The Boy In the Striped Pajamas by John Boynea

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The Boy In the Striped Pajamas by John BoyneaThe Boy In the Striped Pyjamas is a novel by Irish author, John Boynea.  The story is about a 9-year-old German boy, Bruno, whose father becomes a very important man within the Nazi party.  The boy’s father is transferred to be in command of the Auschwitz concentration camp and takes his family with him.  Out of loneliness and curiosity, Bruno goes exploring and discovers a boy who is the same age as him on the other side of the fence.  The boys find that they have quite a bit in common and after talking for many weeks or months they become very close friends.

The novel highlights the fact that this 9-year-old boy is very sheltered and relatively ignorant to what is going on in the world around him.  All the boy knows is that he had to leave his best friends in Berlin to come to this horrible place where he has no friends except for this one boy who lives on the other side of the fence. While he has been told that Germans are superior over others, he really doesn’t know why he was told that or what implication that statement has on other people’s lives.

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An eInk Case for Your Galaxy S4

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I am a fan of eInk technology.  It is low power, low eye-strain, good for lots of reading conditions.  So I am interested in the variety of ways that it is used. PocketBook has released a new eInk case for your Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone. The Galaxy S4 is in a case, the connector works … Read more

Redshirts by John Scalzi

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Reposting the review of Redshirts because it won the 2013 Hugo Award on Sept 1.

Redshirts: A Novel with Three CodasSummary: The Redshirts realize they keep dying.

If you are a fan of science fiction, you probably get the joke about redshirts. In the original Star Trek whenever there was an away team that visited another planet or ship, there was usually one extra person (that was wearing a redshirt). The extra person was supposed to be just a general crew member, but it was almost always that person that got killed or hurt.

In this book, Scalzi takes the idea of the Star Trek meme and writes a world where the redshirts are aware of the problem and try to avoid the captain and upper officers as much as possible.

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Philosophy: A Student’s Guide by David Naugle

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Philosophy: A Student's Guide by David NaugleTakeaway: Content may be king, but organization is important to communicate the message.

I read because I love to read.  But one of the biggest reasons that I love to read is because I am curious.  I want to know more about the world.  I want to hear great stories that help me to experience what has been or might have been or could be.  The more you know the more you know you don’t know.

I picked up Philosophy: A Student’s Guide when it was on sale from Crossway a couple weeks ago.  While I have a pretty good background in theology and bible, my philosophy background is weak.  So this seemed a good place to bone up on a weakness.

Philosophy: A Student’s Guide is a short (130 pages) introduction to Christian Philosophy.  The basic question is ‘in light of canonical Trinitarian Theism, how do we approach…’.  There is a chapter on Metaphysics, Anthropology, Ethics, Epistemology and Aesthetics.  These chapters were fairly helpful at looking at a particular way to approach Philosophy as a Christian.

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The Death Cure by James Dashner (Maze Runner #3)

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The Death Cure by James DashnerTakeaway: Sometimes desperate situations lead to desperate measures.  But there should always be a limit if we are to claim the title human.

The final book in the trilogy was both fulfilling and a little frustrating.  As I got closer to the end I was pretty sure that either I was going to be unsatisfied with the ending, or there was a fourth book that I did not know about.  (There is not a fourth both, although there is a prequel that I have not read yet.)

In the final book, Thomas and the remaining subjects have completed the maze.  They have completed the Scorch Trials.  Soon after the beginning of the book, Thomas completes a month in solitary confinement.  But W.I.C.K.E.D is not done.  There are more test, more trials, more testing.

What should happen? If there really is the potential for a cure then shouldn’t Thomas and the others participate?  Shouldn’t they make sure that they do everything they can to save the world?

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Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by JK Rowling (#6)

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Harry Potter and the Half Blood PrinceTakeaway: Even after I have read most of these books multiple times, Harry Potter is still engaging.

I picked up Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on a whim.  To the best of my memory, I do not think I have read this since it first came out in 2005.

Inspite of the single reading, this has been my favorite of the series.  And while I have liked all the books, 1-3 are very much middle grade books (I know technically this is still middle grade too, but it clearly is an older middle grade).  I like the older books better.  The Goblet of Fire felt too much like a quest, then wait, then quest then wait formula.  In the Order of the Phoenix, Harry was too whiney.  The Half Blood Prince is just right in tone and Harry Potter.  He is old enough that he starts maturing in many ways (although he is still Snape/Malfoy obsessed.)

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John Knox for Armchair Theologians by Suzanne McDonald

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John Knox for Armchair TheologiansTakeaway: Ways of reading scripture that we take for granted as today were revolutionary in the past.

Short histories, like the Armchair Theologian series or the Very Short Introduction series are hit or miss. Because the author usually has wide latitude to emphasize what they want and organize the books on their own, reading one book is not a good introduction to series.

Aquinas for Armchair Theologians gave a decent biography of Aquinas but focused on how Aquinas changed the nature of philosophy for the modern world.  It as very focused on explaining how to read Aquinas as a modern reader.

John Calvin for Armchair Theologians was very sparse on biography and mostly focused on walking through the structure of Calvin’s Institutes as an organizational structure for Calvin’s theology and thought process. In the process, it seems to not do a very good job introducing Calvin or his theology.

John Knox for Armchair Theologians is mostly a history of the Scottish Reformation and John Knox’s role in that.  While there are several interludes discussing Knox’s writing, there are only a handful of short quotations.  So if you are looking for an introduction to Knox’s theology, this is not it.

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