Adam Shields
Orgasms are for Women, Marriage is for Men by A. Jesus Wrighter
Summary: A funny (occasionally crass), but real self-help book for married men.
Last week Orgasms are for Women and Marriage is for Men was offered free for kindle. Because I try to post virtually all of the free Christian kindle book on Bookwi.se, I ran across it. I do not always look into a book, but those that seem a bit sketchy or maybe categorized wrong I try to look at.
I read the intro before posting it and then read the rest of the book over the weekend. It is a quick book (around 50 pages) and most people will read it in about an hour.
I think that it is a mostly helpful book. It is written under a pseudonym, but the author claims to be a former pastor and marriage counselor. He said that in his experience, 99% of the motivation for marriage and premarital counseling was to get the counselor to change their spouse’s behavior (this seems about right to me). This book is oriented around the idea that you cannot control the other person, you can only control yourself. So get your stuff together and forget about theirs.
Amazon Press Conference Announced
Let the speculation begin (or increase). It is being reported on The Kindle Chronicles and Lilliputing that Amazon has sent out press invitations for a press conference. There is little more information than the date and location (Sept 6, 10:30 AM in Santa Monica, CA), but it is widely expected that there will be an … Read more
The Magician King by Lev Grossman
Summary: A cynically nihilistic take on some of the most beloved fantasy books.
As much as I enjoy books stealing ideas and remaking stories (like Fuzzy Nation), Lev Grossman has soured me on the concept for a while.
I was not a big fan of the first book of this series, The Magicians. I thought it was really well written and had some great ideas. But I just did not like the characters. But I still wanted to read the second book. It was written so well, I figured the second would have to be better.
After having read it, I think this opening line from an Amazon review gets it exactly right. “Joyless, dismal, and cynically nihilistic–that was the first novel in this series.”
The Son of Neptune (Heroes of Olympus #2) by Rick Riordan
Summary: The parallel book to Lost Hero
This is a book that is hard to discuss without at least some spoilers. The Percy Jackson Series was a complete series based around the character Percy Jackson, son of the Greek God Poseidon, as he discovers that he is a demigod and works to save the gods from being other thrown by the Titans.
This series is after the first series, but has some of the same characters. So I would read Percy Jackson first, then this. In the first book (spoilers start here) we are introduced to Jason Grace, son of Jupiter and his two friends Leo and Piper. What is revealed at the end of the first book is that the Greek Gods also have Roman sides to them and there is a whole world of Roman demigods that have been kept apart from the Greek demigods.
Jason was from the Roman side and was sent to Camp Half-Blood (the Greek side) by Hera in order to join the Greek and Roman demigods together to overthrow Gaia and the Giants.
How to Understand Online Star Ratings
This is the latest xkcd comic. And it is pretty much the way I understand online rankings.
Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth by Richard John Neuhaus
If you are just joining in, I am slowly working through several books on Catholic theology and practice. Catholic Matters was recommended by a friend and is a very good next step for me.
Richard John Neuhaus is on of the better known Catholic writers in the United States. He is a priest in New York and a convert from the Lutheran stream of Christianity at the age of 54. Most Evangelicals will know him as the editor of the Institute on Religion and Public Life’s publication First Things. Neuhaus passed away in 2009.
Neuhaus was a great believer in ecumenical activity (the idea behind The Institute on Religion and Public Life and his earlier Institute on Religion and Democracy). He along with Charles Colson were the prime drivers behind the Evangelicals and Catholics Together statements that provided a significant part of the discussion material from Mark Noll’s Is The Reformation Over (reviewed earlier).
Send to Kindle Extension for Chrome
One of the lesser known features of the kindle is that you can send books, article or other documents to your kindle. This can be useful for editing, or giving presentations, or reading articles off line. Earlier this year there was desktop apps released to allow you to send documents to your kindle without sending … Read more
32 Free Books to Give Away
I made a committment to myself to give away the vast majority of my paper books when I am done with them. Many of the books below were given to me by others that wanted a review. Others I have read and reviewed. Still others are books that I bought but have never gotten … Read more
The Lost Hero (Heros of Olympus #1) by Rick Riordan
Summary: A new set of heroes are on a quest to free Hera and stop something worse than the Titans from destroying the Gods (and maybe all of humanity with them.)
The Percy Jackson and the Olympians were rightly a popular series of young adult books. They include magic, heroes, Greek Gods, adventure and lots of historical and mythical references.
With The Lost Hero, Riordan takes the same setting and starts a new series with new main characters. Jason has no memory of his past. But he is son of Zeus and and already battle tested and a leader, but he has never been to Camp Half-Blood before. Leo is a mechanical genius, but after the death of his mother he has been hiding his real power. Piper is the daughter of a famous movie star and constantly in trouble for theft.