Book Reviews

Summary: A series of essays on faith and culture.

James KA Smith is a philosophy professor at Calvin College and editor of Comment Magazine.  He keeps coming across my radar screen but I have not read enough of his books.  I picked up Discipleship in the Present Tense last year when it was released.  It has taken me a nearly a year to get around to reading it, but it is worth the read.

I have had a long standing opposition to parts of Reformed Theology.  But Smith makes me want to investigate wings of the Reformed world that are less focused on the newer ‘Restless and Reformed’ wing and more focused on the older full systems of the Reformed Tradition. (He is more interested in liturgy, the full life of the Christian and less focused on 5 points and cage fighting.)

In the series of 24 essays, Smith mostly is talking about the church’s relationship to culture.  Some of the essays I have read before, such as the very good review of James Davidson Hunter’s book To Change the World which appeared in Books and Culture Magazine and I linked to in my review of Hunter’s book.  But most were new to me.

Read more

Summary: An early 20th century romantic thriller set during the French Revolution.

When I was an elementary student I had two ‘go to’ reading choices, a set of children’s biographies (more historical fiction than biography) and the Illustrated Classic series.

The children’s biographies gave me a pretty good sense of history and historical figures (although probably 80 percent of each book was fiction.)  And the Illustrated Classics gave me the rough outline of a number of classic books.

But as I read many of those classics again as an adult I have a hard time remembering if I actually have read the full version or the children’s abridged versions prior to re-reading.  (And there is often a pretty large difference.)  Stories that I loved, I sometimes love even more reading the full original version.  And sometimes my memory of the story is nothing like what the actual book is like.

The Scarlet Pimpernel was written originally as a play in 1905 and then novelized.  It is a swashbuckling novel of heroes and light romance.  But in many ways reading it again it feels more like a 1940s pulp fiction than a classic.

The hero (Sir Percy) is perceived as bumbling and slow (but very rich) by everyone, including his wife.  In reality he is cunning and a great fighter.  It feels like Zorro (but I looked it up and Zorro was written 14 years later.)  That same secret identity idea really took off with the comic book superheroes.

Read more

Summary: A brief overview of the role of spiritual formation in the Christian life.

One of the areas that I think that many Evangelicals have missed is the concept of spiritual formation.  It is not that Evangelicals don’t do many of the things that make up spiritual formation.  They pray, they read their bibles, they share the gospel, they study theology, etc.  But there is a concern among at least some, that working on spiritual formation is a form of works righteousness.  (In other words, it is a way of earning our salvation.)

Read more

Summary: Two cousins in New York City get in on the ground floor of comic books.  The book follows them for 15 years through their highs and lows.

Michael Chabon is one of those writers that has been recommended to me and I have been meaning to read for a while.  I didn’t really know anything about it, but The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000 so it seemed like a good choice when I saw it on sale a while back.

Joe Kavalier escapes out of Prague just before World War II breaks out and moves in with his Aunt and cousin Sam Clayman in New York City.  Sam finds out that Joe is an artist and together with Sam primarily writing and Joe primarily drawing, they become the great comic book writing duo of Kavalier and Clay.

Read more

Summary: An attempt to make philosophy young and hip and applicable to the modern world (using question like What does it mean to be a slut, How to reject the faith of your upbringing, and How to break up with your boyfriend.)

In my attempt to work through the audiobooks I have in my archive before buying new ones, I am running across a few that I probably should have just skipped.  Just because it is free does not mean it is worth downloading.  Over the past year or two I have stopped picking up a lot of free books that I would have picked up earlier because I have read a number of books I picked up for free that were just not worth the effort.

PhilLOLZophy is not a horrible book.  But it is not particularly good either.  The idea is decent.  Make philosophy accessible by using it in real world situations.  But the working out of the idea is mixed at best.

It is clearly oriented toward young 20 somethings. Which is not bad.  I like a lot of books that are not oriented toward my 40 something self (like Packing Light).  But this seems to be trying too hard to be cool.  There is a good bit of language (which I am not opposed to), when appropriate to the subject. But here is seems to be a way to show coolness. And much of the content is oriented around sex, dating, and becoming an adult.  Again, I am not opposed to those subjects.  But it seems the authors want to talk about them and occasionally bring up philosophical ideas.  And this seems to reverse the point of the book.

Read more