Book Reviews

Takeaway: About 25 years after first reading it, this is still one of my favorite novels.

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I am not sure why I have always been so drawn to A Swiftly Tilting Planet.  It has been one of my favorite books since I first read it.  I have read it at least a half-dozen times now, although it has been since high school since I last read it.

I was trying to figure out why this is my favorite book of the series.  Partially I think it is because it is focused on Charles Wallace.  I have always been particularly drawn to ‘special children’.  As an adult, I appreciate even more that what he wants to do is take charge and solve problems and use the skills and brain power he has.  But as with many of the books, really what is needed is not to take charge and solve problems, but to just be the person that you were created to be.  Charles Wallace was created for this problem, and he does not need to work to solve it as much as just be Charles Wallace and allow The Wind (or God) to place him where he need to be.

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Takeaway: Wide ranging book on practical, theological and theoretical importance of communication in the church world.

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Upfront this is not a normal review.  I did not read it as I normally read, I read it as I was prepping it for the kindle version.  I have not prepped and converted many books, just a handful, but I have done a few based on my own love of ebooks and the desire to get smaller independent books out to a wider audience.  Kevin Hendricks, one of the contributors, contacted me about working on Outspoken because I converted his last book, Open Our Eyes: Seeing the Invisible People of Homelessness.  Outspoken is a very similar style, lots of contributors, lots of short chapters.

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Summary: The twins, Sandy and Denis, go back into biblical history and find their place in their special family.

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Many Waters is the fourth book in Madeline L’Engle’s Time Quintet.  It was not published until 1986, almost a decade after the third book and 24 years after the first book of the series.  Chronologically, it is set between books 2 and 3.  Because I got these at the library, due to availability, I listened to it in chronological order.

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Takeaway: Continuing with the theme that Love is most important.

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After reading A Wrinkle in Time, which I have not read in many years, A Wind in the Door was more familiar.  I remembered most of the story line and while it has still been 20 years or so I have read it more recently and more often than Wrinkle in Time.

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Takeaway: Scripture is a diverse, important, human-written, God-breathed book.  

Over the past couple months I have been wandering through an exploration of scripture, what it is, how we can understand it, what we should be doing with it.  Inspiration and Incarnation is the latest book in my exploration.  I was lucky enough to read this one with friends and have an email discussion about it.

Emotionally, I am a bit disappointed by this book.  I knew it was controversial.  Enns resigned his position at Westminster Seminary after controversy with the board of the seminary and this book.  After reading the first two chapters, I kept thinking ‘no wonder he was fired’.  There really are controversial statements in the book, but I think much of the controversy could have been minimized with a better editor.  He seems unnecessarily provocative in a few areas where his point is not controversial.  Intellectually, I am intrigued.  He is pushing in many of the areas I think need to be pushed in the Evangelical understanding of scripture.  I am not sure about some of his conclusions, but the discussion is useful.

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