The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

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The Handmaid's TaleSummary: A dystopian novel where women have become chattel and a theocratic government has taken over the US.

The Handmaid’s Tale was written in 1985 and I never would have read it if Audible had not commissioned Claire Danes to read it.

I know that it should not matter that famous authors are reading famous books, but this series has excellent quality narrations.  (Others in the series that I have listened to are The End of the Affair and The Wizard of Oz).

Claire Danes give a very flat narration, which is perfect for the book.  The narrator, OfFred, is the first generation after the US has been taken over by a theocratic government.  The coup d’état was started when a small group of highly placed officials were behind a mass assassination of the President and the entire Congress.  The assassination was blamed on Islamic terrorists and a state of emergency was called.

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New Sony Ereader Comes Out Sept 19

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Sony had always made solid, but relatively unimpressive ereaders.  Back in 2007-2008 when ereaders were just taking off, Sony was a major player.  But their lighted ereader, the PRS-700 was horrible.  And they do not seem to have recovered since then. Goodereader has a review (appears to be reviewing the specs and not the device) … Read more

Offsite Review: An Unpredictable Gospel: American Evangelicals and World Christianity, 1812-1920

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John H Armstrong has introduced me to a number of good books. He has a wide ranging reading list and more importantly, he is interested in the whole church, not just the small evangelical corner of it. He posted some thoughts about An Unpredictable Gospel: American Evangelicals and World Christianity, 1812-1920 by Jay Case this … Read more

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

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Walk Two Moons by Sharon CreechTakeaway: In a novel it seems to be appropriate to spread out a simple story over a five day car trip.

I am a fan of young adult fiction.  But I often do not enjoy middle grade fiction.  There is something about the middle grade years that seems to rub me the wrong way.  I am not sure what it is.

Whatever it is, Walk Two Moons seemed to hit all my buttons.  The story is narrated by the main character (Sal) as she and her grandparents drive from her home to see her mother.

Coincidentally, Sal tells her grandparents about her best friend (Phoebe) and how Phoebe’s mom disappeared without a trace.  And how that affected Phoebe and those around her.  Of course, this is partially her own story. Sal’s mother left the family, which led to Sal and her Dad leaving their family farm and moving into town.  So Sal is relating Phoebe’s story as a way of coming to terms with her own story.

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Reverting to Type: A Reader’s Story by Alan Jacobs

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Reverting to Type: A Reader's Story by Alan JacobsTakeaway: The background to a book can be as interesting as the book itself (so read those epilogues and acknowledgements and introductions, they are often important.)

I really intended to re-read The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction this summer.  I have lots of good intentions with my reading.  But I often get distracted (squirrel!) with other books.

I also forgot that I bought Reverting to Type nearly 18 months ago, right after Jacobs released it.  I stumbled on it again last week and read it on a quick Friday afternoon (it is only 32 pages).

The Pleasures of Reading is a very freeing book, focusing on rediscovering reading as a pleasure, not a chore.  And Reverting to Type is more of a personal description of the same thing.

Jacobs is an English prof (25 years at Wheaton and moving to Baylor this fall).  So after giving the reader a description of his family background in reading (involving lots of westerns, science fiction and detective novels).  He talked about how he became a professor and began teaching. What was important for this essay (and related to the Pleasures of Reading) was that once when he was frustrated in grad school and again later as a professor he realized that the pleasure of the ‘genre fiction’ was valuable.

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Offsite Review: Aliens in the Promise Land: Why Minority Leadership is Overlooked in White Christian Churches and Institutions

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The church in the US has many things to say to culture about how to minister to the poor, how to advocate for the weak and how to value family.  But one area of social justice that seems to consistently be missing (or at least under-addressed) is the role of minorities among predominately White denominations … Read more

To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World by James Davidson Hunter

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To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World by James Davidson HunterSummary: The irony from the title is that Hunter believes that we cannot really change the world.

When I first started using Lendle, I did not realize that when you ask to borrow a kindle book, you are asking for that book right now. That ended up giving me a few books to borrow when I didn’t have time to read them. But in this case it gave me a copy of To Change the World nearly two years after I requested it. (If you are a patron on Lendle you can hold a place in line but then wait until you are read to read the book.)

So I ended up with To Change the World in the middle of my beach vacation. To Change The World is not what I was looking for. Most of the summer I have been reading only fiction, and fairly light fiction at that.

To Change the World is a serious book by sociologist James Davidson Hunter. He is the author probably most well known for his book 1991 book Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America. To Change The World is three long essays about the nature of ‘World Changing’.

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Offsite: Sermonsmith

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Pastors are readers.  Based on a Barna research project the digital world is also changing the way Christians read. But within the church, the role of preaching communicating the truth of the gospel is still central.  So I am happy to recommend a new podcast/blog devoted to interviews with pastors focused solely on improving the craft of … Read more

The Beggar Queen by Lloyd Alexander (Westmark #3)

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The Beggar QueenSummary: The Queen takes a larger role in the final book of this trilogy.

It is unfortunate that this series is out of print and not yet on kindle It does not make sense to me why publishers are either not working faster on moving out of print books into ebooks, releasing books to authors to turn into ebooks, or authors claiming back their out of print books and turning them into ebooks on their own.

There are some books that are not good enough to re-release. But many books released in the 60s to 90s are good enough. I know the real reasons are often complicated (capital, not wanting to cannibalize current sales, technical know-how). But as someone that has formated three books for kindle for friends, it is not that hard. I think most books could be converted and formatted for less than $2000. Because of copyright, many will need new covers, which can cost just as much. But this is way less than actually writing a new book.

Open Road is an ebook publisher that has focused on taking older released by well known authors that are out of print and moving them to ebooks (and maybe new print editions.)

None of that has anything to do with The Beggar Queen other than the fact that this is a very good young adult series that is out of print. The paperbacks are easily available used and some new copies of the 2002 edition are still available.

In this book, Queen Augusta has spent two years trying to work out a new government. Her ‘counselors’ (Theo, Justin and Florian) have been working on a constitution but there is a number of road blocks. Augusta (or Mickle as we know her) is working to find a way to break the impacts.

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