Adam Shields

Reposting this review because the Kindle edition is on sale for $0.99.
Summary: Short discussion oriented book about what being a church member really is all about.

Someone at Rainer’s publisher has been paying attention to the blogosphere. I Am a Church Member (on sale last week) is a good response to Rachel Held Evans CNN post of two weeks ago.

This is not the only good response, but it is a one method of responding. Evans, I believe, was trying to describe her desires for the church based on her frustrations with the dysfunction of the church. (I don’t think she was trying to ‘demand’ that the church change to fit her desires as some have charged.)

Thom Rainer instead is trying to start with a healthy church and discuss what it means to be a good church member to that healthy church.

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Summary: A skewering of some convenient targets.

I don’t read a lot of Christian fiction.  Most of it I think tries too hard to get a message across and not hard enough to tell a good honest story.  And I think that is the central problem with Evangellyfish.

Douglas Wilson is a good writer.  He strings words together nicely and is pleasant to read.  But from the beginning this seemed like a book that was just too safe and predictable.  It is held up as good satire.  And that does seem to be what he is attempting.  But I happen to really love some good satire.  Christopher Buckley is one of my favorite authors.  Coffee with Jesus, the Colbert Report, Jonathan Swift, etc have left us with a world of satire and so in an age that is cynical about pretty much everything, satire needs to be even more carefully crafted than ever.

What I think that Wilson missed is that the best satire is not only from the inside, but against your own side. Evangellyfish is safe in particular for Wilson. A review on Amazon that I read after I finished captured my thoughts exactly,

“The book bills itself as dangerous and edgy, but it came across to me as par for the Wilson course. Pop quiz: which pastor lives like a hypocrite, full of deceit and sexual sin: the mega-church pastor or the Reformed pastor? Of course the mega-church pastor! What sin does the youth pastor struggle with? Of course sexual sin! Which female character villainously manufactures a campaign of vicious slander: the reporter, the secretary, or the midwife? Of course the midwife! After all, she’s already guilty of near-manslaughter just for having babies outside the hospital (at least according to the book!). To anyone familiar with Douglas Wilson, none of these caricatures are surprising.”

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Summary: Dresden, not quite as much of a mess this time, is searching for the Shroud of Turin, everyone else is trying to kill him.

Dresden is Chicago’s only professional Wizard.  Essentially he is a Private Investigator for supernatural issues.  That is when he is actually working and not trying to save the world from certain destruction.

Death Masks comes fairly closely on the heals of Summer Knight.  The Red Court (the vampires) have declared war on the White Court (the Wizards) and in particular on Dresden. So the vampires are still trying to kill him.  The local crime lord,who Dresden has previously had an uneasy truce with, seems to have some of his goons after him as well.  And Susan, his (maybe ex) fiancée who is part way through her transformation to a vampire herself after trying to save Dresden in book 3, is back in town.

All of that is in addition to an actual job, finding the Shroud of Turin, which was recently stolen.

Michael, a Knight of the Cross, who was last in Grave Peril (#3) and is one of my favorite characters, is back.  Michael is Catholic and devout and carries a sword around while defeating evil, raising his brood of kids, working as a contractor and keeping his wife happy.  This time he is joined by two other Knights that are trying to save Dresden.

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Summary: A farcical skewering of politicians, money and regular people trying to make a living.

A few months ago Audible was having a buy one get one free sale.  One of the options was Strip Tease. I couldn’t really find anything to match with the other book that I did want, so I threw it in my cart as a free extra.

I have read two other Hiaasen books, but it has been a while.  I remembered them as funny, sort of mysteries concerned primarily with local Florida issues.  After I was about half way through Strip Tease I went back and read my previous reviews.  I was not kind.  I thought the characters were basically unlikable and while the writing was ok, there was very little redeeming value in the books.  And basically I feel the same about Strip Tease.

Strip Tease is primarily about Erin, a young divorced mother who is working as a stripper because it is the only way she can earn enough money to pay her lawyer to try and get back her daughter from her dirtbag ex-husband.

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