I confess I read this book because of all the hoopla on the internet. John Piper hates it, Mark Driscoll wants to say how much he hates it but is tired of launching his enemies onto the New York Times bestsellers list so he talks about it without talking about it. People everywhere are talking about it.

Man, I’m a sucker for controversy so I placed my order. Surprisingly, the book has been out of print for a while and I could only get this used, battered copy, and it cost me more than the sale price from twenty years ago. Two words: WORTH IT!

Love Wins is a romance novel by Barbara Cartland (who knew John Piper read this stuff? So few men talk about it even though we ALL read them ALL the time! John Piper and I are SO BESTIES NOW!)

Love Wins: Caught in a fierce love triangle, Joan June is torn between her dentist and her chiropractor. The dentist has more money, obviously, but is less open to the spiritual ideas and natural practices of the chiropractor. One gives her security and the other pops her back for free and introduces her to the ancient practice of smelling plants and rubbing oils and bird poo on her face. And whale music. What ever shall she do?

Thinking she’s made her choice, and on her way to tell the Chiropractor he’s the one, June doubles over on the street with a severe tooth ache? Is it a sign? You’ll have to read the book to find out that, in fact, she chooses the dentist! And the chiropractor turns out to be two-timing her anyway. Occasionally she looks back on a life that could have been, but each time she thanks God in heaven for the good man she’s found, even if in moments of temptation she spreads a little dried bird poo on her cheeks to keep her looking young.

Man this book was good. With all due respect, John Piper has no idea what he’s talking about. Read it. Love it. Feel it. Live it. Thank you Barbara Cartland.

Donald Miller is the author of the New York Times bestseller ‘Blue Like Jazz’. He grew up in Houston, Texas. Leaving home at the age of twenty-one, he traveled across the country until he ran out of money in Portland, Oregon, where he lives today. Don is the founder of The Belmont Foundation, a not-for-profit foundation which partners with working to recruit ten-thousand mentors through one-thousand churches as an answer to the crisis of fatherlessness in America. He blogs at http://donmilleris.com/ where this article first appeared.