Adam Shields

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis (Movie/Book Review)

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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS LewisTakeaway: You do not need long books to tell big stories.

The thing that keeps striking me as I read through the Chronicles of Narnia recently is how short these books are. In my imagination, these are big books, maybe not Harry Potter length children’s books, but fairly weighty tomes.

The reality is that the Chronicles of Narnia are short children’s books.  The single volume of the whole series is shorter than just Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  So it seems a bit odd to me that the movies are so long.

The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe is just over 4 hours on audiobook but 2 and a half hours as a movie.

The 2005 movie is faithful and good. But it loses some of the childhood wonders of the book.  I have been reluctant to read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe as I have been reading through CS Lewis because it is such a familiar story to me.  I choose to listen to it on audiobook (in part because I ran across it at the library) but also because I wanted to re-capture being read to.  This is one of the earliest books I remember being read to me.

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Sun Stand Still: What Happens When You Dare Ask God for the Impossible by Steven Furtick

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I am reposting this 2010 review because Sun Stand Still is part of the June 2014 Monthly Sale. It will be $3.99 until the end of the month.

Summary: God can answer big prayers.

This book is about praying the big prayers that show that God is really in control, not us.  The kind of prayers that allow us to worship God because we know that it is only through his power that things are accomplished.

The book is a long meditation on the story of Joshua, when he prays to ask God to hold the sun so that they army of Israel will have time to finish defeating the 5 armies it was coming up against.

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In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honore

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Reposting this 2011 review because the Kindle Edition is on sale for $1.99.

In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed (Plus)Takeaway: A bit repetitive, but the basic idea, that slowing down, enjoying life, and doing things well instead of fast is a good reminder.

Efficiency and speed are part of the world we live in.  With computers and other tools, fewer people can do more than ever before.  But instead of using the extra time, most people tend to either just do more instead of enjoying the additional products of our labor.

In Praise of Slowness is a book I first heard about from Anne Jackson.  I purchased it then (it was only $5 at the time) and it has been sitting on my shelf for a couple years.

I started reading it last week and enjoyed the basic thesis that faster is not necessarily better.  The book starts with the author seeing an ad for 1  minute bedtime stories.  He was both interested in getting the book and horrified that he had gotten to the point of efficiency that he was actually interested in being efficient in the amount of time he was spending with his child.  This started a long term investigation into speed and backlash of slow advocates.

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A Passion for God: The Spiritual Journey of AW Tozer by Lyle Dorsett

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Summary: AW Tozer is one of the great spiritual writers of the 20th century, and a prime example of God using less than perfect people.

I read A Passion for God first about three years ago.  It is one of those books that has stuck with me more than most.

The main reason is that Tozer is a perfect example of something that theologically I don’t really have a category for.  Tozer, by nearly everyone that knew him’s estimation, was a real and passionate man of God.  But at the same time he was distant from his family (especially his wife), personally lonely and probably leaned toward clinical depression.

It is not that I don’t think Christians can be depressed or lonely.  I certainly think they can.  But Tozer, like several other pietistic leaning pastors that I have read or read about seemed to lack many of the interpersonal tools of relating to those closest to him (while pouring forth energy on others.)

As with the first time I read the book, the most damning sentence in the book is a quote from Tozer’s wife who remarried after Tozer died. Her standard answer when people asked how she was doing after re-marrying was a variant of: “˜Aiden loved Jesus but (her new husband) loves me.’

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Seven Grams of Lead by Keith Thomson

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Summary: A journalist tries to stay alive while tracking down a story about abuse of power by a rogue agent.

Several years ago I was turned onto Keith Thomson when John Wilson (editor of Books and Culture) talked about Thomson’s earlier book Once a Spy.

Once a Spy was part of my getting back into spy novels that lead to me reading a number of John le Carre’s books and other classic and contemporary spy novels.

I picked up Seven Grams of Lead when it was the Kindle Daily Deal a couple weeks ago (and on sale for $1.99).

On the whole this was a much more traditional thriller than the Once a Spy/Twice a Spy books.  Russ Thornton is a journalist/blogger that is known for his investigative reporting on government and big business.  When an old friend calls asking for help (and ends up dead),  Thornton realized that he was the one that inadvertently gave away her secret because his body had been bugged.

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Most Read Book Reviews for May 2014

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Below are the eight most read book reviews over the past month. I am very excited that three of the eight are from Bookwi.se Contributors. I very much appreciate that others are contributing reviews to Bookwi.se. Without them this blog would not be nearly as good.    

Eat That Frog: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating by Brian Tracy

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Reposting this review because Eat That Frog is the daily deal today and on sale for $0.99 for the audiobook at audible.com

Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less TimeTakeaway: Inefficiency at work often means taking away time from home.

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

I am a procrastinator. I can procrastinate better than almost anything else I do. I think it is one of the reasons that I am a good reader, because reading is usually a means of procrastination for me.  I am not sure when I picked up this book. I think it was free on audible at some point (probably 3 or 4 years ago).

I was looking for something short and it was the shortest of all of my unread audiobooks at only 2 and a 1/2 hours.

Tracy says at the begining, it is likely that very little in this book will be new inforamtion.  The problem is that you have to actually put the infomation into practice before it makes a difference in your life.  Clearly that is one of my issues.

He also said that not everything works for everyone and a large number of things will often prevent us from accomplishing anything.  So I picked out three things and I have been trying to do them.

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Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

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Reposting my 2013 review because Flowers for Algernon is today’s (May 28) Audible Deal of the Day. You can buy the audiobook for $3.95 (no membership required, use your Amazon login if you do not have an audible account.)
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel KeyesSummary: Classic young adult novel about a man that gains and then loses intelligence.

Several years ago I revisited a lot of the young adult literature that I loved as a child or teen. Revisiting those books helped to renew my interest in young adult literature. So now I regularly read 2 or 3 young adult novels a month.

I still occasionally go back and revisit novels that I have not read in 25 or 30 years. Flowers for Algernon was on sale at some point about a year ago and I picked it up. But after reading 10 pages or so, put it down.

I picked it up again and read it over the Memorial Day weekend. Originally I read Flowers for Algernon in either 7th or 8th grade english class.

Reading it again, I am somewhat surprised and wonder if I am properly gauging the age range for young adult literature.

In Flowers for Algernon, Charlie is developmentally disabled adult (as we now term it, but in the book he is frequently called retarded or other variants) is given some type of operation that makes him smart.

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Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

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Great Expectations | [Charles Dickens]Summary: A Classic novel about wanting what is not good for you.

For some reason that I can’t really explain, I always have felt I did not like Charles Dickens.  But the only two books that I can remember reading of Dickens (Great Expectations and The Tale of Two Cities) I liked. Maybe it is like feeling like you do not like a food, but never actually trying it.

Like many classics, I was first exposed to Great Expectations as an abridged children’s book.  I am pretty sure I read at least one additional abridgement in high school or college (not for school but pleasure) but I think this is the first time I have read the whole book.

With so many versions of the story in my head (I have seen at least one if not two of the movies in addition to probably two abridged versions), the basic story is not a surprise.  Simon Vance (as always) did an admirable job narrating the audiobook.  And like many classics, I think it could have easily been cut by at least a third without a problem.  But according to Wikipedia, Dickens originally intended it to be twice as long, but his publisher restrained him. (Thank goodness).

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