Takeaway: The love story, whether between man and woman or God and human is one that brings joy to those that have experienced it.

I have said it before.  But one of the things I most love about blogging is that I have grown to ‘know’ so many authors.  It is a distant knowing.  I have yet to meet any of them in person.  But Matthew Anderson, John Dyer, Rhett Smith, Tyler Braun, and Carolyn Weber among others I have interacted with beyond their books.  It is not merely using one another for page views and book sales.  With social media and some longer conversations I feel like I can actually enter into their lives, at least in a small part.

Carolyn had a baby boy this past year and we exchange the occasionally pleasantries.  Carolyn has on several occasions thanked me for a blog post or review, and there are very few things that make my day more than an author I love (especially Carolyn) making appreciative comments on my writing.  The internet is such an odd world.

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Summary: Our bodies are important not just to life, but to our faith as well.

Reading book again is an under-valued exercise.  I try to re-read at least one book a month.  For many books, it is not possible to catch all of the nuances and points on a first reading.

So it has been my tradition the last couple years to, when available switch the format of my second reading.  So if I start with an audiobook, I will move to paper or kindle.  If I start with paper, I move to audio.  In this case I read it in kindle version the first time and in audio the second.  I find that there is enough different between the different formats that you get something else out of the change that is more than just re-reading in the same format.

In this case I enjoyed Earthen Vessels just as much as the first time.  Read the first review, because I am not going to deal with any of the same content on this one.

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Summary: A wide ranging book on communication in marriage.

Last night we finished discussing this book in my small group.  My wife and I lead a small group through our church for newly married couples.

This is the first time we have used this book for discussion, although I read it last year.

As we evaluated the newly married curriculum last year most of the group leaders thought that the biggest weakness of the curriculum was that we did not have anything on communication.  So this book was added (and it replaced a couple other books) as the center of the curriculum.

It is not a long book only 268 pages, but it feels really long because it has 23 chapters.  Most weeks we covered 2 or 3 chapters and we took a break in the middle.

At the end my evaluation as a discussion book for a group is a little mixed.  I still think that for most newly married (and long term married for that matter) couple, communication is one of the biggest issues that we face.  And this book gives entry to many other areas because it discusses communication around them (communication around sex, spiritual intimacy, defensiveness, etc.).

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Takeaway: Still a great book. Violence came through even more in audio format.

This is a review of the book, not the movie.

Yesterday I finished listening to Hunger Games.  This is my second run at this book. (Original Review) I like to re-read books in a different format.  So the first time I read the hardcover at the beach.  This time I listened to the audiobook.

Pretty much everyone knows the basic story by now.  Katniss chooses to participate in the Hunger Games to save her little sister.

The Hunger Games is an annual fight to the death contest that the government runs to exert its authority over the outlying provinces in a post-apocalyptic North America.

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Takeaway: I do not know any book that takes the reading, study and importance of scripture more seriously than this book.

Purchase Links: Hardback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

Normally I do not read a book so quickly after I read it the first time. But I am going backpacking next week, and the group decided to read two books in advance so we can discuss them as we are hiking.  This group of guys has been going on a trip together since spring of 1995 (17 trips total).  We are all in quite different places since we started, we have all graduated from college, completed 5 masters degrees, a PhD and an MD between the six of us.  We are all now married and have 16 children between us.  We now live outside of Chicago, Toronto, Paris, Minneapolis, Atlanta and Dallas.  We work as a nanny, a family practice doctor, a Hebrew/Old Testament professor, a missionary, a trader and a computer consultant for an HR firm.

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