Book Reviews – Page 112

Intimacy With God: An Introduction to Centering Prayer by Thomas Keating

October 8, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: An introduction to the theology, but not much on the practice of Centering Prayer

If you have been reading Bookwi.se for a while you have probably noticed a couple things. One, I intentionally try to read at least one book a month from an author that is Catholic, Orthodox or other Christian tradition that I am not a part of. (I do this intentionally both to learn and get a different perspective on christianity than my own low church historically Baptist/non-denominational one.)

And second, I have mentioned several times that I am going to a Spiritual Director. Catholics and to a lesser extent, Anglicans, have kept alive this tradition of meeting with another person for intentional focus on spiritual growth. My Spiritual Director, knowing that I like to read and discuss books, suggested we talk about this book, less for its focus on Centering Prayer as a practice than for its theology of connecting with God.

Keating is a Trappist priest that is known for bringing Centering Prayer to greater use in the 1980s and 1990s. This is a practice of meditation that is related to earlier Christian meditation, but also draws on some of the eastern meditation practices.

Mind of My Mind by Octavia Butler (Patternist #2)

October 7, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: The subject of Doro’s breeding program, after several thousand years, comes of age.

The first book in this series, Wild Seed, was more of a prequel than the first book in the series.

Doro is some type of mutant person that was born about 4000 years ago. He accidentally discovered that he could leave one body and take over another, giving him a type of immortality. Eventually he started a breeding program to create a people for himself. And he took on a type of God role for them. This breeding program both gives him some type of purpose (this book really discloses the purpose of the program) and a ready source of bodies to take over.

This book opens in the 1970s (roughly current time period because it was written in 1977), jumping more than 100 years from the end of Wild Seed (which moved about 300 years during the book.) Doro finds Mary, a young abused girl, and gives her to Anyanwu (now called Emma) to care for and raise.

As Mary gets older and ‘transitions’ to her full powers, she is more like Doro than any other of his previous “˜children’. Mary creates “˜patterns’ (the source of the series name) and draws people under her power.

Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God’s Everything

October 4, 2014 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: Obscurity, humility, smallness. All undervalued and difficult disciplines in a world of individualism, social media and mixed messages.

I ran across the very interesting book Embracing Obscurity on Tim Challies’ blog. His review gave a bit of the back story and resulted in the book being put on sale for a couple weeks at Amazon.

An anonymous author decided to write a book about humility. The author realized that writing a book about humility was in itself an un-humble activity so he (and I think it is pretty clearly a he) decided to write and publish a book secretly. Even his family is unaware.

A House Like a Lotus by Madeleine L’Engle

October 1, 2014 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: On today’s after school special, Polly has to deal with serious things.

I love Madeleine L’Engle’s writing. She takes young adults seriously, she writes about serious issues but she makes her characters real. So I pick up every one of L’Engle’s books when they come up for sale and I intentionally don’t read anything about them prior to reading the book.

This is the third book in the Polly O’Keefe series. Polly is the daughter of Meg and Calvin from the Wrinkle in Time series. And Zachary Gray from the Austin series is also a significant character in this book.

In the time line this book is set just after A Ring of Endless Light which I read earlier this year and about a year or so before An Acceptable Time which I read a couple years ago.

(There are spoilers in this review, but this is a book that cannot be discussed without spoilers.)

Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood by Michael Lewis

September 29, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: Author Michael Lewis (The Big Short, Money Ball, The Blind Side) gives his account of the new world of fatherhood.

Michael Lewis is one of those authors I have been meaning to read, but I am tired of reading about economics and I have never liked sports. So as I was looking around for something to read, I stumbled across this in the KindleUnlimited collection.

Lewis is giving his account of the changing of the meaning of fatherhood. It is no longer “˜Father Knows Best’ but hopefully is it moving past “˜father as convenient idiot’ as well. There is a huge social shift over the past couple generations. The social science research has shown a huge shift in the number of hours that fathers have increased in house work and child care over the past 50 years.

But still there is a stereotype of the distant and/or idiot Dad. Lewis both feeds into and helps break this stereotype. He is an active Dad that cares for his kids. He also highlights some of the stupid (but real) things that Dads do.

On the positive side, he communicates well the inability of fathers to replace mothers. It just isn’t possible. Men can’t birth children or breast feed. So Dads do what they can, they care for the older children, change diapers, comfort Moms.

Unnatural Death by Dorothy Sayers (Lord Peter Wimsey #3)

September 25, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: Lord Peter Wimsey overhears a doctor talking about a case and is convinced it is the perfect crime.

When I think of Lord Peter Wimsey, I most often think of the modern TV show Castle. I am a big fan of Castle. And there are many similarities. Lord Peter Wimsey is rich, interested in crime, has a good intrinsic sense of how crimes can be committed, is interested in crime as intellectual activity and works with a police officer who he allows to do all the mundane work and there is a good bit of humor in both.

Of course there are differences, Wimsey is not a writer, just a rich Lord (brother to a Duke). He has the free time to think about and solve crimes (Wimsey collects and sells rare first edition book, but has no need for money). And this is the 1930s Britian, so the sexy female cop is out of the question.

But I can totally see Castle with this plot. Wimsey is eating dinner at a fancy resturant and overhears a doctor talking about the death of a patient. He interupts and asks the doctor to tell him the whole story which leads Wimsey to believe that the patient was killed.

Identity Crisis: 21 Days of Discovering Who God Says You Are by Michael D. Perkins

September 23, 2014 by All Old Users

For years many of us have struggled with trying to measure up to others standards for us and for our own. We walk around calling ourselves failures. We tell ourselves we are not smart enough, good enough, nice enough, and on and on. After spending years telling himself similar things, Michael Perkins discovered that none of those things were what God had to say about him.

Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen

September 22, 2014 by All Old Users

Bad Monkey is Carl Hiaasen’s latest novel that came out at the beginning of the summer of 2013. Similarly to many of Hiaasen’s novels, the book is about a rough around the edges detective who desperately wants his job back. He sets out to solve a murder that he really has no business solving. While tracking down the murderer, he observes and is a part of a number of humorous hijinks, and his life and the lives of those around him are put in danger.

Carl Hiaasen grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and has lived in Miami for most of his adult life. For this reason, his books generally take place in the state of Florida and the character of the state plays a big role in his novels. He has been a reporter for the Miami Herald since 1976, which explains why his novels also revolve around crime and the police detectives whom he has solve those crimes. Another theme that runs commonly through his novels are that the environment, specifically the wildlife and the swamps and oceans of Florida, are often exploited, destroyed and need to be protected. I would say that if Christopher Buckley is the master of the dry political comedies then Hiaasen has a corner in the dry detective comedy genre. I definitely enjoy both of these types of novels as they do an excellent job of combining two types of genres and making an intriguing new genre.

This is the second novel that I have read by Carl Hiaasen, the first being Skinny Dip. Another aspect to his novels that I thoroughly enjoy is that they are filled with unique characters and that there is no perfect protagonist. Everyone has their hang-ups and everyone has their ulterior motives. This book, Bad Monkey, is entitled so because there is a very naughty monkey (and, not naughty in the Curious George sense) that is supposedly the monkey from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie but was essentially fired because he was so difficult to work with. Through some coincidence, the monkey plays a somewhat integral part of the story and in a way helps to get the crime solved. The uniqueness of the characters in Hiaasen’s books definitely helps to keep the reader engaged.

Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott

September 21, 2014 by Adam Shields

Reposting my 2013 review because the Kindle Edition is on sale for $2.75
Summary: SHORT, but helpful look at the essence of prayer.

I am not an Anne Lamott devotee. So I do not read everything she writes. But I have read enough to know that she is a very good author and one that looks at spiritual realities from a different perspective.

So one day last month I was tired of all of my audiobooks I had been listening to and looked around to find another. I noticed that with my member discount at Audible, Help, Thanks, Wow was under $5. So I picked it up.

I had resisted previously because it is so short. In audiobook it is barely 90 minutes. In paper it is listed as 112 pages. But it must be a gift book sized pages.

However, for $5 I thought it was worth picking up.

I listened to it two days after listening to Palmer Parker’s Let Your Life Speak. The two books, although not at all similar in subject had a similarity in spiritual direction. Both emphasized that the Christian life is not striving after looking good or being respectable.

How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor by James KA Smith

September 19, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: The traditional story of how to the world came to be secular (a subtraction of belief) is not the real story.

Starting last year I have been paying a lot of attention to James KA Smith (Jamie). The first book of his that came across my radar screen was Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview and Cultural Formation. ~~(I still haven’t actually read that one, it is on my list for this summer.)~~

But I did read Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works. And it really did fundamentally change my perspective on liturgy and worship. Since then I regularly read Smith’s editorials (he is the editor of Comment magazine) and I have slowly been reading some of his other books.

How (Not) to Be Secular is the type of book I wish were more popular. For important ideas to really take hold, we need good authors to popularize those important ideas into formats that a general public can understand. Charles Taylor’s A Secular age is a massive and important book, but at 900 pages it is too long (and too dense) for most readers. (And more than a few people have suggested Taylor is not the most readable author.) So Jamie Smith has put together a 148 page companion that covers the basics of the argument and includes relevant contemporary examples.

The basic idea of A Secular Age is to explain what it means to live in a secular age and how we have come to this place in culture.

“We are all skeptics now, believer and unbeliever alike. There is no one true faith, evident at all times and places. Every religion is one among many. The clear lines of any orthodoxy are made crooked by our experience, are complicated by our lives. Believer and unbeliever are in the same predicament, thrown back onto themselves in complex circumstances, looking for a sign. As ever, religious belief makes its claim somewhere between revelation and projection, between holiness and human frailty; but the burden of proof, indeed the burden of belief, for so long upheld by society, is now back on the believer, where it belongs.”

Taylor’s innovation is how he reframes discussion about secularization from what it has lost (belief in God) to how the very nature of belief claims have changed.