The Faces of Jesus is Buechner’s brief survey of Jesus’ life. He takes the reader through the important moments of Jesus’ life with a poet’s eye for beauty.

Unfortunately, the style of writing that so amazed me in Now and Then seemed largely absent here. It could have been my familiarity with the subject matter, but this book left me largely unmoved. To be sure, there were moments of poetic brilliance (this is Buechner we’re talking about!)—but they seemed few and far between.

I must add that Paraclete Press didn’t do the book any favors by selecting different sized fonts seemingly at random. It almost felt like they were stretching the material to make (almost) 100 pages.

I’ll keep reading Buechner, but my prior enthusiasm has been slightly dampened.

Buechner, Frederick. The Faces of Jesus: A Life Story. Paraclete Press, 2005.