Bookwi.se – Page 230 – A few thoughts about books, kindles and Christianity

Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions Book Discussion: Chapter 2

April 20, 2011 by All Old Users

Guest Post by Joanna, she blogs at http://joannamuses.com/ The first post in the series is here.

Our culture loves romance. Pop music is full of it, it has a book genre named after it, whole movie genres centre around it and many magazines devote themselves to the romances of the famous. Romance even has a special day dedicated to it- Valentine’s day.

Christian culture also likes romance. We may seek to present a more wholesome version of it, but nonetheless, romance is given a valued place in Christian culture. We talk about true love waiting or finding our soul mate. We preach sermons on the goodness of marriage. Christian bookstores are filled with books about getting or staying married.

On the surface these all seem like wonderful things. Some of them are good, biblical things. However, in chapter 2 of Sacred Unions, Sacred passions, Dan Brennan contends that there is an dark side to our elevation of romantic relationships.

Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions Books Discussion: Chapter 1

April 18, 2011 by Adam Shields

Cover of "When Harry Met Sally" — Cover of When Harry Met Sally

Over the next couple weeks a group of people will be reading and responding to the book Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions by Dan Brennan (my earlier review). A chapter will be discussed each Monday, Wednesday and Friday until we are done. Please come back and interact with us. You do not have to have read the book, but it will likely help in the discussion.

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Brennan understands that he is working against the grain to suggest that not only is it possible, but it is important to have friendships between men and women that are ‘non-sexual’, but still intimate and deep. The classic movie When Harry Met Sally has the line “…Men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.” And most of us believe, and are taught, that Harry is right.

SuperFreakonomics by Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner

April 15, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: More unconventional ways of looking at the world around us.

Purchase Links: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

I like economics. Overall I like this book and the movement of micro-economics and behavioral economics books that was created out of the original Freakenomics (although I think some people need to think of some better titles.)

The method of Freakenomics is to find an issue, then think of a way to look at that issue using mathematical models. The Freakenomics guys and their counterpart research economics that do a lot of the research are creative. They have to be creative, and willing to balk conventional wisdom, to come up with their research ideas. (And hope the mathematical models really explain the reality.)

The Pastor: A Memoir (The Audiobook Review) by Eugene Peterson

April 14, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: On Audio, still the best general book on what it means to be a pastor I have ever read.

Purchase Links: Hardback, Kindle Edition, christianaudio.com MP3 audiobook

I read this immediately after it came out just over a month ago. I wrote a gushing review. Then I was asked if I wanted to review the audiobook as well. At first I thought I would just listen to a little bit of the audiobook and rework the original review a bit. But this is a very good book. And ‘reading’ it twice in less than six weeks is not too much.

Eugene Peterson reads the introduction and afterward himself. So you get a sense of his own voice. But it is narrated by Arthur Morey. His voice is not the same as Peterson, but his reading understands the nature of the book. As with many good narrators you forget the narration and hear the voice of the author, as the authors intends you to hear.

Google Books – A Review of the Reader Software

April 13, 2011 by Adam Shields

It should be no surprise that I use the Kindle software. I prefer reading on an actual Kindle, but about 2 months ago I broke the screen on my kindle and have not replaced it. I am being intentional about this because I have a good number of paper books I need to read and I have both an iPad and an Android phone on which I can read my kindle library. (And my wife has a kindle if I want to use her’s.)

As good of a system as the Amazon Kindle world is, it does not have nearly as many public domain books as Google Books. Google has invested considerable resources into scanning all of the books of many major libraries. There are about 3 million public domain books in the Google library. This dwarfs any other public domain collection. As a system, I think Google books is pretty good. I am not going to leave Amazon, at least in part because Google’s selection is smaller and price seems to be a bit higher. Google was depending a lot on their agreement with the Author’s Guild to make their system the world wide leader in both paid and public domain books. Since that agreement was blocked in court, Google is far behind in the recent book department.

This video is a pretty good introduction to how Google conceives of themselves.

True Grit by Charles Portis

April 13, 2011 by All Old Users

Rating: 5 Stars Purchase Links: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook I think 5 stars should only be given to the best of the best – this is one of those books. True Grit is fantastic. I suspect that the Coen Brothers film adaptation will bring some well-deserved attention to the book, or at least … Read more

Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell

April 11, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: Sarah Vowell is both one of my favorite narrators and one of my favorite historians. That probably says a lot about me.

Sarah Vowell is a unique historian. She may be the only historian known as much for her unique speaking voice as she is for her writing. She has been a regular on This American Life, the voice of the daughter on the movie The Increadibles and is the author of six books.

So it is her voice (both actually and literary) that will lead you to love or hate her. To get an idea of her actual voice you can watch the book trailer below. But that will really only matter if you want to listen to the audiobook (which I did.)

Hannah Coulter: A Novel by Wendell Berry

April 9, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: Progress is not always an improvement. How do you discuss a book like this? It is a beautiful story. Berry knows how to draw you into the world of rural 1930-2001 in a way that makes me almost miss not living it. I have not read anything by Wendell Berry before, but he has … Read more

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr

November 8, 2024April 8, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: Maturing is not a straight line and it does not automatically come with growing old.

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition (Kindle available now, paperback is a pre-order for April 19, 2011)

Today is my birthday so I thought it appropriate to read and review a book that is primarily about how to age better. I must admit I was a bit put off of this book when I first started. Rohr is a Catholic priest and it took a while for me to sink into his vocabulary and understand how he was using his words.

After I picked it up again a week or so later. I started to see a spirituality that was formed by story in a way somewhat akin to Donald Miller. The 30 page intro is rough going no matter how you look at it. But once you get to the early chapters where Rohr uses the story of Odyssius to explain his point I was hooked.

The Private Prayers of Pope John Paul II: Words of Inspiration

April 7, 2011 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: One of the most inaccurate titles ever. Actually a series of letters to lay Christians working around the world.

Purchase Links: Hardcover, Audible.com Audiobook

This is a book that I picked up because it was free on Audible (I think it was given away to commemorate his death.) Obviously I did not get right to it. I stumble across it when looking back through my audio archives.

It is very short, just over 2 hours of audio (did not realize until now that it is an abridged audiobook). The full book is actually a collection of 150 letters (fairly short blog/newsletter length) that were written to the Secular Institutes. My understanding from the introduction is that these are people that live and work in the secular world, but take on vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. Mostly they are lay people (not ordained) and unlike monks or nuns (which are also often not ordained) live alone outside of a community. I had never heard of this status before, but according to Wikipedia, there are about 60,000 people that live as ‘consecrated persons’.