Book Reviews

I am reposting this 2015 review because the Kindle Edition is on sale for $1.99.
Takeaway: The downfall of greatness seems to be written in advance by the weaknesses that are inverse to the greatness.

John Wilson, the editor of Books and Culture, at some point listed Ron Hansen as one of the best living Catholic novelists. About a year or so ago I read Hansen’s Margarete in Ecstasy. It was hard for me to think about an author that wrote that story of a young devout nun also writing a story of the thief and murderer Jesse James.

Prior to reading the book, I really did not know anything about Jesse James or Robert (Bob) Ford. Hansen is writing historical fiction, but this is very historical, almost biography in feel. The difference between straight biography and historical fiction is blurred here, but it seems to be mostly accurate but with imagined dialogue.

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Summary: Scout (now Jean Louise) returns home to Atticus as an old man and her view of the world is shaken.

Reading this nearly two years after it came out, and after I have read many reviews, it is hard to be objective. I knew the basic story before I started. I knew why so many people really didn’t like the book and why many others thought that it was an important sequel. And I basically agree with both sides.

Go Set a Watchman is the story of Jean Louise’s return back to visit her family as a 26 year old. She has been living in New York City and her distance from her family and the culture causes a culture shock. Her hero worship of her father is crushed when she see him (and his now law partner and her current love interest Henry) at a Citizen’s Council meeting.

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Summary: Overworked and understaffed, Inspector Maigret has an obscure murder that doesn’t seem to make sense.

I keep hearing about the brilliance of Georges Simenon and his Inspector Maigret series. The first couple (realize that there are over 100 of these) were fine but nothing special. And even this one, which I think has been the best so far, isn’t really good enough to be top level. But I can see the glimpses of where Simenon can really shine.

Inspector Maigret does not really want to investigate this seemingly standard murder himself. It is the summer and other inspectors are on vacation and really no one else can do it except himself. But something seems off. Maigret’s image of the man does not really match the descriptions that others give of him. And then the facade starts to crumble. But was it murder or revenge, was the victim a crook, was the victim even who he said he was?

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Summary: A short devotional using music to to think about Jesus and our role as Christians.

John Michael Talbot was a popular musician in his teens in the 1970s. He became a Christian through the Jesus People movement and then through his reading about the early church fathers found his way into the Catholic church, eventually founding a monastic community (with both Protestants and Catholics, married and celebrate, clergy and lay people.)

While John Michael Talbot continued to be musician, he has also written a number of books: devotionals, memoir, prayer and a number about different aspects of monasticism. I have appreciated that he has intentionally continued to write as a Catholic, but in an inclusive way. Intervarsity Press has published a number of his books.

The Master Musician (from Intervarsity) is short, easily read in less than two hours. As someone that was a musician at a Christian college (I was briefly a music major and then played in the Wind Ensemble for two years), I have heard a number of devotionals about music. So many of the ideas of this book were not particularly new.

Talbot talks about the crafting of an instrument and compares that to our spiritual growth as a Christian. He talks about the different styles of music or different ways people gather together as musicians to play are related to the body of Christ. He talks about Jesus as conductor and musician.

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Summary: New series, new characters, a new set of gods, all of what made Percy Jackson good. 

I have had a hard time finding time to read lately. With two young children, never enough time to do the work that actually pays bills and other responsibilities, reading (and writing reviews) keeps getting pushed aside. Part of the problem is that when I get less time to read, I tend to want to read ‘important’ books. But ‘important’ books are often slow, time consuming and require lots of brain power. Sometimes you just need young adult fiction.

I am a big fan of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series. I am not a fan of his Kane Chronicles (I just read the first of the trilogy and really did not like it.) The follow up series to Percy Jackson (Heroes of Olympus) I am more mixed on. They just felt too long and full of filler. And I still haven’t started the last book of that series in spite of the fact that I bought it almost a year ago.

But when Magnus Chase was on sale for Black Friday I picked it up. Once I started reading it, I sped through it and finished it in just a couple days. This series is not wildly different from Percy Jackson. Magnus Chase is a homeless 16 year old. He has never known his father. Two years ago his mother died protecting him and Magnus has been living on the streets (and on the run) ever since.

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Summary: A fantasy multi-verse where four worlds are connected via the city of London, and a dark magic wants to destroy them all.

I have not enjoy a good fantasy book in a while. I picked up the audiobook of A Darker Shade of Magic up when it initially came out in early 2015. (It was free as a promotion.) And six months ago or so I picked up the kindle edition when it was on sale. And I finally got around to reading it last week.

The premise of A Darker Shade of Magic is that there are four Londons. All called London and with several places that are the same regardless of their world. The worlds are nicknamed Black London, White London, Red London and Grey London. Black London was destroyed by dark magic, White London uses magic as a powerful weapon against one another and is a cruel world. Red London uses magic as a tool and is a prosperous place (but is shielded from Black London by White London). And Gray London is a 19th century non-magical London that we would recognize historically.

It used to be that it was easy to move between Londons through doors. But the doors were closed to protect the three remaining worlds from the dark magic of Black London. Now only two magicians have the power to moved between world through their blood magic. One is from White London and one is the main character, Kell, from Red London.

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Summary: Historical fiction with the rough story of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Mark Antony and Augustus Caesar set in 1920-40 financial world of New York and London.

Any one that has read Bookwi.se long has read of my love of Susan Howatch. Her crowning achievement, at least as far as I have read, is her Starbridge series. That series of six books about Church of England clergy from 1930s to the 1960s was a masterpiece discussing spiritual growth, the long hand of sin and the role of the church and faith in society.

But many of her books were written before Howatch returned to a deeper faith and wrote the Starbridge series. The Rich Are Different is the first of two long historical fiction books. Howatch likes alternating between multiple narrators. And in this case she alternates between the characters that are roughly Caesar, Cleopatra, Mark Antony and Augustus.

Set in the pre Wall Street crash of the late 1920s though the early days of World War II, the rich really are different in some ways. But in many ways they are not. They still have concerns, loves, loss and heartbreak. Their money does insulate them somewhat from the conventions of the day. But wealth cannot buy happiness, good marriages, healthy children, or an end to tragedy.

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