Book Reviews

Stuff You Should Know About Stuff by Tripp and Tyler

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Summary: A bunch of random thoughts about various things. 

I love Tripp and Tyler’s videos, especially the Christian Tingle and Conference Call in Real Life. So while I did not exactly pre-order their book, I did pick it up when it was on sale last week.

Tripp and Tyler are great at simple humor, the straight forward dry Seinfeld type of humor. But after reading this book, I think that it is best delivered on video or in person.

I like funny books, but I still expect funny books to tell a story. So I really liked Bossypants because it was a memoir and had a point.

I thought Jim Gaffigan’s Dad is Fat was decent and had some good moments, but it still felt more like a string of jokes than a real coherent book. And with Gaffigan’s second book about food, it was even worse.

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The Good News About Marriage: Debunking Discouraging Myths about Marriage and Divorce by Shaunti Feldhahn

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Summary: Despite what you might have heard, marriage is actually doing pretty well these days.

One of the reasons I like to read good social science is that much of the world is actually doing pretty well. Of course, we would like things to be better than they are, but stories about the world doing pretty well don’t sell well. So we tend to hear about how bad the world is.

If you want a Christian perspective about how the world is doing I would first commend Bradley Wright’s Upside, which generally looks at a variety of different ways of measuring the world, happiness, economics, health, etc.

Shaunti Feldhahn, who became well know because of her For Men Only and For Women Only books has stayed on the same general theme and instead of focusing on what men and women need to know about their spouse, is writing this book to encourage people more generally about marriage.

Her main point is that Christians in particular have been emphasizing the problems of marriage in order to uphold its importance. But in doing so, we are likely discouraging couple from either getting married, or if married, communicating that marriage is primarily hard work.

Instead Feldhahn starts with the divorce rate and shows why what we all think we know is wrong. The rate of divorce has never been 50% or higher in the general population and it has been decreasing steadily since the high point of around 1980. She estimates that first marriages have less than 30 percent chance of getting a divorce. And later marriages, and more highly educated couples have even lower rates of divorce.

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Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) by Jim Butcher

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Reposting this 2010 review because the Kindle Edition is on sale for $1.99.

Cover of "Storm Front (The Dresden Files,...
Cover of Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1)

Takeaway: A fun modern fantasy (that was the basis for the short lived tv show.)

After I moved to Georgia, and before I started being a nanny for my nieces I used to have a lot of TV running in the background when I was doing data entry.  Previously I had not had the benefit of either Tivo or cable, now I had both.  I watched all of Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer over the span of a couple months.  (I had not seen any of either previously.)

One other short lived show that I enjoyed was The Dresden Files (Hulu link if you are interested).  I knew that it was based on a series of novels by Jim Butcher, but I have not gotten around to reading any of them before now.

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2014 Bookwi.se Year in Review

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Last night I read my post on my 2014 plans for Bookwi.se. I am not sure I accomplished any of them except for posting less. I posted a full 1/3 less posts in 2014 than 2013. And I still probably posted too much with 917 posts. But the good news is that my traffic is basically the same (down just a couple percentage points) with 1/3 less posts (and that does not include the increase in RSS and email subscriptions.)

And I am pleased that my book reviews are getting more traffic as a percent of the total traffic. I know I could read different books that would drive more traffic. New books, especially books of authors that will help drive traffic to my reviews, get a ton more traffic than reading older books. But I want to make decisions on my book reading based on interest, importance and quality, not traffic.

I know that you as a reader probably don’t care, but this year was financially better as well. I was able to have advertisers all year long and only rarely had an unfilled advertising spot. My Amazon referral income is stable even with less posts about free and/or sale kindle books. And I was able to give a token $5 a review to all the contributors.

This is still not a money making project. With advertising and referral income (before expenses) I am averaging just under $2 a post. But I doing something I enjoy and I hope readers get some benefit from it.

Below are the most read reviews of the year. 

Discovering Your Heart with the Flag Page Test by Mark Gungor

This is a 2011 post that has good search traffic and is constantly read. I find it odd that this has been leaps and bounds my most read book review. But I will take it.

Sex, Mom and God by Frank Schaeffer

This is another book that has consistent search traffic, but less suitable searches. The book is good but most searchers are not actually looking for a review of the book. The book itself is a good memoir about Frank Schaeffer and his relationship to his mom and how that altered some of the ways he thought about sex. Some he thought were good and some he has turned away from as he aged.

Unbroken: A Movie Review

This is the second newest post on the list. It is not a book review but a movie review. I was able to go to an advance screening and while I think the movie was technically well done, I think it missed the essential message of grace and forgiveness that was at the heart of the popularity of the book.

What Wives Wish their Husbands Knew about Sex: A Guide for Christian Men

I reposted this book earlier in the year because it was briefly free on kindle, but most of the traffic is from pinterest. I get a good bit of pinterest traffic, but as you will see below, it is mostly for the young adult book reviews. This book is by four counselors and psychologists and I think mostly pretty good. There is an occational “˜Christians can have mind blowing sex’ problem, but most of the book is really good.

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Bookwi.se Favorite Books 2014 (Non-Fiction)

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It always feels much harder to pick my favorite non-fiction books. I feel like I read a lot more non-fiction than fiction, but this year it was 73 fiction and 80 non-fiction, so very close. The difference is that non-fiction is primarily about ideas. So when I review non-fiction and talk about non-fiction I tend … Read more

Bookwi.se Favorite Books of 2014 – Fiction

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Favorite books of the year lists are the ultimate in subjectivity. Yes, there is a thing that is called a good book. But I tend to think that the book that lots of people like is worth picking over one that is technically excellent, but many did not actually like (The Magician trilogy is a good example.) And more variable than anything, books often speak (or not) to the place we are in life. One person’s amazing books isn’t amazing to the next person because they have experienced the world (or at least that particular time) differently.

So my list of books here are just the ones that at the end of the year, on the day I wrote out this list, the ones that I picked. (My list of non-fiction books will be tomorrow.) Also if you missed it, Bookwi.se Contributor Emily Flury posted her list of her favorite books and their companion movies yesterday.

The links below are to the full reviews

Lila: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson

I was really reluctant to read the companion book Gilead. It took me forever to actually pick it up. But when I did, I liked it. Gilead as an old preacher telling his life story to a young son that will never know him because was touching. But I thought it was a little slow and plodding.

Lila, telling the story from a different person’s perspective, was anything but plodding. It was a the best fictional story of grace that I have read. It was a bit old fashioned and definitely a literary book. But it was excellently written and well worth reading. I am planning on starting a second reading of it this week.

The Martian by Andy Weir

I have not been kept on the edge of my seat listening to an audiobook for a while. Although I am not completely sure why I was so entranced. It was well written, with characters I liked. I wanted to figure out how the astronaut was going to survive life on Mars, but I never really seriously thought he wasn’t going to survive. It wasn’t the ending that was in question, it was the process. As there was all kinds of great science and MacGuyver ingenuity going on.

A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L’Engle

There have been a few years when most of my favorite fiction books have been young adult. This year I read a lot less young adult books than in recent years and much of what I did read, I wasn’t really impressed with. But A Ring of Endless Light was proof to me that serious literary young adult fiction is not only possible, but important. One of the reasons I have been such a fan of John Green is that I just did not read really good young adult fiction that took the reader seriously when I was a teen. But A Ring of Endless Light is proof that high quality young adult fiction existed (whether I would have been prepared to read it as a teen or not.)

Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker (and the rest of the series 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

Over the past couple years, I have been enjoying more mystery books. It was not a genre that I really liked much prior to the last few years. Being introduced to Dorothy Sayers, J Mark Bertrand, and Martin Walker have changed my view of the potential of mysteries. The Bruno series especially is enjoyable, but it is more about the characters and the setting than the mystery. Bruno is the chief of police (and only police officer) of a small french village. He sees his job as more about preventing crime and mediating between people than arresting people. Because of this he cares about the people and the people care about him, Walker creates a story that I want to read. Also I love all of the descriptions of French culture, food and wine. Every book in the series made me want to go visit France.

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Emily Flury’s 2014 Best of Books and their Movies

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The following is my list of the books and their movies that I enjoyed reading and watching the most this year. In looking back over my reviews for these books, I recall that I also had a lot of fun doing the background research for these books. Many of them had a rich history surrounding the book or the making of the movie, or there is simply a lot of chatter about the book and its movie to look over. The list is chronologically ordered according to when I reviewed them. Click through to the reviews to see them again. (Adam’s fiction list is tomorrow and non-fiction Wednesday).
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden 
Although the validity of the story has been brought into question by the geisha whose life the story is based on, both the book and its movie beautifully, tragically, and intriguingly describe what life might have been like for a woman in Japan during the early to mid 1900s. This title stands as a favorite because I was impressed to find that the book painted just as wonderful picture in my mind as the movie does.
Dr. Sleep by Stephen King 
As a fan of Stephen King, Stanley Kubrick, Jack Nicholson, it is no surprise that I loved the book and movie, The Shining, which preceded this book. This book, which is unique on my list because it doesn’t have a movie associated with it yet, was amazingly just as solid as the book that came before it. In a world where the majority of sequels fall flat or are an excuse for the writer/director to get another money grab, this book was awesome in the fact that it could easily stand-alone and still be great. I guarantee that this book will be made into a movie.
Howl’s Moving Castle by Dianna Wynne Jones 
My husband introduced me to Japanese animated films, specifically Studio Ghibli movies, and I have to say that, for the most part, they do not disappoint. I was curious to see if the book that Howl’s Moving Castle was based on is as fun to listen to as the movie is to watch. While the book was different from the movie, they are both great in their own ways. And, those differences don’t detract from each other but they add to each other’s greatness. I was also excited to discover that this book and its movie would be a great way to get a younger listener interested in literature.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote 
This title comes with a great deal of nostalgia for me as it is one of my mother’s favorites and I even listened to the movie’s soundtrack on record a bunch growing up. I really enjoyed listening to this book because it was narrated by the great Michael C. Hall, who starred in Dexter, a favorite show of ours. What most surprised me was how rich of a back-story I discovered when I dug into the life of the author of this short and sweet story. The research led me to want to watch the movie, Capote, which is based on Truman’s life and was pretty amazing in and of itself.

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The Zimzum of Love: A New Way of Understanding Marriage by Rob and Kristen Bell

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Summary: A decent (quick) book on the Christian understanding of marriage without a lot of Christian language.

I generally don’t like reviewing books that have a lot of controversy. So I have not reviewed many of Rob Bell’s books (but I liked Velvet Elvis and Sex God). I went to college with Rob and Kristen (they were a year in front of me) so I have paid attention to Rob’s ministry. (I didn’t really know Kristen, but Rob is one of those people that it is hard not to know who he was at college.)

I originally did not have any interest in picking up The Zimzum of Love. There are a ton of marriage books being jointly written by well known pastor couples recently. I tend to avoid book trends because they are often following the trend, not writing good books.

Books and Culture’s parody review of Zimzum of Love did not help my desire to read the book, although I don’t think that the parody was all that helpful and after reading the book I didn’t think it was all that accurate either. (Although it does have a few good points.)

Then I read Richard Beck’s review on his blog Experimental Theology (I am a regular reader). As you might expect, it is like Beck and Jason Hood (the Books and Culture reviewer) had read two very different books. But mostly it felt like Hood was taking issue with Rob as a persona than really dealing with the book as a book.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Letters and Papers from Prison”: A Biography by Martin Marty

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Summary: The history of how and why this Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison spread so widely and became so influential.

At this point I have read far more about Bonhoeffer than by Bonhoeffer. That is not to say I haven’t read Bonhoeffer, but to say I have read a lot about Bonhoeffer, especially over the past several years since writing on him seems to have exploded.

I read Letters and Papers from Prison in college soon after I first read Cost of Discipleship and somewhat before I read Love Letters from Cell 92.

It is actually the now out of print Love Letters from Cell 92 that really humanized Bonhoeffer for me and moved him from abstract theologian to real live human person. About the same time as I was reading Love Letters from Cell 92, I started University of Chicago Divinity School and had Martin Marty as a professor.

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