Book Reviews – Page 149

Flunking Sainthood: A Year of Breaking the Sabbath, Forgetting to Pray and Still Loving My Neighbor by Jana Riess

December 8, 2011 by Adam Shields

Note: Christianity Today women’s Blog Her-meneutics, had a blog post about this book on Feb 1, 2012. It seems that Reiss converted to Mormonism in 1993 and continues to be active in her Mormon church. While this does not change the overall review, I am a bit more wary of Paraclete Press, a small publishing house that I have enjoyed lately. I feel this book was marketed inappropriately.
Takeaway: Sainthood is hard, and more focused on a life time than month long experiments.

At some point we are going to tire of these year-long experiment books. There was Julie and Julia. Then AJ Jacobs books on reading the Encyclopedia and Living Biblically. Then the Christian knock-off by Edward Dobson and others. When I typed in “Living + year” into the Amazon search bar I came up with 147 books, most of which are memoir-y looks at trying to do something for a year (live generously, live in the country, live green, live without running water, listen to Oprah, read the church fathers, live shamelessly, live like my grandmother, live straight, live dangerously, not lie, travel, eat locally, etc–these are all real by the way.)

Junia is Not Alone by Scot McKnight

December 5, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: There was a woman in Roman 16:7 that Paul says was one of the apostles. Many Christians do not know this.

Junia is Not Alone is short. Frankly, it would be better as a long free article than a short paid kindle book. I read it in about 20 minutes or so. I do not believe it is listed as a Kindle Short, but it should be.

I want to be fair to Scot McKnight, many people do not know the history of Junia and that is the point of this short little booklet. Junia is mentioned as an apostle in Rom 16:7. For much of Christian history she has been referred to as a man, and even with good Christian language scholars it is only recently that the best greek manuscripts have admitted that Junia is a woman.

The Arctic Incident (Artemis Fowl #2) by Eoin Colfer

December 1, 2011 by Adam Shields

Summary: Artemis may have found his father, and he is suspected to be smuggling human goods (and weapons) to Faire.

The second book in a series makes or breaks the series in my mind. It can either set up the series to be able to go further (usually giving some good background and character development) or it just tells the same story as the previous book. Colfer does a good job of keeping the action and the good parts of Artemis and the other characters from the first book, but developing them enough that you want to keep going.

The Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

November 25, 2011 by Adam Shields

Summary: The end of the world is coming. An angel and a demon happen to like the world the way it is. Which set of prophecies will win.

I am a big fan of Neil Gaiman and have had this book recommended to me several times. I have not read any of Terry Pratchett’s Diskworld books, but his fans are legion.

I can feel Gaiman’s fingers in the book. It is funny, full to details and a ton of characters and a bit sacrilegious. There are so many story lines. Adam (the child destined to be the anti-christ is mixed up and given to the wrong family. The angel and demon that have been friends throughout human history realize that they are not really interested in the world ending and have to decide if it is worth the danger to try and stop it. Newt (an apprentice witch finder) and witch (descendant of one of the few real prophets of the apocalypse) end up finding one another, falling in love and playing their own part in the apocalypse.

Read My Lips by Debby Herbenick and Vanessa Schick

November 23, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: Yes, this book is about celebration of women’s genitalia.

If you have a book review blog you get asked to review all kinds of books. Some I review, some I do not. But I decided to review this book for a couple reasons. First, although I am a guy, I am married, I am the nanny for two little girls and my wife and I lead a small group for newly married couples. So I regularly read and think about marriage and sex issues. If you look through my archive, you will find a number of books about sex and marriage. In general, I have not been a huge fan of any of them. All books on sex, gender and/or marriage seem to have several common problems. 1) They try to address too large of an audience. Issues that are appropriate to talk about in one context are not appropriate in another context. 2) They either suggest marriage/sex are really difficult, or really easy and tend to lack balance. 3) They are either Christian focused and tend not to address issues that confront real people, or they are non-Christian focused and tend to not have any moral guide.

After the jump, the review will be more on the rated R side. (Mom you may want to stop reading now.)

Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine by Gregg Allison

November 16, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: Theology does not exist in a vacuum.

Historical Theology is a massive and far reaching undertaking. All theology has a history and a context for when and why it first came to prominence. My personal learning style is such that I tend to learn best when I understand the context of why.

My frustration with my seminary Historical Theology class was that it was focused on the thought and theology, but rarely talked about they history and the why around the thought.

Gregg Allison is writing a Historical Theology to accompany Wayne Grudem‘s Systematic Theology. I have not read Grudem, I used Erickson’s Systematic Theology text in college. But regardless, Allison is writing on the history of the basic points of theology that would be included in any systematic theology.

Obviously this is not a short book. And even at almost 800 pages, I still want more history and more wide ranging discussion. Allison says in the beginning that he is not dealing with Orthodox Historical Theology. So this is a historical theology of the western church, and as you read, you will see that it is a historical theology that is focused on providing context to Evangelical readers. I understand why he is fairly narrow in his wide-ranging task (in part because this book intended to be a partner to Grudem’s Systematic Theology), but I think that Allison’s conservative Evangelical understanding of theology would be better served if he was a bit wider ranging in his understanding of history. And I am sure that the general Evangelical student would be better served by a work that showed them that they are not the center of the Christian world.

Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation by Frans Johansson

November 11, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: Innovation occurs at the intersection of different fields of study.

My wife originally told me about this book. She saw the author speak at last year’s Chick-Fil-A Leadercast. It is an interesting book. If you like random facts and good stories and enjoy the writing of Malcom Gladwell or Chris Anderson, you will like Medici Effect.

The basic thesis is that we need to encourage innovation by encouraging people of different backgrounds and fields of study to work together. So an architect in Africa created a new system for cooling a building because he knew he could not rely on the electricity intensive standard air conditioning system. So he found out about how giant termite mounds keep precise temperatures and incorporated those insights into the build’s design and was able to cool the building with less than 10 percent of the energy costs of a regular air conditioning system.

Here is a video I saw today that is not in the book, but is a great example of innovation. Using soda bottles to provide light in impoverished communities.

How to Succeed in Evil by Patrick E McLean

November 10, 2011 by Adam Shields

Summary: Real evil isn’t the villains, it is the accountants/consultants behind the villains

About 6 or 7 years ago I was listening to a lot of independent fiction that was read by the authors. This started with Cory Doctorow but then I found other independent authors that were doing similar things through podiobooks or other sites.

One of the books I remember enjoying was How to Succeed in Evil. But it seemed to be more of a short story/novella than a fully developed book. And I remember looking for the next chapter because it seemed like it just ended. Evidentially, it did just end and McLean or someone else just stopped recording the rest of the book. As I was scrolling through books that were available to borrow on Lendle, I found a kindle version of How to Succeed in Evil. I enjoyed it before, I thought I would figure out how the book ended.

Following Jesus, The Servant King: A Biblical Theology of Convenintal Discipleship by Jonathan Lunde

November 9, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: God is a Covenant God

Up front I want to say, I only read about half of this book. Part of the issue is that I had several other books that were drawing me away either because they were really interesting or I needed to finish them because they were review books.

But part of the other problem with this book it that I had a hard time understanding it. Not because it was badly written (although it was a bit dry), but because it talked about God’s covenant relationship in a way that I just did not have context for. I guess once against I am showing my lack of reformed-ness. Theoretically, I have always understood God as a covenant God and I thought I understood what that meant when others were using that term. But Lunde was using that category in a way I just do not understand.

The Demigod Files by Rick Riordan

November 8, 2011 by Adam Shields

I gave up on this book. I checked it out of the library as an audiobook through the Overdrive system. I really enjoyed the rest of the Percy Jackson series, but this book is clearly filler. Evidentially it was released between books four and five to keep readers happy and interested in the series until the … Read more