How Harry Cast His Spell by John Granger

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How Harry Cast His SpellIn this book John Granger succeeds phenomenally in describing–and defending the very existence of–the Christian symbolism and doctrine that veritably burst from the seams of the Harry Potter series. There is a reason the books are so popular: Rowling is writing subversively edifying Christian fiction in the tradition of all the “greats” of classic English literature, for the postmodern reader of the 21st century. A golden quote from the final chapter:

J.K. Rowling delivers difficult truths to a postmodern audience in such a way that they accept the ideas they would otherwise reject, even laugh about. The existence of the soul? The importance of choosing to believe? The certainty of a life after death and a judgment of those with atrophied souls and darkened hearts? Rowling smuggles these golden wheelbarrows and quite a bit of Christian doctrine and ideas about the human person via her story line right past the most skeptical, even cynical, readers in history. (269)

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Sex, Mom and God by Frank Schaeffer

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Take Away: Our ideals and reality rarely match up. Frank Schaeffer is the son of Evangelical power couple Francis and Edith Schaeffer.  He is an author of a number of fiction books and several interesting non-fiction books (like his series on the military). But he is probably most well known either for his late 80s … Read more

Facebook is Becoming a Problem

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Over the last few months the Bookwi.se Fan page has been growing.  We have added almost 150 ‘fans’ in the last four months.  But we are actually reaching less people.  I have been able to see that through the metrics that track how many posts are viewed from Facebook.  Today Boing Boing posted an article … Read more

Paperwhite Kindle Reviews

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The new Amazon Paperwhite has started shipping.  A few reviews are out (Cnet, Verge, Kindle Chronicle). A friend of mine needed to replace their kindle because of a broken screen and is shipping the Paperwhite to me so I could play with it a few days before passing it onto him.  I am out of town … Read more

Father Hunger: Why God Calls Men to Love and Lead Their Families by Douglas Wilson

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Bookwi.se Note: Welcome Seth Simmons, a new Bookwi.se Contributor. If you would like to contribute reviews to Bookwi.se read our brief guidelines.

Father Hunger: Why God Calls Men to Love and Lead Their FamiliesFatherhood is a holistic role and endeavor. It impacts politics and government, education, vocation, poverty and crime, religion, and more. There is no facet of culture that is not impacted by fatherhood–or its decline.

Douglas Wilson’s Father Hunger is a rousing and convicting call for men to lead their families. Theologically robust yet pastoral and practical, Wilson gets to the heart of the matter in his characteristically direct manner. Like Chesterton, he has a way of looking at an issue from a different perspective and unearthing the basic truths.

An overarching theme of the book is the idea of gratitude. “Masculinity is the glad assumption of sacrificial responsibility” (41). “Gratitude declares the meaning of fatherhood like little else can” (59). Fathers are generous in all things. He shows how the apostle Paul compared not dirty and clean, but dirty and grateful (175).

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Invitation to Submit Book Reviews

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Bookwi.se is a better book review site when more people contribute reviews.  Over the past year or two nearly 10 different people have contributed at least one book review.  Bookwi.se reviews have been everything from children’s books to serious academic books to light pop fiction to classics.  This post is an open invitation to submit … Read more

Ghost Ship (Theo Waitley #3) by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

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Ghost Ship (Liaden Universe)Summary: Theo meets the rest of the Clan Korval Family and meets her new ship.

How do you review a book that is #3 is a sub-series and number 14 is a larger series?

After all most people will either not be interested because they have not read any of the previous books, or they are not interested because they have already invested so much time reading the series that they are going to read the book regardless of how well it is written.

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Saltation by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

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Saltation (Liaden Universe Novels)Several years ago I was reading a book review; I don’t remember where or what book was being reviewed. I  just remember that the reviewer said that she (I do remember it was a she) rarely reads series fiction.  I thought that was odd, but because I had never thought of books that were written as a series being a category and the fact that you would exclude a type of books because there were more than one.

The longer I thought about it the more I understood.  Series require a lot of investment.  You both have to read a number of books to get to the end.  And quite often the series is drawn out over years if not decades.  (I still have refused to read the fifth book in the Game of Throne series because I am pissed that it took so long for George RR Martin to get around to writing it.)

At the same time, Series fiction has its own benefit.  The reader is able to connect with characters over thousands of pages instead of hundreds.  Usually that means a more well rounded character and a longer character arc to the story.  It may mean a more fleshed out setting than would be possible in a stand alone novel.

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Disability and the Gospel by Michael Beates

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Disability and the Gospel

Summary: “…The world is divided into two groups after all….the line is drawn between those that are aware of their disabilities and those that are blind to them.”

Disability and the Gospel, fortunately, is not another attempt at defining the gospel as an adjective like so many books lately. It is a real, and somewhat dense, look at how Christianity understands both the people that are commonly labeled as disabled and how we as humans are labeled disabled by the gospel. (The gospel here is used as a general summary of Grace, Salvation and the Power of God. And not my preferred definition which is simply ‘Jesus is Lord, Savior and Messiah. See my review of the King Jesus Gospel for a longer discussion of this.)

The clearest summary of this book is about 3/4 of the way through the book where the author says, “…The world is divided into two groups after all. Not however, the normal and the abnormal, or the able and the disabled. Rather the line is drawn between those that are aware of their disabilities and those that are blind to them.”

So throughout the book, the author is using these two lenses to think about disability. On the one hand the traditionally understood disabled (blind, paraplegic, Down’s Syndrome, etc.) On the other hand, all of us as humans are disabled by sin and need to realize that we need God and that God works in us best though our weakness. Relatively early in the book the authors says that the body’s purpose is to show weakness and point toward a future in Heaven. Overall, I like the split focus, but I found the discussion on traditionally disabled far more challenging and helpful.

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