Book Reviews – Page 116

In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honore

June 3, 2014 by Adam Shields

Reposting this 2011 review because the Kindle Edition is on sale for $1.99.

Takeaway: A bit repetitive, but the basic idea, that slowing down, enjoying life, and doing things well instead of fast is a good reminder.

Efficiency and speed are part of the world we live in. With computers and other tools, fewer people can do more than ever before. But instead of using the extra time, most people tend to either just do more instead of enjoying the additional products of our labor.

In Praise of Slowness is a book I first heard about from Anne Jackson. I purchased it then (it was only $5 at the time) and it has been sitting on my shelf for a couple years.

I started reading it last week and enjoyed the basic thesis that faster is not necessarily better. The book starts with the author seeing an ad for 1 minute bedtime stories. He was both interested in getting the book and horrified that he had gotten to the point of efficiency that he was actually interested in being efficient in the amount of time he was spending with his child. This started a long term investigation into speed and backlash of slow advocates.

A Passion for God: The Spiritual Journey of AW Tozer by Lyle Dorsett

June 3, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: AW Tozer is one of the great spiritual writers of the 20th century, and a prime example of God using less than perfect people.

I read A Passion for God first about three years ago. It is one of those books that has stuck with me more than most.

The main reason is that Tozer is a perfect example of something that theologically I don’t really have a category for. Tozer, by nearly everyone that knew him’s estimation, was a real and passionate man of God. But at the same time he was distant from his family (especially his wife), personally lonely and probably leaned toward clinical depression.

It is not that I don’t think Christians can be depressed or lonely. I certainly think they can. But Tozer, like several other pietistic leaning pastors that I have read or read about seemed to lack many of the interpersonal tools of relating to those closest to him (while pouring forth energy on others.)

As with the first time I read the book, the most damning sentence in the book is a quote from Tozer’s wife who remarried after Tozer died. Her standard answer when people asked how she was doing after re-marrying was a variant of: “˜Aiden loved Jesus but (her new husband) loves me.’

Seven Grams of Lead by Keith Thomson

June 2, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: A journalist tries to stay alive while tracking down a story about abuse of power by a rogue agent.

Several years ago I was turned onto Keith Thomson when John Wilson (editor of Books and Culture) talked about Thomson’s earlier book Once a Spy.

Once a Spy was part of my getting back into spy novels that lead to me reading a number of John le Carre’s books and other classic and contemporary spy novels.

I picked up Seven Grams of Lead when it was the Kindle Daily Deal a couple weeks ago (and on sale for $1.99).

On the whole this was a much more traditional thriller than the Once a Spy/Twice a Spy books. Russ Thornton is a journalist/blogger that is known for his investigative reporting on government and big business. When an old friend calls asking for help (and ends up dead), Thornton realized that he was the one that inadvertently gave away her secret because his body had been bugged.

Most Read Book Reviews for May 2014

June 1, 2014 by Adam Shields

Below are the eight most read book reviews over the past month. I am very excited that three of the eight are from Bookwi.se Contributors. I very much appreciate that others are contributing reviews to Bookwi.se. Without them this blog would not be nearly as good.

Eat That Frog: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating by Brian Tracy

May 31, 2014 by Adam Shields

Reposting this review because Eat That Frog is the daily deal today and on sale for $0.99 for the audiobook at audible.com

Takeaway: Inefficiency at work often means taking away time from home.

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

I am a procrastinator. I can procrastinate better than almost anything else I do. I think it is one of the reasons that I am a good reader, because reading is usually a means of procrastination for me. I am not sure when I picked up this book. I think it was free on audible at some point (probably 3 or 4 years ago).

I was looking for something short and it was the shortest of all of my unread audiobooks at only 2 and a 1/2 hours.

Tracy says at the begining, it is likely that very little in this book will be new inforamtion. The problem is that you have to actually put the infomation into practice before it makes a difference in your life. Clearly that is one of my issues.

He also said that not everything works for everyone and a large number of things will often prevent us from accomplishing anything. So I picked out three things and I have been trying to do them.

Land of the Blue Burqas by Kate McCord

May 29, 2014 by All Old Users

Kate McCord is the pseudonym of the author of In The Land of Blue Burqas, a memoir of her five years in Afghanistan. McCord chronicles her experiences detailing what it’s like for a foreigner, specifically a foreign woman to live and work for an NGO in Afghanistan. Her stories are enthralling and even a bit frightening. This book unlike anything I’ve read before; this is an incredibly comprehensive, insightful and relevant book on learning and understanding Afghan culture through Western eyes.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

May 28, 2014 by Adam Shields

Reposting my 2013 review because Flowers for Algernon is today’s (May 28) Audible Deal of the Day. You can buy the audiobook for $3.95 (no membership required, use your Amazon login if you do not have an audible account.)
Summary: Classic young adult novel about a man that gains and then loses intelligence.

Several years ago I revisited a lot of the young adult literature that I loved as a child or teen. Revisiting those books helped to renew my interest in young adult literature. So now I regularly read 2 or 3 young adult novels a month.

I still occasionally go back and revisit novels that I have not read in 25 or 30 years. Flowers for Algernon was on sale at some point about a year ago and I picked it up. But after reading 10 pages or so, put it down.

I picked it up again and read it over the Memorial Day weekend. Originally I read Flowers for Algernon in either 7th or 8th grade english class.

Reading it again, I am somewhat surprised and wonder if I am properly gauging the age range for young adult literature.

In Flowers for Algernon, Charlie is developmentally disabled adult (as we now term it, but in the book he is frequently called retarded or other variants) is given some type of operation that makes him smart.

Naughty in Nice by Rhys Bowen (Royal Spyness #5)

May 22, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: Georgie tries living on the wild side. Things do not go well.

Almost five years ago when I started the blog that eventually turned into Bookwi.se, I significantly reduced the number of series books that I read. Not because I do not like series books (although many series lose steam), but because it is hard to say much more about a series after you are several books into the series. It is also hard not to give away spoilers. And for review readers, these later books are not interesting to read about if you have not read the earlier books.

Naughty in Nice is the fifth book in the Her Royal Spyness series. And the series is progressing nicely. I want to keep reading them. The storylines keep allowing the characters to grow without violating what works in the books.

In the book, Georgie starts in London as normal. Except her Brother and Sister-in-Law are living with her in the London house and driving her nuts. They end up going to Nice (but not inviting Georgie because it is too expensive). And then they kick Georgie out of the London house to help justify the expense of their trip to Nice.

WARP: The Reluctant Assassin by Eoin Colfer

May 21, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: An orphan from 1898 and a disgraced teen FBI agent from the present team up to survive (and hopefully defeat) a time traveling homicidal maniac.

Eoin Colfer is best known for writing the very good Artemis Fowl series (as you can see on the covers of any book of his that is not Artemis Fowl).

I read and really enjoyed the whole Artemis Fowl series, but I was not a fan of his adult oriented thriller Plugged and Colfer’s attempt at writing a sixth novel in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series was reviewed very poorly.

So if The Reluctant Assassin was not free on audiobook through the YA Sync program (two free audiobooks given away each week during the summer to encourage teen reading), I probably would not have picked it up.

Riley is the apprentice (kidnapped slave might be a better description) of Albert Garrick, an assassin and magician in 1898 London. Garrick is a person that loves killing, but he needs a small audience. So Riley has been forced to become his apprentice and witness all of his killings.

The book opens with Riley attempting his first assassination. Riley cannot go through with it and Garrick is forced to kill the old man they were paid to kill. That old man happens to be a refugee from the present, who invented a time machine and is hiding out in 1898 to keep it from being misused.

Lord Peter Views the Body by Dorothy Sayers (Peter Wimsey Mysteries #4)

May 20, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: A series of short stories about Lord Peter Wimsey.

It has literally been months since I started reading Lord Peter Views the Body. I am not really a fan of short story collections. I am not sure what I do not like about them as a category. I was inspired to go back and finish this book after reading another in the Her Royal Spyness series. (It is a modern cozy mystery series that is set at the same time as Sayers’ older Lord Peter Wimsey series and occasionally pays homage to Sayers.)

But in this case the Wimsey short stories just did not seem to develop the Lord Peter character. They reminded me more of what I do not like about Sherlock Holmes. There was conjecture and coincidence, and he solved crimes but except for a couple, most of them just seemed fairly dull. The spark that was in the first two books just seemed to be missing.