The Android’s Dream by John Scalzi

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Reposting this 2012 review because the Audiobook is today’s Audible Deal of the Day and on sale for $3.95 today only (June 7)

The Android's DreamSummary: Two trade representatives die during an interstellar trade negotiation creating an interstellar incident.  If Harry Creek does not find a particular type of sheep there might a war, one that Earth will not be able to win.

I enjoyed reading Agent to the Stars so much that I picked up another John Scalzi book.  And since it had Will Wheaton as narrator I picked up the audiobook.

Both of Scalzi’s books that I have read so far have not been primarily concerned with the science.  Instead the are science fiction settings, there are aliens, it is in the future, but it is really just the setting, not the main concern of the book.  So people that do not traditionally like science fiction might like these.

Android’s Dream is more of a spy book than a science fiction book.  Harry Creek is a former cop, a former war hero, a computer specialist and currently works for the State Department giving aliens bad news.

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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis (Movie/Book Review)

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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS LewisTakeaway: You do not need long books to tell big stories.

The thing that keeps striking me as I read through the Chronicles of Narnia recently is how short these books are. In my imagination, these are big books, maybe not Harry Potter length children’s books, but fairly weighty tomes.

The reality is that the Chronicles of Narnia are short children’s books.  The single volume of the whole series is shorter than just Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  So it seems a bit odd to me that the movies are so long.

The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe is just over 4 hours on audiobook but 2 and a half hours as a movie.

The 2005 movie is faithful and good. But it loses some of the childhood wonders of the book.  I have been reluctant to read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe as I have been reading through CS Lewis because it is such a familiar story to me.  I choose to listen to it on audiobook (in part because I ran across it at the library) but also because I wanted to re-capture being read to.  This is one of the earliest books I remember being read to me.

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Behind the Candelabra by Scott Thorson and Alex Thorleifson

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Behind The Candelabra is a memoir about Scott Thorson’s life with Liberace.  Scott recounts how he met, came to live with, love, work with, and got rejected by Liberace. Liberace was known as Mr. Showmanship as he gave extravagant performances on the piano.   While he never admitted to being homosexual, according to Thorson, Liberace led a very flamboyant life within the gay community and often would maintain homosexual relationships by hiring them onto his staff. Thorson’s memoir about their relationship and how it ended abruptly in 1982 was published in 1988 and was written after Liberace died of AIDS in 1987.

I have very mixed emotions about this book. The book itself did not feel like an act of revenge.  The book seemed to simply tell about the relationship that was a huge part of Scott Thorson and Liberace’s lives. I don’t feel like Liberace was bad mouthed or slandered.  I don’t feel like Thorson was taking pot shots at his former lover, even though he could have as Liberace was not around to defend himself.  The novel paints Liberace as a very passionate man who loves with his whole being. Unfortunately, it seems that his love fades and can be transferred quickly and become just as fierce towards the next lover.  For me, it was interesting learning about how Thorson became enveloped in Liberace’s life and came to love him deeply.  Thorson describes his relationship with Liberace (who was 40 years Thorson’s senior) as if it lasted a lifetime, but in reality it started when Thorson was 17 but was over before Thorson reached 23 years of age.

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Sun Stand Still: What Happens When You Dare Ask God for the Impossible by Steven Furtick

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I am reposting this 2010 review because Sun Stand Still is part of the June 2014 Monthly Sale. It will be $3.99 until the end of the month.

Summary: God can answer big prayers.

This book is about praying the big prayers that show that God is really in control, not us.  The kind of prayers that allow us to worship God because we know that it is only through his power that things are accomplished.

The book is a long meditation on the story of Joshua, when he prays to ask God to hold the sun so that they army of Israel will have time to finish defeating the 5 armies it was coming up against.

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In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honore

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Reposting this 2011 review because the Kindle Edition is on sale for $1.99.

In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed (Plus)Takeaway: A bit repetitive, but the basic idea, that slowing down, enjoying life, and doing things well instead of fast is a good reminder.

Efficiency and speed are part of the world we live in.  With computers and other tools, fewer people can do more than ever before.  But instead of using the extra time, most people tend to either just do more instead of enjoying the additional products of our labor.

In Praise of Slowness is a book I first heard about from Anne Jackson.  I purchased it then (it was only $5 at the time) and it has been sitting on my shelf for a couple years.

I started reading it last week and enjoyed the basic thesis that faster is not necessarily better.  The book starts with the author seeing an ad for 1  minute bedtime stories.  He was both interested in getting the book and horrified that he had gotten to the point of efficiency that he was actually interested in being efficient in the amount of time he was spending with his child.  This started a long term investigation into speed and backlash of slow advocates.

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A Passion for God: The Spiritual Journey of AW Tozer by Lyle Dorsett

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Summary: AW Tozer is one of the great spiritual writers of the 20th century, and a prime example of God using less than perfect people.

I read A Passion for God first about three years ago.  It is one of those books that has stuck with me more than most.

The main reason is that Tozer is a perfect example of something that theologically I don’t really have a category for.  Tozer, by nearly everyone that knew him’s estimation, was a real and passionate man of God.  But at the same time he was distant from his family (especially his wife), personally lonely and probably leaned toward clinical depression.

It is not that I don’t think Christians can be depressed or lonely.  I certainly think they can.  But Tozer, like several other pietistic leaning pastors that I have read or read about seemed to lack many of the interpersonal tools of relating to those closest to him (while pouring forth energy on others.)

As with the first time I read the book, the most damning sentence in the book is a quote from Tozer’s wife who remarried after Tozer died. Her standard answer when people asked how she was doing after re-marrying was a variant of: “˜Aiden loved Jesus but (her new husband) loves me.’

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Seven Grams of Lead by Keith Thomson

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Summary: A journalist tries to stay alive while tracking down a story about abuse of power by a rogue agent.

Several years ago I was turned onto Keith Thomson when John Wilson (editor of Books and Culture) talked about Thomson’s earlier book Once a Spy.

Once a Spy was part of my getting back into spy novels that lead to me reading a number of John le Carre’s books and other classic and contemporary spy novels.

I picked up Seven Grams of Lead when it was the Kindle Daily Deal a couple weeks ago (and on sale for $1.99).

On the whole this was a much more traditional thriller than the Once a Spy/Twice a Spy books.  Russ Thornton is a journalist/blogger that is known for his investigative reporting on government and big business.  When an old friend calls asking for help (and ends up dead),  Thornton realized that he was the one that inadvertently gave away her secret because his body had been bugged.

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Most Read Book Reviews for May 2014

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Below are the eight most read book reviews over the past month. I am very excited that three of the eight are from Bookwi.se Contributors. I very much appreciate that others are contributing reviews to Bookwi.se. Without them this blog would not be nearly as good.    

Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman (TV/Book Review)

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Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison by Piper Kerman

Orange Is the New Black is a memoir written by Piper Kerman that chronicles the year that she spent in a minimum-security prison.  The book starts with Kerman describing her college years and the events that ended up landing her in prison and ends with her release from prison after serving twelve months of a fifteen-month sentence.

In the memoir, Kerman describes many of the unique people she meets and events she experiences in prison.  I found it undeniably entertaining to read about the Russian cook, the Dominican bunkmate, the politically geared warden, and delinquent electric shop manager, among others. Listening to Kerman describe how her life became a series or routines and rules, some unspoken and others tentatively ignored, gave me a very intriguing insight into the life of someone who resides in prison.

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