Adam Shields

Summary: The method of apologetics is intrinsically linked to the work of apologetics.

I like Dallas Willard. He has been very helpful, if not always directly, through the mentoring of various other authors and teachers I have been directly impacted by.

Dallas Willard passed away just over two years ago. This book was underway before he passed as a joint project between Willard and his daughter. She organized it based on a series of lectures he gave in 1990 and supplemented it in areas he thought needed further development using other lectures and writings. Despite that, this feels like a cohesive book.

Willard is trying to remind the apologist that the method (and life of the apologist) is important to the work of apologetics. In 1990, I think that was probably a much more needed message than today. We always need to be reminded of that, but I do not think that many apologists today would disagree with that basic summary.

Even so, the part that I most resonated with was that simple reminder. (Although I kept thinking that Unapologetic did a better job communicating the point and at least parts of Vanishing Grace did a better job reminding the reader of the importance of grace toward the non-Christian. )

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Summary: A series of diverse essays about Ender’s Game, from leadership and military applications to how it has impacted children’s literature and a lot in between.

There are very few books that I am intimately familiar enough to read a series of 13 essays and a number of Q & A’s from the author and really be engaged throughout. I have a review of the variations of the Ender’s Game story over the years (and I should update that now that I have seen the movie), a full review of the audio play version and a review of the most of rest of the books of the series. I am pretty sure I have read Ender’s Game in one version or another at least a dozen times. (Also Emily Flury has a review of the movie.)

I think unquestionably, Ender’s Game is Orson Scott Card’s best book. I have read most of the rest of Card’s book looking for a book to equal it, and while I really enjoy many of his books, none have resonated with me nearly as much.

Ender’s Game is the story of Ender Wiggins, initially a six year old boy that goes to Battle School to train as a soldier. The Earth has been attacked twice by the Formics (or Buggers depending on which version you are reading). And now soldiers are being trained from childhood to win the next war.

This is the first book I really adored and from the essays, it is clear I am not alone. There are three different types of essays here. Essays on leadership and military, essays on writing or literature and essays on cultural impact. This is not a book for anyone that has not read (and loved) the book. This is a book for not only the fan, but the fan who enjoys geeking out (and listening to others geek out) about minutia of plots points and how they felt when they read it.

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Takeaway: Fun young adult fantasy novel. There are some serious themes, but they are written in a way that is appropriate for 11 and up.

I have been reading a lot of fairly heavy theology recently. The heavier the theology books I am reading, the more likely I am to need light fiction to offset my brain. I share a Kindle account with some younger people, and they picked up and read the Percy Jackson series last spring. I have not seen the movie (although I probably will now) and did not know anything about the books going into them.

I am a fan. These are quick reads for adults; I do not think I have spent more than 2 or 3 hours on any of them. (I am in the middle of the fourth right now, all in a week.) I also think they are appropriate for kids age nine and up (depending on reading level).

The basic storyline is that Percy Jackson is a bad student.  He is always getting in trouble and has ADHD and dyslexia.  He loves his Mom, but he knows he is making her life difficult because he is always getting in trouble at school.  Eventually, we find out that one of the reasons Percy has a problem is that he is actually the son of one of the Greek gods (a half-blood).

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I am reposting this 2010 review because the audiobook is the Audible deal of the Day and on sale for $3.95
Takeaway: The human brains ability to justify and rationalize mistakes is enormous, useful and incredibly dangerous. There are huge implications for every facet of life.

This is a wide ranging and enormously interesting book on memory, retention and and self justification. The basic idea is that our brains are designed to minimize Cognitive Dissonance. Our brains will re-write memory and selectively remember details or give us other means to repress or eliminate Cognitive Dissonance.

Early in the book there are a number of examples of government, journalism and scientists that believe that they did nothing wrong while external evidence suggest otherwise.  One of the most egregious, is the first study that showed a link between autism and vaccines.  The lead author of the study was being paid on the side by class action lawyers (over $800,000) as an expert witness and researcher into the connection between autism and vaccines. The link was not disclosed and the research study continues to be influential even after it has been widely disproven by additional studies.

Another interesting example are the gifts given to doctors by drug companies.  Drug companies know that small gifts are very effective in creating obligation to the drug companies, but large gifts, especially early in the relationship will make the doctors feel like they are being bribed. One of the important insights from this section is that often people do small things that are not wrong, but once they are a situation, end up doing many things that they would not have considered if they started with that action. For instance, Watergate did not start as a break in, but by the time all the players were in the game, it was easy to justify something that most of them would have never participated in had the idea of a break-in and cover-up been originally on the table.

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