The most read review of the month was not of a book but of the Scribd ebook/audiobook subscription service.
I am a fan of the service, although it does not work with my Kindle Paperwhite, which is my prefered device. But it does have a lot of audiobooks, which is what I have been using it for more than anything else.
The second most read review was about the areas that I think Scribd needs to improve. A few of them have already had updates since I posted (and I have updated the post where the improvements made a difference.
Lifehacker mentioned Scribd as one of the five best audiobook services last week.
Continue reading the main Scribd review or the areas for improvement
Summary: A readable, recent introduction for those new to Anglicanism.
The Anglican Way is a fairly recent book that is still spreading by word of mouth. I saw last week that it was the best selling Anglican book on Amazon.
If you are interested in the concept but don’t want to read the book, you might be interested in McKenzie’s podcast of a five week teaching of the main content of the book. I listened to all of it and while there was certainly overlapping content, the podcast had enough new material and questions from the audience that it was well worth listening to.
Continue reading the full review of The Anglican Way by Thomas McKenzie
Summary: A history and guide to early church theologians, pastors and writers.
When the Church was Young was the third book about the early church fathers I have read this year and I have two more ready to read soon.
Church history is one of the areas that I am interested in and I think more people should read more about. A lot of the silly infighting around theology, especially in the Evangelical church would be solved by better understanding of church history and/or historical theology.
Bookwi.se contributor Vikki Husiman’s review of Scary Close was the third most read book review (and also posted just a couple days before the end of the month). So I think that both Donald Miller and the subject of intimacy still have a real place in our reading.
I know I always appreciate getting more voices to Bookwi.se. If you are interested in posting a review for Bookwi.se let me know. (I have a baby coming in a couple weeks and I could use some extra reviews for the transition.)
Summary: We as modern Christians miss a number of nuances of scripture because we do not understand ancient Hebrew culture.
The concept of the book is right. There are many things about scripture that we miss if we do not work to understand the intention of the author and/or the culture of the original readers. But this was not a book that I can recommend. Parts of it were excellent, but others moved outside of Christian orthodoxy.
I do not like writing negative reviews and this is a good example of why I usually do not accept review copies of books (and should not have accepted this one.)