Blogger Review Books – Page 13

The Catholic Church: What Everyone Needs to Know by John Allen Jr

March 11, 2013 by Adam Shields

Summary: A well written succinct account of the Catholic church. Primarily concerned with the workings and practice of the church. Written in a question and answer format, which is wearing after awhile.

Over the past year or so I have been reading to understand more about the Catholic church. I have read several accounts of conversion from Protestant to Catholic. I have read Robert Barron’s Introduction to Catholicism and Scott Hahn’s 40 Catholic Customs and their Biblical Roots and Richard Rohr’s Why Be Catholic. I have read Mark Noll’s evaluation of the state of the Catholic church and Evangelical/Catholic Relations. I even have read (but not yet reviewed) the first of the Pope’s books on Jesus.

But all of these books have been either primarily theological or primarily personal accounts of the Catholic church. John Allen is the senior Vatican correspondant for the National Catholic Reporter and Vatican analyst for CNN. This new introduction to the Catholic church (very conveniently released just as the conclave gets under way to elect a new Pope), is clearly the work of a journalist.

The writing is clear and punchy. It gets straight to the point and it covers a wide swath of material.

Operation Screwtape: The Art of Spiritual War by Andrew Farley

March 5, 2013 by Adam Shields

Summary: A modern take on CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters.

I remember reading CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters when I was pretty young. I am not sure, but I think I was probably 12 or 13.

It was just enough humor and story for me to be able to read, while at the same time absorbing some good theology. I think that is what Matt Mikalatos is doing with Imaginary Jesus and Night of the Living Dead Christian (Bookwi.se Reviews), but there are not many other books that are trying to mix a light story wrapper on good theology.

Wisdom of Stability: Rooting Faith in a Mobile Culture

February 26, 2013 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: The hard work of building community and developing others has to start with a commitment to stability. If we are serious about changing the world, making a commitment to a specific geography may be the best way to do it.

When I was in college I had a respected mentor of mine pray Jeremiah 29: 4-6 over me (Jeremiah tells the exiles to go ahead and settle down, stay awhile and make Babylon’s concerns and needs their own concerns and needs.) I took that seriously. I expected to stay in Chicago for the rest of my life. I did for 15 years, but then moved to Georgia in order to be closer to my wife’s family. While in Chicago for the last 10 years, my wife and I were members of church near the University of Chicago. In a five year period, there were 27 different people that were a part of our small group. At the end of the five years none of the people still attended the church and only one couple still lived in Chicago. We live in a mobile society (especially those that live in urban areas), even if mobility is down a bit over the past few years.

One of the first things I noticed in this book is that Jonathan Hargrove-Wilson speaks of stability and community in similar ways that Rhett Smith, Shane Hipps and others do. All of these authors fear that people get just enough community, stability, intimacy from their online or short term relationships to keep them from going deeper and getting what they are really looking for. There is an anecdote about a parishioner complaining to the pastor that they were not finding community the church they had been attending for almost a year. The pastor responds that they had only had one year worth of community. The type of community that the couple was looking for requires 30 years of investment. In many ways, this is similar advice and focus as Eugene Peterson‘s Practice Resurrection and A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.

Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books by Tony Reinke

February 25, 2013 by Adam Shields

Summary: Advice for the reluctant reader.

Lit opens with an explanation that its purpose is to convince people that do not like to read, why they should read. So obviously I am not the intended audience. But I did find some to like in this book. (Although I am not sure I can really recommend the book.) The parts I liked most were the casual reading advice sections. I did not agree with a number of the pieces of advice. Tony Reinke is consciously attempting to write a Christian version of the classic Mortimer Adler’s How To Read a Book (wikipedia link). There were many places where I thought, “Why would you encourage people to do that?”. For instance he encouraged people to spend about a hour going over a book before you start reading it, looking through the table of contents, writing up questions that you want answered in the book, reading the last couple pages, looking over reviews before you start. I think some of these ideas are good, but is this the way to encourage people to read? These are maybe things you should be doing before you pick (and buy) a book. But this seems to be squeezing the enjoyment out of reading.

My larger concern is with the structure of the book. Reinke starts with almost a full quarter of the book discussing scripture and how we need to keep scripture as our prime reading material, how scripture is different than other books and a discussion of truth and how we can only understand truth in other books once we understand the truth of scripture. I understand why he has this long discussion in another type of book. It is important to his theology of reading, which is the basis for why the entire book is written. But if the intended audience really are reluctant readers, they are never going to get through that section to the advice sections on how and why they should be reading.

137 Books in One Year: How to Fall in Love With Reading

January 23, 2013 by Adam Shields

Summary: Practical steps on how to read more, and fall in love with reading, because you enjoy it, not because it is good for you.

One of those books I have not read, but I have been influenced by is How to Read by Mortimer Adler. Adler is one of those people that approaches books scientifically.

While I have not read Adler, I have read Lit! by Tony Reinke which is intentionally a Christianized version of Adler. I read and reviewed it last year. Lit! had a very good theology of reading and some good ideas about how to read better.

But on the whole I think that it lost the focus on reading for pleasure and concentrated too much on reading for good. It was focused on efficiency and ‘getting the most’ out of the books that you are reading. That is not all bad, but it is a good way to suck joy out of reading. It is like talking about how to get the most out of being a parent or a spouse without actually talking about enjoying your actual children or spouse.

137 Books in One Year does not have that problem. This is a book to read if you want to find the joy of reading again. This is a short book (93 page). I read it in about an hour. It is in three parts. Just over half the book is Kevin Hendrick’s 10 steps to read more and enjoy what you are reading more. These are practical (always carry a book) and focused on pleasure (read what you like).

The Search For God And Guinness by Stephen Mansfield

December 6, 2012 by All Old Users

Summary: A fascinating history, but the writing was sophomoric.

Searching for God and Guinness is a “biography” of beer’s role in history and culture through the lens of one of the most famous brands and the family behind it. In simple and readable prose, Stephen Mansfield traces the arc of beer–specifically its origins as a moral and healthy alternative to the hard liquors that destroyed men and marriages, the economic and social development of the Guinness family, and especially the latter’s incredible impact on the justice issues of the day.

The Knockoff Economy: How Imitation Sparks Innovation

November 27, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: Fascinating look at creative areas of the economy where copyright and patent law do not apply.

According to the common line of thinking, without copyright and/or patent law there would be no incentive to create. The authors of this books are not completely dismissing this claim.

Instead they are following creative industries where copyright and patent law legally are not applicable. The areas explored are fashion (you cannot copyright a ‘useful object’), food (you cannot copyright a series of instructions), football (theoretically you can copyright choreography but no one has tried to do this in football), open-source software, magic and comedy.

All of the areas are very creative, and all are thriving. The authors look at the way that alternative means are used to reward creativity and limit inappropriate copying.

Nearing Home: Life, Faith and Finishing Well by Billy Graham

November 7, 2012 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: Old age is hard, but part of life, and part of God’s plan.

Billy Graham has a distinctive clear style of writing and his latest book (published at 93 years old) is still the same. As with every one of his books, there is a clear presentation of the plan of salvation. But this book is written for a particular audience, and at 38, I am not it.

Nearing Home is written primarily for those that are 50 or 60 years old and above. Some of it is basic advice as for those that are aging (have a will, make plans for your health care, talk to your heirs about your wishes, etc.). Much of the book is spiritual and relational advice.

Finding God in the Hunger Games by Ken Gire

October 18, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: Mostly Gire does not find God at the hunger games.

I loved the Hunger Games. I have read it twice, watched the movie twice. I spent long hours talking with my wife about the books (we don’t often read the same books and when we do we often talk a lot about them.)

So when christianaudio.com was offering Finding God in the Hunger games to review I jumped. And since the book is short I listened to it all in an afternoon the same day I requested the review copy.

My main problem is that this is a slipshod book. I do not have a problem with the relatively short length (about 85 pages). But the is not really a book about the Hunger Games. It is three essays. One about entertainment and Rome. One about the hunger for God within each of us. And a final chapter about the end times.

Not only is Finding God in the Hunger Games not about the real content of the Hunger Games, but the author admits that the few interactions with the Hunger games are mostly from the movie and not the book. That was disappointing, no where in the description does it say that this book is primarily about the movie.

He even says he had not finished reading the book before he started watching the movie. This leads to lots of impressions and not much content. There are the occasional quotes, discussing a couple scenes. However, what I was looking for was a discussion of the story, the over arching themes of the book.

Kneeling With Giants: Learning to Pray with History’s Best Teachers

October 18, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: A look at 10 different forms of prayer through biographical sketches.

There are so many books on prayer. As Evangelicals have started paying more attention to historical theology, church history and church practices of other streams of Christian faith there is a need for books like Kneeling with Giants to help us understand the value of prayer practices that we may not be as familiar with.

Gary Hansen takes his experience teaching prayer practices to seminary students and melds it with good church history. In many ways the actual information is not much different from what has been presented in other books, like Richard Foster’s Prayer. But this book will appeal to those that like their history in biographical sketch. Foster can be a bit heady at times.