Book Reviews

The Resistance Man by Martin Walker (Bruno, Chief of Police #6)

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Takeaway: History and heritage matter.

One of the nice features of the Bruno, Chief of Police series is the mixing in of real history, culture and geography along with the fiction.

In this case, Walker is mixing two pieces of real history into the mystery.

The first is the largest train robbery in history. In 1944, the French resistance stole what would be the rough equivalent of about $400 million dollars (or to the comparisons in the book, 5 times the total education budget of France that year or 5% of the total French national budget.)

One of the last resistance fighters still alive in St Denis (and one of the members of that train robbery) died. Because he died with two of the bills from the train robbery in his hand, Bruno starts investigating his connection.

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A Grief Observed by CS Lewis

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a grief observed cover imageTakeaway: An image of what grief may be like.

A Grief Observed is one of those books that I have felt like I needed to read but have not wanted to read. I have not suffered a great loss, whether as a parent, spouse, or child. And so reading about another’s loss seems somehow voyeuristic or at least intruding.

But I bought the Kindle edition a few weeks ago when it was on sale, and I ended up listening to the audiobook (read by Lewis’s stepson Douglas Gresham) because it was part of the Scribd subscription library.

After reading the disappointing Lunch With Lewis, I wanted to read Lewis himself.

A Grief Observed is short, only 68 pages on Kindle and less than 2 hours of audio, including introductions from both Madeleine L’Engle and Douglas Gresham.

In the text, Lewis says he limited himself to four notebooks that he found around the house because if he did not arbitrarily have a limit, there would be no limit to the end of grief (and he wasn’t going to go out and buy more to prolong his writing).

I can see why so many have found this book so comforting while others do not. Lewis is particular. He honestly cries out to God and laments but also looks inside himself for the root and reality of his grief (and hope.) He is also intellectual and deals with the intellectual issues around faith and grief that will not apply to many potential readers.

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An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor

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Summary: Finding spiritual practices for those that have become dead to spiritual practices.

One of the problems for me in loving Amazon and enjoying book reviews, is that there is always five recommendations for every book that I actually read. The more I read, the more I see that I want to read. One of those authors that has been on my radar for a while is Barbara Brown Taylor. A number of my “˜reading friends’ rate her very highly.

Barbara Brown Taylor is a former Episcopal priest, turned professor. It is hard not compare her writing style and voice to Anne Lamott. They both are around the same age, female, and disgruntled with a church that they still feel drawn to and love in spite of themselves. Their memoir-y writing styles are not completely different.

An Altar in the World is semi-autobiographical, but it is less memoir than recounting what it is like to find spiritual practices outside the church that connect us with God. Parts of this were very good. But parts of it just seemed a stretch for me. I have been interested in finding God through the spiritual practices within the church, the historic ones that have not been a part of my Christian journey. Mostly this book is about finding God in the every day and ordinary.

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If I Had Lunch with CS Lewis: Exploring the Ideas of CS Lewis on the Meaning of Life by Alister McGrath

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Summary: McGrath tries to imagine what type of advice Lewis would give, if you had lunch over 8 weeks.

McGrath has written one of the two or three best biographies of CS Lewis, so in my ongoing quest to read more and more by or about Lewis, I was eager to pick up McGrath’s newest book, Lunch With Lewis, especially since it was free on Kindle and the audiobook part of my free trial of Scribd.

The preface laid out exactly I was looking for, Lewis is the type of person that many people would say they would like to have lunch with out of a host of historical characters. And so McGrath wanted to imagine what type of things Lewis would talk about and what type of wisdom we could gain if we did have lunch with him. So McGrath set out 8 weeks of lunches, and a chapter for each.

The problem is that the actual book did not live up to the promise. Instead most of the chapters were more lecture, biography or book report. The first chapter is on the meaning of life. The second was on friendship (which was mostly about Tolkien and the Inklings.) The third was on the importance of stories in shaping our life and meaning (with significant overlap from the first chapter.) The fourth chapter was on Aslan and how he was and was not Christ. And it continued on, apologetics, education, the problem of pain, heaven and hope.

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The Crowded Grave by Martin Walker (Bruno Chief of Police #4)

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Takeaway: Justice is sometimes different than what happens with our legal systems.

What I love about this series is the sense of responsibility that Bruno has for his community. As the only local police officer for his small town and surrounding countryside, he knows virtually everyone. So when a crime occurs, Bruno’s first impulse is not to find out who to arrest, but to bring about justice and restoration of relationship.

Since this is the fourth book in the series, and the third I have reviewed in the last two weeks, I am not going to revisit the basic setting. In this book there are three intertwined stories. First, there is a body that was found in an archeological dig. Instead of being 30,000 years old as the rest of the site is, this body is about 20-25 years old. But no crimes from the area involve a missing person or are unsolved that would fit the body. And it appears to be a violent assassination that might have included torture.

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Black Diamond by Martin Walker (Bruno Chief of Police #3)

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Summary: Bruno looks into a shady community market and stumbles on a series of international crimes.

More than anything else, this series of books leads me to want to visit rural France and eat lots of French food and drink wine. I have friends that live in France and about 8 years ago we went to go visit them. They live in a community that is probably not too different from the setting of this book (although north of Paris and not in the regional setting of the book.)

Black Diamond’s food discussion revolves around Truffles. When I hear truffles I always think of the chocolate variety and not the expensive fungus that is a delicacy in French food. Bruno when he moved to St Denis and built his home started hunting truffles and planted the Oak trees and doing the other work to start his own truffles. Though his friend, who everyone calls ‘The Baron’, Bruno meets a local truffle expert who helps train Bruno’s dog to search for truffles and helps Bruno to learn about the market and the beauty of truffles. But when a local truffle exchange market seems to be corrupted, Bruno is brought in to investigate.

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The Dark Vineyard by Martin Walker

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Summary: An arson on a remote (and illegal) genetically modified research farm leads to a crisis. And it might be related to a potential new investment by a large winemaker. Bruno as chief of police and lover of his small town seeks to preserve the community.

Martin Walker has created a small French village and a cast of characters that feel to me like a French version of Wendell Berry’s fiction, but with a modern thriller twist.

The Dark Vineyard is the second in the series and included all that I loved about the first. It is as much about the setting and the long descriptions of life in the French countryside as it is about the mystery. And that is what most of the complaints are about in the Amazon reviews.

This is not a fast book. But it is a delicious one, both in literary description and its description of all of the food and wine consumed. It is a book that seems to have been written with the slow food movement in mind.

Christians followers of the “˜slow church’ movement or those that are rediscovering the parish concept might also enjoy this series as an illustration of the value of slowing down and valuing the local.

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Sacred Companions: The Gift of Spiritual Friendship and Direction

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Sacred Companions: The Gift of Spiritual Friendship and DirectionSummary: A guide for giving and receiving Spiritual Direction.

I have been interesting the concept of spiritual direction for several months now.  As with many things I need to read through a number of books and spend a lot of time thinking through things before I am really ready to move further.  So I still have not actually found a spiritual director yet. (I have been going to a spiritual director for about a year now.)

But I am getting closer to understanding what Spiritual Direction is all about.  For David Benner, spiritual direction is mostly about prayer.  The Spiritual Director is praying for and helping the person receiving the spiritual direction to pray and connect more fully to God.

Benner is a counselor.  So he spends some time differentiating Spiritual Direction from counseling.

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From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg

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From the Mixed Up FilesSummary: The children’s classic story about running away, living in a museum and solving a great mystery all the while finding the important things in life.

Children’s books are great for adults to read occasionally.  In addition, to just being a change of pace, I find that the simple straight forward stories get to the essence of so many things. Children’s book don’t have to have multi-layered plots with anti-heroes or twists and turns.

Instead children’s books tell simple stories that often do a great job of getting to root meanings of life.

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler is one of the classics that I think has held up fairly well. Claudia, a 12 year-old oldest child that feels like she is underappreciated by her parents and decides to run away. Her younger brother, Jamie, comes with her mostly for the adventure. Most kids would identify with one or both of these reasons for running away.

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