Book Reviews – Page 102

The Magician’s Nephew (Chronicles of Narnia) by CS Lewis

October 11, 2014 by Adam Shields

Reposting this 2011 review because the Kindle Edition is on sale for $1.99
Takeaway: Wonderful illustration of creation as metaphor

It has been decades since I have read the Chronicles of Narnia. I remember my mother reading them out loud to us on family vacations. We spent a lot of time listening to my mom read on vacations. And as we got older we spent a lot of time reading ourselves on vacations. I am not a great out loud reader. I read to quickly and have a hard time forcing my eyes to slow down to the speed of my mouth, so I often lose my place and get tongue-tied. But I still read out loud to my nieces. They are getting old enough to start reading short chapter books (not to the Chronicles of Narnia yet). I am looking forward to reading these with them when they get older.

If you are not familiar with this book, it is the creation story of Narnia. In the traditional ordering of the book, it is book six, right before the last book. But in the new ordering, it is the first book of the series. The children Polly and Digory are not in the books as children again so there is not a natural flow from this book to The Lion Witch and the Wardrobe. And I think that the Lion Witch and the Wardrobe is also a better introduction to Narnia than the Magician’s Nephew. So I would still start in the traditional ordering not the new ordering. (This was also the second book written if you want to read them in order written.)

This was never my favorite of the series, so I have probably read it the least. But after spending time reading a number of books on scripture and creation over the past year, this is a very good book to use to talk to your children about the purpose and meaning of creation stories. John Walton’s Lost World of Genesis One (my review) is the most important book on understanding the Christian creation story that I have read and with the Magician’s Nephew I think it would be a useful way to talk about what is important, that God has created us and that he is Lord over our world.

The Anglican Way: A Guidebook by Thomas McKenzie

October 9, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: A readable, recent introduction for those new to Anglicanism.

Fads are a reality of the world, Christian as well as not. In my world right now, converting to Anglicanism seems to be almost the level of a fad. Not that I think there is anything wrong with returning to a more liturgical practice of Christianity, or participating in the second largest global body of Christians. Honestly, if the Parish were on my side of town, instead of the opposite side of town, I would be seriously considering it.

Over the past couple of years as I have been reading James KA Smith (not Anglican) and gaining a greater understanding of the Liturgy (and maybe just getting older), more people in my extended digital world have been doing the same. Eddie Kirkland, former worship director at my church has started the Parish, Glenn Packiam as formed an Anglican congregation inside of New Life Community Church in Colorado, Scot McKnight has been ordained Anglican, Aaron Niequist, while not officially moving toward Anglican ordination as far as I know, has started a Sunday evening service at Willow Creek that by description seems to lean Anglican.

Personally, my theology has become much more sacramental and much less Baptist over the past 10 years or so years since I stopped working for the Southern Baptists in Chicago. I am also far less interested in arguing minor points of theology and much more interested in a Christianity at accepts all that hold to the Nicene Creed or other traditional Creeds.

So The Anglican Way is exactly right type of book for me. Thomas McKenzie is a parish pastor in Nashville (and the exact same age as I am I assume since he graduated from high school the same year I did according to one of the stories). He grew up in an Episcopal church, but was not really active until he went to college and was introduced to a charismatic form of Anglicanism.

The first section of the book is about the balance within the Anglican Way (illustrated by the Compass Rose) between Charismatic and Orthodox, Conservative and Liberal, Activist and Contemplative, Evangelical and Catholic. Temperamentally, that type of focus of relationship within theological and practical tension appeals to me. I want to be around, and worshiping with Christians, that are different from me, while still broadly holding to the orthodox tenets of Christianity.

Intimacy With God: An Introduction to Centering Prayer by Thomas Keating

October 8, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: An introduction to the theology, but not much on the practice of Centering Prayer

If you have been reading Bookwi.se for a while you have probably noticed a couple things. One, I intentionally try to read at least one book a month from an author that is Catholic, Orthodox or other Christian tradition that I am not a part of. (I do this intentionally both to learn and get a different perspective on christianity than my own low church historically Baptist/non-denominational one.)

And second, I have mentioned several times that I am going to a Spiritual Director. Catholics and to a lesser extent, Anglicans, have kept alive this tradition of meeting with another person for intentional focus on spiritual growth. My Spiritual Director, knowing that I like to read and discuss books, suggested we talk about this book, less for its focus on Centering Prayer as a practice than for its theology of connecting with God.

Keating is a Trappist priest that is known for bringing Centering Prayer to greater use in the 1980s and 1990s. This is a practice of meditation that is related to earlier Christian meditation, but also draws on some of the eastern meditation practices.

Mind of My Mind by Octavia Butler (Patternist #2)

October 7, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: The subject of Doro’s breeding program, after several thousand years, comes of age.

The first book in this series, Wild Seed, was more of a prequel than the first book in the series.

Doro is some type of mutant person that was born about 4000 years ago. He accidentally discovered that he could leave one body and take over another, giving him a type of immortality. Eventually he started a breeding program to create a people for himself. And he took on a type of God role for them. This breeding program both gives him some type of purpose (this book really discloses the purpose of the program) and a ready source of bodies to take over.

This book opens in the 1970s (roughly current time period because it was written in 1977), jumping more than 100 years from the end of Wild Seed (which moved about 300 years during the book.) Doro finds Mary, a young abused girl, and gives her to Anyanwu (now called Emma) to care for and raise.

As Mary gets older and ‘transitions’ to her full powers, she is more like Doro than any other of his previous “˜children’. Mary creates “˜patterns’ (the source of the series name) and draws people under her power.

Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God’s Everything

October 4, 2014 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: Obscurity, humility, smallness. All undervalued and difficult disciplines in a world of individualism, social media and mixed messages.

I ran across the very interesting book Embracing Obscurity on Tim Challies’ blog. His review gave a bit of the back story and resulted in the book being put on sale for a couple weeks at Amazon.

An anonymous author decided to write a book about humility. The author realized that writing a book about humility was in itself an un-humble activity so he (and I think it is pretty clearly a he) decided to write and publish a book secretly. Even his family is unaware.

A House Like a Lotus by Madeleine L’Engle

October 1, 2014 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: On today’s after school special, Polly has to deal with serious things.

I love Madeleine L’Engle’s writing. She takes young adults seriously, she writes about serious issues but she makes her characters real. So I pick up every one of L’Engle’s books when they come up for sale and I intentionally don’t read anything about them prior to reading the book.

This is the third book in the Polly O’Keefe series. Polly is the daughter of Meg and Calvin from the Wrinkle in Time series. And Zachary Gray from the Austin series is also a significant character in this book.

In the time line this book is set just after A Ring of Endless Light which I read earlier this year and about a year or so before An Acceptable Time which I read a couple years ago.

(There are spoilers in this review, but this is a book that cannot be discussed without spoilers.)

Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood by Michael Lewis

September 29, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: Author Michael Lewis (The Big Short, Money Ball, The Blind Side) gives his account of the new world of fatherhood.

Michael Lewis is one of those authors I have been meaning to read, but I am tired of reading about economics and I have never liked sports. So as I was looking around for something to read, I stumbled across this in the KindleUnlimited collection.

Lewis is giving his account of the changing of the meaning of fatherhood. It is no longer “˜Father Knows Best’ but hopefully is it moving past “˜father as convenient idiot’ as well. There is a huge social shift over the past couple generations. The social science research has shown a huge shift in the number of hours that fathers have increased in house work and child care over the past 50 years.

But still there is a stereotype of the distant and/or idiot Dad. Lewis both feeds into and helps break this stereotype. He is an active Dad that cares for his kids. He also highlights some of the stupid (but real) things that Dads do.

On the positive side, he communicates well the inability of fathers to replace mothers. It just isn’t possible. Men can’t birth children or breast feed. So Dads do what they can, they care for the older children, change diapers, comfort Moms.

Unnatural Death by Dorothy Sayers (Lord Peter Wimsey #3)

September 25, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: Lord Peter Wimsey overhears a doctor talking about a case and is convinced it is the perfect crime.

When I think of Lord Peter Wimsey, I most often think of the modern TV show Castle. I am a big fan of Castle. And there are many similarities. Lord Peter Wimsey is rich, interested in crime, has a good intrinsic sense of how crimes can be committed, is interested in crime as intellectual activity and works with a police officer who he allows to do all the mundane work and there is a good bit of humor in both.

Of course there are differences, Wimsey is not a writer, just a rich Lord (brother to a Duke). He has the free time to think about and solve crimes (Wimsey collects and sells rare first edition book, but has no need for money). And this is the 1930s Britian, so the sexy female cop is out of the question.

But I can totally see Castle with this plot. Wimsey is eating dinner at a fancy resturant and overhears a doctor talking about the death of a patient. He interupts and asks the doctor to tell him the whole story which leads Wimsey to believe that the patient was killed.

Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott

September 21, 2014 by Adam Shields

Reposting my 2013 review because the Kindle Edition is on sale for $2.75
Summary: SHORT, but helpful look at the essence of prayer.

I am not an Anne Lamott devotee. So I do not read everything she writes. But I have read enough to know that she is a very good author and one that looks at spiritual realities from a different perspective.

So one day last month I was tired of all of my audiobooks I had been listening to and looked around to find another. I noticed that with my member discount at Audible, Help, Thanks, Wow was under $5. So I picked it up.

I had resisted previously because it is so short. In audiobook it is barely 90 minutes. In paper it is listed as 112 pages. But it must be a gift book sized pages.

However, for $5 I thought it was worth picking up.

I listened to it two days after listening to Palmer Parker’s Let Your Life Speak. The two books, although not at all similar in subject had a similarity in spiritual direction. Both emphasized that the Christian life is not striving after looking good or being respectable.

How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor by James KA Smith

September 19, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: The traditional story of how to the world came to be secular (a subtraction of belief) is not the real story.

Starting last year I have been paying a lot of attention to James KA Smith (Jamie). The first book of his that came across my radar screen was Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview and Cultural Formation. ~~(I still haven’t actually read that one, it is on my list for this summer.)~~

But I did read Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works. And it really did fundamentally change my perspective on liturgy and worship. Since then I regularly read Smith’s editorials (he is the editor of Comment magazine) and I have slowly been reading some of his other books.

How (Not) to Be Secular is the type of book I wish were more popular. For important ideas to really take hold, we need good authors to popularize those important ideas into formats that a general public can understand. Charles Taylor’s A Secular age is a massive and important book, but at 900 pages it is too long (and too dense) for most readers. (And more than a few people have suggested Taylor is not the most readable author.) So Jamie Smith has put together a 148 page companion that covers the basics of the argument and includes relevant contemporary examples.

The basic idea of A Secular Age is to explain what it means to live in a secular age and how we have come to this place in culture.

“We are all skeptics now, believer and unbeliever alike. There is no one true faith, evident at all times and places. Every religion is one among many. The clear lines of any orthodoxy are made crooked by our experience, are complicated by our lives. Believer and unbeliever are in the same predicament, thrown back onto themselves in complex circumstances, looking for a sign. As ever, religious belief makes its claim somewhere between revelation and projection, between holiness and human frailty; but the burden of proof, indeed the burden of belief, for so long upheld by society, is now back on the believer, where it belongs.”

Taylor’s innovation is how he reframes discussion about secularization from what it has lost (belief in God) to how the very nature of belief claims have changed.