Book Reviews

Go Set a Watchman: A Novel by Harper Lee

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As with millions of readers, I’ve long loved To Kill a Mockingbird and waited with great excitement for the release of Go Set a Watchman. As the release date of Watchman drew near, my anticipation became tainted with dread as social media posts panned the book and blog posts advised readers to avoid this new book.

Go Set a Watchman takes place several years after Mockingbird. A now 26-year-old Scout returns to Maycomb from New York for her annual visit home. Atticus is still practicing law despite his crippling pain from rheumatoid arthritis. Junior lawyer, Hank, is Atticus’s right hand man and longs to marry Scout. Calpurnia is present in this tale but Jem and Dill are not.

Over the course of two days, Scout learns an ugly truth about her beloved father, her intended beau and her dear Calpurnia, hence the firestorm of complaints and dissatisfaction expressed online. Many readers and reviewers are distressed the noble hero is revealed to be a racist. This is a hard pill for a reader to swallow given our previous experience with Atticus Finch in Mockingbird. It doesn’t seem to fit the character we loved; which is exactly how Scout feels upon this heartbreaking discovery. I believe Watchman, at its core, is about a young woman realizing (rather late) her loved ones, especially her father, are fallible human beings. A realization of this nature, no matter when it occurs in life, can be a devastating discovery.

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Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach

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I am reposting this 2013 review because Audible.com is having a sale on all of Mary Roach’s books. Each of the books is on sale for $4.95.  Bookwi.se has also reviewed Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and has read (but not reviewed here) Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Sex and Science.  Sale runs until July 23, 2015.

Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary CanalSummary: The cool, gross and the ugly of our digestive system.

Mary Roach is a unique writer.  I think her closest comparison is Sarah Vowell.  Where Sarah Vowell writes in a unique way about random historical matters, Mary Roach writes in a unique way about science issues.  This is my third book by Mary Roach.  The first book I read was the best, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, because well, who isn’t interested in sex?

The second book, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers was also interesting, but frankly cadavers are a bit disconcerting.  It veered wildly between gross and fascinating.

In a slightly less disgusting way, Gulp covers pretty much everything you wanted to know, and a number of things you may not wanted to know about the Alimentary Canal (or digestive system).

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The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

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I am reposting this 2013 review because the Kindle Edition is on sale for $1.99.
The Graveyard Book by Neil GaimanTakeaway: All of life is about growing up.

I am a big fan of Neil Gaiman.  I think he is one of the most innovative writers around.  And I love that he concentrates mostly on fairy tale stories, whether for adults or kids.  Many of them are a bit creepy and a little twisted, but at heart they are fairy tales.

The Graveyard Book is the only one of Gaiman’s full length books that I have not previously read.  It is intended as a young adult book.  Not as young as Coraline, but still appropriate for middle grade and up, if the kids enjoy and can handle creepy and dark stories. (I say this as a person that in general hates creepy stories.)

The book opens with murder. A family is murdered, mother, father, sister.  But the baby, about 18 months old, crawls out of the crib and walks away before the killer finds him.  The family lives near a graveyard and the baby walks there.  The ghosts see he is in trouble, hide him from the killer and agree to raise him there in the graveyard.  He is given the freedom of the graveyard.  So he can talk to and learn from the ghosts.  He can move through the walls and into the crypts.  He is taught to Fade and produce fear.  And he learns about some of the darker and older things that are in the graveyard.

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The Radical Disciple: Some Neglected Aspects of Our Calling by John Stott

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The Radical Disciple: Some Neglected Aspects of Our Calling by John StottTakeaway: Discipleship is about following Christ in non-conformity.  Hearing from an elder who has lived the life is a great encouragement to continue on.

This is John Stott‘s last book.  He decided to retire several years ago and now has said he will no longer write (update: he passed away in 2011 at the age of 90).  So I think it is interesting that he is intentionally writing a book about discipleship and concentrating on areas that he thinks are often left unaddressed.

The book ends with a poignant chapter on death, similar to the last album by Johnny Cash.  Both Cash and Stott knew they were not long for this world.  The afterward says goodbye to the reader and discusses his will and legacy. In many ways, I wish he opened with this.  Because it gives more weight to the rest of the book.

However, if he started with death it might overwhelm the general theme of the book, Non-Conformity.  The title of the first chapter, he is calling us to be different as Christians.  Not just different from the world, but different because we were created to be like Christ. There is a good quote about the fact that we cannot live like Christ, unless we have Christ live in us. And I think that the living with Christ in us as the only way to achieve Christlikeness may be more counter cultural to the church than anything else in the book. We all know that we have transformed, but to really be transformed we not only have to strive after living like Christ, we have to submit to the Spirit that guides us.

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Dust by Hugh Howey

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Reposting this 2014 review because this book, and the two earlier collections that made up the trilogy are all on sale for $2.99 each on kindle (Wool Omnibus and Shift). Links to my reviews of the earlier books are at the bottom of the page. Summary: The story comes to an end. Hugh Howey broke into … Read more

The Allure of Gentleness: Defending the Faith in the Manner of Jesus by Dallas Willard

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the allure of gentleness cover imageSummary: The method of apologetics is intrinsically linked to the work of apologetics.

I like Dallas Willard. He has been very helpful, if not always directly, through the mentoring of various other authors and teachers I have been directly impacted by.

Dallas Willard passed away just over two years ago. This book was underway before he passed as a joint project between Willard and his daughter. She organized it based on a series of lectures he gave in 1990 and supplemented it in areas he thought needed further development using other lectures and writings. Despite that, this feels like a cohesive book.

Willard is trying to remind the apologist that the method (and life of the apologist) is important to the work of apologetics. In 1990, I think that was probably a much more needed message than today. We always need to be reminded of that, but I do not think that many apologists today would disagree with that basic summary.

Even so, the part that I most resonated with was that simple reminder. (Although I kept thinking that Unapologetic did a better job communicating the point and at least parts of Vanishing Grace did a better job reminding the reader of the importance of grace toward the non-Christian. )

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Looking for Alaska by John Green

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I am reposting my 2012 review because the audiobook is today’s Audible Deal of the day and on sale (no membership required) for $2.95 today only.
Looking for Alaska

Summary: John Green’s first coming of age novel.  A high school student goes away to boarding school in Alabama and tries to find his place in the world.

I am on a John Green kick.  This is the third book in three weeks.  There is only The Fault of Our Stars until I have read all of his books. (The Fault of our Stars is on a lot of people’s best book or best teen book of 2012 lists.  There are also two more books that Green has either co-written or contributed to.)

All of Green’s books are in one way or another coming of age books.  This one is no different.  Miles leaves his home and the school where he does not really have any friends to go away to boarding school at the beginning of his junior year of high school.

As is normal, Miles ends up being best friends with his roommate and his roommates friends.  As they move through the year one event ends up dominating the year.  The whole books either counts down to it, or moves on from it.  I will not spoil the event, but I did not see it coming until it was almost there.  (I am gifted with an inability to predict what is going to happen in books.  I think that is a good feature, but my wife is always amazed I didn’t see things coming).

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Ender’s World: Fresh Perspectives on the SF Classic Ender’s Game

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Ender's WorldSummary: A series of diverse essays about Ender’s Game, from leadership and military applications to how it has impacted children’s literature and a lot in between.

There are very few books that I am intimately familiar enough to read a series of 13 essays and a number of Q & A’s from the author and really be engaged throughout. I have a review of the variations of the Ender’s Game story over the years (and I should update that now that I have seen the movie), a full review of the audio play version and a review of the most of rest of the books of the series. I am pretty sure I have read Ender’s Game in one version or another at least a dozen times. (Also Emily Flury has a review of the movie.)

I think unquestionably, Ender’s Game is Orson Scott Card’s best book. I have read most of the rest of Card’s book looking for a book to equal it, and while I really enjoy many of his books, none have resonated with me nearly as much.

Ender’s Game is the story of Ender Wiggins, initially a six year old boy that goes to Battle School to train as a soldier. The Earth has been attacked twice by the Formics (or Buggers depending on which version you are reading). And now soldiers are being trained from childhood to win the next war.

This is the first book I really adored and from the essays, it is clear I am not alone. There are three different types of essays here. Essays on leadership and military, essays on writing or literature and essays on cultural impact. This is not a book for anyone that has not read (and loved) the book. This is a book for not only the fan, but the fan who enjoys geeking out (and listening to others geek out) about minutia of plots points and how they felt when they read it.

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The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson Book 1)

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Lightning thief cover imageTakeaway: Fun young adult fantasy novel. There are some serious themes, but they are written in a way that is appropriate for 11 and up.

I have been reading a lot of fairly heavy theology recently. The heavier the theology books I am reading, the more likely I am to need light fiction to offset my brain. I share a Kindle account with some younger people, and they picked up and read the Percy Jackson series last spring. I have not seen the movie (although I probably will now) and did not know anything about the books going into them.

I am a fan. These are quick reads for adults; I do not think I have spent more than 2 or 3 hours on any of them. (I am in the middle of the fourth right now, all in a week.) I also think they are appropriate for kids age nine and up (depending on reading level).

The basic storyline is that Percy Jackson is a bad student.  He is always getting in trouble and has ADHD and dyslexia.  He loves his Mom, but he knows he is making her life difficult because he is always getting in trouble at school.  Eventually, we find out that one of the reasons Percy has a problem is that he is actually the son of one of the Greek gods (a half-blood).

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