Adam Shields

Scribd Adds 30,000 Audiobooks

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Note Bookwi.se now has a full review of Scribd

Scribd is a document sharing and ebook subscription service. Originally it was mostly to share unpublished papers or articles, Scribd started its ebook subscription service about the same time as the better known Oyster, last year.  At the time I tried and reviewed Oyster, but didn’t bother reviewing Scribd because the services were so similar.

After spending 3 months with Kindle Unlimited, I was interested to hear Scribd announce yesterday that the $8.99 a month service will now include 30,000 audiobooks. This morning I signed up for the free one month trial and have some initial thoughts.

First, this is a much better website than it was last I looked at it, and the selection is much better than Kindle Unlimited. Yes Kindle Unlimited has more books, but Scribd has more of the books you want to read.

For instance, while Kindle Unlimited had a handful of CS Lewis books in ebook (none with free audiobooks), Scribd has most of his books, both in ebook and audiobook formats, in addition to the recent biographies from Alister McGrath and Devin Brown, and a number of Lewis’ books also have Spanish editions.

There are audiobooks from Blackstone, HarperCollins (which owns Zondervan, Thomas Nelson and HarperOne) and Scholastic included in the 30,000 audiobooks.

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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 Niebuhr Brothers for Armchair Theologians by Scott Paeth

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Summary: A short book that felt longer than it was because it felt like a book report.

I like the idea of introduction books. Short books that are able to give an introduction to an idea or a person can be very helpful, but also very hard to write.

I have read a number both the Armchair Theologian books and the Oxford Very Short Introduction Series. They are a very mixed bag. The best of the Armchair Theologian series that I have read is the book on Aquinas by Timothy Mark Renick.

This book by Scott Paeth is definitely on the weaker side. I am still glad I read it because I did not know much about the biography or context of the Niebuhr brothers. Their context and history is important to their writing. I have read at least one book by each of the brothers. So I was not coming into the book blind.

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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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Most Read Bookwi.se Reviews in October

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This month I am a bit broader and including my reviews of the Kindle Unlimited after Three Months and the new Kindle Voyager and Kindle Basic Touchscreen since by page views, they were among the most read reviews of the month. The most read reviews at Bookwi.se: Discovering Your Heart with the Flag Page Test … Read more

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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The Good and Beautiful Life by James Bryan Smith

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Summary: We are saved by grace but by grow by discipline. 

I am very supportive of the Spiritual Formation work of James Bryan Smith and his mentors Dallas Willard and Richard Foster. Theologically I really do agree that a theology or spiritual practice that focuses on conversion but stops there without leading into the grace that is spiritual formation is a crippled faith.

The difficult work of spiritual work is not a straight line or the easily transferable from one person to another through ‘five simple steps to…’ types of writing.

The most important thing that I got out of the book is that Smith talked about becoming wise, not creating rules. Rules bind people, but wisdom frees people to act with the other in mind.

As I was thinking about this book I kept thinking about those that I think of as both wise and holy. I realized that all of them are old. One of the problems of a youth obsessed culture is discounting the wisdom of our elders. And one of the most important parts of that wisdom is that there are no short cuts.

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