Book Reviews

Reposting this review because Red Pyramid is free on Kindle. I was not a huge fan, but I have heard from several who thought that I was too hard on the book and have finished the trilogy. Free is worth picking up, and kindle format is probably better than the audiobook.

Summary: A brother and sister must figure out a way to save their parents and the world from a vengeful Egyptian god.

I found this free on audiobook from my local library. I am listening with two purposes. One, I need some lighter fiction. I have been over-doing the theology and heavy stuff and if I am going to keep blogging I need to maintain an intellectual balance of books. Too much intellectual challenge is draining. There has to be time to process and relax. But I also have several friends who have children that are reading faster than they can keep up. They are good parents that want to read what their kids read and try to have conversations and discussions with their kids about books, but there is a point when kids and parents reading speeds start converging and kids often have more time to read than their parents. So I am trying to keep an eye out for good middle grade, early young adult books that I can recommend.

I really enjoyed the Percy Jackson series and was interested in a new take on mythology from Riordan. This is definitely a different take.  Instead of the gods of Greek mythology, these are the gods of Egyptian mythology.  Instead of being focused on children that are half human/half Greek god, these are more like possession by the Gods.  The subject matter is just more problematic and the books feel a bit darker, although not much.

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Reposting this review because Room is the Kindle Daily Deal on Jan 5 and on sale for $2.99 for kindle. (Only on sale on Jan 5).

Rating: 4 Stars

Imagine your mother was kidnapped before you were born and was forced to live as a prisoner in an 11 x 11 ft shed (the “Room”). Imagine that you were born in the Room and had never seen the world beyond its four walls. Finally, imagine at the age of 5 you are asked to explain what life is like living in the Room. That is what this book is about.

It is written from the perspective of a 5 year old, which makes the storytelling so compelling. Kids already have a difficult time understanding certain nuances and details in life that we adults take for granted. But even more so for Jack, who only knows the outside world from what he sees on TV and what Old Nick, his mother’s captor, brings to them for “Sundaytreat.” Here’s the first line from the book:

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Summary: Parenting is a full time job, but the goal is not entertainment, but preparing children for their future life.

We don’t do it often, but occasionally my wife and I read a book together.  Or in this case, we listened to this on audiobook together while driving back and forth to her family’s cabin.  It took us about six weeks to finished the book, but it led to a lot of good conversation about parenting and family.  Because I was a nanny to my two nieces for 5 years (now 6 and 4.5) and I am still very involved with them, and my wife has been a teacher for 17 years, we had a lot of current context to think about beyond our current 8 week old daughter.

I first came across this book in a series of posts from Rhett Smith, a family counselor.  The focus of the book is 12 different parenting strategies (which can be adapted for teachers or family members or others that work with children) to help children learn to integrate their emotional, intellectual and creative brain functions to be a more integrated person.

What I think is most important about this book is that while it believes parenting is very important, it is low pressure in its approach.  This is a quote from close to the end of the book:

“The goal of parenting is not to be perfect by an stretch of the imagination. But a goal of every parent should be to be intentionally and consistently engaged in the lives of our kids in a meaningful way “” not just there “” but really present.”

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I have been blogging regularly at Bookwi.se (and before that MrShields.com) since Sept 2009.  As of this post, Bookwi.se has 3288 blog posts including 875 Book Reviews.  In may ways I am surprised that I am still blogging after more than 4 years.

This ended up being an entirely too long post.  So here is the summary version: this next year I will be experimenting, I want to keep working on good content.  I will be posting a few less book reviews in order to keep the reviews good (and reposting some old book reviews to round out the content.)

And now the longer version: Why I started blogging book reviews was that I love to connect people to books that they love.  I also enjoy processing books out loud.  That is of less interest to others, but continues to be important to me.   In 2013, I read just under 200 books.  As a new parent, this is unsustainable and I know that.  I am going to intentionally try to read fewer books, but read them more deeply. (Although this is not my traditional reading style.)

In years’ past I have written posts about upcoming reading goals.  This year my reading goals are not subject areas (such as the trinity, or a single book of the bible, etc.)  Instead my 2014 focus will be on putting into practice (wisdom) rather than just acquiring knowledge.  So for the next six months I will buy no more than one new book a month (can’t stop cold turkey) and instead focus on books that I already have, and on re-reading books that I have read and valued previously.  I may choose to extend this focus an additional six months, but right now this is an experiment.  (As a side benefit my book budget can go to toward diapers.)

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Sunday I started my list of favorite books by posting the 9 Honorable Mentions that I wanted to highlight but for one reason or another didn’t main the main list. Yesterday I posted my favorite 10 Fiction books and today, my 10 favorite Non-Fiction books.

As always these books are based on the year I read them, not the year published. And they are based on my enjoyment of the book, not necessarily its literary greatness. These are not in a particular order.

Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace by Miroslav Volf – This is a book that still after a few days short of a year later, I still am thinking about. I am planning on re-reading this soon. Miroslov Volf is a professor at Yale, and previous to that Fuller. The book is intended to be a popular level book (although still pretty dense). Volf is well known for his more academic Exclusion and Embrace which is also about reconciliation and forgiveness. Volf in Free of Charge explicitly connects forgiveness and giving as concepts and talks about the importance of both forgiveness and reconciliation. And he is mostly talking about big areas of sin (rape, genocide, murder), not small. However, using the concepts that he uses for big sins, it is easy to see how they are also important for what we usually think of as smaller, more personal sins, gossip, slander, meanness. ($5.98 on kindle)

The God of the Mundane by Matt B Redmond – God of the Mundane is a great counter to a lot of the ‘Christianity is radical’ books. As I said in my original review, if I were going to write a book, this is a book I would write. Christianity is more about the mundane everyday world than the big deal events. And just because we are not well known, does not mean we are not serving God in exactly the way he want us to be serving. (only $2.99 on kindle)

Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power by Andy Crouch – Power is something that Christians, and Evangelicals in particular, are uncomfortable with. But Crouch’s book makes the case that it is not power that is bad, but the improper use of power that is bad. For Crouch, the highest use of power is creative power that empowers others. This is book has only been out for a few weeks, but has had a lot of positive reviews and is on a couple of best Christian books of 2013 lists.

Corporal Punishment in the Bible: A Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic for Troubling Texts by William J Webb – Corporal Punishment in the Bible takes an issue that while important, does not have the emotional tension of some other issues (like women in leadership) that also use Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic. The short version of the hermeneutic is that God speaks to us where we are, but actually seeks more for us. So in scripture restrictions and instructions on corporal punishment were limiting what culture deemed acceptable. As culture has changed, we need to work with the thrust of scripture, not words of scripture to understand what God’s actual desire is. One example from the book is that in scripture slavery is limited but not prohibited. But as culture changed, a complete prohibition of slavery is what is God actually desires.

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Summary: The concept of beauty is an under appreciated and very important concept in Christian Theology.

Over the past couple years I have occasionally thought about the role of beauty in theology.

NT Wright in his book Simply Christian talks about the role of Beauty in theology and I think that was really the first time that I had heard someone speak of beauty in the way.

Neither Zahnd nor Wright are talking about physical beauty. Instead they are talking about conceptual beauty, maybe awe or amazement would be synonyms, but not quite.

For Zahnd, when we miss the concept of beauty, we make Christianity into something that is fully discoverable, more of a science than an art. And more important we try to gain control over our faith (and God.)

That focal point is this: Jesus is the full revelation of God. Jesus is the eternal Word of God made human flesh. Truly this is the greatest wonder of all. The wonder we long for is found in the sacred mysteries of the faith, and a return to these mysteries can recapture the wonder. Recapturing wonder is part of salvation. We become jaded and bored because we mistakenly think there are no more mysteries to imbue us with wonder, but the Incarnation is an eternal fountain of mystery and wonder. In the mystery and wonder of the Incarnation is found the beauty that saves the world.

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I have posted my list of favorite books I read over the previous year since I started Bookwi.se.  In years’ past, I wrote a brief introduction and then reposted the review and spread the ‘best of’ list over two weeks.  This year I have a lot more books that I think need mentioning.  I had a hard time narrowing and still ended up with 29 books.  So today I am going to talk about the Honorable Mentions.  These are books that I think are well worth reading, that I really enjoyed, but for one reason or another didn’t make the top 10 cut.  Monday I will post my 10 favorite Fiction books and Tuesday, my 10 favorite Non-Fiction books.

As always these books are based on the year I read them, not the year published.  And they are based on my enjoyment of the book, not necessarily its literary greatness.  Of the total 29, 11 of the books I listened to on audiobook (and the audio was excellent and in several cases they made the list because of the audio.)

Of the 29, 9 were published this year, 6 last year and only 5 were published before 2000.  The remaining 9 were published between 2001 and 2010.  These are not in a particular order. Links are to the full reviews.

Fiction Honorable Mentions

Back on Murder by J Mark Bertrand – My fiction tastes do not normally run to murder mysteries or police procedurals, but after having this book recommended over and over again, I picked it up.  It is one of the books that are regularly free on Kindle.  I picked up the discounted audiobook with promotional Audible credit because I tend to listen to books I am reluctant to read.  That was probably a bad choice, the audio I think detracted from the story.  But the story was excellent.  Especially considering that it is published by a Christian publisher.  Unfortunately this excellent book’s author is looking for a new publisher since he thinks that the Christian publisher does not know how to market this genre.  And the publisher is not making any money on a book that has had great reviews but not sold all that well.  It is the first of a trilogy.  I have picked up the rest of the trilogy when they were on sale, but I have not read them yet. (Currently Free)

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood – Margaret Atwood is a well known author that I have not read.  I picked this up on audiobook when it was on sale and because it was narrated by Claire Danes as part of Audible’s A-List Series.  Handmaid’s tale is one of the classic dystopian books.  The books is narrated by a woman who’s name is never revealed.  Society has collapsed, fertility rates have plummeted and women have lost all of their rights.  So the woman OfFred (named for her relationship to her owner/husband, not with her own name) describes her life and the world around her.  The dry plain narration fits with this book very well and it is easy to see the power of a real dystopian nightmare.

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