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I read a number of good memoirs this year (Brennan Manning, Eugene Peterson, Ian Cron, etc.) but Surprised by Oxford was my favorite.  A beautifully written book about a student finding God while studying literature in Oxford.  If you like books about books and memoirs that are as much about ideas as timeline, than you will like this.  I also highly recommend Ian Cron’s Jesus, My Father, The CIA and Me.  I had a hard time deciding which I liked better.  Cron’s book was very good and I really recommend it as well.

Summary: Girl finds God at Oxford in one of the most beautifully written memoirs written in recent years.

Memoirs are an increasingly popular form.  Especially since Donald Miller, the memoir seems to have found a new life by showing how a person found God.  In many ways, this is just an updating of the traditional testimony that has been, and in some churches still is, a common part of the church liturgy.  I have read a lot of memoirs over the past few years.  Many of them quite good.   But none were as well written and literary as Surprised by Oxford.

Carolyn Weber grew up in London, Ontario.  Child of divorced Hungarian immigrants, she had to work hard to make it through high school and college while working to support herself and family and making excelling grades.  Caro, as she was known, won a full scholarship to study literature at Oxford.  She eventually received her masters and doctorate from Oxford and now is a professor of literature.

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Takeaway: This might better be called ‘Against a strong version of TULIP’

Against Calvinism is part of a two book series that try to present the arguments For Calvinism (my review) and Against Calvinism with as much grace and humility possible.  Roger Olson (Against) and Michael Horton (For) introduce one another’s books and it seems have reviewed and commented on each other’s books before publication.  I appreciate Horton’s introduction to this book that affirms Olson’s Christianity and good faith and the attempt to bring more light than heat to the discussion. (I also have For Calvinism and will post the review once I finish it.)

Olson takes a specific tack in this book, not to argue against Calvinism as a whole (he affirms many parts of Calvinism) but to argue against particular interpretation of Calvinism that he call ‘High Calvinism’.  This is very strong view of the set of ideas that are detailed in the acronym TULIP.  After an introduction about the purpose of the book and a fairly long chapter on the diversity within the Reformed church, Olson works through each of the parts of TULIP and shows why he believes that the system is not the best method of understanding God and God’s work in the lives of Christian.  This leads to a lot of repetition; this book could easily have been 50 to 80 pages shorter and probably would have been a better book.

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Takeaway: Biography is not historical fiction.

I am a fan of Dostoevsky.  I have read several of his book and want to read more.  I have another Dostoevsky biography that I purchased a while ago but I have not gotten around to reading yet.  So I was really looking forward to reading this book.

The Christian Encounters Series is intended to be a series of basic Christian biographies that are to be informative, show the person’s Christian background and show how we can be Christians in a number of backgrounds.  I like biographies and I tend to read pretty heavy biographies, but I also enjoy simpler biographies.  A well done biography does not need to be long, but it does need to have a clear focus.

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Takeaway: There is no other author quite like Matt Mikalatos

We need more theologians that use an allegorical/satirical look at monsters to get their theological point across.

I very much enjoyed Matt Mikalatos’ first book Imaginary Jesus (my review) and I have passed it on to several people.  So I had high hopes for the second book.

In both books a semi-fictional Matt is the main character.  In Night of the Living Dead, mild-mannered Matt, in his self-appointed role of neighborhood watch coordinator, sees his neighbor turn into a werewolf and then see his neighbor’s wife leave him.  Matt, accompanied by the previously introduced Mad Scientist and his robot, attempt to cure the neighbor (Luther) of his werewolf problem.

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