Book Reviews – Page 145

Offsite Review: Keeping the Feast

November 22, 2012 by Adam Shields

This seems like an appropriate book topic for Thanksgiving. In Keeping the Feast: Metaphors for the Meal Milton Brasher-Cunningham draws on his gifts as a writer, chef, minister and teacher to explore the meaning of “˜the meal,’ relating his reflections on food (and cooking) with the central meal of the Christian faith, Holy Communion. Brasher-Cunningham presses … Read more

Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin

November 19, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: A young wizard must find himself to make right a wrong he created.

Wizard of Earthsea is one of those classic books that I remember reading as a young teen. Like An Abundance of Katherines, it is a coming of age story. But unlike the other two books that I read this past week from the same era (Goldfinger and Stainless Steel Rat) it did not feel dated.

At the end of the book, Le Guin commented about the history of the book. This was the first book that a publisher had asked her to write, and she was reluctant. She had not written a book specifically for teen before this. And while she had written fantasy, the idea of fantasy as a genre was very new.

Lord of the Rings had only recently been published in the US. And the idea of young adult fantasy was just getting started. Lloyd Alexander had won the Newberry Medal for the High King the year before A Wizard of Earthsea was written.

In Le Guin’s little history she noted that she was subtlety trying to tweak the establishment. She followed the basic structure of a young adult version of a wizard, but she made him non-white. In fact all of the good characters in the book are not white. The only explicitly White main character is one that we see as a young girl and later as a young woman. And both times she betrays Ged to try and steal his power.

The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison

November 14, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: There is no one better the catch a crook than another crook.

When I was a kid I read a good bit. A lot of it was fairly worthless pulp science fiction. I have never been that snobbish about poorly written books. I like Twilight, Harry Potter and a host of other books that many people complain about. While I really do appreciate a well written phrase, there is more to writing in my mind than perfect writing. A story needs to be told. The reader needs to be engaged.

The Stainless Steel Rat was a series that I know I read in or around middle school. But I had absolutely no memory of the series. I noticed that the first book was available at my library on audiobook and I picked it up out of pure nostalgia.

The story is not all that original (or at least it does not feel original now). In a future world, crime has almost entirely been stopped. Those few criminals that exist are captured and ‘re-educated’.

Biblical Hermeneutics: Five Views

November 13, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: Five different perspectives on how we seek out meaning in scripture.

Over the past two years I have spent a fair amount of time coming to terms with how to read and understand scripture. Mostly this time has been confirming a couple of ideas. 1) The bible is not a magical answer books. 2) Christians (Evangelicals in particular) spend more time arguing about the bible than reading it (myself included.) 3) We think that everyone else ignores their cultural pre-suppositions, but that we have it right. 4) Understanding of scripture should be primarily a community, not individual activity.

Biblical Hermeneutics (how to to understand scripture) takes five authors with five different perspectives and shows how those different perspectives affect the way that we understand scripture.

The best part of the book is that they took a particular passage then used their perspective to explore how they would get meaning from the text. The book uses Matthew 2:13-15 (which is partially quoting Hosea 11:1) as their test case. This allows for both direct look at the meaning of Matt 2 and a look at how to use New Testament passages that refer to the Old Testament.

The Stephanies by Lexi and Kevin Hendricks

November 7, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: A cute early reader books about two girls that do not like one another because both of them are named Stephanie.

One of the things I have most enjoyed about book blogging is getting to know authors (at least on line) over time.

Kevin Hendricks and I met online after I read his book Addition by Adoption. Over the past couple years I helped format two of his books for ebook release (Open Our Eyes and Outspoken: Conversations about Church Communication)

This summer Kevin and his 6 year old daughter wrote a book together. Kevin used a Kickstarter Campaign to get the book published and yesterday the book officially launched.

The Stephanies is a early reader book about two girls that do not like one another because they both have the same name. Over time they figure out how to be friends. I picked up the kindle version, but I think I am also going to buy the Color Your Own version so I can read it with my nieces and let them color it as well.

Nearing Home: Life, Faith and Finishing Well by Billy Graham

November 7, 2012 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: Old age is hard, but part of life, and part of God’s plan.

Billy Graham has a distinctive clear style of writing and his latest book (published at 93 years old) is still the same. As with every one of his books, there is a clear presentation of the plan of salvation. But this book is written for a particular audience, and at 38, I am not it.

Nearing Home is written primarily for those that are 50 or 60 years old and above. Some of it is basic advice as for those that are aging (have a will, make plans for your health care, talk to your heirs about your wishes, etc.). Much of the book is spiritual and relational advice.

Why Be Catholic by Richard Rohr

November 6, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: A series of lectures on the state of the Catholic Church that was later turned into a book.

Over the past several months I have been reading about Catholicism (see below for other reviews). Many of the book have been written by Evangelicals that have converted to Catholicism. I chose several of them precisely because I knew that they would write with language that I as an Evangelical would mostly understand.

But it is time to start reading more widely and I want to start reading more books written by Catholics to other Catholics. I picked this audiobook up on a whim from Audible because I had a couple dollars of promotional credit and it was on sale.

It is not actually a book. It is a series of lectures that was later turned into a book. It is not new either. The lectures were given in 1985 during lent. It sounds like they were given in a church basement to a small group of people that are concerned about their church (although the audio of Rohr is very clear). On the whole this does not feel all that dated. There are a few things that let you know that these are almost 30 years old. But most of the issues are probably pretty similar.

What I always find most encouraging is that many of the poor assumptions about Catholics that Evangelicals have disappear quickly when you actually listen to people like Rohr. This is a man that is in love with Christ, that wants to see the world evangelized that is charitable in his opinions of other Christians and has a real heart for the church. He opens each lecture with a prayer, prayers that would be very comfortable and familiar to Evangelicals.

Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Swallow Prior

November 5, 2012 by Adam Shields

I love books. I love people that love books. I love books about books by people that love books.

Karen Swallow Prior is an English Professor, writer, and essayist. She has written a memoir highlighting the books (and poems) that have changed her life and made her who she is today.

Each chapter highlight a book and then uses that book to help tell the story of her life. Sometimes the book helps her to learn, sometimes the book helps her to explain. But in each case, it is her as a reader that comes through.

Spirit of Love: A Trinitarian Theology of Grace by Amos Yong

November 2, 2012 by Adam Shields

Some authors really do bring a different and fresh perspective on things. Amos Yong is one of those authors. He wrote a good book on the Books of Acts in comparison to the book of Luke, focusing on how the Holy Spirit empowers us to do some of the things that Christ did while on … Read more

Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley

November 1, 2012 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: The common conception of the book has nothing to do with what is really in the book.

So here is what is probably most interesting about reading ‘The Modern Prometheus’, almost nothing that I thought I knew about the story line is actually in the book. Many stories we primarily know through movie adaptations and not the book itself. That is not unusual. But the fact that almost all of the central features of the cultural understanding of the book are not in the book is fascinating.

Igor, lightning, the slow walk, the arms raised, pretty much all the features about the monster are all wrong. Not even wrong, it is the opposite of the book. The monster was brilliant, well spoken, desired only to love and be loved. Even the name is wrong. Frankenstein is the name of the Doctor, the monster is never named (I did actually know that part before reading the book.)

When I talked about the book with some friends there are pretty different opinions of it. My sister in law loves the book. She is a scientist and talked about it as part of a discussion about medical and scientific ethics.