How do you read the Bible?

I get tired of endless arguments over seeming-minutiae. Instead of looking at the bible as a set of not-too-well drafted blueprints, could we try to look at it a different way? Lately, I've been reading the bible as different things: A family history, instruction, a love-letter to a bride from her fiance's Father. Reading with these different perspectives in mind, gives the Word of God a different flavor and causes me to read it as something that is one whole rather than infinite and barely related parts. Do I still believe in the idea of "Sola Scriptura?" Yes. But maybe I can start to see the forest AND the trees.