Bookwi.se

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

July 15, 2026January 11, 2013 by Adam Shields

Summary: Three intertwining story lines in a rural Kentucky community

After reading Poisonwood Bible and Flight Behavior at the end of last year I still wanted more Barbara Kingsolver. I really do think she is one of the best living novelist and I wanted more. So I picked up Prodigal Summer because it was on sale for $2.99 on kindle. (Back down to that price)

My wife and I read it together around the time it originally came out. Of the books I have read by Kingsolver it is the lightest. Kingsolver likes to deal with heavy subjects.

The main themes of this book are still heavy, the evolutionary process, what it means to survive when it requires others to die to support us, finding a new place as the world changes around you, etc. But it also is the most traditional romantic story of the Kingsolver books I have read.

Offsite Review of the Holy Bible

January 10, 2013 by Adam Shields

Most of the time I really look for good reviews of good books. I tend to not post negative offsite reviews because I am trying to help people find good books to read. But this is just funny. Andy Darnell tweeted the link to this yesterday and I had to pass it on. This of … Read more

Kindle Touch Gets New Software Upgrade

January 9, 2013 by Adam Shields

Today Amazon released a new major update to the Kindle Touch software. (You know the kindle that they stopped supporting when Amazon released the Paperwhite.) It has many of the best software features of the kindle paperwhite, just without the light and crisper screen. If you have Touch you can wait for it to automatically … Read more

Challies on the Ethics of Book Reviews

January 9, 2013 by Adam Shields

Challies posted an article about how and why he gives good and bad reviews on his blog and more importantly how he evaluates a work on context of the larger ministry. He is directly responding to criticism of his two recent reviews of books by James McDonald and Mark Driscoll. I often disagree with the … Read more

Offsite Review: Was America Founded As a Christian Nation by John Fea

July 15, 2026January 9, 2013 by Adam Shields

There are far too many good books to read them all. That is the main point for reviews. It is also important to pay attention to experts in a field when reading specialized books, like sciences or history. Too often popular authors cherry pick data to prove a point, and while more academic scholars may … Read more

Offsite Review: The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity

January 8, 2013 by Adam Shields

The Oxford Handbook of The Trinity is not available for kindle and the hardcover version is $131 used ($145 new, $150 suggested retail). So I probably will not pick it up any time soon. But the review is very positive and I will pay attention to used book stores and look around at my library … Read more

Another Best Books of 2012 List

January 8, 2013 by Adam Shields

I have one more Best Books of 2012 list that I forgot to share. EmilyReads is a great blog. All of her reviews (usually 3 a week) are in haiku. She used to work in the children’s book publishing world and so many of the reviewed books are children’s or young adult. But since she … Read more

Offsite Review: A Killer in the Wind by Andrew Klavan

July 15, 2026January 8, 2013 by Adam Shields

John Wilson, the editor of Books and Culture Magazine is the one that originally introduced me to Andrew Klavan. Klavan has written a number of thriller and mystery books but has concentrated on the Christian book world, especially young adult over the past few years. Bookwi.se has reviewed his Homelanders Series, and two of his … Read more

Planet Narnia: The Seven heavens in the Imagination of CS Lewis

January 8, 2013 by All Old Users

Despite being modern classics beloved by children, laymen adults, and critics alike, the Chronicles of Narnia are admittedly somewhat of a literary hodge-podge. Or so most believed. Many have attempted to build a comprehensive interpretive framework for them, but none have received wide acceptance. Michael Ward, Oxford scholar and C.S. Lewis aficionado, presents his own framework, arguing that the classic Ptolemaic solar system (not the modern Copernican) holds the key to understanding the series. Ward’s research of the Chronicles and its author is impressively extensive. He shows how Lewis was steeped in the cosmological mythology of medieval literature, and he illustrates the heavy influence wielded by a particular planet throughout each book.