Adam Shields – Page 182

Why Holiness Matters by Tyler Braun

August 13, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: Holiness is affection for God and a way of life, not a set of rules that we have to live by.

Holiness is a difficult topic to discuss. About halfway through the book I thought of my comments in a review of a book on Christian giving. “Just because there has been so much bad teaching on the theology of giving does not mean that we should not talk about giving.” And in this context, just because there has been so much bad teaching on holiness does not mean that holiness is somehow unimportant. In fact we mostly likely need to spend more time discussing holiness. Unfortunately authors and pastors have to deal with the bad teaching in order for the good teaching to make sense.

Tyler Braun is very directly attempting to communicate the importance of holiness to the Millennial Generation (although this is a beneficial book if you are not in that generation) because holiness has been so badly taught in the past.

Bookwi.se Reviewed Books on Prayer

August 11, 2012 by Adam Shields

Since Bookwi.se now has more than 500 book reviews, I felt it was time to start making the back catalogue a bit more useful. I will continue to add to these topical indexes as trends arise and I have time.

Bookwi.se has reviewed a lot of books on prayer. By my count there are 22 books that are directly about prayer, not including several others that are indirectly about prayer. Unlike most of Bookwi.se topical indexes I will not give a description and summary review of every book but instead divide the list into recommended books and less recommended book on prayer.

Bookwi.se most recommended books on Prayer

Prayer by Richard Foster

If you really are serious about wanting to read about prayer this is probably my first recommendation. It is focused on the various methods and spiritual disciplines around prayer. Foster is seeped in historical Christian writings and liberally quotes from them and his own experience. I have reviewed this twice. First review, second review, but I have have read it at least three or four times. This is a books that welcomes multiple readings.

A Praying Life: Connecting With God In a Distracting World by Paul Miller

This is my second most recommended book on prayer. It is more of a practical look focus (instead of this historical and spiritual discipline focus of Richard Foster’s book). Again I have read it several times and reviewed it twice (first, second) If you are a parent, Miller spends a lot of time talking about praying for his children and spouse and uses his own family and prayer life as continual illustrations.

New Kindle Speculation

August 10, 2012 by Adam Shields

July 31st (the rumored for a Amazon Press conference for new kindle models) has come and gone. But there are still speculation that new kindles are probably not far off. 1) There are still a number of rumors that Amazon is going to launch a new version of the Kindle Fire (most likely more storage, a better … Read more

Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How it Can Help You Find and Keep Love

August 10, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: We have a way that we attached to romantic partners. Finding a partner that is compatible with our attachment type makes those attachments more secure, longer lasting, and more fulfilling. Oriented toward single adults more than couples.

I am fascinated by science books about human relationships and behavior. One of the best I have read is Mistakes Were Made, But Not By Me. You can get the point by the title, and nearly two years after I read it, I still frequently bring it up in conversation. Another interesting and more general book like this is Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex.

Book of this genre are best when they really are based in science, but they attempt to make the science real in lay person terms and ideas. Mary Roach, who wrote Bonk, takes the tack of writing about the science through her own discovery. She is a very present character in her books. The authors of Mistakes Were Made were more traditional science writers. They referenced studies and gave lots of examples but they were mostly writing from as academic narrators.

Some books get to science based or take a fairly simple idea and run it into the ground far past the attention spans of most readers (The Narcissism Epidemic I think fell into this trap.) But ever since the original Freakenomics and some of Chris Anderson and Malcolm Gladwell’s books became popular, this style of science/self-help/popular non-fiction came out, there have been many authors that are trying to find the secret to writing good books, that are actually useful and based in real science and understandable.

Need Book Suggestions for Newly Married Couples

August 9, 2012 by Adam Shields

Over the past two years my wife and I have lead a small group for newly married couples. We are getting ready to start a third group at the end of the month and as we have talked about the curriculum we have found a couple of holes in the content or areas we want … Read more

The Cry of the Halidon by Robert Ludlum

August 8, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: A geologist is paid to survey Jamaica by a secret cabal of financiers that wants to take over the island and create their own country. MI-5 enlists him to get to the bottom of the plot.

People familiar with the very popular Jason Bourne movies may be aware of the name Robert Ludlum. He was the author of the original books. He wrote 23 novels in his lifetime under a couple different pseudonyms and sold 300-500 million books in 33 languages.

I read the first three Bourne books a few years before the movies came out. (The movies are very good, the books are very good, but they are only slightly related to one another in content.)

I knew the next Bourne movie was coming out soon so I decided to pick up another Ludlum book. After the first three Bourne books all other Bourne books have been written by Eric Van Lustbader who licensed the characters. (Ludlum died in 2001 from injuries that he sustained in a fire.)

Ludlum likes to write about grand conspiracies, large corporations with secret agendas, shadowy spy agencies and other extremists.

Plugged: A Novel by Eoin Colfer

August 6, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: A former Irish military man is trying to escape his past by working as a bouncer at a seedy New York City club. When a girl he likes ends up dead, his quiet life become much more messy.

I like to experiment with my reading. My experiments lately have not been all that successful.

I am a fan of Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl books. And since I have finished the last of the Artemis Fowl books I thought I would explore Colfer’s first adult novel.

The first thing is that it feels like Colfer is trying to make up for having written young adult books all of his career by having the characters swear every two lines. It is not completely outside the realm of possibility with these characters, but it feels forced and unnecessary.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum

August 1, 2012 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: Books are never the same as the movie.

It has been a long time since I have sat down and watched the entire Wizard of Oz movie. My 3 and 4 year old nieces have been watching it lately.(I thought it was way to scary for them, but they seem to like it). So I have seen short segments of it recently, but not the whole thing.

I have also had my memory of the movie tainted by reading and watching the Wicked the musical (slightly different from one another).

A week or so ago, Audible.com gave away the unabridged audiobook for The Wizard of Oz (read by Anne Hathaway). I was surprised that the unabridged version was barely over 3 hours.

The movie is clearly an adaptation. A mean old woman does not try to take Toto away. Glenda the good witch is not young and beautiful, but old and shrunken. I also was surprised that when Dorthy throws the water on the witch and she dies there was still well over an hour left in the book.

July 2012 Most Read Reviews

August 1, 2012 by Adam Shields

These are the most read reviews for July 2012. This month 3 of the 7 most read reviews were primarily written in previous months. Discovering Your Heart is a small book but has had consistant readers. The Fifty Shades books have been pretty much continuous traffic, although not many each day. Fifty Shades Darker … Read more

The Hidden Life of Prayer: The Life-Blood of the Christian by David McIntyre

July 31, 2012 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: Prayer requires intention.

It has always seemed to me that the late 19th and early 20th century produced some of the best works on prayer. EM Bounds, Harry Fosdick, RA Torrey, AW Tozer, Andrew Murry, Hudson Taylor and many others wrote some of the most read classics on prayer.

I have read a number of books on prayer from this era. Many of them are quite good. But many of them verge on moralism. I do think there is something to sin separating us from God. But it can go too far when the work of prayer depends upon our own work. There has to be some partnership between us and the Holy Spirit in prayer. But most of the time when I read descriptions of that partnership I am dissatisfied with the result.