2012 National Book Award Winners

by

2012 National Book Award Winners (Link to all the finalists)

The Round HouseFiction: The Round House by Louise Erdrich

499 pages, 95 of 96 reviews are 4 or 5 star

One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface as Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. In one day, Joe’s life is irrevocably transformed. He tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. Increasingly alone, Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill prepared.

While his father, who is a tribal judge, endeavors to wrest justice from a situation that defies his efforts, Joe becomes frustrated with the official investigation and sets out with his trusted friends, Cappy, Zack, and Angus, to get some answers of his own. Their quest takes them first to the Round House, a sacred space and place of worship for the Ojibwe. And this is only the beginning.

Written with undeniable urgency, and illuminating the harsh realities of contemporary life in a community where Ojibwe and white live uneasily together, The Round House is a brilliant and entertaining novel, a masterpiece of literary fiction. Louise Erdrich embraces tragedy, the comic, a spirit world very much present in the lives of her all-too-human characters, and a tale of injustice that is, unfortunately, an authentic reflection of what happens in our own world today.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

Nonfiction: Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

290 pages, 188 of 242 reviews are 4 or 5-star

From Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo, a landmark work of narrative nonfiction that tells the dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the twenty-first century’s great, unequal cities.
 
In this brilliantly written, fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human.

Read more

Family Christian Stores Buys Itself

by

Christianity Today is reporting that the largest chain of Christian retail stores has purchased itself from its previous private equity owners.  Family Christian Stores has had a rough patch.  There are still nearly 300 stores (for comparison Lifeway has 163 stores). In 1993 Zondervan publisher and the stores separated ownership.  Family Christian Stores grew primarily through acquiring … Read more

Offsite Review: Godly Republicanism: Puritans, Pilgrims and a City on a Hill

by

Books and Culture magazine is one of the best magazines for longer form book reviews, seriously articles on history, science and philosophy and in-depth interviews.  It and Englewood Review of Books are the only two physical magazines I read. (Although I primarily read the web editions of both.) Mark Noll was one of the founding … Read more

Goldfinger by Ian Fleming

by

GoldfingerSummary: An over the top villain tarnishes an otherwise decent Bond novel.

James Bond is one of those cultural items that everyone ‘needs’ to know.  We know that Bond gets the girl(s), that he likes his vodka martini’s shaken not stirred (usually with a lemon twist).  He always wins, he has cool gagets, cool cars, looks good in a tuxedo, always seems to be undercover, but still uses his regular name, etc.

Last year I read my first James Bond book, Dr No.  It was more like the movie than I expected but I still basically liked the book.  I am a fan of spy book, but more the John le Carré, Jason Borne, and Milo Weaver variety.

In the books, James Bond is racist, sexist and usually is against comic book style villains instead of other spies.  In the movie, Goldfinger gathers together all of the mob bosses in the US so that he can get the man power to knockover Fort Knox.  In the book it is similar but even more similar to a group of super villains from a kids cartoon.

Read more

The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison

by

The Stainless Steel RatSummary: There is no one better the catch a crook than another crook.

When I was a kid I read a good bit.  A lot of it was fairly worthless pulp science fiction.  I have never been that snobbish about poorly written books.  I like Twilight, Harry Potter and a host of other books that many people complain about.  While I really do appreciate a well written phrase, there is more to writing in my mind than perfect writing.  A story needs to be told.  The reader needs to be engaged.

The Stainless Steel Rat was a series that I know I read in or around middle school.  But I had absolutely no memory of the series.  I noticed that the first book was available at my library on audiobook and I picked it up out of pure nostalgia.

The story is not all that original (or at least it does not feel original now).  In a future world, crime has almost entirely been stopped.  Those few criminals that exist are captured and  ‘re-educated’.

Read more

Biblical Hermeneutics: Five Views

by

Biblical Hermeneutics: Five Views (Spectrum Multiview Books)Summary: Five different perspectives on how we seek out meaning in scripture.

Over the past two years I have spent a fair amount of time coming to terms with how to read and understand scripture. Mostly this time has been confirming a couple of ideas. 1) The bible is not a magical answer books. 2) Christians (Evangelicals in particular) spend more time arguing about the bible than reading it (myself included.) 3) We think that everyone else ignores their cultural pre-suppositions, but that we have it right. 4) Understanding of scripture should be primarily a community, not individual activity.

Biblical Hermeneutics (how to to understand scripture) takes five authors with five different perspectives and shows how those different perspectives affect the way that we understand scripture.

The best part of the book is that they took a particular passage then used their perspective to explore how they would get meaning from the text. The book uses Matthew 2:13-15 (which is partially quoting Hosea 11:1) as their test case. This allows for both direct look at the meaning of Matt 2 and a look at how to use New Testament passages that refer to the Old Testament.

Read more

A Kindle for Christmas?

by

Amazon PaperwhiteIf you are thinking about giving a kindle for Christmas your options are going to be limited.  First, the Kindle Paperwhite (Bookwi.se Review) is backordered and current orders are not expected to ship until Dec 21st.  Cutting it very close for Christmas.  That is the expected shipping date for both the 3G and the wifi only models.

The basic $69 Kindle and the $139 Kindle with Keyboard are currently available and are both very good options.  But when arguably your best kindle is three generations old, the Kindle with Keyboard, it shows how slow the evolution of the Kindle has been.

If you are thinking about the Kindle Tablets things are a bit better.  The basic Kindle Fire ($159) and the Fire HD ($199) are read to ship right now.  Of course both are competing against the Nexus 7 and the iPad Mini.  Amazon wins with content against the Nexus 7 and with price against the iPad Mini.  But it is not a slam dunk decision.

Read more