The Maze Runner by James Dashner (Maze Runner #1)

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The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Summary: First in a dystopian series about a group of boys trapped in a maze.

When Thomas wakes up all he can remember is his name.  A group of teenage boys welcomes him to ‘the Glade’.

The Glade is a large open grassy area with high stone walls.  As Thomas asks questions he comes to understand that none of the boys can remember anything before the Glade.  Some have been there as long as 2 years.  The glade is in the center of a massive stone maze.  One that changes every night.

In the Maze the boys have created a functioning society.  And while there are always difficulties, this is not The Lord of the Flies.

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Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (Book & Movie Review)

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Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur GoldenMemoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden is a fictional account of the life of a successful geisha in Gion, Japan during the early to mid 1950s.  Golden wrote this novel after interviewing Mineko Iwasaki, who is said to be the most famous geisha in Japan until her early retirement at the age of 29.  The story tells of how a girl named Chiyo, who began with very humble beginnings as a poor fisherman’s daughter, became an honored and successful geisha in Japan.  Not too many years after the girl became a geisha and acquired her geisha name, Sayuri, World War II broke out and the geisha district of Gion was closed down only to be opened again after the war ended. More importantly, the novel tells of the romantic feelings that motivated every of Chiyo’s moves from the moment that she met the Chairman to her death.

The story of this geisha is a very compelling one and left me with the feeling that when entering a geisha district of Japan that one is transported into the past or at the very least into a different world that follows a different set of rules.  Men could leave their wives and come enjoy a guilt-free night in the company of another woman, which could occasionally lead to more.  A geisha is not a prostitute but seen as an artist.  Her skills include conversation, joke telling, game playing, dancing, instrument playing, singing and all while being a master of seduction.  Similar to perhaps a cruise ship director or a hibachi chef, when in their company you may play games or receive a meal all while being entertained by your host (That’s the best comparison I can think of.  Please leave a comment if you can think of a better one).

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Our Common Prayer: A Field Guide to the Book of Common Prayer

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Our Common Prayer: A Field Guide to the Book of Common PrayerSummary: A guide to the parts and functions of the book of common prayer service (not really to using the book itself).

Over the past several years I have been paying much more attention to the resources of higher church, especially in the areas of the liturgy.  However, temperamentally and experientially I am still a clearly low church Christian.

Part of what I have been talking about with Spiritual Director has been exactly that.  I have been trying to get back into the practice of fixed hour prayer.  Several years ago, I was able to do that fairly regularly when my oldest niece was an infant (and I was the nanny.)  But then a second niece was born and the naps were no longer overlapping and fixed hour prayer went out the window.

Even before reading Alan Jacob’s Book of Common Prayer: a Biography or reading Susan Howatch’s Church of England series, I was interested in the Book of Common Prayer as a spiritual practice.

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Farewell: The Greatest Spy Story of the Twentieth Century

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Reposting this review because Farewell is the Jan 8 Kindle Daily Deal and on sale for $1.99 (the audiobook is only $0.99 with purchase of the kindle book.)

Farewell: The Greatest Spy Story of the Twentieth CenturyTakeaway: The actual workings of spy tradecraft is as odd as the fictional ones.

Farewell is the code name of one of the most important spy stories of the 20th century.  A Russian KGB agent, frustrated with his treatment by the KGB, turned over thousands of pages of documents to the French secret service (the FBI equivalent, not the CIA equivalent) and was perhaps more responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union than any other single person.

The story really is both incredible and fairly simple. Vladimir Ippolitovitch Vetrov, a talented athlete, a good student and a handsome young man is recruited to the KGB.  He is trained as a foreign operative and serves two terms outside of Russia.  But because of some of the problems of the KGB and some of Vetrov’s own problems he gets called back to Moscow and ends up as a technical analyst.

Frustrated by his lack of importance and the lack of respect he feels he is getting, he decides to become an informant and contact the French DST.  Working with a French secret service he is first given a handler (a businessman that is close, but not a spy) and then a single agent.  But it may have been the very lack of tradecraft that allows Vetrov to sneak out hugely important technical details of the Soviet infrastructure, military and spy systems.

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The Good and Beautiful Community by James Bryan Smith

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The Good and Beautiful Community: Following the Spirit, Extending Grace, Demonstrating Love by James Bryan Smith

Summary: Spiritual growth is not accidental, it is intentional and it needs to be intentional as part of a community.

The Good and Beautiful Community is the last book in a trilogy of books that started with The Good and Beautiful God and The Good and Beautiful Life.  These books together are intended to be a full year group study on discipleship.  Starting with God, then moving to individual character and concluding with community.  I read Good and Beautiful God nearly 2 years ago and have always intended to read the rest of the series.  Christianaudio.com offered me a copy of Good and Beautiful Community for review and I snatched it up.

The basic structure of each of these book is to talk about the false narratives that we as Christians tend to have around various issues.  This third book seemed a bit more disjointed than the first, but I think it is partially the nature of community.  Community is a broad topic and Smith covers the ways that community needs to come together to serve, reconcile, worship, disciple.  These topics are not always joined together in people’s minds, but for the purposes of this book, they are all primarily about the church, not the individual.

This is the fourth book of Smith’s I have read and each of them really draw me back to focusing on discipleship and spiritual growth.  I tend to enjoy discussion (and arguing in my head) issues of theology and church practice, but Smith rightly brings the focus back to growth.  If by our discussions and reading and coming together we are not moving toward greater love for God and his people, then our discussions or reading or gatherings may not be beneficial.

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Most Read Book Reviews in 2013

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   The God of the Mundane by Matt Redmond  Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism by Molly Worthen  The Fault in Our Stars by John Green      Holy is the Day: Living in the Gift of the Present by Carolyn Weber  Divergent by Veronica Roth  137 Books in One Year: … Read more

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan (Book 1 of the Kane Chronicles)

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Reposting this review because Red Pyramid is free on Kindle. I was not a huge fan, but I have heard from several who thought that I was too hard on the book and have finished the trilogy. Free is worth picking up, and kindle format is probably better than the audiobook.

The Red Pyramid (The Kane Chronicles, Book 1)Summary: A brother and sister must figure out a way to save their parents and the world from a vengeful Egyptian god.

I found this free on audiobook from my local library. I am listening with two purposes. One, I need some lighter fiction. I have been over-doing the theology and heavy stuff and if I am going to keep blogging I need to maintain an intellectual balance of books. Too much intellectual challenge is draining. There has to be time to process and relax. But I also have several friends who have children that are reading faster than they can keep up. They are good parents that want to read what their kids read and try to have conversations and discussions with their kids about books, but there is a point when kids and parents reading speeds start converging and kids often have more time to read than their parents. So I am trying to keep an eye out for good middle grade, early young adult books that I can recommend.

I really enjoyed the Percy Jackson series and was interested in a new take on mythology from Riordan. This is definitely a different take.  Instead of the gods of Greek mythology, these are the gods of Egyptian mythology.  Instead of being focused on children that are half human/half Greek god, these are more like possession by the Gods.  The subject matter is just more problematic and the books feel a bit darker, although not much.

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Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue

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Reposting this review because Room is the Kindle Daily Deal on Jan 5 and on sale for $2.99 for kindle. (Only on sale on Jan 5).

Room: A NovelRating: 4 Stars

Imagine your mother was kidnapped before you were born and was forced to live as a prisoner in an 11 x 11 ft shed (the “Room”). Imagine that you were born in the Room and had never seen the world beyond its four walls. Finally, imagine at the age of 5 you are asked to explain what life is like living in the Room. That is what this book is about.

It is written from the perspective of a 5 year old, which makes the storytelling so compelling. Kids already have a difficult time understanding certain nuances and details in life that we adults take for granted. But even more so for Jack, who only knows the outside world from what he sees on TV and what Old Nick, his mother’s captor, brings to them for “Sundaytreat.” Here’s the first line from the book:

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The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind

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The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing MindSummary: Parenting is a full time job, but the goal is not entertainment, but preparing children for their future life.

We don’t do it often, but occasionally my wife and I read a book together.  Or in this case, we listened to this on audiobook together while driving back and forth to her family’s cabin.  It took us about six weeks to finished the book, but it led to a lot of good conversation about parenting and family.  Because I was a nanny to my two nieces for 5 years (now 6 and 4.5) and I am still very involved with them, and my wife has been a teacher for 17 years, we had a lot of current context to think about beyond our current 8 week old daughter.

I first came across this book in a series of posts from Rhett Smith, a family counselor.  The focus of the book is 12 different parenting strategies (which can be adapted for teachers or family members or others that work with children) to help children learn to integrate their emotional, intellectual and creative brain functions to be a more integrated person.

What I think is most important about this book is that while it believes parenting is very important, it is low pressure in its approach.  This is a quote from close to the end of the book:

“The goal of parenting is not to be perfect by an stretch of the imagination. But a goal of every parent should be to be intentionally and consistently engaged in the lives of our kids in a meaningful way “” not just there “” but really present.”

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