Book Reviews

Summary: The final of the second series.

Hugh Howey is an independent author phenomenon.  Most authors do not make $15-20,000 a month and decide to turn down a 7 figure advance on a book contract after selling the rights to their books to Ridley Scott.

But Hugh Howey, after a little over a year gets an article in the Wall Street Journal about his writing/marketing prowess.

Third Shift (Pact) follows the same basic mold.  This is the third (and last) of this second series.  Donald (who was sort of tricked into working in the Silo initiative) is again woken up to deal with a problem.

And Solo’s back story is finally revealed.

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Summary: A young woman recounts her affair with the Dean of Starbridge.

One of the things I have enjoyed about reading the Church of England series is learning more about the actual Church of England.  A Dean of a Cathedral is essentially the pastor of the Cathedral.  In Scandalous Risks, Neville (Stephen) Aysgarth has risen from his role of Arch Deacon (assistant to the Bishop that oversees a geographical area of Churches) to the Dean of the Cathedral.

As Dean of one of the most prominent (fictional) Cathedrals in England Neville has risen to become one of the most powerful clergy in the Church of England.  Unfortunately for him, the Bishop of Starbridge is now Charles Ashworth, Neville’s conservative rival.

But Scandalous Risks is not simply a continuation of Ultimate Prizes (#3). It is narrated by Venetia Flaxton.  Young Venetia is 26, wandering around trying to find purpose in life.  Her best friend, Primrose (daughter of Neville) draws her to Starbridge and Venetia finds a number of friends, a job working for the Bishop and eventually an affair with the Dean (Neville).

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Nollop is a (fictional) sovereign state on a small island off the coast of South Carolina, named for the man who purportedly composed the famous pangram: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” The citizens revere and almost worship Nollop; when the letters of the pangram, which are engraved on a memorial statue, start to fall off due to wear and tear, the government interprets this as instruction from their faux-deity to stop using said letters in any form, written or spoken. The new laws are enforced by public flogging, banishment, and possibly execution.

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Takeaway: Erickson focuses on how to disagree well and evaluate different Christian positions. 

As I have been reading about the trinity over the past two years I have realized that it is actually fairly small questions that are at the root of the big debates.

This makes sense because Christians agree about the vast majority of Christian theology. There is very little debate about the fact that the Trinity has three members.  That all three members of the trinity are God. Or that the Trinity is made up of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

But a relatively small debate has gained importance over the last 30-50 years because of another debate within the church, the role of women.

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This book is free today on Kindle, so I am reposting this review from 2010.

Takeaway: Short, very informative book about the state of beer in the world from a professor of beer.  Not really about the soul or really any other religious thoughts on beer.

I have a somewhat mixed relationship with beer.  On the one hand, I like beer and I drink it fairly often, although in quite moderate amounts.  On the other hand I come from a family that is historically against drinking and from a church background that still has a hard time dealing with alcohol.

My grandmother was raised by an alcoholic father and she dropped out of high school to support her family because he was so often out of work because of his alcoholism.  She later went back to high school, graduated from college, became a teacher and raised 8 children.  She passed on her strong views of alcohol to most of her children and that passed on to many of the grandchildren.

For church background, I do not remember any strong messages on alcohol other than it was not talked about and not drank publicly.  I went to college where we signed a pledge not to drink alcohol as long as we were enrolled.  So I did not really start drinking until my mid-20s.  (I went to seminary at University of Chicago Divinity School where much of the proceeds of the student coffee shop went to parties with lots of alcohol served.  I did not really participate much.)  It was really after seminary that I started hanging with a different church crowd that had a more tolerant view of the proper use of alcohol.

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Summary: An Archdeacon, with a fondness for drink, seeks after his debutante.

The Church of England Series continues to enthrall me.  As I write this I am almost finished with the fourth book of the series I have read in less than a month.

I am normally not a fan of Christian fiction.  But this is not normal Christian fiction.  First, it is oriented around the Church of England in the early and mid-20th Century.  Second, it is primarily about clergy that are in need of spiritual counsel and redemption.

Third it is not Christian Fiction that has a salvation story and then all is right with the world.  Instead, as with the first two books of the series, the redemption story happens fairly early in Ultimate Prizes and then the rest of the book is about how the main character deals with the fact that he got what he wanted.

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First, a note about the author: John Green has had success as an online vlogger, as well as an author. In 2007, John and his brother, Hank, who lived in different cities across the US, created a vlog series where they only communicated through video messages that were posted on YouTube. I believe that it is fair to say that the Green brothers are two of some of the original YouTubers. In 2010, the began hosting an annual gathering of you tubers called Vidcon and are very well respected by and connected with many of the big names on YouTube. Even before I had read this book or even heard about John Green as a writer, I knew of him and his brother as a source for enlightening information on the internet (the two brothers currently have a channel where they discuss history and science). I was pleasantly surprised to hear that John was lauded as being an excellent writer of young adult literature. If anything, I would have expected a “geek” to be a writer of sic-fi. I continued to hear great things about his writing, especially this book, so I decided to give it a listen

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