Book Reviews

Takeaway: Prayer requires intention.

It has always seemed to me that the late 19th and early 20th century produced some of the best works on prayer.  EM Bounds, Harry Fosdick, RA Torrey, AW Tozer, Andrew Murry, Hudson Taylor and many others wrote some of the most read classics on prayer.

I have read a number of books on prayer from this era.  Many of them are quite good.  But many of them verge on moralism.  I do think there is something to sin separating us from God.  But it can go too far when the work of prayer depends upon our own work.  There has to be some partnership between us and the Holy Spirit in prayer.  But most of the time when I read descriptions of that partnership I am dissatisfied with the result.

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Summary: The follow up to Ender’s Game set right before the last chapter of Ender’s Game with ideas from the Shadow Series and before the Xenocide and later books.

Last week I was browsing through Audible.com for a new book and saw that Orson Scott Card had released a new book last week that tells the story of the first Formic War (Earth Unaware).  It is getting fairly mixed reviews right now.  But I will probably still get around to reading it soon.

That led me to looking around to see if there were others Orson Scott Card books that I have not read.  I found Ender in Exile in my library.  By description I did not remember reading it.  I remembered it within minutes of starting it.  But it was good so I re-read (re-listened?) to it.

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I listened to about two hours of both of these books on audio.  I just could not get into either one.  

I really want to watch Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy.  Sooner or later I will get to it. What I like about all of the reviews of the book is that people keep saying it is a slow spy novel about ideas more than action.  I tend to like books that are more about the ideas than the action.

But the price of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy has been a bit high (now $12.99) and it is the fifth book in a series and the first four are not in kindle format.  (Yes it is the first of a trilogy within the larger series, but I still like to read books in order.)

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Takeaway: In this novelization of ancient Church history, the persecution of the church and the fight for orthodox christianity are made very real.

This year my theological reading topic has been the trinity.  I haven’t read nearly as much as I intended so far this year.  So when I ran across this book I picked it up to try and get back on track.

Eagle in Flight is about Athanasius, the 4th century bishop of Alexandria.  Athanasius is important to all the major streams of Christianity.  The Roman Catholic church considers him one of the four main ‘doctors of the church’.  Protestants point to his list of the books of the New Testament as one of the early confirmations of the New Testament canon.  Eastern Orthodox point to him as the ‘Father of Orthodoxy’.

He was a participant in the council where the Nicene Creed was written.  He was bishop during the several severe persecutions after Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of Rome.  And ended up spending 17 years over five different periods being exiled from Alexandria.  I was unaware how much in the years after Constantine that the Christian church was persecuted.

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Summary: Dresden and a ‘Righteous man’ fight the latest set of nasties in order to protect Chicago from vampires, ghosts and more.

It is always interesting to me that once I start working on a reading project, suddenly books that I thought would have no connection to the project get connected.  In this case, Harry Dresden, the only wizard in Chicago, has started regularly working with Michael.  A righteous man that has been chosen as The Fist of God.

Dresden explains to another character that Michael’s power is because Michael is a righteous man.  His faith in God and simple, humble righteousness have a power that Dresden as a hard working wizard doesn’t have access to.

Throughout the book God’s power is present, not as magic, but a protective force for the innocent and righteous.  Of course, Michael and his family and friends are Catholic.  The books is set in Chicago, a very Catholic city, but more important, the ritual and rites of the Catholic church lend themselves to being written about like this.

The basic story of this book is that something or someone has been stirring up the divide between the real world and the NeverNever (the spirit world).  So Harry and Michael keep running around stopping Ghosts and demons and other nasty things from hurting or killing people.

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Today’s Kindle Book of the Day for July 15. On sale for $2.99.  I am reposting the full review.

Takeaway: A romantic cross between Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, Hunger Games without the violence, Wrinkle in Time told from the perspective of the people of Camazotz and the determinism of Asmov’s Foundation series.

All of the recent young adult dystopian novels must be speaking to some cultural current.  It is not just the good writing (although I really have enjoyed Hunger Games and Divergent and Cory Doctorow, etc.).  I think at least part of it is the loss of privacy that comes about with the rise of Facebook and Twitter and computing in general.  Probably the weak economy and general feeling of government unresponsiveness is another part.  But there seems to be something more that I cannot put my finger on.

Matched by Ally Condie is set in a future utopia.  The ‘Society” lives in peace.  Everything is predicted and controlled by the ‘Society’.  The protagonist is Cassia, a 17 year old girl about to be ‘matched’ to her future mate.  The Society is large and controls everything, from the meals you eat, to your free time activities, to the date of your death.

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