Bookwi.se

Takeaway: Everything we do changes our brains.  The repetitive action of computer and internet work is very effective at changing our brains.  This has implications for everything.

The Shallows is not a new book.  It has been out for about two years and many people, much smarter than I have had their take at it.  My short review, Carr has lots of good points, which tend to be lost amidst his hyperbole and cherry picked stats.

At the center of this argument is that people are reading books less. And he has some statistics from the Bureau of Labor to show this.  But as I talked about on this blog the National Endowment for the Arts study shows the largest increase in reading in decades (in all types of reading except poetry).  Right off the bat, this severely undercuts his argument.  The Library of Congress study came out after the book, so I don’t blame him for not using it.  But even if it had come out I think he would have disputed it.  Because in that study a novel is counted as reading a novel no matter what format you read it in.  But Carr does not believe that.

“An ebook is no more related to a book than an online newspaper is related to a print newspaper.” (By which, he means that they are not hardly related at all in the context of the quote.)

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Takeaway: The Reformation is very important to the history of Christianity and Europe, but the mythology of the Reformation is often overplayed and detrimental to understanding modern history.

This is the third book I have read in the Oxford Very Short Introduction series.  And I continue to be impressed.  I have done some reading on the reformation and taken two different History of Christian classes that included the reformation.  But even at only 135 pages of content, this book was able to add to knowledge of the Reformation.  The plan of this book is to debunk some of the myths while showing how much the different sides of the reformation really agreed.  Here is the thesis statement from the book:

Myths are not lies, but symbolically powerful articulations of sensed realities. It is probably safer to believe that all the myths about the Reformation are true, rather than that none of them are. The goal of producing a totally unmythologized account of the Reformation may be an unachievable, or even an undesirable, one. Nonetheless, this little book – drawing on the best, not always impartial, modern scholarship – will attempt to explain what sort of phenomenon the Reformation was, to assess its impact across religious, political, social, and cultural areas of life, and the character of its legacy to the modern world.

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Summary: Very practical and biblical look at the way we are to handle the everyday small and large conflicts in our lives.

Every month Christianaudio.com gives away a free audiobook.  Most of the time I do not get around to reading and reviewing the book before the end of the month.  But this month I am on the ball and have finished it before the month is even half over.

This is one of those books that I have already recommended to a number of people.  Everyone deals with conflict on a daily basis.  It may be small or large, but conflict is a part of life.

One of the reviews I saw on Amazon played on the biblical phrase in its title, “Where two or more are gathered there is conflict.”

Ken Sande starts with a simple definition of conflict, ”Conflict comes because we see something we think we deserve and cannot have it.”

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Summary: A classic young adult quest novel based in 2044, but built on 1980s culture.  A fun book for both adults that lived the 1980s and teens that were years from being born.

My Sister-in-Law introduced me to this book.  Published last August it was several lists of the best of 2011, but I had not heard of it until her recommendation.

Wade is living in 2044.  The US has degenerated into lawlessness.  The world economy is in ruins because of huge shortages in oil, energy, water and food.

The world is falling apart, but there is one consolation, Oasis.  The Oasis is an immersive online world.  Most people now live more in the Oasis than in the real world.  Students go to school in the Oasis, adults work in the Oasis, everyone escapes reality in the Oasis.

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I suppose this means my posts may be more like every couple of months rather than weekly. You will be proud to hear that I have actually read several books since I last guest posted here. Over my Spring Break (I am the Academic Coach at an elementary school) I decided to read The Hunger Games trilogy. I must first admit I committed the cardinal book-reader’s sin and saw the movie BEFORE reading! To make up for it I read all 3 books and each book took less than a day to read…which is great since I am a slow reader! I know most of you have read these books, or you are silly enough to be righteously opposed to them and refuse to read or enjoy them so they sit right next to Harry Potter in your mind’s bookshelf. All I can really say is I’m sorry you are missing out.

The other book I read was Divergent. When reading Divergent I was actually able to place myself as one of the teens trying to decide what faction I should join. Which would best suit my personality and beliefs? While The Hunger Games makes you glad you don’t have to know your life-saving skills, Divergent seemed to challenge me to figure out could I do the challenges and would I be accepted in the various factions. I am looking forward to this weekend when I will take some time to read the next book in this series, Insurgent. Maybe book 2 will help me identify my true faction, or maybe, just maybe I’m Divergent… how cool would that be? I do score in opposite quadrants on personality tests but maybe that just makes me a freak!

Happy reading Y’all

Purchase Links for Divergent: Paperback, Hardcover, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

Related Bookwi.se REviews

• Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
• Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
• Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Read Again)
• Divergent by Veronica Roth

I have not been posting these lately but, I find it interesting that the top book reviews this month are all from this month.  And the most read book review of the month, was posted the last day of the month.  I can tell I have been on a fiction kick.

In order:

The Magicians, And Both Were Young, A Brief History of the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Early Church, The Last Thing I Remember, The Truth of the Matter, Shadows in Flight, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance, An American Spy

Summary: An adult look at what it would be like to be a magician, and get everything you could possibly want, and still not find meaning or purpose in life.

I tend to buy audiobook in groups at Audible.com.  They often have sales where you buy two and get one free, or buy four and get $10 off a future purchase.

In April it was a buy 4 and get $10 off a future purchase sale.  So I purchased, Shadows in Flight, And Both Were Young, Ready Player One and The Magicians.  Unusually for me, in less than two weeks, I have finished three and started the fourth.

In general, I don’t like to read much about fiction books before I buy them.  I want to know if they are mostly well reviewed and if people that I know liked them.  I have heard a lot of good press about The Magicians.  It is often compared to Harry Potter.  (Probably unfairly to both books.)  But other than that I did not know anything about it.

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