Bookwi.se

Summary: I am not sure how to summarize this book.

Washington Black was on a number of best books of 2018. It finally got to be my turn from the library this past week and I quickly read it. I am still not sure what I think of it frankly.

Washington Black is a young slave boy working the fields with his caregiver Kit in the sugar cane fields of Barbados in the 1830s. Seemingly at random, they are ordered into the master’s home to serve the relatively new master and his brother’s dinner. That chance led to Washington Black being conscripted into working for the master’s visiting scientist brother, Christopher (Titch). Titch is a quiet abolitionist, but still takes advantage of the slave labor he has access to and uses the wealth of the family (from slaves) for his scientific investigations. Over a short period of time, Washington (Wash) learns to read and more importantly with his access to pencil and paper and books he discovers that he has a talent for drawing. Titch eventually discovers this and their relationship, while still Master and Slave becomes more complicated.

Due to a plot detail, the two of them leave the island and so starts the story of the next 10 years of Wash’s life. There is loneliness, isolation, a semblance of freedom, romance and love. But also a lot of really strange random events that are pieced together to make up the story.

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Summary: Sunny Nwazue, an American born Nigerian teen discovered in the last book that she has both powers and dangers she couldn’t dream about, the story continues.

Akata Warrior is the sixth book by Nnedi Okorafor I have read in the past couple of years. Okorafor is a fantasy author that occasionally mixes science fiction ideas and grounds her books in African folklore and culture. Her stature is rising and I have heard frequently over the past few weeks about her being mentored by George RR Martin. I am frankly more interested in her ventures in the comic book world, where she is both writing her own comic and one about Shuri, the Black Panther’s sister, than I am about her relationship to Martin.

I was first introduced to Okorafor through Binti trilogy and then Who Fears Death. The Akata series is the third story line. I have enjoyed all of them, and they are all different, while feeling like they are by the same author. Okorafor is writing with a distinctly African folklore and cultural background, while being accessible to others. She has lived in the US on and off for decades. The African (Nigerian mostly I believe) folklore gives a unique voice to fantasy and science fiction that tends to be based most often on British or at least northern European cultural roots. And Okorafor also focuses on female protagonists in a genre that is decidedly male focused as a whole.

I approached the first book in the series, Akata Witch as a young adult book. I think I probably still would classify the series as young adult, but I am not sure. Young Adult tends to have some themes that are about coming of age, growing independence, relationship to parents (or not), and some limits on how much sex or violence or language is included. The content is appropriate for young adults, but I am not sure that the story is really a young adult story as much as it has young adult characters. This second book seems older.

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Summary: A explication of the theological roots of spirituals and the blues. A good example of why White seminary students need to be reading Black and other authors of Color. 

Over the past couple years there have been several minor controversies in US seminaries about assigned texts. Masters Seminary (started by John MacArthur) about a year ago had a former student write about the fact that he had not read a single book by a Black author during his seminary studies. That prompted a response by another former student that was (is?) a staff person at the seminary. The response includes this quote:

“I don’t mean to be dismissive of their contribution, but African-American Christians are a small portion built upon the main foundation, that just so happens to be, according to God’s providence, a white, Western European/English one.”

A more recent controversy came up because in the context of a NY Times article about racism in the church, an SBC seminary professor talked about assigning James H Cone and that created calls for the professor to resign, which prompted this response from him. It is yet another example of the systemic problems within the Evangelical church that is ignorant about non-White culture and because of that lack of cultural understanding and a lack of good history, perpetuates a belief in White cultural superiority as the quote above does.

I first read James H Cone during my seminary years almost 25 years ago. But within the past couple years I have read four of Cone’s books and continue to think that White Evangelicals need to grapple with the theological contributions of Black and other theologians outside of the White Evangelical space. I am continually surprised that the case needs to be made for this, but at the same time, I know that personally it is easy to fall into reading the same White, mostly male, authors. This is part of why I have been attempting to keep my reading to no more than 1/3 White authors this year. It takes attention because it is easy to fall into reading what others around me are reading or reading what is most recently on sale, or the new thing that everyone is talking about. And that is probably a White guy.

All of that long introduction brings me to Cone’s The Spirituals and the Blues. You cannot read more than a few pages in any of Cone’s books without finding a reference to music. Someday I would like to put together playlists to accompany each of Cone’s books that would put the original songs in order so that readers can hear the songs in full context as they read.

The Spirituals and the Blues is a short theological book that takes seriously the historical context of the music that has shaped the Black church and then theologically explicates the themes of the music. This is a brief book, only about 150 pages.

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Summary: A year after Robin was nearly killed by a serial killer, both Robin and Strike are still trying to figure out how to work together and deal with their respective relationships, and attraction to each other.

I think Lethal White is the best book of the series so far. Robin is really the central character, although Strike is certainly present. Galbraith/Rowling has finally stopped trying to make the crimes more lurid and allow the focus to be on the main characters and not the bad guys.

Lethal White was probably a bit long if you were reading primarily for the mystery. But I don’t read mysteries for the mystery, I read them for the characters, and this is a book that is primarily focused on character development. Robin is suffering PTSD from nearly being killed by a serial killer in the previous book (on top of her earlier rape and other near death experiences). This book has her going undercover multiple times and allows her to grow as an investigator.

Strike is still pretty much Strike. His leg is his main limiting/humanizing feature. If not for a prosthesis, he would be nearly a superhero. And while I do get annoyed with how often his leg hurts in the book, I think this is the only way to really show weakness.

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Summary: Memoir and thoughts on life by Kamau Bell

One of the things that I really love in this book was how subtly that important content can be shared. Kamau Bell sucks us adults by talking about TV and comics from when he was a child and the role that his love of superheroes played in his identity development. But that just primes you for his adoration of Doc McStuffins as one of the greatest shows in the history of TV. Not just important for Black girls to see a character that looks like them on TV, but one that is also for my children (who also love Doc McStuffins) and help break down the concepts of white normativity. White kids need to see that not everything is designed just for them.

I had a long twitter conversation the other day about the importance of diverse authors and subjects in seminary education. It didn’t work, after spending way longer than I should, I gave up because the guy simply did not see how representation matters. I think that if I had previously read this section, and he had been willing to read it, I think this would have far better communicated the importance of representation than I did.

That is one little story from The Awkward Thoughts of W Kamau Bell, but I think it is a good illustration of the strength of the book. Bell is telling his story, but he is also talking about what is important to him as a comedian and as a person.

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Summary: A flawed but worth-reading argument for pursuing meaning and rejecting hyper-individualism.

I was reluctant to pick The Second Mountain up. I watched several interviews with him, and many of those interviews were interesting, but they seemed to be talking about a couple of different books, ranging from a personal self-help book to an extended graduation speech to a version of Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward. Having finished the book, I understand all those descriptions, but none were quite right. And while I am glad I read the book, that is part of the problem of the book.

I was also reluctant because while I generally liked his last book, Road to Character, I thought there were significant weaknesses with the book, and I did not want to relive a “do better” encouragement book. Once I decided to pick up The Second Mountain, I was pleased that he offered an apology for the weaknesses of The Road to Character that roughly addressed my issues.

There are many great quotes in The Second Mountain. They are often even better in full context than as stand-alone quotes. “Happiness can be tasted alone, but permanent joy requires an enmeshed and embedded life.” He riffs off CS Lewis’ and others’ distinction between happiness and joy. The book is about pursuing joy and the other deeper things in life, not just happiness and the other fleeting things in life. It is not that the fleeting things are unimportant, but that they are not fulfilling.

The book is really in two parts. The first part is making his argument for this concept of the Second Mountain. The first mountain is success in life, while the second mountain is the pursuit of meaning. If you have read Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward, it is a similar, but not exactly similar, point.

The second part is the four commitments that lead to the Second Mountain, but also those things that fight against the hyper-individualism that is really the book’s underlying theme. The four commitments are to Vocation, Marriage, Faith (or philosophy), and Community.

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Summary: Seven essays on Ta-Nehisi Coates and Christianity. 

I appreciate Ta-Nehisi Coates. And I was intrigued when I saw this book because Coates is a vocal atheist. I think he is respectful of Christianity, but he rejects Christianity largely because of its followers. It is a position that I easily understand, even if I do not reject Christianity for the same reason.

Books that are collections of essays are hard to do well. They are almost always uneven in their writing quality. And rarely hold together and build on one another well. And most of the time the sum is less than the individual parts.

I think there were two or may be three essays here that were pretty good. None of them were awful. But in general, while there was thoughtful aspects of to Between the World of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Christianity, I would recommend just reading Coates directly.

One of the aspects that I know has irritated Coates and because it keeps coming up, has begun to irritate me as well, is the issues of Coates’ “˜hopelessness’. There were two essays directly about this and two more mentioned it. (Spread the essays out, two essays, both about Coates and Hope right at the end was odd.) Coates has said that he doesn’t believe he is hopeless, he believes that he is a realist. Reinhold Niebuhr led a movement of “˜Christian Realism’ that to me feels more like what Coates is trying to communicate.

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Summary: Both an introduction to female heroes and an exploration of selfless values.

My four year old son has started discovering Marvel superheroes. A couple days ago we were using some of his left over birthday money to pick out a few new kid’s oriented Marvel books. I picked out this one at the same time, both because I want my son to know that Superheroes are not all male and for my daughter to have female superheroes as role models. It is important that both my son and my daughter see women as potential superheroes.

I do not often post about the books I read with my kids, but I am both encouraged and a little bit angry about this book. The book itself is great. It has a 2 page introduction to 14 different “˜heroes’. Each introduction has enough to sort of introduce who the character is (some really need more introduction) and something about the value that the character holds. The values focus on selflessness, fighting for the weak and powerless, being innovative (for the greater good), working together, supporting others, etc.

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Summary: An exposure of how “˜White American Folk Religion’ and Christianity are not the same things.

It is not surprising at this point, or it should not be, that many Christians seem to be confused about how Christianity and the American Dream overlap and contradict. Often Christians are discipled to believe that the abundant life that Jesus talks about is actually fulfilled in the American Dream.

Jonathan Walton is not confused, and so, somewhat provocatively, but I think accurately has set out to separate the American Dream from Christianity by illustrating what is “˜White American Folk Religion’ and what is Christianity.

As with any project, like this, some people will identify with some of these lies more than others. What I find easy lies to believe will not necessarily be the same as what you do. If I were writing the book I would probably have a slightly different list. But the working out of these does expose how we have been discipled by patriotism more than Christianity quite often. James KA Smith talks a lot about secular liturgies that disciple us, Jonathan Walton is really doing the work of exposing these secular liturgies so that we can work to reframe our beliefs and actions around actual Christianity.

In general, Walton is telling this story autobiographically. Each chapter is a different lie, and so he identifies how he has previously believed or been impacted by the lie then deconstructs the lie and replaces it with right belief and right behavior (similar to how James Bryan Smith approaches understanding and resounding to God in The Good and Beautiful God. In most cases I think this method is a strength of the book. It is disarming when the author focuses on his sin and confesses it as a way to help us see our own sin that may be slightly different, but still related. There a places however, where I think that he was reaching a bit too far to make the connection and could have better used different people as illustrations so that there was a closer connection. But overall, I do think the method was helpful.

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Summary: A brief introduction to what beauty is, why it is important and why we need to understand it.

I listened to this on audiobook, which was fine, but may not have been the best choice. While this is part of the Very Short Introduction series, it is still a book that is ultimately philosophy. About 2/3 of the way through I picked up the kindle edition, both because I know I need to re-read the book, but also because Scruton was referencing a number of paintings and many of those are in the Kindle edition.

The pictures are black and white even in the kindle version, so the reader cannot really get a full sense of what is being shown, which does matter for a discussion of the artistry and beauty of the paintings, but it at least is a reference.

I have been wanting to read more about beauty for a while and consistently when I look around, Scruton’s book Beauty is recommended as one of the best introductions. The Very Short Introduction series is very uneven, but Beauty is an example of what all of the books should be like. He is not avoiding discussion of the academics, but the point of the book is to talk about the actual subject. A number of the other Very Short Introduction books I have read have been about the academic study of the subject, not the actual subject. I do not really want to read about what academics have argued about over African History, I actually wanted to understand something about African History.

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