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Summary: A classic biography of St Francis from one of the great Christian authors of the 20th century.

GK Chesterton’s biography of St Francis is one of the classic biographies of St Francis and Chesterton attributed his work on this book to his eventual conversion to Catholicism.  Both of which were good reasons to read (listen) to this book.

I have started paying attention to the audiobook discounts when you first purchase kindle books.  So I picked this book up at the beginning of July when I had some promotional credits at Audible.  I might have been better served by reading the kindle version instead of listening to the audio version. Chesterton is not the easiest author to read.  He has a lot of asides and his fairly conversational writing style takes some getting used to.  That and he is brilliant.

Chesterton’s biography of St Francis is not a traditional biography.  Instead it is partially a biography and partially an exploration of the state of the Catholic church at the time of Francis and how Francis changed the Catholic church during his time and after. So if you are looking for a traditional biography, you will probably be disappointed by this book.  It has biographical details, but not many of them.

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Summary: Mickle (Queen Augusta) is on the throne, but now Westmark is being invaded by the Kingdom of Regina.

My memory of this series is that it was the most important anti-war books that I had read. I frequently thought about it when I was reading the second and third books of the Hunger Games.

And re-reading it 25 or so years later, I understand why the books have stuck with me. But like many young adult books that I have read again as an adult, the story is much less detailed and explicit than I remember.

In Westmark, Mickle, the princess, is found again and restored to her parents. Theo, the teen that fell in love with her, saved her life and helped her find her way back to her parents, has been given the task of traveling throughout the country to find out what the mood of the land is and how the King can improve the country. This is also a way to keep Mickle and Theo apart while they mature and to see if they really are in love.

While they are apart, Carrabas (who Theo saved and the King exiled at the end of the last book) has encouraged Regina, a kingdom to the north, to invade. This is only accomplished because a number of nobles and members of the military work with Regina to see it accomplished.

With the Westmark military in shambles it is only the people, and Florian’s rebels that can push Regina back.

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Takeaway: If we are going to take scripture seriously, we need to understand how it came to be.

Part of the movement within Christianity and the modern world is that the traditional means of understanding authority has changed.  No longer is it good enough to say, the bible says so.  Or at least, there are several important steps between.  And at least one of them is coming to an understanding that the bible is trustworthy.

For the Evangelical, understanding scripture as trustworthy means that we need to understand how we got the bible in the form it is in.

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Summary: Mix the Bachelor and Hunger Games, drop the blood, increase the romance and throw in a few dystopian elements and you get the Selection.

I think like most people I picked up this book because of the cover.  Almost every review I have read has commented on the cover.

There is more to this book than they cover, but like the cover this is mostly eye candy.

America Singer has been chosen for a competition to become the wife of the Prince and eventually the Queen.  The set up is very much like an episode of the Bachelor.  There are group meetings with the guy, everyone is swooning for him (except America), individual dates, people get eliminated.  There is a host that interviews the girls and the Prince and the whole country is wrapped up in the results.

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