch of plodding memoirs, this one was like ice-surfing over a clear, frozen lake.

I'm not into books about the purpose-driven life. And in a way this is about the purpose-driven life, only disguised in a really clever way. I don't mean that Miller is marketing Christianity to the young crowd in a hypocritical manner. He seems very honest and his thoughts seem to be his own, not those of an institutional church. But he does come to the conclusion that if the story of your life is to have meaning you have to have a goal that is more than just amassing things or satisfying one's ego. You have to become involved in a cause greater than oneself--even if that is only helping people you know overcome their own difficulties. So much for the sermon--the bulk of the book is told in vignettes about Miller's own life.

What I really like about the book is its format. It is structured like a textbook on screenplay writing. In fact the book starts out with the visit of two film-makers, Steve and Ben, who want to make a movie out of Miller's previous book, Blue like Jazz. They try to teach him about story-telling and how they must make scenes and a narrative flow out of a book that is basically essays. There are some very funny scenes where they try to explain how the thought process of reading a book is much different than that of watching a movie.

How do you translate written prose into action? Miller goes off and takes a course given by Robert McKee, the screenplay guru. Now I had seen Robert McKee (or the actor playing him) in a film called "Adaptation". I thought the character was an amalgam of all screen-writing teachers, but it turns out it's a real guy who gives intensive symposiums on film writing. Many of the chapter headings are based on McKee's lectures. Here are some of the headings:

A character is what he does
A character must save the cat
An inciting incident
A character who wants something must overcome conflict

You could get a whole lesson in fiction writing just by reading the chapter headings in this book. I just loved the bit about saving the cat. I once read that in old-time movie writing, particularly westerns, it wasn't enough that the villain shoot an innocent person, or burn down some farmer's house. He had to cross the street and kick the dog. That was called, "kicking the dog." Apparently, the hero in a movie has to save a cat in order for the viewers to like him. It isn't enough that he has to achieve a goal against all odds; the audience has to like the hero.

And as a reader you like Donald Miller because his thoughts are so kindred to your own thoughts. And his metaphors are so apt. And his friends are so human. And he's just like the 30-year-old teacher who lives next door and thinks deep thoughts and you can count on to help out if you're having trouble. Only this guy writes like an angel. So even if you don't end up changing your life, or changing your religion or anything like that, and even if you hate the Chicken Soup for the Soul type of books, you might take a look at this book. It's more enjoyable than you might expect.

Donald Miller was scheduled to appear at our church on the same day this book was being released and delivered to my Kindle. I had not read any of his books and didn't know anything about him. As it turned out I couldn't make his appearance but I did begin reading his book. It was an very enjoyable book from beginning to end and I was sorry to see it end. His stories about his life and friends lives really drew me in. Many times his humor caught me off guard and I would laugh out loud and then would read that chapter to my wife and daughter. Other parts of the book had me in tears to be honest. His writing on God seemed to me, a fairly conservative Christian, to be biblically sound throughout the book. Basically this book made me think about living my life more fully, making it count for more, or as Donald Miller puts it "living a better story". I'll be reading more of his work soon.

A few years ago, a college student I was meeting with recommended a little book called "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller. Her opinion of it was so high, I picked up a copy and gave it a try. I've never gobbled up a nonfiction book so fast. Donald's perception of the human and Christian experience was riveting and resonant with many of my own beliefs (some of which had been unspoken).

Flash forward about 6 years, and I've been given the opportunity to receive an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of Miller's latest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I'd been following Donald on Twitter for some time and have noted his writing-in-progress tweets with some anticipation. So my ARC from the Amazon.com Vine Program was a truly appreciated.

While I didn't take in Million Miles as ravenously as Jazz, I still enjoyed it. Miller perceives our lives as individual story lines, all flowing in the great Story that God is telling. We are not mere spectators to God's narrative, we are all participants. The question is, what kind of story are we going to tell? The world aches for good stories to witness, good stories to repeat to others. And of course, the best and most interesting stories are ones that have obstacles to surmount, challenges to overcome.

While on some level I agree with Miller on this point, on another it's hard to swallow. I've had a measure of pain in my life, and while no one would call my story a tragic one, there have been times when I've questioned why God has put me in the particular storyline He's written. It's very hard to accept the "pain makes life more interesting" notion when you're in the middle of a quagmire.

Having said that, I've had days when I've positively resonated with God's purpose for my life, days when the joy was so great I could almost hear it. It is in those times that I've felt a part of a greater story, and one in which I love to have this role. I only hope and pray that when I look back during the epilogue, that I, those around me and the Father above will have enjoyed what they've witnessed. As Miller discusses, it's a long climb up the mountain, but the view from above will be so glorious.

I loved this book, though it took until the 29th chapter to gain my full appreciation.
The book starts out slow, explaining the process of writing a story, not only in a book but in life, and showing how depressing and boring life can be without a story or purpose. In chapter 15, Donald Miller talks about a time in his life where he heard the "Voice of the Writer". Pages 87 and 88 are two of my favorites. However, there was one part in Chapter 29 that I liked better. This is the chapter where Miller finally ties together all of his offhanded references to God and it's one of the best ways I've heard life and death described.

" When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are. And when you stop expecting material possessions to complete you, you'd be surprised how much pleasure you get out of material possessions. And when you stop expecting God to end all your troubles, you'd be surprised how much you like spending time with God.
" Do I still think there will be a day when all wrongs are made right, when our souls find the completion they are looking for? I do. but when all things are made right, it won't be because of some preacher or snake-oil salesman or politician or writer making promises in his book. I think, instead, this will be cone by Jesus. And it will be at a wedding. And there will be a feast."


Enough said. Read this book.

I'm usually not one to like what everyone else likes. I didn't think "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" was especially funny. I hated "The Shack". I laugh at things many people consider strange. I like musicians most people have never heard of.

Donald Miller is the exception. A lot of people love Donald Miller. I do too.

It also seems like fans always say that a musician or writer's most recent piece of work is his or her best. This isn't always the case. Donald Miller is, once again, the exception. After his success with previous books, I'm certain that this one will receive a lot of hype. This deserves all the attention it will garner.

Miller writes about what makes for a good story. Using these same concepts, he also writes about what makes for a good life. He is funny. He is honest. He is insightful. He is challenging. He is comforting. He has something to say.

So many books are intolerably boring. This book is intolerably awesome and opens up an ache for more. I looked forward to every page.

I won't spoil the book, but I will give away a key concept. Any great story involves great conflict. The bigger the obstacles, the greater the potential. If your heart is crushed, your spirit broken and and nothing ever seems to go right - your personal story has the potential to be that much more beautiful. Your life doesn't need to read like an intolerable book. It can once again be worth living.

Donald Miller may not be for everybody. All I know is that there are very few writers who I deeply connect with. He may not be for everybody, but he is for me.

I loved this book.

I think that the biggest criticism one could make against Donald Miller's books is that they lack structure. Many of his books feel like reading through the ramblings of someone's private journal. However, in this latest book Miller really tries to structure chapters so that each one flows into the other, and so that at the end the book the reader is left with something meaningful and structurally fluid.

In all of Miller's books he interweaves personal stories and events into meaningful lessons. It is his forte. But after so many books, that structure begins to seem contrived and, frankly, annoying.

In this book he continues on to write about his life, specifically his attempt to edit his life in light of the success he had with his previous books. He writes that his life was dull and lacking direction after his initial success. As a result, he decides to change course. He does this by engaging in a series of "initiating events," which are events that someone undertakes in order to change the trajectory of that person's life. Thus, he treks up the Inca trail to Machu Picchu and he rides his bike across the United States. He concludes that life doesn't happen to people who just sit on the couch and wait for it to happen, that instead it is the people engaging life that are truly living.

In summary, the book was interesting and a lot more structured than his previous books. As a reader, I walked away understanding his message. However, I don't think that more books should be written about his life - that is, about his friend Steve or his other friend James or about a movie he watched or a book he read. Let's change the subject.