Blogger Review Books

Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality by David G Benner

April 1, 2025March 8, 2016 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: God is love is not the only important thing in theology, but it may be one of the harder parts of the Christian life to truly accept.

I have a theological bias. I believe that any description of God and the Christian life that does not include God’s love as central to his essence, not just one of his characteristics, is missing the heart of the Christian life.

Yes, the “God is Love” can be and has been misused. But I would much rather move toward the potential over-adoption of God is love than the under-adoption. Going too far is balanced by prevalent themes in scripture. But under adoption of the ‘God is love’ principle fundamentally changes the nature of Christianity. It becomes performance based, rule following, and eventually a self-saving religion that rejects the concept of grace and ceases to be the orthodox Christianity of scripture.

I like to be (and need to be) continually reminded of God’s love of us as fallen, broken humans. David Benner (who I have read previously talking about spiritual direction) has expanded and re-issued a trilogy of books which starts with Surrender to Love.

Rain: A Natural and Cultural History by Cynthia Barnett

July 16, 2026March 3, 2016 by All Old Users

Rain. It’s a simple subject with somewhat of an easy explanation of what causes it. We don’t think about rain unless we’ve had too much or not enough. Cynthia Barnett, an environmental journalist, has accomplished the impossible; a highly entertaining and educational work on the history and story of rain. Although technically a scientific book, … Read more

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

July 27, 2026January 11, 2016 by All Old Users

Jean Perdu has devoted his life to his floating bookshop, The Literary Apothecary. Perdu has the amazing ability to diagnose his customers’ ailments and correctly prescribe a literary remedy. Although Perdu helps every shopper who frequents his business, he is unable (or unwilling) to read the one thing which will help him cope with decades of grief.

An international best-seller, The Little Paris Bookshop is the 26^th book by German writer, Nina George. George has created a unique premise in the most glorious setting with imaginative characters. Unfortunately, the story stalls halfway through and never regains its momentum. This is a shame; the story starts off very strong and the characters are quite memorable.

The Cairo Affair by Olen Steinhauer

July 15, 2026December 9, 2015 by Adam Shields

I am reposting 2014 review because the Kindle Edition is on sale for $2.99 (Today only).
Summary: Information is money (and/or power). But it is the people that really keep and break security.

Olen Steinhauer is probably my favorite spy novelist right now. Steinhauer is almost always compared to John le Carre‘. But I did not pick up my first le Carre’ novel until after I had read the first two of Steinhauer’s Tourist trilogy.

Steinhauer and le Carre’ are writing in the same subgenre of spy novels. They are detailed, more about the slow burn of uncovering details than the action (although there is action).

The Cairo Affair is broadly about Sophie Kohl, the wife of a diplomat. Just minutes after she confesses to her husband that she has had an affair, a man walks up to them at dinner and murders her husband right in front of her.

The murder of Sophie’s husband is then at the center of what may be an attempt to overthrow the government of Libya (this is set in 2011 before the fall of Gaddafi). The question is who is behind the attempt and why was her husband murdered. Working separately, Jibril Aziz, a CIA analyst and former field agent, is trying to figure out who has put the plan he wrote for the overthrow of Libya into action.

This is not a book that really has a central character. The story unfolds from a variety of perspectives with a number of scenes told from multiple perspectives. I really like this as a method, especially in a spy novel. The heart of spy novels is always information. And no one has all of the information.

Shaken Awake Book Release

November 29, 2015 by All Old Users

Last October, Bookwi.se Contributor Allen Madding released his new book Shaken Awake. The Kindle edition is free through Dec 2. I invited him to write a post introducing the book and its background. You can buy the Free Kindle Edition, Paperback or Audible.com Audiobook. ______________ Over 50 million people in America struggle with hunger[1] and 610,000 are homeless[2] while … Read more

Out of Sorts: Making Peace With an Evolving Faith by Sarah Bessey

July 27, 2026October 28, 2015 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: While they may be flawed, our faith communities are essential.

Ever since I ran across Sarah Bessey’s writing and especially when reading her first book Jesus Feminist, I have been struck by her desire to be inclusive and draw people together through her writing. Traditionally discussion of women’s roles is an exclusionary task, but Bessey, while clearly advocating for more inclusion of women in leadership and teaching roles in the church, was careful to not alienate those that disagreed with her.

In her new book, Out of Sorts: Making Peace With an Evolving Faith, she is equally adept at drawing the reader in. Out of Sorts is a hard book to describe. It is memoir-ish. It is a book about church and Bessey’s difficulties with the church, but it is not a complaint book. It is about spiritual growth and formation, denominations, Women, maturity, community and a variety of other topics.

The overriding theme is that faith changes over time. The faith we have as children is not the same faith we have as teens, which is not the same faith we have in our 20s or 40s or later. Bessey’s parents came to faith when she was a child, but old enough to remember. She grew up in small town Western Canada, where there were few enough Christians that she was relatively unaware of the differences between Christian groups. As she ventured out into the world she came to new understandings as she became acquainted with other Christians.

All is Grace by Brennan Manning

July 15, 2026October 19, 2015 by Adam Shields

I am reposting this 2011 review because the Kindle Edition is free through Oct 20, 2015. All Is Grace

Takeaway: In the end, all really is Grace.

Spiritual biography and autobiography has a tendency to push the lesson before the story. That is not all bad. Since Augustine’s Confessions, Christians have learned much from those that have gone before us. There are problems when the biography/autobiography verge into hagiography, showing only the good and never the bad. There is equally problems with the tell-all conversion stories that seem to revel too much in the pre-conversion life and too little in the post conversion reality. All is Grace does a good job of balancing the real, the history and the lesson.

Manning has had a hard life. This will be his last book. His ill health has meant that he has not been capable of speaking and writing over the past couple years and this book was only completed with the help of John Blase. This is the third such last book I have read this year. John Stott’s Radical Disciple, Eugene Peterson’s The Pastor: A Memoir (probably not his last book, but still in a similar vein of concluding his public ministry) and now Brennan Manning’s All is Grace. All three are very different, but are quite reflective of the lives that each have lived and the types of ministry they were called to serve. Stott’s book was more theological and pastoral, prodding us to continue on. Peterson’s book was reflective, asking us to look and see if we are adopting too much of the attitudes of the world instead of acting like the servant. Manning’s is another call to understand grace by looking at his own life that was marked by both great grace, and great need of grace.

I have read several books by Manning, but this memoir provides some historical structure that does much to give context to his other books. Brennan was born to a difficult family, marked by a lack of love and caring and a prevalence of alcohol. Manning was drinking heavily by age 16. But he also was a talented writer and started college young. He dropped out of college, joined the Marines right before the end of the Korean War. He became a war correspondent, went back to school to become a journalist, dropped out of college again, became a Franciscan, left the Franciscans to become a Little Brother, came back to the Franciscans and served as a college chaplain, participated in a experimental community like the Little Brothers in the US, again became a college chaplain. Each time it was about 2 years before he moved on to the next thing. By the last he was a clear alcoholic and was forced to seek treatment. After some treatment and some success with the treatment he started a new career as a Evangelist speaking about grace and forgiveness as a recovering alcoholic priest. But the alcohol never really was far away. Some alcoholics are able to live full lives, clean for the rest of their lives. Manning was not.

The Pastor’s Kid: Finding Your Own Faith and Identity by Barnabas Piper

July 27, 2026October 14, 2015 by Adam Shields

I am reposting this 2014 review because the kindle edition $1.99

Summary: A pastor’s kid talks to pastors and other pastor’s kids about being a pastor’s kid.

I am a pastor’s kid. In fact, pastoring is a bit of a family business. My brother, father, and 3 uncles and an aunt are pastors, another uncle is not officially ordained but was the main interim pastor for a small church for several years. Also a grandfather, a great-grandfather, a great-great grandfather were pastors and a great-great-great grandmother was a traveling evangelist in the civil war era (if I have my history right.)

And I know a lot of pastor’s kids. When you go to Wheaton College, there are a lot of pastor’s kids (and Missionary Kids which has its own special set of issues.) I know pastor’s kids that have done well, and those that have not. So I picked up The Pastor’s Kids (a review copy) with interest.

This is a pretty short book (about 140 pages of content or 3 hours of audio). John Piper introduces it and acknowledges that at time the book was hard for him to read because it is being written by his son about the problems of being a pastor’s kid. But John Piper wants to assure the reader that anything critical is about wanting what’s best for the church as a whole and pastor’s families in particular.

The end really hits that tone by concluding with all of the good that can come of being a pastor’s kid. Personally, that is where I and most other pastor’s kids I know end up. All in all, we are glad we were pastor’s kids.

The Liturgical Year by Joan Chittister (The Ancient Practices Series)

October 12, 2015 by Adam Shields

I am reposting this 2009 review because the Kindle Editionn is on sale for $1.99
I grew up as a low church baptist. We didn’t pay attention to the liturgical year, we didn’t use the Lectionary. I have absorbed some things about the church year through my time at Wheaton College and seminary. Some friends have paid more attention to the liturgical year and my wife and I have paid attention to Lent on and off since we went to Israel for Easter in 2001. But this book was a good formal introduction to not only what the liturgical year is, but why it is. The author describes it this way:

“The church year is not the marking of one lucelent, passing moment in the midst of eleven long months of dark nothingness all the rest of the year. It is month after month, every year of our lives, being taken back to the empty cross and the empty tomb, one way or another, in order to shape our own life in the light of them.” (From the 1st chapter.)

The author is a catholic nun, and writes using the Roman Catholic system as her primary focus. She also talks about some of the differences between Eastern and Western calendars and where the differences arose. It is not technical, fairly conversational and quite understandable to an outsider. It was a quick read, I read it is in two evenings.

Holy is the Day: Living in the Gift of the Present

July 28, 2026October 6, 2015 by Adam Shields

Summary: Another beautifully written book about finding God in the present.

I love blogging. But every once in a while, I get tired of the pressure to keep churning out content. It is work to try to figure out something to say about every book that you read.

However, much more often, books are a joy to read. It is one of my great pleasures to be able to recommend particular books to friends and family and then have them come back later and say they loved the book.

One of the books that I recommended to many over the past two years is Carolyn Weber’s Surprised by Oxford. It is Weber’s account of her first year of studying at Oxford and her unexpected conversion to Christianity during the same year. It is a beautifully written book.

So I have been expectantly waiting for her new book Holy is the Day. I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy the day before I left for vacation last week.

This was an airplane book (the only place I regularly read paper books.) Much shorter and more episodic than her previous book, Holy is the Day recounts stories of where Weber finds God in daily life.

I, as an expectant father, was particularly drawn in because the book opens and closes with birth stories. Birth and death are natural places where we see God because they are such transcendent experiences. But in between birth and death, God sometimes gets a little lost (or at least we lose sight of God in the midst of our busyness).

Most of the stories are in some way about family, community, and the church. We have a tendency to live as if we are alone. But it is in community, our families, the church, neighbors, and friends, that we often most clearly see and hear God. (This is very similar to the focus in Eugene Peterson’s Practice Resurrection).