Book Reviews

Summary: Who we worship, and why we worship is central to the role of the church.

Last month, NT Wright’s For All God’s Worth was on sale. For All God’s Worth is another book saved by the ebook revolution. It was published nearly 20 years ago and, while it is a decent little book, there is no way it would have stayed in print if ebooks were not a reality.

Wright seems to have written this book at least in part in response to a 1994 report on the state and purpose of Anglican Cathedrals in the UK. Wright, then working at one of the Cathedrals, dedicated both the book and its profits to the restoration of music at his Cathedral.

One of the things I most appreciate about Wright is his desire to be not just an academic, but also a cleric. For virtually his entire career he has either worked full or part time as a pastor or chaplain or in student ministry and eventually Bishop while also maintaining his academic career. This book is a good example of that. It is written to and for the church.

For its short length, it hits a large number (perhaps too many) points. The book is made up of two sections, God is worthy of worship and the Church as reflection of God in the world. I apologize in advance, but this is a review with a lot of quotes. It all seems good and there is not a good reason to restate it in my own words.

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Summary: Old men (and women) make better warriors because they have something to live for, and fight for.

Old Man’s War makes five John Scalzi books in five months.  I am not sure I am finished yet.

Like Little Fuzzy and Redshirts, Old Man’s War takes some currently existing story ideas and takes them in a new place.

Much of the first half of the book is roughly based on Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (the book, not the absolutely horrible movie).

Starship Troopers is one of the best anti-war science fiction books written.  It is cleverly written as the story of a young man going to war.  In Scalzi’s world, it is old men (and women) that go to war.

After people have lived their life, they can chose to leave earth and become soldiers.  But they can never return.  Officially they are considered dead on earth.  But everyone has the option of joining up at 65 and then leaving for war at 75.  The assumption is that somehow they will be made young and after serving for 4 years (with extensions of up to six more) they can either continue to serve or become colonists on one of the worlds that they have been defending.

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Summary: The threat running through most of this series comes to a head.

The Inspector Gamache series is a traditional murder mystery series. Every book, Chief Homicide inspector Gamache and his team respond to a murder and attempt to solve it.

But through most of the series there is a subplot about corruption within the police force. Gamache is against the corruption, but the bureaucracy is infused with it and that corruption wants Gamache out.

Gamache’s number two, a man Gamache thinks of as friend and son more than anything else, has turned against Gamache fully. Beauvoir, addicted to pain killers, and being psychologically bullied by other officers to turn against Gamache. Those against Gamache, whoever they ultimately are, are hoping that this final straw will push Gamache out.

The central murder of the book is based on a real story. (This is based on the Wikipedia entry). In 1934 there were naturally born Quintuplets born to a poor farm family in Canada. The girls were removed from their family by the state and essentially put on display for tourists to visit. Approximately 3 million visitors came to see them between 1936 and 1943 and they were the largest tourist attraction in Ontario, including Niagara Falls. Two of the sisters are still alive.

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Summary: Funny, heartfelt memoir of parenting by a normal guy that loves his kids.

The world may not need another memoir by a Dad about being a Dad, but if the genre is going to expand, this is not a bad addition.

I am a stay at home Dad. Previously I was a nanny for my nieces for 5 year until they started school. I am not particularly a fan of ‘Dumb Dad’ jokes or sitcoms or books or other media that highlight idiots with male genitalia that happen to have fathered children. I am also not a particular fan of ‘super-Dad’ books.

Either side is about a stereotype and not a real person. Real parents love their kids, make mistakes, want to do better, still screw up but are not complete idiots.

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One More Thing is a collection of stories and musings by comedian, actor, producer and now writer, B.J. Novak. B.J. Novak first gained notoriety for his work as writer and actor on The Office. The only major theme throughout the stories is that they have a common overlying purpose, which is to entertain. His stories mention heaven, revenge, romance, sexbots, literature, Tony Robbins, Kellogg’s and Kate Moss. Some stories are many pages and some last only a page.

I am a fan of The Office and I have always enjoyed B.J. Novak’s approach to comedy. I would describe it as being dry without being too British. One of my favorite B.J. Novak moments is when he uncovered for America the Cadbury Conspiracy on the Conan O’Brien show. I think he is great because his jokes aren’t really jokes they seem to mainly be observations on the real life. I learned from reading more about Novak’s life that he comes from a very creative and talented family, and he is a very intelligent person as he graduated with honors from Harvard. After reading this book, I am confident that his success on The Office was not a fluke and that he will continue to humor us for years to come.

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Summary: We may be able to live without sex, but we cannot live without friendship.

In Wesley Hill’s earlier book Washed and Waiting, Hill makes a case for the reality and immutability of same sex attraction and Gay Christians and also the importance of maintaining traditional Christian teaching on sex and marriage. Which leaves Hill and all other Gay Christians with celibacy as their only option.

I am not completely convinced that Hill has made a universal argument with his first book, but I do think that Hill understands the purpose and meaning of sexuality better than most and that he has insight into sexuality in the modern world that can only be obtained by one that is observing it from the outside.

Spiritual Friendship seems like the natural next step. After reading his first book, I thought that deep friendship was absolutely necessary for those that have decided to be celibate (whether Gay or straight) because despite the fact that some are called to be celibate within Christianity, we are all called to be in a church, a part of the universal body of Christ, and as Hill argues, involved deeply in the lives of particular friends.  And I became a regular reader when he and Ron Belgau and others started a group blog called Spiritual Friendship.

As with his first book, this book is memoir-ish. He is making an argument (in the original book for celibacy and here for the importance of deep friendship) but he is not making an abstract or theoretical argument. Hill has lived in the brokenness of needing friends, of the joy of finding friends, of the pain of losing friends and the fear of deep friendships that might be lost.

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Summary: A virus kills nearly everyone, society collapses, but some survive.

Station Eleven has had a lot of hype. It has been short listed for a ton of awards, John Wilson (from Books and Culture) loved it, a lot of people that I know really liked it.

And I thought it was ok. A solid, but not earth-shattering end of the world novel.

There are a lot of characters and none of them are really the main character. Station Eleven moves back and forth between characters and from before the fall of civilization to after the fall. By the end, there is at least the hint of a complete story, connecting all the various characters and times.

The fall is caused by a swine flu variant called ‘The Georgian Flu’. In a matter of hours from contamination, with basic flu symptoms, 199 out of 200 people die. Within a few days complete panic has hit. Within a few weeks civilization has completely collapsed. The electric grid goes down, transportation stops because no one can get gas (and what gas is available goes bad in a few years.) The sheer size of the devastation (and the fear of a reoccurrence of the outbreak) keeps people in small groups and afraid of strangers.

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Summary: An extension of Walton’s earlier work to Genesis 2 and 3.

I wish I could say everything that is important is also interesting. But I cannot. There are a ton of interesting books that have no importance whatsoever. And there are also a ton of important books that are as dull as dirt.

John Walton is doing important work. In his earlier book The Lost World of Genesis 1, Walton laid out a case for the creation story being focused not on physical creation (the how) but on functional creation (the why). But possibly even more important, he made a case for Genesis 1 being primarily concerned with the creation story being actually about the dedication of the earth as a temple to God, and the placement of us humans as God’s priests in that temple.

The main weakness of that earlier book is that Genesis 2 has a second creation story and even if Walton is right about Genesis 1, Genesis 3, the story of the fall is theologically seen as just as important to many Christians.

The Lost World of Adam and Eve is the next step in that puzzle. Walton’s method, in this book and the last, is to make a proposition and the defend that proposition and then move to the next. So in the earlier book he had 19 chapters slowly making the case bit by bit for why so many have misread Genesis 1 for so long.

In this book there are 21 propositions about the purpose and meaning of Genesis 2 and 3 and how they theologically matter to Christians today. One of those chapters is largely written by NT Wright about how Paul understood Adam. And while that is not one of Wright’s clearer works, it really stands out in the book because Walton can be so dull. I don’t want to harp on boringness of the book too much, but it is a real problem.

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Summary: Two pamphlet length articles joined together for a short book.

Spiritual Direction has been an interest of mine for the past several years. With the rise of renewed interest in liturgical and sacramental expressions of faith, the historic practice of spiritual direction has also come back into awareness.

As a number of friends and internet-only acquaintances are becoming Anglican/Episcopal or Catholic I keep hearing of more and more that have been going to spiritual directors. (And a number that have not been converting are also going to spiritual directors.)

Many of those spiritual directors are Catholic (or at least were trained by Catholic spiritual directors.) I have been going to a Spiritual Director for nearly two years now. My own spiritual director is protestant, but goes to a Catholic spiritual director himself and was formally trained in spiritual direction with mostly Catholic instructors.

Spiritual direction has a long and varied history. But it was originally the practice of monks and nuns. Thomas Merton, one of the most recognizable monks of the 20th century was writing primarily to the monastics here but intending to be overheard by those that were not living a monastic life.

Spiritual direction is not about finding the wise guru and learning from them. Nor is it about counseling. According to Merton:

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Summary: A previously hidden order of monks calls on Gamache when their Prior is murdered.

Louise Penny has frequently hinted at religious issues in the previous books. But with Beautiful Mystery, set in a monastery, religious thoughts are on full display.

Penny is playing with the recent popularity of Gregorian Chant. In her fictional world, the rise of interest about Gregorian Chant is the responsibility of a previously hidden order of monks from rural Canada.

This order was among the earliest settlers of Quebec to escape potential investigation by the Inquisition. And once established, they fell off the radar of the church and intentionally hid.

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