Adam Shields

Landline by Rainbow Rowell

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I am reposting this 2014 review because the Kindle Edition is on sale for $2.99
Summary: A 14 year marriage is in danger, and a magic phone to the past may be just the thing the marriage needs to be saved.

Rainbow Rowell is definitely now in my list of “˜favorite authors’. Like most I first heard about her because of her breakout book Eleanor and Park. From there I moved on to Fangirl and Attachments and now Landline. Each book impressed me more than the previous one.

I, and I think many others, still think of Rowell as a young adult author.  Although even Eleanor and Park was not originally published as a young adult book. And all of the rest of her books deal primarily with adults.

So with Landline, it feels a bit like Rowell is again trying to breaking free of her young adult label and writing a much heavier and more adult oriented novel.

Georgie McCool (yes it is her real name) is a TV script writer. Just days before Christmas, and the day before her family is scheduled to fly to Omaha to spend Christmas with her Mother in Law, her dream comes true. A Network wants to see a script for a pilot and four additional episodes for her own series.

But that means that she cannot go to Omaha with her husband (Neal) and daughters. And instead she will have to stay in LA and write with her best friend and writing partner, Seth.

When Neal decides that he is taking the girls and going to Omaha anyway, instead of staying and having Christmas with her, it creates a crisis for Georgie. She realizes that she has checked out of her marriage in many ways. That her husband has been unhappy for a while. That she has not even been taking care of her own basic needs let alone the needs of her family.

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Five Red Herrings by Dorothy Sayers (Lord Peter Wimsey #7)

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Five Red Herrings by Dorothy Sayers (Lord Peter Wimsey #7)Summary: Lord Wimsey is vacationing in an artist’s community when one of the artists, someone no one likes, is found dead. Five artists have motive and weak alibis.

I like reading book in a series in order, even if the order really does not matter particularly to the series. The Five Red Herrings is one of those book in a series that could have been placed in a different order and would not have mattered. It barely has Wimsey’s faithful servant Bunter or Scotland Yard and Inspector Parker. The new love interest introduced in the last book is not even mentioned. This could just as easily have been book three as book seven in the series.

The mystery itself is not bad, but a lot of it is in fairly minor details to try to establish whether alibis are valid or not. As a mystery, it is well presented but dull. Sayers has some real glimpses of brilliant writing, almost always as insights into people or situations, but those do not really make up for a mediocre book.

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Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

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Takeaway: Justice requires working systems. Part of working systems is adequate defense and reasonable sentencing.

No one that I know that has read this has rated it less than 5 stars.

Bryan Stevenson is the head of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery Alabama. Somewhat similar to the International Justice Mission that focuses on bringing justice and legal assistance to people around the world, EJI works to bring legal assistance to death row and other prisoners.

Stevenson deftly weaves the broader story of his life and work around one main story of an innocent death row inmate that was knowingly condemned to death and EJI’s work to prove his innocence and win him clemency.

Primarily this is a story of how our justice system is not equal. Poverty and race (and small town justice) often come together to produce not justice, but scapegoats.

This book came out before the Black Lives Matter movement started, but it is a good primer for the broader justice issues in the US.

Stevenson also does not spend much time on his own faith, but it is clear that his own Christian faith is a driving factor in giving him motivation and hope for his work. And I think that it is an interesting book to compare with Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me.

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New Kindle Available for Pre-Order

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Amazon released information about new kindle this morning (available for pre-order with delivery in early July). The new kindle replaces the Kindle Basic Touch (lowest end) Kindle. It keeps the same $80 price, but adds several good features and upgrades. The best new feature is Bluetooth audio. Amazon removed text to speech nearly 5 years … Read more

Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ by Dallas Willard

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renovation of the heart cover imageSummary: An extended reflection on what it means to truly change through Christ’s power.

Dallas Willard is one of the originators of the modern spiritual formation movement.  Willard, and his protege, Richard Foster, have done much to refocus the Evangelical world on spiritual disciplines and intentional focus on spiritual growth.

Renovation of the Heart is the most comprehensive book I have read by Willard on the why and how of truly changing (and he means heart, mind, and actions).  As I read the book, I kept thinking of Paul’s thoughts in Romans 7:15 about doing what he does not want to do and not doing what he wants to do.

Willard responds to this common frustration not by creating a five step program or some other silver bullet, but a fairly detailed discussion of what it means to really change.  This is a fairly dense book.  I spent more than three weeks working on it and really I am not sure how to review it.

On the positive side, there is real spiritual wisdom here.  On the negative side, there are a lot of rabbit trails, and it could have been organized better.  I also listened to the book as an audiobook read by Willard himself.  He is not the best reader, and I think even if he had been a good reader, this content should be read in print, not listened to on audio.

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Coraline by Neil Gaiman

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Reposting this 2012 review because the Kindle version is on sale for $1.99 as part of a kids’ daily deal. Full list of the daily deal books is here. Summary: Coraline finds the perfect parents and life in a creepy children’s book. Neil Gaiman is a force within the fantasy book world. Gaiman original was a … Read more

What It Means to Be a Man by Rhett Smith

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What it Means to be a Man: God's Design for Us in a World Full of ExtremesSummary: Short, highly readable book that would make a great discussion in a teen or 20/30 something mens group.

The subject of what it means to be a man in the modern world fraught with difficulty.  We mix up ideas of gender, personality, aggression, control, authority, biblical understanding and more.

Rhett Smith, author of the highly recommended book, The Anxious Christian, and a family counselor tackles the concept of manhood in a very readable (and short) book that is perfect for discussion.

I (sort of) participated in an online discussion group about this book that Rhett hosted. (I am horrible with book clubs that reads a book slowly, I want to read it straight through and discuss it).

Rhett said that he intentionally kept the book short so that there would be little reason not to read it.  The shortness makes it great for discussion groups, but has less detail than I would like.

As a man that hates sports, has worked as a nanny, has a degree in social work (a decidedly female leaning profession) I bring some issues into the manliness discussion.  Manliness in a lot of the Evangelical world is more equated with Mixed Martial Arts fighting and uncontrollable lust.

Rhett focuses on what makes a man, fathering, introspection about real issues (depression, anxiety, loneliness, vulnerability, etc.) and the movement into becoming a better man.  I think the method and writing style lends itself to teen and young adult readers, but as someone in the decade of his 40s, I think most men will find value in it.

In many ways, I think older men will get more out of it, if they read it intentionally with one or more people of a younger generation.  Becoming a man is more about mentoring and development, then knowledge or skill.  So no one has achieved a perfect on their ‘man card’.  And part of becoming a man means helping others become a man.

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Loving My (LGBT) Neighbor: Being Friends in Grace and Truth by Glenn Stanton

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Summary: Basic reminders that loving your neighbor includes LGBT people.

I picked up and read Loving My (LGBT) Neighbor because of Karen Swallow Prior’s review for Christianity Today. I finished it on Saturday morning, the day before I heard about the shooting in Orlando.

In many ways, this is such a basic book on being a decent human being and Christian that it is surprising that it needs to be written. But it obviously does need to be written. Glenn Stanton mostly does a very good job of presenting a conservative position on sexuality and marriage (he is on staff at Focus on the Family) while very clearly advocating a much more inclusive stance on actual friendship and love with LGBT people than what many Christians currently have.

It is clear that Stanton actually has a variety of gay friends. And he has those friends because he spends a lot of time with gay people. Part of that time is touring around with one of his gay friends debating at college campuses on the ethics of gay marriage. But it is clear from his stories and writing that he is actually trying to live out love of neighbor.

“Christianity is a hard calling because we are not only called to love others but to go further and love those who hate us. And if we are called to love those who hate us, we are certainly called to love those who disagree with us. And love is not conditional; you do this for me and I’ll do this for you.”

There were a few places where I think Stanton missed the mark. In a section where he was attempting to show the diversity of the LGBT movement by talking about different groups within the movement I think he over generalized a couple times in much the same way he was asking the reader not to generalize. But in context of the full book, if every Christian loved LGBT people as Stanton is illustrating, there would be far less problems.

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A Life Observed: A Spiritual Biography of C. S. Lewis by Devin Brown

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Takeaway: Lewis really was a gift to the church as a whole.

This year is the 50th anniversary of CS Lewis’ death. So there have been several new books on Lewis.  Alister McGrath’s new biography was excellent. But there were two places where I wanted more from McGrath. One was more about Lewis’ relationship with his two stepsons (Douglas Gresham introduces the book). The other was more about Lewis’ spiritual development, the focus of this book.

The format of A Life Observed is to use a rough outline of Lewis’ two most biographical books, Surprised by Joy and A Grief Observed. Lewis wrote Surprised by joy as a spiritual autobiography. But it only goes through Lewis conversion to Christianity. He lived another 32 years after that. And A Grief Observed is his raw journals after the death of his wife near the very end of his life.

The middle of his life, in between his conversion and his marriage to Joy is really what I wanted most. There is the chapter on the Inklings, Lewis and Tolkien’s literary club and circle of friends. Brown talks about Lewis’ commitment to his local church, not the university church. In passing, it is mentioned that Lewis had a single spiritual director throughout his life, but only in passing.

Brown resists moving beyond what Lewis actually says about himself. And mostly I appreciate that. But it leaves large gaps in the story. Because Lewis did not write a lot about his Christian life, Brown does not write a lot about his Christian life.

But what is here, is very good. This is not simply a retelling of Lewis’ own story. It is an explication of Lewis’ story. There are quotes and referenced to one of Lewis’ books or one of his letters on virtually every page. But it does not feel like quote after quote, it feels like Brown is weaving together the fiction and the non-fiction of Lewis into a whole that more completely reveals Lewis.

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