Wool on Wall Street Journal

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Hugh Howey, author of the Wool series, was the feature of a very good article on Wall Street Journal over the weekend.  The article is about how independent authors are changing the publishing industry.  In particular it is about how Howey was able to make more than $1 million dollars on his Wool series even … Read more

Offsite Note: Harry Potter for Charity

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Goodereader.com has a post about JK Rowling bringing two of her suplemental books about Harry Potter to ebook format for charity. Two books (Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) were originally written as fundraiser books for the charity Comic Relief. They are now are being brought to ebook and their proceeds will again … Read more

Living the Resurrection by Eugene Peterson

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Takeaway: Good introduction to Peterson’s idea of ‘practicing resurrection’ through engagement within the church.

I am pretty invested in Amazon’s store infrastructure.  I have been a member of Amazon Prime for about two years.  Recently in addition to the free shipping that is normally a part of Amazon Prime, Amazon has included free streaming video and the ability to borrow one free Kindle book a month.  I am using this free book a month to explore books that I would not normally buy.

This month I borrowed Eugene Peterson’s Living The Resurrection.  It is a short book, only three chapters and just over 100 pages in the main text.  I would not normally spend $7.99 to purchase such a short book by an author that I have read so much before. If you have Amazon Prime and would like to explore some of Peterson’s theological writing, this is a good introduction.

I appreciate several things about Peterson’s writing.  He is biblical, he walks through extended portions of scripture and does not take them out of context to support his position.  He also is a story teller.  He insures that his point is not only biblical but well illustrated so that it is understandable by a wide range of readers.  Third, he has a strong commitment to the church and to Christian community.

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The Catholic Church: What Everyone Needs to Know by John Allen Jr

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Summary: A well written succinct account of the Catholic church.  Primarily concerned with the workings and practice of the church. Written in a question and answer format, which is wearing after awhile.

Over the past year or so I have been reading to understand more about the Catholic church.  I have read several accounts of conversion from Protestant to Catholic. I have read Robert Barron’s Introduction to Catholicism and Scott Hahn’s 40 Catholic Customs and their Biblical Roots and Richard Rohr’s Why Be Catholic.  I have read Mark Noll’s evaluation of the state of the Catholic church and Evangelical/Catholic Relations.  I even have read (but not yet reviewed) the first of the Pope’s books on Jesus.

But all of these books have been either primarily theological or primarily personal accounts of the Catholic church.  John Allen is the senior Vatican correspondant for the National Catholic Reporter and Vatican analyst for CNN.  This new introduction to the Catholic church (very conveniently released just as the conclave gets under way to elect a new Pope), is clearly the work of a journalist.

The writing is clear and punchy.  It gets straight to the point and it covers a wide swath of material.

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Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel Review

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Reposting review because the book is now available in a Kindle Edition

A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic NovelSummary: The wonderful story with a new comic book feel in honor of its 50th anniversary.

Late every Christmas Eve my wife and I go over to her cousin’s house and we act as elves.  We put together all the toys, make sure all of the batteries are in (we cart away all the empty boxes and wrapping because Santa does not buy toys at the store.

As the kids have gotten older there are less complicated things for us to put together and we have more time to talk.

I was talking to my wife’s cousin’s husband and he was saying that over the past year he has rediscovered his love of comic books because of the iPad.  With his iPad he now is back to buying all kinds of comic books and rediscovering the joy of the comic in a new form. (Note: Marvel now has an unlimited subscription option for ipad comic books.)

I never got into comics.  I just didn’t have a community of friends that read them and so there was no one that shared them with me and my local library did not carry comic books (although I am sure some do.)

I have been paying more attention to factors in children’s reading.  Why is it that some kids read and some do not.  I am convinced that part of it is the community that they grow up in.  If everyone around them reads, then they probably will read as well.  One educator interviewed kids at her school that were readers and she found that the kids that were strong readers were closest to the local library and were encouraged to use it. (There is probably a causality problem with her research, but access to books is certainly one influence.)

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Marvel Unlimited Now on iOS

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A few years ago before I started regularly blogging when I had first picked up my iPad, I started reading comic books on the iPad.  I had never read a lot of comic books. But I love the story lines that I new from cartoons and movies. What kept me from really getting into comic … Read more

Bossypants by Tina Fey

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Kindle book dropped to $5.99 so I am reposting the review.

BossypantsTakeaway: Funny memoir, and surprisingly insightful discussion about the role of women in entertainment.

Tina Fey is a great writer.  I have never watched that much Saturday Night Life.  It is past my bed time (I usually wake up between 5 and 6 even on weekends.  Yes I am an old man.)  And I have never watched 30 Rock (although I am going to try it out after reading this book.)

But I have seen enough of Tina Fey that I was interested.  My Sister-in-Law passed on the hardcover months ago after she read it, but it was a hard cover and I never got to it.  Last week I picked up a free audiobook in a promotion (the promotion is dead now) and decided to listen to it as a change of pace.

I finished it in less than 24 hours.  It is not long, less than 6 hours unabridged.  But it is read by Tina Fey and she does a good job acknowledging that she is performing an audiobook, not just blandly reading the text.  There is even the audio clip of her first Sarah Palin SNL skit.  I love authors that read their own audiobooks.  The vast majority of the time it is so much better than a random narrator.

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