Adam Shields

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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Reposting this 2011 review because the Kindle Edition is the Amazon Deal of the Day and on sale for $1.99 today only.
Takeaway: Funny, but very irreverent look at the life of a ‘death dealer’.

This is my second Christopher Moore book. I picked up Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, on the recommendation of a friend. It is a novel about Jesus narrated by his childhood friend Biff.  You can assume it was irreverent. But I enjoyed the humor and all in all, I thought Jesus was treated fairly respectfully in a satirical novel.

In A Dirty Job, Asher, a resale shop owner becomes a “Death Dealer”. Death Dealers are people that take soul containers (the physical objects that hold people’s souls once they die, usually a beloved possession) and then pass them on to a new person.  The theology behind this is an odd bit of Tibetan Buddhism with Karma and reincarnation but unlike any actual religion that I am aware of.

There is some slight overlap between Piers Anthony’s On a Pale Horse, which also deals with a man that assumes the position of death. But in A Dirty Job, Asher is one of many regular people that become death dealers. Of course the concept of death and life are explored. But Moore seems more interested in the concept of the Beta Male, the guy that is never in charge and never stands out, but is always doing what it takes to get by. Asher is a good example of a Beta Male. He is a good father and would have made a good husband, but his wife dies immediately after childbirth which in some way leads to him originally becoming a Death Dealer.

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Reposting this 2014 review because the Kindle Edition of Seven Men is on sale for $1.99.
Summary: Short Biographies of seven men that Metaxas thinks we should view as role models and heroes.

Seven Men is the third books I have read by Eric Metaxas.  I liked Metaxas Bonhoeffer biography (although even I as a non-Bonhoeffer scholar caught several mistakes.)  But I really was not a fan of his William Wilberforce biography. Mostly that was because it felt more like hagiography.

But after reading Seven Men I realize that the Wilberforce book was his first biography. Bonhoeffer was significantly better than Wilberforce. And Seven Men I think corrected several of the problems of the Bonhoeffer biography.

The men included in this book are George Washington, William Wilberforce, Eric Liddell, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Jackie Robinson, Pope John Paul II and Charles Colson (presented in historical order). I am pleased that Metaxas included John Paul II. Too many Evangelicals want to ignore Catholics. I definitely view that as a point in Metaxas’ favor.

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