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Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church by George Weigel

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1403749750_0.pngSummary: A helpful look at a reforming movement within Catholicism, but a lot of inside baseball.

I have read a number of positive reviews of Evangelical Catholicism from people I trust.  But more than anything, this book reminded me how little I actually know about Catholicism.

This is a book that is very inside baseball.  For those of us outside the Catholic Church, a book that was about 1/3 the length would have been appropriate.

As a non-Catholic, and one that was made very aware of my lack of knowledge it is hard to review this book.  But there are things that really stood out to me.

One, I think the main reoccuring theme of the book, that the church has done a very poor job catechizing (teaching) its members is true.  John Paul II started a program of “˜new evangelicalization’, which is a dual, active focus on evangelizing those outside the church, and catechizing those inside the church. I think almost no one really disputes this.  How it is done I am sure has lots of controversy.  But the fact that it is needed, I think is probably less controversial.

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The Man With Two Left Feet and Other Stories by PG Wodehouse

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Summary: Collection of humourous short stories, but the dog one is not to be missed.

I was complaining that I needed something different to read a few weeks ago and Seth Simmons, one of Bookwi.se’s regular contributors suggested PG Wodehouse.  Like so many authors, I was aware of him as a great humorist, but I had not actually read anything.

The Man With Two Left Feet is one of about 30 of his books that are in the public domain and available for free as kindle books.  And several of those have Audible discounts if you buy the kindle version first.

I wasn’t paying attention when I picked this up, because it is a collection of 13 short stories.  I am not a particular fan of short stories.  I prefer a full length book that really develops characters.

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The Horse and His Boy by CS Lewis

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Re-posting this 2013 review because the Kindle Edition of The Horse and His Boy is on sale for $0.99.  (Also The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is only $1.99)

The Horse and his Boy by CS LewisSummary: The only the Narnia stories not to include someone from this world magically going to Narnia.

After reading Alister McGrath’s very good biography of CS Lewis I decided I was going to read one CS Lewis book a week for a while.  I have a number of them, some I have read, some I have not.  Last week I read the Silver Chair, this week The Horse and His boy.

Like the Silver Chair, I really did not remember anything about this book except the broadest outline.  A boy who has been raised as a poor fisherman’s son, escapes from his home when he overhears his ‘father’ negotiating to sell him as a slave.  As he escapes, the horse of the man reveals himself to be a Narnian talking horse and they escape together. I had completely forgotten there even was a girl and another Narnian horse that they meet up with.

The Narnia books keep surprising me with their shortness.  It feels like they were so much longer when I was a kid.

Lewis again is using fiction to hide teaching.  In Silver Chair it was about knowing the word of God and following it.  Here it seems to be more about the love of God for those that are not his normal followers.  And a lot about pride and the nature of who is really the hero.

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Surprised by Scripture: Engaging Contemporary Issues by NT Wright

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Summary: Wright at his best tells a new narrative about an old story. In this book too many issues cut short the narrative.

I am an unabashed fan of NT Wright.  I have read most of his popular level books (except the commentary series) and a few of his more academic oriented books.  I appreciate his focus on calling people to a fresh look at scripture and his ability to take scripture seriously while maintaining real academic quality.

But on the whole I was disappointed by this book.  It is a re-working of articles that have previously appeared elsewhere.  Most of them were commissioned by US journals or from chapters in books that were for US audiences, so as a Brit, he is most of the time consciously writing for the North American Evangelical audience.

His basic argument, like most of Wright, is that given historical realities of the original writers and audience, we modern readers tend to be missing the intended point of the original writers.

As with most Wright he needs to go through a fairly long narrative to be able to help the reader understand his point.  And I think that is why his full length book treatments are better than these shorter issue based chapters.

The problem is not so much the individual chapters, but that in almost every case, he has a better response in a full length books (and he frequently tells the reader that there is more to the story if you want to pick up another one of his books.) So his first three chapters on science and religion, the historical Adam and the resurrection were all better handled by his book Scripture and the Authority of God.

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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis (Movie/Book Review)

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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS LewisTakeaway: You do not need long books to tell big stories.

The thing that keeps striking me as I read through the Chronicles of Narnia recently is how short these books are. In my imagination, these are big books, maybe not Harry Potter length children’s books, but fairly weighty tomes.

The reality is that the Chronicles of Narnia are short children’s books.  The single volume of the whole series is shorter than just Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  So it seems a bit odd to me that the movies are so long.

The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe is just over 4 hours on audiobook but 2 and a half hours as a movie.

The 2005 movie is faithful and good. But it loses some of the childhood wonders of the book.  I have been reluctant to read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe as I have been reading through CS Lewis because it is such a familiar story to me.  I choose to listen to it on audiobook (in part because I ran across it at the library) but also because I wanted to re-capture being read to.  This is one of the earliest books I remember being read to me.

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In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honore

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Reposting this 2011 review because the Kindle Edition is on sale for $1.99.

In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed (Plus)Takeaway: A bit repetitive, but the basic idea, that slowing down, enjoying life, and doing things well instead of fast is a good reminder.

Efficiency and speed are part of the world we live in.  With computers and other tools, fewer people can do more than ever before.  But instead of using the extra time, most people tend to either just do more instead of enjoying the additional products of our labor.

In Praise of Slowness is a book I first heard about from Anne Jackson.  I purchased it then (it was only $5 at the time) and it has been sitting on my shelf for a couple years.

I started reading it last week and enjoyed the basic thesis that faster is not necessarily better.  The book starts with the author seeing an ad for 1  minute bedtime stories.  He was both interested in getting the book and horrified that he had gotten to the point of efficiency that he was actually interested in being efficient in the amount of time he was spending with his child.  This started a long term investigation into speed and backlash of slow advocates.

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Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

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Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell is a well-beloved book and seen as an integral part to American literature. The book is essentially a coming-of-age novel and one that tells mainly of survival. The rather lengthy novel begins with Scarlett O’Hara at the age of 15 and carries her through many trials and tribulations such as loss of love, war, death, poverty, hunger and sometimes simply bad luck.  With the American Civil War and Reconstruction of the South as the backdrop, the novel appeals to wide audience as it contains themes of romance, drama, comedy, suspense, history and adventure.

I both read the novel and saw the movie for the first time when I was a young teenager.  I have seen the movie a number of times since then (although not in over ten years) but I have not read the book since then.  My initial thoughts are that the book was much better than I remembered and the movie was not quite as good as I remembered it being. Both the movie and the book are quite long and I have had this 48-hour book siting in my library for at least a year and a half and have only now gotten up the courage to tackle it. The movie is 4 hours long and includes an intermission.  I remember that I went to see the movie with a friend who had never seen it before and during the intermission we walked out to the lobby and she said, “œWell, that was a great movie.” Both my mom and I just stared at her because we didn’t know how to tell her that there were two more hours to watch.

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Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

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Reposting my 2013 review because Flowers for Algernon is today’s (May 28) Audible Deal of the Day. You can buy the audiobook for $3.95 (no membership required, use your Amazon login if you do not have an audible account.)
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel KeyesSummary: Classic young adult novel about a man that gains and then loses intelligence.

Several years ago I revisited a lot of the young adult literature that I loved as a child or teen. Revisiting those books helped to renew my interest in young adult literature. So now I regularly read 2 or 3 young adult novels a month.

I still occasionally go back and revisit novels that I have not read in 25 or 30 years. Flowers for Algernon was on sale at some point about a year ago and I picked it up. But after reading 10 pages or so, put it down.

I picked it up again and read it over the Memorial Day weekend. Originally I read Flowers for Algernon in either 7th or 8th grade english class.

Reading it again, I am somewhat surprised and wonder if I am properly gauging the age range for young adult literature.

In Flowers for Algernon, Charlie is developmentally disabled adult (as we now term it, but in the book he is frequently called retarded or other variants) is given some type of operation that makes him smart.

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Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

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Great Expectations | [Charles Dickens]Summary: A Classic novel about wanting what is not good for you.

For some reason that I can’t really explain, I always have felt I did not like Charles Dickens.  But the only two books that I can remember reading of Dickens (Great Expectations and The Tale of Two Cities) I liked. Maybe it is like feeling like you do not like a food, but never actually trying it.

Like many classics, I was first exposed to Great Expectations as an abridged children’s book.  I am pretty sure I read at least one additional abridgement in high school or college (not for school but pleasure) but I think this is the first time I have read the whole book.

With so many versions of the story in my head (I have seen at least one if not two of the movies in addition to probably two abridged versions), the basic story is not a surprise.  Simon Vance (as always) did an admirable job narrating the audiobook.  And like many classics, I think it could have easily been cut by at least a third without a problem.  But according to Wikipedia, Dickens originally intended it to be twice as long, but his publisher restrained him. (Thank goodness).

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