Load Up the Credit Card, Or: A new reading list (30/10/09)

I haven’t actually got any money at the moment, but that hasn’t stopped me from ordering a whole heap of books from Fishpond and Amazon. I periodicallyhave reading cravings , maybe every four or life months, and during those times, I don’t only have to read, I have to read particular books by particular authors, even if I don’t currently own said books. So here’s a list of the books I’m anticipating sinking my teeth into over the next three months or so:

The Gypsy’s Curse by Harry Crews

Car by Harry Crews

Celebration by Harry Crews

The Mulching of America by Harry Crews

Body by Harry Crews

Scar Lover by Harry Crews

Florida Frenzy by Harry Crews (essays by the author)

Getting Naked with Harry Crews (a book of interviews)

Perspectives on Harry Crews (essays about the author)

Morvern Callar by Alan Warner

The Man Who Walks by Alan Warner

The Worms Can Carrying Me to Heaven by Alan Warner

Finch by Jeff Vandermeer

Booklife by Jeff Vandermeer (non fiction, about the writing and marketing process)

The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved (biography)

Flannery O’Connor: Collected Works (a Library of America edition that remarkably only costs $16 US from Amazon)

The credit card is taking a hammering.

Book Review - A Childhood: The Biography of a Place by Harry Crews

I’ve been pretty much obsessed with Harry Crews lately, so much so that I re-read his novel A Feast of Snakes simply because I didn’t have anything else of his to read. I scoured the internet for anything about him, which didn’t add up to much. A few bits and pieces here and there. And everything that I read reinforced the rapidly solidifying notion that Harry Crews was a great writer, a vital (for me) writer. Why exactly I have taken to this man and his writing so completely is guesswork, but I have. And his reputation seems to rest more than anything on his memoir of growing up in Bacon County, Georgia: A Childhood: The Biography of a Place. I’m reading this in the volume Classic Crews, which also includes A Gypsy’s Curse and Car, which I’ll get to next.

One of the first things that stuck me about this was the number of similarities with A Feast of Snakes. Names of people often overlap (Lottie Mae and Berenice are two that spring to mind). In this memoir, as in the novel, there’s moonshine, drunken raging of every kind, blacks and whites living together (though not exactly equitably), shotguns, and a sensation of the protagonist (Joe Lon or Crews himself) spinning out of control as he discovers the terror and beauty of the world. This is gripping, shocking and brutal, but if a book is intended to open a window into another time and place, to allow us to see through, then there’s no more successful book than A Childhood that I can currently think of.

Crews’ childhood was a dismal one; one that makes my own miseries tremble into insignificance. Born to dirt-poor sharecroppers in one of the poorest parts of America, at the tail end of the Great Depression, Crews suffered almost unimaginable hardship and misfortune in the first half dozen years of his life. His own father dead before he was two years old, Crews looked up to another man, his uncle, as a father, only to fall victim to that man’s trail of drunken destruction. One scene, in which the not yet six year-old Crews is told that he can never see his father again, and that that man isn’t even his real father, is among the most powerful things I have read. And there’s a section where the boy is almost boiled alive in boiling water, after which his skin and fingernails come off in sheets.

A Childhood appears to have been widely recognised as not only this author’s finest achievement, but as one of the greatest memoirs about life in the south of the United States in the twentieth century. The writing has a clarity and power that most writers, including myself, can barely dream of. But it took its toll on Crews, who appears to have sunken into a long depression upon completing this work. This is as close to perfection is one is ever likely to find between the pages of a book, and if that seems like unreasonable hyperbole, read it for yourself and claim otherwise.

I sure hope there are more books in this series!

Forest Born by Shannon Hale

Copyright 2009, Bloomsbury

389 pages, fantasy

Rinna has no doubt she is a Forest girl through and through, and she has always sought and found comfort in the thousands of trees that surround her home. Suddenly, the trees reject her, and she’s certain that something awful is happening to her. Rin decides to travel to the Bayern capital city with her older brother Razo in hopes of finding herself again.

W-o-w. Shannon Hale is amazing. I devoured this book in, now that I think about it, less than twenty-four hours from the time I bought it. I splurged, buying the hardcover, because I just couldn’t wait to find out what would happen next in the fabulous Books of Bayern series. Luckily I had a gift card for the book store! I don’t know what I would do if Forest Born was the last book in the series, so please, Shannon, write more!

The only (extremely minor) negatives I can think of are the teensey overkill on the destruction and doom, and something that I can’t quite describe about Rinna, the main character. I know, on the destruction and doom, it adds, to the suspense, but I generally like to have plenty of lighter scenes. I can’t detail my issue with Rin here for fear of revealing spoilers, but I can try– perhaps she seemed slightly flat. But regardless, the book is excellent.

As always, Shannon Hale brings in all of the elements of a good fantasy: magic, suspense, loyalty,betrayal, and romance. I think I’ve used that phrase in all of my Shannon Hale reviews, actually, so that pro is consistent in her books. I love the characters, which leads me into another positive: beloved characters such as Isi, Enna, Finn, Geric, Razo, and Dasha are well included, which is always important.

As this may be my last Books of Bayern review in a while (depends how long it takes for the next book to come out! ), I’ll just put in a few words about the series in general before I wrap up this review: I think it’s great how each book in the series is centered around a different character. They’re in the same world, with familiar people as supporting characters, but each book seems fresh, in a way. If an ongoing series was all about one character’s, say Isi’s, exploits, it may get dull, which, I assure you, this series is the exact opposite of!

Rating: 4.5/5 stars.

How to Steal a Car: A Chick Lit Wednesday Review

Kelleigh Monahan doesn’t drink, do drugs, talk back, or do any of the other things girls usually do to act out. In fact, if it weren’t for a series of bizarre coincidences, Kelleigh wouldn’t even have become a car thief in How to Steal a Car (2009) by Pete Hautman.

The first car, the Nissan, was barely even stolen. And after that, well, steal one car and suddenly everyone expects you to be a regular car thief or something.

That isn’t to say that this book is an action packed heist book. It’s not. Despite its title, How to Steal a Car is more about the ennui and general frustration so often associated with suburban life–especially for teens.

Kelleigh is surrounded by people lulled into complacency by their quiet, suburban town while she, much like Moby Dick’s Ishmael as quoted in the beginning of the story, wants nothing more than to run away. Or, as luck would have it, to drive away in someone else’s car.

How to Steal a Car is an interesting, super fast read. Unfortunately that does not make it particularly compelling. While Kelleigh’s ennui was palpable, she remained painfully one dimensional as a character. Hautman’s portrayal of the rest of the characters in the novel were similarly lacking in depth. The story was interesting enough to keep me reading to the end, but the Kelleigh at the end of the story was basically the same Kelleigh we met at the beginning: a girl frustrated with her life and unsure what to do to fix it.

Possible Pairings: The Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron, Rx by Tracy Lynn, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford, Gone in Sixty Seconds (movie).

I have got to read Dorothy Sayers!!

I have never read Dorothy Sayers. I know. I really should.

My friend Terri just sent me a magnificent review.

Hi there! Just finished a book recently that sounds about your bag — which means you’ve not only read it, but your master’s thesis was probably about subtext in the third chapter, right? Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers? It’s a 30’s mystery, so British it bleeds tea, and no one actually dies. The mystery bit is tied into some very interesting proto-psycho-feministy sort of mentality, and at the end of it, you’re left more with Sayer’s musings about the higher education of women than with a good plot. I did some digging after I finished it and found that she wrote it to deal with her own conflicted feelings about creativity vs. matrimony vs. security vs. personal freedoms. Somehow the combination of all of that just made me think of you and what you write about.

If you’ve already read it, I wondered what you thought of it? I feel like it’s a pretty lousy mystery plot, but that seems the least important element of the book ….

Going to the library tomorrow.  “Bleeds tea?” Perfect turn of phrase!  I’m delighted, intrigued, and flattered.  Very cool!

So Dorothy Sayers readers, where should I start?

Review: Democracy, Again / 再次谈民主

This is a review of Cheng Li, ed. China’s Changing Political Landscape: Prospects for Democracy (DC: Brookings, 2008), though I only focus on some of the articles in the volume.

Over the past three years working for a small think-tank, I gradually learned that the US government is mainly interested in three issues involving the People’s Republic: 1) China’s imminent democratization, 2) the CCP-PRC party-state’s imminent collapse, and 3) the imminent challenge posed by the PLA’s military modernization. All three of these are issues involving the near future, since long-term planning is considered difficult in a rapidly changing international environment and doesn’t help various government interests secure funding right now. Even though Li’s edited volume mostly focuses on the democratization issue, there are enough glimpses of the other two to make this book feel like a summary of the world I recently left behind. Since this volume came about in the aftermath of a presumably state-funded conference at Brookings, I suppose that’s not too surprising.

What’s also unsurprising is that no one convincingly articulates why the US government –- and, presumably, the majority of American citizens –- wants China to become more democratic. Indeed, John L. Thorton’s introduction seems to state that the main purpose of the volume is to rectify outdated views about China held by many US officials and mitigate the underlying distrust that pervades Sino-American relations. He presumes, then, that most US officials would be pleasantly surprised by the “democratic” developments described in this volume. That presumption seems doubtful when a majority of the contributing authors do not seem convinced of China’s democratic prospects, at least in the near future. Even if one were to be persuaded by the few optimists, it’s not at all clear that popularly elected Chinese officials would be more supportive of US interests in East Asia or that a “democratic” Chinese state would resemble Taiwan rather than the Russian Federation or some other illiberal democracy.

Andrew Nathan’s article was among the most consistently solid, since he accurately describes the intellectual environment in which discussions of China’s future are occurring, an environment in which the third of the Four Basic Principles –- the continued leadership of the CCP –- is assumed by major actors all across the political spectrum. His assertion that Chinese Marxism is bankrupt (p. 35) seems presumptive given the continued support for otherwise anachronistic political language among the lower classes that feel their historical social contract with the party-state has been violated. The Hu-Wen administration is at least pretending to pay more attention to such voices which gives socialist ideas a bigger spotlight than they ever enjoyed under Jiang Zemin. I am also baffled by Nathan’s assertion that “core ideas that… seem valid to those currently situated within China’s historical experience… social structure and language” shouldn’t be called culture (p.39). I’m not sure what else to call them, though perhaps he’s trying to resist the idea that there are inherently Chinese tendencies that make democracy untenable. I strongly agree with him that contemporary Chinese views on democracy make a PRC-implemented democracy liable to look very different from Western expectations, a belief that is strongly supported by Yu Keping’s article immediately following, which describes the core of democracy as “guid[ing] the voluntary, sporadic, and disorganized political participation of citizens into a political framework led by the party and government” (p.55).

Jacques deLisle, while perhaps a bit overly enthusiastic about developments in the Chinese legal system, accurately describes the “implementation gap” that exists not just in legal affairs but across the entire Chinese political system and furthermore was able to convincingly claim that any shifts in a positive direction represent “discretionary authoritarian decisions to represent popular interests, not institutionalized and obligatory responses to popular preferences” (p. 201). His invocation of the imperial model of a benevolent ruler clouds this insight a bit, but his core point is good. While it is not entirely fair to say that the general populace — which, after all, includes many significant sets of interests, including many elites — can exert no pressure on the party-state, the Hu-Wen shift towards popularism is not the direct result of such pressure. Perhaps 80,000 popular protests a year serves as a form of indirect pressure, but a different set of leaders with different priorities could easily choose to not respond to popular concerns, as Chinese leaders have done in the past and will continue to do on a number of other issues. A major difficulty for the current Chinese political system is the lack of incentives and/or institutional pressure on leaders to perform well and address local concerns. Consequently, when positive moves are made, they are the result of arbitrary decisions that can later be reverse or flounder as their chief architects turn their attention elsewhere. Despite Hu’s kexue fazhan guan (“Scientific Development”) being enshrined in the PRC constitution, there’s no guarantee that the recent focus on poorer interior provinces will achieve any major results or reflects a permanent change in the CCP’s orientation. The party-state’s current approach to legalization and institutionalization — two sides of the same coin — does nothing to change the fundamentally arbitrary nature of Chinese politics, which is subject primarily to social restrictions from other political leaders, not firmly institutionalized mandates.

James Mulvernon has written the best article I’ve seen on the four Bush-era US-China security crises and what they tell us about the relationship between the civilian government and the PLA, but I’m not sure what that article has to do with democratization.

Chu Yan-Han’s article comparing China’s future to Taiwan’s democratic transition is interesting, though strongly pro-GMD. I would be more interested to see what he thinks since the ouster and splintering of the DPP, with China-Taiwan relations as good as they’ve ever been but Ma Yingjiu and the Nationalist Party crippled by his deep unpopularity. Chu’s description of both the GMD and CCP originating as clandestine Leninist parties based around democratic centralism (p. 310) resonates strongly with my own work on the origins of modern Chinese security ideology and its persistent influence on modern state-society relations, which was somewhat encouraging.

At first glance, I considered Chu too optimistic about the parallels between China and Taiwan’s liberalization, but his list of the three major differences that benefited Taiwan’s democratization (starting on p. 315) — foreign pressure, a shaky foundation, and prior commitments to democracy — is an improvement on most comparisons I’ve read, if a bit underdeveloped compared to the similarities he enthusiastically describes. Furthermore, his acknowledgement of many Taiwanese citizens’ skepticism about the universal value of democracy stands out as a fact worth recognizing. Finally, the relatively long-term survival of the semi-liberalized Nationalist government of the 1980s, which — despite what Chu implies — was unexpectedly pushed towards democratization far more quickly than they would have otherwise preferred, indicates that the current PRC status quo may persist and be relatively successful for some time to come.

Overall, the various contributed articles were sprinkled with occasional valuable clarifications and insights but also put forth many claims that had not been rigorously evaluated. I honestly doubt that most US officials — the ones that bother to read some of this book themselves — will come away with solid conclusions about China and its future direction in regards to political reform. Occasional flashes of optimism appear to be strongly tempered by multiple assertions that the party-state is consolidating power and attempting to strengthen recent traditions of governance rather than move in new directions that might prove more exciting to Americans. But since that’s not the answer that this book’s proposed audience wants to hear — not strong enough to support either pro-China or anti-China interests within the US government — I’m sure that money will still be spent researching China’s future liberal democratization for decades to come, right on up to the unlikely event in which that actually happens.

Book review: <i>A Million Miles in a Thousand Years</i> by Donald Miller

I don’t know about you, but when I was kid, I wanted my life to be a fairy tale. I think most boys wanted to their lives to be an action-adventure movie. Bottom line is that I think we all just wanted to be living great stories. However, as we grew up, some of us found ourselves living horror stories…or just horribly boring ones. If anything I said resonated with you, then you will love Donald Miller’s new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.

One of my favorite books that I’ve read the last couple of years was Miller’s bestselling book/memoir, Blue Like Jazz (if you haven’t read it, I highly encourage you to do so). As an author, Miller is easy-to-read, witty, and his thoughts and insights always make me go, “Woah.” That being said, I was eager to read his new book, and I definitely wasn’t disappointed.

Basically, some movie producers approach him with the idea of turning his bestselling book (Blue Like Jazz) into a movie, but in the course of pre-production, they more or less tell him that the story (i.e. his life) needs to be tweaked a bit, because it wasn’t as exciting as it should be (i.e. it was missing the stuff that movies are made of). So this new book is what he learns along the way as he sets off to “edit” his life. Beautiful stuff.

“The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either.” – Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

It’s one of those books that I’m going to want to read again and again. It’s thought-provoking, poignant, and inspiring. I like it so much that I’m giving away one copy of the book so that someone else would be blessed by it.

Yes, you read it right! I am giving someone a chance to win this book! So here’s how this goes: if you want to join, you have to a) be a resident of Metro Manila, Philippines (sorry to the international folks!), and b) leave a comment on this post and tell me what you would be doing with your life if you didn’t have to worry about time, money, and resources? It’s just a random question, but I love asking it!

On Thursday , October 29 at 12 noon, I’ll randomly choose (i.e. I will close my eyes, scroll up and down, stop, and click) a winner, and I’ll send you a message to let you know you’ve won. Got it? And if you don’t win, I’m sorry, but I still encourage you to read this book. I think you’ll love it, too. You can start by reading an excerpt here. Enjoy!

Book Review: Bicycle Diaries

“All this talk about bike lanes, ugly buildings, and density of population isn’t just about those things, it’s about what kinds of people those places turn us into.” - © Kelly Nelson

David Byrne, a founder of the band Talking Heads, has been biking for transportation for decades, in New York City where he lives and while visiting foreign cities. (He brings a folding bike when he travels.) His new book Bicycle Diaries recounts his experiences bicycling in various cities: Berlin, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, London, Manila, San Francisco and Sydney. Don’t expect a bike travelogue though. The book would more accurately be titled “Diaries of an Artist Who Bikes.” It contains a wide range of musings (can dogs deceive themselves?) and wonderings (does every culture have its own palette?) as well as encounters with artists, musicians and strangers on the street. It is a thought-filled, swirling read. And if you flip the pages front to back you’ll see a tiny bicycle scoot across the bottom of the page.

The most bikey parts come in the introduction, the New York chapter and the epilogue. Byrne started biking in the early 80s when it was a geeky, uncool thing to do but he found it exhilarating. Still does. Byrne, in his fifties, clearly enjoys having a bike-seat view of street life and urban landscapes. “It’s the liberating feeling—the physical and psychological sensation—that is more persuasive than any practical argument,” he writes to explain why he rides. He does use cars on occasion but says of driving, “The romance of being ‘on the road’ is pretty heady, but a cross-country ramble is a sometime thing. It isn’t a daily commute, a way of living, or even the best way to get from point A to point B.”

Byrne has applied his artsiness to the world of biking by organizing a public forum in 2007 that featured helmet designers, lock breakers, writers and singers (detailed in the New York chapter) and by designing one-of-a-kind bike racks (shown at the end of the book).

After reading Byrne’s description of Berlin—“No cars park or drive in the bike lanes, and the cyclists don’t ride on the streets or on the sidewalks either. There are little stoplights just for the bikers, even turn signals!”—I’m itching to go there and see it for myself. And that is the gift of this book: it makes you want to go some place new, bring a bike or rent one there, ride around and take your own photos, write your own journal.

Kelly Nelson

Tempe, Arizona USA

Bicycle Diaries / David Byrne / Viking, 2009

The Genesis Genealogies

Book by Rev. Abraham Park

Book Review by Donna Totey

  

The subtitle of The Genesis Genealogies is “God’s Administration in the History of Redemption.”  Sounds a little academic, doesn’t it?  But Reverend Park shows the reader that through the Bible’s genealogies (a record or account of the ancestry and descent of a person) we can see God’s divine hand at work.

 

If you’re anything like me, I usually skip right through the genealogies when I come across them, dismissing them as insignificant.  But Reverend Park says it best, “We must not commit the grave mistake of overlooking them as meaningless enumerations of names.  With the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we must discover and follow the rich vein of redemptive history that flows through the genealogies.”  I love how Reverend Park explains the information in the context of God’s great love for us.  The genealogies are not just information or even to be thought of in terms of their historical significance, but God’s involvement in our redemption.

 

This book opened my eyes to the wonderful plan of redemption that God has had for all people, right from the beginning.  Through the different people listed in the genealogies, God leads us right up to the sacrificial work that Jesus did for us on the cross.  Reverend Park states, “As we delve deeper into the study of the Genesis genealogies, we will be able to sense the magnitude of God’s abundant grace and love.”  The genealogies aren’t just a list of people “begetting” other people; it’s a demonstration of God’s very real love for us.

 

Reverend Park separates the genealogies into two lines—“the genealogy of the faithful who lived to fulfill God’s will, and the genealogy of the unfaithful whose lives stood against God’s will.”  The genealogies of the faithful are written with different details and information than those of the unfaithful.  The author points out that there are those who God chooses to see and those He chooses not to see.

 

The book shares information about different people’s lives, whether faithful or unfaithful, and how they chose to relate to God.  Cain, for example, was most likely taught all about God and heard from Him, but because of the evil in his heart, he chose to turn his back on Him.  And even though many of Cain’s descendents chose to follow the evil path, God’s will was even greater and more fervent and was and is still being carried out to this day, despite evil efforts.  On the other hand, Adam’s descendents showed how great walking with God can be.  And Adam’s life itself showed that God didn’t abandon us after the sin and failure of man, but worked to transform death into life through His great love.

 

I learned that the genealogies aren’t just lists, but examples not only of God’s great love for us, but also examples of how we should and shouldn’t live our lives.  The unfortunate paths of the unfaithful show us how not following God’s plan will cause grave consequences.  The paths of the faithful show us how, even though there might be or will be struggles, with God’s help and guidance, we will fulfill His plans for us.

Book: The Unlikely Disciple

The Unlikely Disicple is written by Kevin Roose.  What’s it about?

Roose is a student at Brown University, who, when he was 19 left Brown University to do a journalistic report to live at Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA.  

Surprisingly, I enjoyed the book. It was well written and slightly reminds me of the college experience that I had. I mean, a highly intensive Spiritual atmosphere.  It was a great experience with tough classes.

Nonetheless, the book doesn’t come without some discussion. I found a blog post of an actual Liberty student here who calls some of the stuff into question…read it for yourself.  I could see his objections.

One thing for me was that the book made me realize how non-Christians view the things of Christians…essentially as foolishness in a lot of ways. 

Overall, I think it was a good book. It was neat to see how he viewed the way that Christians acted (which I think was presented pretty factually in most senses). It will help you to understand exactly how non-Christian people view you in most situations. Understanding their point of view goes a LONG way. 

*Spoiler Alert*

Roose never becomes a Christian. Yet, there is something to be said about the authenticity that he felt at Liberty. Most of what I have seen is that he went back to Liberty and is the same Roose. This doesn’t surprise me, as one must remember that if someone doesn’t actually accept Christ into his or her life, then he or she cannot be expected to live in such a way. My biggest irritation is that some of the supposed comments he has made since returning to Brown have been done in a sarcastic and degrading tone towards evangelical Christians.

Nonetheless, I do recommend the book.  It was good.  It will open your mind.  It will challenge you.

Do it.

[REVIEW] Evil Cats - Elia Anie

Elia Anie
Evil Cats
Hachette Headline (UK: 3rd September 2009; AU: November 2009)
Buy (UK) Buy (CA) Buy (Worldwide)

A growing trend in novelty books are those whose contents were originally distributed in regular installments on the Internet. But whilst I Can Has Cheezburger relies on photographs, Elia Anie’s Evil Cats: When Fluffy Cats Get Mean is illustrated, with virtually no text.

In real life, the most evil cats get is basically trying to usurp your place in the household – they couldn’t be arsed doing anything more strenuous. The felines in this book, however, have a wide array of weapons at their dispense, as well as an immature sense of humour. Like the lion alpha in South Park’s zoo whose comedy only went as far as “pull the thorn from my paw”, these evil cats fart a lot, and wizz on stuff. But there’re cleverer things in here – some drawings so intelligent that a few completely went over my head. (Not that it’s difficult to stupefy me…)

While it’s a nice little way to spend twenty minutes, the Australian RRP of $19.99 seems enormous. Make it $10, and more consumers will be likely to purchase it. But by all means, borrow it from the library, or have it on your coffee table for guests to flick through.

The Graveyard Book

Halloween Book Review #3!!

—4—

For anyone who hasn’t read Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, Halloween is fast approaching and this is a great time to do it!  But considering I’m the last one to read it, that may be irrelevant.  But I am going to review it anyways, perhaps to encourage the last few of you to pick it up.

Nobody’s family was murdered when he was an infant, but he escaped into the local cemetery.  There, the “residents” take it upon themselves to raise and protect Nobody (Bod), and adopt him as their own.  Bod is granted full run of the graveyard, which means he acquires some of the ghosts’ abilities, such as being able to fade.  He is taught by characters from all different eras of history.  His guardian is Silas, a figure who is able to leave the graveyard to gather food and items for Nobody, as well as protect him from the man who is still hunting him.

You would think a story about a boy growing up in a cemetery would be morbid, and at times it is a bit frightening, but overall it is a story about a community, unusual as it is, coming together to love, teach, and raise a child.  At first Bod is confined to the graveyard, but he is taught to survive and thrive outside of it as well.  And what a wonderful set of characters!  Ghouls and a witch, a Roman and a poet, and a little girl from the outside world who befriends young Bod even though her mother thinks him her imaginary friend.

I was definitely stressed at the end when the murderer known as Jack finds Nobody, and Bod must escape him and save his best friend.  Besides this, the story is not too frightening or dark.  I think it is perfectly appropriate for most children, and is great for adults too!  Love it!

4/5

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

Monstrumology: the study of life forms generally malevolent to humans; the hunting of such creatures.

Apprentice monstrumologist Will Henry cannot escape his creeping dread each time there’s a midnight knock on the door of the home of Dr. Pellinore Warthrop.  Although no one in the town of New Jerusalem speaks of it, they all know the special area of study which consumes the doctor’s life, a study none of them would voluntarily undertake.  Unless, like Erasmus Gray, they happened upon an abomination like the one he found one night while engaged in the ghoulish task of graverobbing. 

There, curled around the dead body of a girl was a monster out of myth, which had died while sating it’s hunger for human flesh: an Anthropophagi.  It’s hideous, headless form housed two black eyes and a gaping mouth filled with teeth meant to rip open humans.  The doctor knows that where there is one Anthropophagi, there are many, so he enlists his assistant, orphan Will Henry, to aid him in ridding New Jerusalem of the menace brought to their doorstep.

Lovers of horror, the gruesome and the grotesque, this is the book for you.  Each Anthropophagi attack is described with grim realism down to the shattered skulls and dripping gore.  Will Henry’s observations made me cringe and want to turn away even as I couldn’t put this book down.  As the two become closer to finding out the origins of the Anthropophagi in New Jerusalem, the suspense grows as you find out just what brought the monsters to America’s shores.

But beyond the dread and death, it’s worth reading this book just for the fascinating  Warthrop and Will Henry.  Warthrop’s intensity and complete dedication to his work have an all too human cause, and Will Henry’s determination, doubts and turmoil helped make him a realistic young man thrust into a strange new world upon his parents’ death.  

I highly recommend this book.  Seriously, what are you waiting for???  The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey is now available at the library.

Katie

Book: Why Evolution Is True

I finished Why Evolution Is True by Jerry Coyne last night.  I had been looking to read a book on evolution lately in order to better understand the mindset of those who argue against creation.  Surprisingly, the Coyne book wasn’t bad.  It didn’t take on the same arrogant tone that Dawkins, Hitchens, and other anti-theists take on in their writings.  It was an informative, yet slightly misguided book.

I did learn a lot though.  And that was very beneficial.  Coyne never attacked Christianity, but asked generic questions regarding creationism.  This is where he went off the tracks, assuming his knowledge of creationism.  

Nonetheless, the book was pretty good.  Let’s review:

• The issue of “species” is a pretty big deal.  Coyne claims that 99% of species that have ever walked this earth are extinct (no sources to back the information).  This comes interesting to me as by species, it is meant within a class of animal.  Instead of “species” meaning a new animal, it means a different type of finch, fish, monkey, etc.  This has always seemed to be a fun issue of interpretation.  Anyways, on this issue of Coyne’s assertion he states, ““This, by the way, poses an enormous problem for theories of intelligent design (ID). It doesn’t seem so intelligent to design millions of species that are destined to go extinct, and then replace them with other, similar species, most of which will also vanish. ID supporters have never addressed this difficulty.”  Animals die.  People die.  Death is the result of sin.  Just because the answer to the question isn’t what you want, doesn’t mean it hasn’t been addressed.
• Coyne repeatedly appeals to the idea of “Bad Design” but as I just mentioned, Christians do have an explanation for the messed up things of the world – unfortunately, people who operate from the mindset that there is no God refuses to accept that.
• Adaptation happens. I’ll agree with that.  It’s been observed.  My problem with evolution is the fact that adaptation has been observed – ie. Darwin’s finches – and the argument continues that many little changes within a species add up over time, thus, one form can transform into another.  I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
• One such example that Coyne provides for adaptation is as follows: There are species of orchids that resemble wasps, bees, and other insects.  Sure, I can see that.  And this is showing my ignorance on the issue of course, but the argument is that over time, these orchids have developed leaves or whatnot that look like a bee.  I mean, look at the picture – it looks like a bee.  I just don’t understand what caused the orchid to transform a leaf to look like a bee. Orchids are non-thinking organisms, thus there is no perception of what a bee looks like.  So, does nature just somehow take over and give the orchid the ability to grow a leaf that looks JUST like a bee?  Random mutations within the DNA sequence allow a leaf to begin to grow and change to the point that it looks like a bee, whenever the orchid cannot observe what bee looks like?  Maybe it’s way over my head, but if someone would like to explain how something this complex can happen within an orchid, giving it the ability to grow a leaf that looks like a bee whenever it cannot observe what a bee looks like, then I’d love to have the explanation.  As for now, I just think this is a poor argument.  Kinda like the Christian side whenever someone argues and just says, “Goddidit, don’t ask anymore questions….” I feel like many people say, “Evolution did it, shut up!”  
• Again, my ignorance might be shown greatly here, but another problem I have is of human fossilization. No, I will not go on to say that some of the “transition fossils” presented are not human…whoops.  Anyways, Darwin, Coyne, and others use the argument that humans began evolving in Africa.  Thus, it is obvious that most fossils would be found in Africa of the earliest descendants.  Sure – that’s fine.  I mean, according to the Bible, that area is where a lot of fossils should be found, too, as fossilization occurs whenever organisms find themselves quickly covered by water and sediments…I seem to remember this flood story…nonetheless – a quick look at human fossil records shows that some of the earliest “human fossils” were not discovered in Africa, but instead scattered around Asia, Europe, AND Africa.  I don’t care where they find them.  I just thought it interesting that Coyne really hit on the fact that man evolved in Africa, thus fossils should be found only there, and then whenever man because a thinking creature capable of movement, he moved across the world…yet some of the oldest dated fossils by evolutionists are found in Germany, China, Pakistan, and Italy. Oh well.

Anyways, I enjoyed the book.  I obviously don’t know everything that evolutionists believe, nor will I ever (as I have heard different contradicting ideas from different evolutionists…)  I just wanted to take a step toward understanding the worldview from which they work.

There are many I have talked to who are simply angry.  They don’t want to believe in a God.  They don’t want to deal with that, so it’s a sense of rebellion.  I try to avoid these types of people.

But others are simply unable to come to the conclusion that a God exists.  They see evolution as fact because it makes sense.  They see Christianity (and any religion) as moot because it seems preposterous and impossible.  They reject it because it is not logical – not because they’re angry babies.  I like these people, because they’re nice.

I read this book to understand those people.  I read this book to be able to at least talk to them a little.

One last tidbit, just for fun.  Within the book, Coyne says “probably,” “maybe,” “possibly,” etc. numerous times when speaking of how things evolved, why they evolved, and other issues.  Sure, I don’t expect evolutionists to have all the answers.  I mean, that’s something you hear a lot from them.  ”No, we haven’t found transitional fossils, but we will someday and that will answer all the questions…”  What you hear is faith.  I just wanted to point that one out.  So, don’t bash faith.  It happens to everyone.  

Now, back to reading things I want to read for fun….not that I didn’t enjoy the book.  It had some interesting tidbits…just interpreted the evidence in a much different way.

The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams

A must for any budding lepidopterist (moths will be truly fascinating once you have read this book) – or anyone who enjoys interesting psychological studies. A beautifully narrated account of family secrets; with deep insights on growing older and on the complexities of human interactions.

It is the story of two sisters, Ginny and Vivi, meeting again at the end of their lives after not having seen each other in forty-seven years. Nothing is quite as it seems and the reader’s perspective of the situation will constantly shift whilst trying to understand who the ‘innocent’ one of the two sisters could be (and what is best for people who suffer from severe mental health problems).

Picture pinched off www.amazon.co.uk, where you can also buy the book.

Pick and Choose

I want your opinion on something that is controversial in the churches of Christ so please feel free to comment on it.  A book that has probed my thoughts more than any other book has in a long time is Scot McKnight’s Blue Parakeet.  It is a book designed to help readers rethink how they should read the Bible.  Really it is a book on hermeneutics.  I will not get into much of the discussion but here is a few select quotes:

Furthermore, it is my belief that we-the church-have always read the Bible in a picking-and-choosing way.  Somehow, someway we have formed patterns of discernment that guide us.  (McKnight, Blue Parakeet, 122)

When we see how we actually live, we have two choices: either become radical biblical literalists and apply everything (and I mean everything), or to admit that we are “pickers and choosers.”  (123)

So here is my question: “Can we avoid the fact that we pick and choose in a certain manner?”  “Is it enevitable?”  Can we really believe the old adage, “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it” in all circumstances?  I am open to your thoughts.

Book Review: Twenties Girl

I just finished reading Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella this morning. It wasn’t my plan to read it. I went to the library Wednesday to pick up The Day the Falls Stood Stillthat I had on hold (which I’m really excited about) and did some book browsing. I found it on the new books shelf and figured why not. If I didn’t like it I could just put it down….and I almost did.

Here’s the synopsis:

Lara Lington has always had an overactive imagination, but suddenly that imagination seems to be in overdrive. Normal professional twenty-something young women don’t get visited by ghosts. Or do they?

When the spirit of Lara’s great-aunt Sadie–a feisty, demanding girl with firm ideas about fashion, love, and the right way to dance–mysteriously appears, she has one last request: Lara must find a missing necklace that had been in Sadie’s possession for more than seventy-five years, and Sadie cannot rest without it. Lara, on the other hand, has a number of ongoing distractions. Her best friend and business partner has run off to Goa, her start-up company is floundering, and she’s just been dumped by the “perfect” man.

Sadie, however, could care less.

Lara and Sadie make a hilarious sparring duo, and at first it seems as though they have nothing in common. But as the mission to find Sadie’s necklace leads to intrigue and a new romance for Lara, these very different “twenties” girls learn some surprising truths from each other along the way. (from Random House)

For the first good bit I was wondering why I was reading it. It’s the same formulaic chic lit plot with the over-the-top embarrassing situations, money woes, and naive characters. I almost put it down. Twice.

But I’m glad I finished. I know this will sound corny, but in some ways it was a little more than the regular chic lit. Of course, there’s romance and embarrassing moment after embarrassing moment, but in the end it’s about family. Kind of. It made you, or at least me, wonder what you’re long-lost realtives were like in their youth. They weren’t always old.  What were they like? Anyways…

It was an enjoyable, quick read. Longer than most chic lit books…pushing 500 pages. I think one thing I enjoyed was that the end was not about Lara’s life being “fixed” or a happily-ever-after ending, although those were definitely there. It was a nice departure from the normal chic lit, not too far. I’d say it’s a favorite…for chic lit, that is.

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Jack Kerouac

On the Road  by Jack Kerouac.

I am probably the last human being on the planet to read this book. It’s been on my “list” for years. It’s a really long list. But I’m sticking to my commitment to get through them all and then add more. No more books for me until I read what I already have!

Anyway, I grew up with a mother obsessed with all things Kerouac. We even had a dog named Cody because she always wanted to name a dog Cody after the title character in Visions of Cody. Perhaps it was a way of rebellion to not read Kerouac, the same way I refused to read Mark Twain because he had strong ties to my hometown and I heard way too much about him growing up.

My thoughts on this book are mixed. Kerouac is undeniably a gifted writer and his style remains modern even 60-plus years later. I keep thinking that if Kerouac were alive and writing today, On the Road would be a blog and not a book. Or perhaps, a blog turned into a book. It would translate quite well to the format.

But I find it difficult relating to the story. I’ve never done a drug stronger than alcohol and have no desire to change my status on that. I really have no desire to be a migrant worker, sleep in bus stations or be generally dirty and icky for weeks at a time while hitchhiking across the country.

Yes, I want to travel. Yes, I get sick of being tied down to a job and a place. Yes, I’m sure such a journey would give me great material for writing. But reading about it isn’t making it sound any more glamorous than I already think it isn’t.

I’m only about a third of the way into the book, but I’m thinking that it isn’t going to change much. It’s about Kerouac’s journey, and what I described above is the journey he had to embark upon and complete.

But I’m disappointed. I’ve heard so much about this book, about how inspiring it is, from so many people for so many years that reading it now for myself is a bit of a letdown. I may change my mind by the time I finish reading. I won’t know until I do.

Christopher Pike &ndash; my favorite young adult author

In junior high school, I discovered the wonderful world of novels written by Christopher Pike.  I read everything he wrote except for some lesser known works.  But for the most part, if he wrote it, I read it.  The same goes for R.L. Stine but that’s another post.

I recently bought one of his popular series (apart from the Final Friends and Remember Me trilogy) reprint by Simon Pulse: The Last Vampire.  There are six books in the series and Simon Pulse released Thirst: No. 1 which includes the first three books in the series: The Last Vampire, Black Blood, and Red Dice.

For its time (for me), I enjoyed the thrill, the kick-ass nature of the protagonist, the vampire elements, and of course, any sex involved.  Reading this through the eyes of a much better read adult, the writing is amateurish, the motivations aren’t clear, and the plots are predictable.  I loved not knowing the end result as a pre-teen.  However, presently, I can’t even stomach some of this writing.  I found myself trudging through the pages and checking to see how far along I got until I completed the chapter.

There are some young adult novels that get better with age (Lois Lowry’s The Giver – again, another post) but these have not. 

Christopher Pike was one of the best selling young adult authors in the mid-nineties (behind R.L. Stine) and now, young adults now don’t even know who he is.  He’ll forever live in our junior high school years and stay there because that’s where he’s remembered, rejoiced, and on top.  Rock on, Christopher Pike!

From the Shelf: The Art of Biblical Narrative

In this edition of From the Shelf I’ll be taking a look at Robert Alter’s The Art Biblical Narrative, an interesting an influential little book on the narrative techniques of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).

Originally published in 1981, Alter’s little tome was a bit of a watershed moment in Old Testament studies, exerting an influence that is still felt today.  In this work, Alter takes an approach to the text of Scripture, that for a non-evangelical (or non-conservative Jewish) scholar was rather radical: that the books of the Hebrew Bible ought to be viewed as carefully and skillfully composed texts, as opposed to simply a patchwork of contradicting ancient sources, which were haphazardly thrown together.  In this regard, this book has greatly shaped literary approaches to and studies of the Bible.

Thus, Alter employs his skills as a literary critic and Hebrew scholar to explore the various techniques that the Hebrew authors used to convey their message in Scripture. Persoanlly, I found chapter 5 on repetition and chapter 8 on the omnipotent narrator to be the most helpful and insightful.  Especially intriguing is Alter’s discussion of how the slightest change of a word or phrase in otherwise verbatim repetition carries with it some shade of meaning. These two chapters alone are worth the price of the book.  Further, his critiques of the shortcomings of historical-critical scholarship are accurate and valuable, especially coming from a non-evangelical scholar.

While I appreciate Atler’s respect for the texts of the Old Testament as unified, purposeful documents, his careful reading of those texts, and keen eye for detail, there are a number of issues where I disagree with him.  Primarily, Alter and I disagree on our foundational presupposition of the text.  I clearly view the text of Scripture as the inspired, inerrant, Word of God.  Dr. Alter, on the other hand, approaches the text as merely the creation of men, containing irreconcilable contradictions, and oscillating between being either “fictionalized history” or “historicised fiction.”  He does, however, insist that these texts convey the theology and worldview of ancient Israel, so hold value for reader today, and can give insight and meaning into life.  This, however, proved to be a valuable exercise on my behalf, because it forced me to critically ask myself, “If I agree with Alter about a certain technique, how do I reframe my understanding or articulation of that point so that it agrees with my view of Scripture.”

Overall, if you’re interested in learning more about how OT narrative “works” to convey its message, I would commend this work to you.  The authors of the OT were brilliant writers and masters of their language, and Alter really brings out that point.  While I don’t agree with everything Alter says or his fundamental view of Scripture, on the whole his book encourages us to be more careful readers of the text of Scripture, and that is never a bad thing.

The Death of Nick Cave's Narrative

I have to say it – disappointment.
Nick Cave’s writing here falls way behind “The Ass Saw The Angel.”
This is the story of Bunny Munro, whose wife hangs herself, prompting Bunny to take to the road with his young son. He claims to be “teaching him the business” of peddling beauty products door-to-door, while in reality Bunny has no idea where he’s going as his life falls apart around him. He loses his wife, his charisma, his raging boner, and finally his life.
Cave writes supreme characters. Bunny and Bunny Junior give us internal dialogues which seem so real in their gory detail. Even minor characters who appear and disappear have convincing details that make them as real as someone you’d just seen on the street.
Cave also gives up a myriad of fantastic one-liners. Pretty things, hilarious things, things that are real.
The problem in this novel is that it goes nowhere for 90% of the narrative. Bunny and Bunny Junior seem to play out the same scene over and over, and then finally when they do something it’s entirely obscure and doesn’t fit with the rest of the novel.
While Cave’s characters are very much 3D, and his writing is quite lovely, I didn’t feel satisfied by this book at all, especially after reading some great work by Cave previously and being a big fan of his music.
Perhaps he’s losing his touch.

Bargain with the Devil by Enid Wilson

Well, this is a weird twist: the covers, both back and front, suggest that Darcy is, in fact, the devil, and that Elizabeth is forced by events to make a bargain with him. Though the text does begin that way, the bargain about which the title speaks is more literally with the devil, and it’s not Elizabeth doing the bargaining.

The story begins with a meeting in a London park as Elizabeth asks Darcy for help in finding Lydia. He asks what she’ll do for him in return, and, if a bite is any suggestion, the favors will merit the title of the website of this writer (www.steamydarcy.com).

The text uses a lot of original Pride and Prejudice language but, more often than not, not in the same context or even by the same character who utters the words in the original (e.g.: Elizabeth says the “I never knew myself” line directly to Darcy this time). This version of Darcy makes several grammatical errors (Bingley “will invite my sister and I to journey to Hertfordshire,” and Elizabeth could “return the favour and invite my sister and I to Longbourne”)—object pronouns in particular seem to give him trouble—and some of the scenes of passion are a bit disturbing inasmuch as they involve Darcy forcing himself on Elizabeth (and Elizabeth enjoying it). At one point, for instance, he squeezes her breast and then kisses her hard to muffle her scream.

This is not Austen’s Darcy.

Elizabeth fares a bit better, but even she is transformed, and, arguably, deformed by this text into someone more interested in a man than in her own family. When her father falls ill, she leaves him with the Gardiners while she secretly joins Darcy on a dangerous mission, after he has already told her to stay away. Upon the sad end of that affair, she is thinking more about her evening with Darcy than about the family member of hers who will never be the same.

The words Wilson gives these creatures may, indeed, be Austen’s, but these are not her characters.

The plot is exciting if not quite believable (it’s one thing for a small village to believe in witchcraft but quite another for witchcraftt to work!), but it was a fun little book for a weekend.

(Not so Fun)Friday: In the Media

So, I’m a strong believer in word of mouth. Many of the gems I’ve come across, be it books, music, television shows or movies, have all been at the suggestion of someone who’s opinion I value, who had insightful things to share. I do not take these suggestions lightly. Without them, I would never have found the Twilight Series. Or started listening to Paramore. Or rented the new BBC version of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, only to fall in love with Captain Wentworth (he’s impossibly beautiful, but I digress).

Now, it seems, the government, in particular, the FTC wants to put a stop to these kind of valuable recommendations. I kid you not. Bloggers, beware. As of December 1, 2009, there will be some very strict review policies to follow or you risk being fined upwards of $11k.

For starters, the day of receiving ARCs may be over. Is an advanced copy of a book considered compensation for a review? I suppose my question is, how else is the review supposed to be written? And I suppose we could get the book, read it, and send it back… but that seems like a lot of work and I can see it generating a few headaches for authors and publishers in the future.

I suppose what outrages me the most is that the FTC is missing the big picture. Why not enforce something of substance? Like media piracy? An author friend of mine recently discovered her e-book was being pirated on a website and she’d lost out on thousands of dollars worth of sales. THOUSANDS. Try and put that into perspective. This is a woman with a family, and children, who takes the time to write books so others can enjoy them, and her hard work will never see the true fruits of her labor. But a blogger who gives her good press and reviews her book would be fined? It doesn’t make any sense.

What do you all think? I know many of you readers are also bloggers, are you outraged by these regulations? Do you feel it doesn’t really concern you? Discuss.

Holy Bible: Mosaic (Review)

Holy Bible: Mosaic (New Living Translation)

Editor: Keith Williams

Hardcover: 1340 pages

Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1414322038

ISBN-13: 978-1414322032
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Mosaic Website

Amazon

CBD

Overstock

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Introduction

There’s been no shortage of reviews of the Holy Bible: Mosaic (hereafter Mosaic) in the past month, which is due to Tyndale House’s generosity in providing review copies to various bloggers, of whom I am one (thanks to Laura Bartlett and Christy Wong for this review copy!), as well as their wide-ranging blog tour, of which this is my contribution.  I won’t rehearse the various features of the Mosaic because most other reviewers have done so and the official Mosaic website can do so more effectively and eloquently than I can.  You can read brief synopses of the features here and view wonderful photographs of the Bible with its various features here.  I also came across some page samples here, although to my knowledge these are not linked to on the official website.  Go here for the official sample pages.

Initial Impression

When I initially heard of this Bible I had hoped that it would be fairly slim and serve as an NLT that I could carry around and make regular use of.  When it arrived my hopes and dreams were crushed as it’s a fairly thick volume.  All of the specifically Mosaic content appears as the front matter of this Bible and is printed on different paper than that of the actual Scriptural text which I found interesting, and Keith Williams’ explanation of this made a lot of sense, that is, they wanted to keep the Scriptures separate from the other content so as to highlight the difference.  In a nutshell, the stuff up front is supposed to lead you to the stuff in the back, i.e., Scripture.

Artwork

As you’ll see if you click the link above to the photograph slide show the Mosaic contains a number of beautiful pictures inside, most of which, surprisingly, are contemporary.  I say ’surprisingly’ because one of the draws of this Bible is that it takes various pieces from throughout the Church’s history to form this wonderful mosaic that Christianity is, and there’s certainly no lack of extraordinary artwork from the patristic period (and I’m sure there’s even some great stuff that dates before this) onward.  I was very pleased to see my favorite icon of Jesus the “Christo Pantocrator” from the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul on p. M-145 (I seriously have this as the wallpaper on my cell phone).  This is one of the older pieces of artwork in the Mosaic dating to the Middle Ages (they have it dated at c. 1050, the only piece older, according to my perusal, was the “Bread and Fish Mosaic,” c. 380 on p. M-68).  The contemporary artwork comes from artists all over the globe, e.g., Hong Kong , Ecuador, England, Samoa, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Mexico, Cameroon, USA, Iran, etc.

I’d be lying, however, if I said that I found all of the art to be equally appealing, and there’s one piece in particular that I found somewhat shocking and a bit disturbing.  I have in mind “Jesus Became Poor” by Jake Dorr on p. M-176 which depicts Jesus cutting up credit cards with a pair of scissors and it serves as the introductory image to a section entitled “Wealth” (= Pentecost, Week 3).  My problem with this picture is theological, and it’s tied to my eschewal of the ‘Word of Faith’ teaching that Jesus was (financially) rich and became (financially) poor so that we might become (financially) rich.  This picture only serves to perpetuate, even if unintentionally, this kind of ‘prosperity’ preaching that doesn’t take an adequate account of Paul’s purpose in drawing the analogy.

Weekly Meditations

The weekly meditations are pretty cool, even if completely foreign to me as one who has worshiped in a ‘low church’ context for my entire adult Christian life.  They’re arranged according to the “Church Year” (= Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Passion Week, Easter, Pentecost) and include various quotations from Christians throughout history as well as Scripture readings and some blank lines for you to write down any reflections you might have.  The Scripture readings are taken from various lectionaries that are in use around the world, but when I asked my Orthodox friend Esteban Vázquez how they matched up with the Orthodox Church’s liturgical readings he said, “not at all.”

One thing I would have liked to have seen with regard to the various quotations would have been some more detail in the citations.  As it stands we’re simply given the author’s name and the time they lived.  The reader would have a difficult time running down these quotations if they wanted to read them in their broader context or even check them for accuracy.  I think end notes would have been appropriate here since footnotes would have been out of place in a volume such as this.  There’s also the issue of not knowing exactly how each theme connects to the particular week in the Church’s calendar.  E.g., I’m not sure why Pentecost, Week 28 should be associated with “Creation” (p. M-326-31), or why Easter, Week 3 should be associated with “Mastering Virtues” (p. M-134-9).  Perhaps this is due to my general ignorance of the Church calendar, but introductory notes on such matters would be a welcome addition.

Bible

As Keith Williams notes in his video introduction, the Scriptures are the most important part of the Mosaic.  Without them we wouldn’t have a Holy Bible: Mosaic, we’d just have a standalone devotional book (which, in point of fact, Tyndale House does have: Devotions for Advent & Devotions for Lent).  So let me say this: the Bible is great!  One complaint I had with the NLT Study Bible was that it didn’t employ center column referencing.  The Mosaic does!  One complaint that many people (although not me personally) had about the NLT Study Bible was that the words of Christ were in red.  Not so with the Mosaic!  The text itself is small yet still readable, and throughout the margins we find icons that identify the passages of Scripture from the weekly meditations in the front.  In the center column we find various (transliterated) words in Hebrew and Greek that are keyed to the “NLT Word Study System with Hebrew/Greek Dictionary and Index” (p. 1196-1209).  There’s also an extensive 108 page dictionary/concordance at the end of the Bible (p. 1211-1319).  I would love to see this layout in a standalone volume in hardcover and (bonded) leather editions.  If Tyndale House produces that product then I will have finally found the NLT I’ve been looking for!  Oh, and it goes without saying that the NLT is a fine translation, one of my favorites in fact!

Conclusion

So who is this Bible for?  If you’re the type of person who enjoys devotional-type Bibles (and mind you that this isn’t properly a devotional Bible) then I think you’ll enjoy this one immensely.  If you’re looking for a durable hardcover NLT with some great looking pictures and a wide array of quotations from all sorts of characters throughout Church history then look no further than the Mosaic.  If you simply want to best formatted NLT to date and don’t want to wait for a standalone volume then I say go for this one!  For what the Mosaic set out to do it seems to have done it incredibly well.  The question you need to ask is whether or not the Mosaic is suited to your needs and interests.

B”H

UK bookstores won’t carry a supermodel’s new biography

I stumbled across an odd story in the UK Telegraph the other day. A former model named Katie Price (aka Jordan) is getting ready to release her newest book in time to catch all the book buyers out there looking for gifts. It apparently details her split and divorce from her former husband Peter Andre.

Now, I first have to say, “Who cares?” I have never heard of Jordan or Peter Andre. I’m guessing they must be pretty famous to have a book written about their divorce that a publisher thinks people will be interested in.

Ah, now there’s the catch. The publisher may be way off base in predicting the success of the book. Several book store chains in the U.K. have already announced they won’t stock the book unless the store manager specifically requests copies for his or her store.

Why? Price has written fourth autobiographies in the past five years. Can enough new stuff have happened to her since 2008 (when her last book came out) to justify yet another one.

In Price’s defense, her first autobiography Being Jordan was written in 2004 and sold over a million copies. However, her following books, A Whole New World (2007) and Pushed to the Limit (2008) weren’t nearly as successful. In fact, according to the Telegraph, over the past year 7,200 copies of Pushed to the Limit were left behind in U.K. hotel room indicating that people didn’t care enough to keep the book.

Quick Picks

If you were subjected to physical and psychological torture, how long would you last before you broke?  Find out in Boot Camp by Todd Strasser.

Colin has been dumped by 18 girls named Katherine.  When number 19 kicks him to the curb, he heads out on a wild road trip with his best friend.  Ride along with An Abundance of Katherines by John Green.

Magical powers?  Check.  Awesome fighting skills?  Check.  Want to be a knight?  Check.  There’s just one problem: you’re a girl!  Experience swords and sorcery with Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce.

You are buried alive by a person who wants you dead.  The only way you can survive is to talk him into letting you go.  Could you do it?  Read Whatever Happened to Cass McBride? by Gail Giles.

A magical war has left your people imprisoned in a deadly jail.  You are the only one who can travel to another dimension to free your people and get revenge on your oppressors.  Fly your airship through Death Gate by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

Crazy Love

I finished Crazy Love by Francis Chan on Sunday evening. I must say, it might be one of the best books that I have ever read.  It is a challenging book for people in ministry, but especially just for Christians.

God loved us so much to send His son to die. That’s crazy enough. But this is the same God who created everything we see. And out of all of this – he paid attention to…US! That’s crazy.

The challenges throughout the book are phenomenal. From lukewarm Christians to taking advantage of the moments that we have to make a difference for the name of Christ – it’s a challenging book. 

If you haven’t read it, you need to BUY it right now. I don’t say that lightly either. I used to hate reading, but this book has made a huge impact on me. Buy it. Now. Go to Amazon. Go to your bookstore. Go somewhere, and buy this book. You won’t regret it.

This book is also inspiring a new series on Wednesday night talks with the youth group from me. I’m telling you, it’s that stinkin’ good. 

In other news – I finished book number 5 last night since September 19. That feels pretty awesome.  I also started book number 6.

Let’s review:

1. One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven by Mark Cahill – good book on sharing your faith
2. Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey – proven book on how to manage your finances 
3. What’s So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D’Souza – deep book on Christianity vs. atheism
4. Crazy Love by Francis Chan – the stuff
5. Serious Times by James Emery White – a look at our culture and how Christians should live within it

Number 6 that I began last night is a book that I actually began back in May and then got lazy when it came to reading. No Perfect People Allowed by John Burke. It was recommended to me by my mentor in youth ministry who is an avid reader. The first 50 pages are solid and challenging.

So, that’s what’s going on in my neck of the woods.  What are you reading?

"Augustine: A New Biography" by James J. O'Donnell

I once heard the trick to pronouncing “Augustine:” before seminary, you pronounce it aw-guh-STEEN, but after seminary you pronounce it aw-GUHS-tun. As I near the end of my seminary studies, I can say that this is at best only mostly true. (I believe it was just a joke anyways.)

However you pronounce his name, St. Augustine of Hippo has been one of the most influential writers in the history of Christianity. But what do we know about Augustine himself? And what drove his writings and theology? James J. O’Donnell’s book Augustine: A New Biography (New York: Harper Perennial, 2005) attempts to answer these very questions.

Augustine’s famous work titled Confessions is part autobiography, part prayer, and ends around the time of Augustine’s conversion to Christianity in AD 386/387. O’Donnell picks up the story here and through the use of primary sources—including many letters to and from Augustine—and scholarly research constructs a biography that narrates much of Augustine’s post-conversion life. Augustine’s conflicts with Donatism and Pelagius are both highlighted, as well as his influence within the North African communities he pastored.

I must say that I enjoyed O’Donnell’s style, narrative and subtle humor. O’Donnell (professor of classics and Provost at Georgetown University) is fully qualified and his ability and knowledge come through in the writing. If you can get around the ancient names of places and people Augustine interacted with in 5th century Northern Africa, then you’re in for a well-written book.

What makes O’Donnell’s work a “new biography?” It seems like the dominant attitude throughout that only in this book do we capture the “real” Augustine—and this is my main complaint. For O’Donnell, everything you thought you knew was—at least partially—incorrect. He is fond of phrases such as “… but now…” or “… or so we once thought…”

My advice is this: O’Donnell’s book is a tool to help us understand the life of an ancient figure. I doubt we can say this version is the definitive interpretation of his life (O’Donnell himself might not say it is), but the book does give us a picture. O’Donnell’s portrait of Augustine is a politically-minded and socially-conscious individual, and I don’t doubt Augustine had his flaws. Who doesn’t have room to grow spiritually? Augustine—like us all—needed grace. Perhaps after reading you’ll be more encouraged that a man of such faith still had room to grow.

Enjoy your Coffee!

I’m enjoying every single page of this book I’m reading, “The 5 Minute Miracle”, by Dr Ed Delph, and so I’d like to share this chapter with you:

I am a coffee lover. The stronger  the better, especially in the morning. Recently, I was in downtown Seattle, standing in front of the original Starbucks at Pike Place Farmer’s Market. Now that’s good duty! Being a coffee lover I couldn’t help but notice this story that came through the Internet.

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit one of their university professors. The conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. After offering his guests refreshments, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups. Some were porcelain, others were plastic, glass and crystal. Some were plain, others were expensive and quite exquisite. He told his guests to help themselves to the coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, he said, “If you noticed, all the nice-looking, expensive cups were chosen first, leaving the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases, the name-brand and exquisite cups just makes things more expensive and in some cases, even hide what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup. Yet, you all consciously went for the best cups. Then you even began eyeing each other’s cups.

“Now consider this. Life is the coffee – jobs, money, position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life. The type of cup we have does not define or change the quality of life we live. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee God has provided for us.”

That’s a good lesson for us all. We have all played the comparison game. We have to have a better cup than someone else. We try to outdo others and become undone in the process. Sometimes when you try to possess the best cups, the best cups end up possessing you. Why not just enjoy who we are, who they are, and enjoy the coffee of life.

Sometimes people are like cups, they don’t look or act like the fancy cups you prefer, but if you enjoy the coffee in the cup, life gets better!

It’s what is inside the cup that counts to God.

God brews the coffee, not the cups. So, enjoy your coffe – you’re a special blend!

Peace starts with a smile – and good cup of coffee. Make mine strong and dark. I’ll be glad to take it in a paper cup!

Book Review: Diamond Rio: Beautiful Mess

Diamond Rio: Beautiful Mess

When given the chance to review Beautiful Mess, I took advantage of it. This is an amazing book.

The book begins by giving a teaser that shows Diamond Rio looking as if they are on the way out. We are then taken back to the early days of Diamond Rio before there was a Diamond Rio.

We are given a peek behind the scenes in Opryland USA where many of the band members worked, played, and sang. We learn about how the country music industry views park players. We also read of the struggles and dreams of these park players who long to make it big.

Of very much interest is the individual biographical sketches. Each band member is given a biographical sketch and we are shown their path as they come to Diamond Rio.

Once the band comes together the book takes us into the inner workings of Diamond Rio as they go from broke singers to overnight sensation. We are carried hit by hit through the career of Diamond Rio, and our journey is a very pleasant one. Two things stand out to me about Diamond Rio: 1. They refused to get into the trouble with alcohol and drugs that many groups/singers do 2. They work hard to support charity. Those are very positive points about the group. They did not long just to be famous, but to be different and make a difference.

The story finally brings us to where Diamond Rio is today. The reader gets to share in the laughter and the tears as we see the struggles and successes of this great country band.

Words fail to truly convey this book. It was a joy and an inspiration to read how these guys worked and struggled so hard, and finally made it.

I hope the Beautiful Mess continues a while longer.

Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity

Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity

By Stephen Toulmin

Stephen Toulmin challenges the idea of modernism explaining its origin as an attempt to define and justify a Western mode of thinking which could in turn be applied as a justification for empiricism of the East.  He calls for a new view of modernity based on historical fact rather than isolated abstract rational.  He carefully weaves an interesting narrative that pinpoints the start of modernity with the assassination of King Henry IV.  He outlines the role of religion in the forthcoming desire to search for stability and truth.  He parallels the 30 years war with WWII and the years that followed, leading up to the peak of 1968.   Overall his book makes an interesting read but his quest for objectivity leaves us with yet another personal view of a historical account of modernity.

Review: In The Kitchen by Monica Ali

This book is touted on the cover blurb as being the follow-up to Brick Lane, despite the fact that Ms Ali had another (not terribly well-received) book published in the interim. In The Kitchen centres on Gabriel Lightfoot, Gabe for short, who is executive chef in the kitchen of the swanky Imperial Hotel in London. Gabriel’s life begins to unravel when kitchen porter Yuri is found dead in the basement, and also when he discovers that up north his Dad is dying of cancer.

I thought Ali dealt well with the multi-cultural aspects (as one might expect from someone who has written something as brilliant as Brick Lane), the character of Lena who Gabriel gets friendly is excellently written, and her Russian dialect perfectly captured. However, sometimes it felt as if Gabe was asking the various members of his cooking team their stories as a way of dumping information upon the reader. Ms Ali has clearly done a lot of research (she lists a whole heap of books she has relied on for research), but some of it was unnecessary – I think she mentions the fact that proteins are ‘denatured’ in the cooking process three times! I saw her speak about the book at the Hay Literary Festival, and she actually spent some time in a hotel kitchen observing.

I enjoyed the first three quarters of the book immensely. Then something changed. At the point when Gabe starts to ‘lose his mind’, the narrative stopped working for me. I don’t want to say more as it will ruin the plot. So until the last section I enjoyed the book, the characters were mostly well-formed (apart from Gleeson, I just couldn’t get my head around him).

3 out of 5.

Three Hot Paranormal/Furturistic Romance Reviews

Well, it’s been lean picking with new releases for me and those few I found have been back burnered so I can get reading done for various book swaps on PBS or to get books to various friends.  But I did read a few hot to erotic paranormal romances and here they are.

• Title: Seeing Eye Mate
• Author: Annmarie McKenna
• Type: Paranormal erotic romantic suspense
• Genre: Werewolf/psychic mate  – serial mate killer
• Sub-genre:  My grandmother is a ghost who talks to me – your twin might be a serial killer
• My Grade: C (3.2*)
• Rating: NC-17 to X
• Where Available: ebook from Samhain or print at Amazon

This is not a new release.  I got this book through a PBS swap.  Much of the trope is old and familiar to both romance and thriller readers.  You have an alpha werewolf who scents his mate in a bar and a psychic that also has her dead grandmother who talks to her in her head.  The alpha has a twin, but no ménage here, thank heavens.  You do have the serial killing of wolf mates.  Caelan Graham, an alpha werewolf and Prime  of his pack, is deeply worried about the murders of mates of werewolves in the surrounding area, even though none, so far, have been in his pack.  He and his playboy brother are having a beer in a bar when Caelan, who was just being thankful he hadn’t found his mate, suddenly scents her.  His brother Eli spots his ‘woman of the day’ and it’s the same woman. His brother laughingly takes backs off when he realizes what she is to Caelan.

Tieran Jones is a research librarian who lives and works as far from people as she can be.  She comes from a long family of ‘gifted’ women, but her particular ‘gift’ is more like a curse.  She has visions and touching people often sets them off.  She lives as separately from others as she can.  Tonight her car broke down on the way home, her cell phone is dead and she needs a bathroom NOW!  The kind of rough looking bar is the only choice.  After taking care of things and calling for a tow, she settles on a bar stool away from everyone, but she can feel someone watching her.  Not one someone – two.  Identical twins!  Wow.  Very HOT identical twins.  And the one is making her very nervous.  Her grandmother is there ‘talking’ to her in her head.  Apparently she likes the look of the one twin.  Thank heavens the driver arrives.  Maybe.  The guy is like a bad joke and seems to think Tieran should be suitably ‘grateful’ to him.

Caelan comes to her rescue and Tieran heads home now that her grandmother has stopped messing with her car.  Caelan’s mate might have eluded him for moment, but he doesn’t run a security business for nothing.  With her plate number and name, he has a full dossier come morning – including the fact she’s physic and helped police catch a serial killer, even though they didn’t believe her and she and her mother moved her back here so she could escape the unwanted publicity.  Maybe she can help with their problem, tracking the person responsible for killing the mates.

Caelan goes to Tiernan’s house – and learns it has a mind of its own thanks to years of being inhabited by ‘gifted’ women.  Despite Tieran’s grandmother insisting she can trust Caelan, she’s very reluctant to do so, but there’s no denying their passion.  The battle between Tieran and Caelan forms the core of the story while the murders, seen through the eyes of the killer are interspersed through the story along with Tieran’s ‘vision’.  It gets a bit much at times.  When Eli arrives at Tieran’s house and she ’sees’ the killer with an identical scar on his shoulder, she becomes convinced Eli is the killer.  Caelan insists she’s wrong.  His brother loves women and has no desire to be Prime.  Convinced she is again being dismissed as the police did in the other case, she’s hurt and tries to put some distance between herself and Caelan, but he’s having none of it.  She already carries his pup and she’s his mate, no way is she getting away.

Caelan eventually hauls her off to him home, a remote farm, so she can meet his parents and pack – belatedly realizing how difficult it would be for her to have all the physical contact wolves are used to.  It’s here that Tieran finally realizes Eli isn’t the killer – but the real killer kidnaps her before she can get away.  The final resolution occurs and BAM! suddenly the book is over!

This is an erotic romantic suspense so sex is pretty dominant, to the point where it overtakes the core story.  Tieran and Caelan were very one-dimensional characters and the chip on Tieran’s shoulder combined with her constant distracting silent conversations with her grandmother, became an annoyance and detracted from the story with Caelan. Somehow the balance between sex and suspense misses the mark as well.  Ms McKenna tries to juggle too many pieces and they fracture rather than mesh together as a cohesive tale. The ending is so abrupt, it felt like a slap in the face.  Seeing Eye Mate had some good parts, but mostly, it just never quite pulled its multiple parts together to a cogent, believable story.

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• Title: Mating Flight
• Author: Shay Lacey
• Type: Futuristic Romance
• Genre: I, Virgin
• Sub-genre: I Married an Alien, but it was an accident! – heroine as world savior
• Length: Full novel; about 100,000 words
• My Grade: D+ (2.4*)
• Rating: NC-17
• Where Available: As an ebook from New Concepts or as a used book

Mating Flight is not a new book, but it is new to me.  I wasn’t that impressed with the world building or the characters.  Dr, Sheleigh O’Brian (is that spelling just too cute for words, or what?) is an anthropologist with the inaugural expedition of the USP (Unified Sentient Planets) to the Averan homeworld.  This planet is one of contradictions.  They have some technology that seems quite advanced, but no history of its evolution.  They live in caves on hillsides, avoiding the ground, never building there.  (How farming is done, I’m not sure.)  Population density if low and the locals very fearful of outsiders.  They hope to convince the Averans to join the USP, but they have effectively rebuffed the overtures and seem to tolerate, rather than encourage the expedition.

Shel is finding herself not just baffled by the obvious fear the Averans have for outsiders, but the equally obvious interest of Kleet Kryszan, the heir to the leader of the planet, in her.  Kleet ends up giving her a hand job in her office (so professional) and she agrees to meet him the following morning for sex. Did she ask why morning and why meet him?  Well, no.  One of her team mates, Dr Marne Vorndran, overhears and gives her a very hard time.  She had rebuffed his advances on their trip to Avera and they’ve had a shaky relationship ever since.  She dresses up and goes to a formal reception where Kleet’s parents eye her with intense interest.

Next morning Kleet and Shel meet on a cliff and he asks her to strip.  A virgin, something he knows, she’s reluctant to undress in front of the men stationed there.  Space travel and modesty, hummmmm.  Anyhow, he gets her in the buff in the chill air and then he strips and she sees his wings!  So that’s what their capes hide!  (duh moment)  The real shocker is when Kleet dives off the cliff and then penetrates her for the first time while they fall.  (Let me just mention here, humans are born with only one fear, falling.  Getting over that instinctive fear response is LEARNED and you still get the adrenalin rush.  I don’t care how sexually aroused you are, climaxing in the air while falling – not happening!)  One on the ground he mates with her again.  (Now here she should have hit him with a rock or something.)

After all this, Shel learns this was an Averan wedding ceremony.  Then another round of, “I don’t want anyone to see me naked” and back to the rulers house – AKA, dear old dad. Congratulations, your my wife and oh, by the way, you’re pregnant and the doctor has to confirm that.   Then the elders have to accept this and they must have proof.  Oh, yes, the whole thing was captured and recorded.  GAH!  And one other thing, you can’t be far apart for months because he’ll need to screw your brains out regularly.  Aren’t you thrilled?  One other thing, the ever ‘magical cum’ has changed your DNA.  And no, your parents can come and visit because they can never know about the whole ‘wing thing’ and you can’t go back to the UPS.  Congratulations!

Kleet becomes convinced Shel isn’t truly bound to him as he is to her, so he decides to do more ‘mating flights’.  Then one morning, they’re attacked from the ground.  Shel saves them by manipulating Kleet’s damaged wing, but both are injured.  Kleet becomes withdrawn and pushes her away when it becomes obvious he will never fly again.  The brings to light something the USP expedition has managed to miss.  Averans are evolving into wingless people, but there is a huge amount of discrimination against the winged and the wingless.  Over the last 10 generations (much to short for evolution, by the way) they have moved from flyers to gliders to now wingless people, all because a man (ONE MAN) crash landed on the planet and taught these relatively unevolved people (scientifically speaking) about his equipment.  How they developed the manufacturing infrastructure, construction, nation building – oh just forget it.  It all happened.

Apparently, they can copy but not invent (sounds like an old Star Trek episode to me) and have these wing vs. wingless problems, even though with a human mate, the heirs children will be wingless.  (Does this remind you of another old Star Trek episode with the two guys with opposite side black and white?)  So the marriage is rocky when Kleet’s father is killed by discontent wingless Averans.  But the only way they could have known enough about what happened was through inside information.  Naturally, Shel works out who it is and he takes the time to explain why.  At the trial, Shel makes this huge speech and WOW!, the widow, her mother-in-law applauds and she carriers the day.  The shy virgin bride who doesn’t know anything about a culture except what she learned over a few weeks, and she reshapes it entirely without a single false step.

Just to be certain that she’s a true heroine who saves the whole civilization, she also gets 3 young Averan engineers to create a hang glider.   Why, since their society was already altered by outside interference, she can’t just call up the specs for a freaking hang glider is beyond me.  That like telling someone who has space fight they can’t have the specs for a Webber grill.  Good grief.  The complete lack of logic was maddening.  Shel ends up saving the planet, getting them in the USP, saving her marriage, giving her husband a way to fly again and probably painted the nursery in environmentally responsibly paint in her free time.  Who needs a crown when you have a halo?

This book did not gel on so many levels.  The Sheleigh character was just too much to be believed.  Her whole speech before the ruling body sounded so over-simplified it was dumb.  I mean really, who is going to undo thousands of years of prejudice in 20 minutes or less – especially when they’re an outsider and in a tenuous position at best?  Who believes it’s that easy?  Look at ANY society and their prejudice and you KNOW you can’t change perceptions easily – or even get people to see them as prejudicial bias.  It takes several generations.  Society does not fall to its collective knees and see the light.  I find this kind of simplistic logic beyond irritating.  Not to mention she comes off as superior and undermines her own husband’s power by not discussing this with him first.  GAH!  Spare me these self-righteous crusader types as heroines.  Plus, did she HAVE to be a virgin?  And why in hell didn’t she just get the specs for a hang glider rather than reinventing the damn thing?  None of this makes sense and poor Kleet – he’s emasculated and marginalized for most of the book.  Then again, he is rather an asshole, so I didn’t care all that much.

The love story part of Mating Flight had zero appeal and frankly was just poorly built.  The characters were not especially sympathetic or likable and aerial sex thanks to the hang gliders was the extent of the whole big HEA.  Mating Flight is just a lame duck and not recommended.

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• Title: Night Raven
• Author: Lyssa Hart
• Type: Futuristic Paranormal erotic romance
• Genre: Near Cyborg Breeds and a human thief
• Sub-genre:  polyamorous
• Length: Novel – about 75,000 words
• My Grade: B- (3.7*)
• Rating: NC-17 to X
• Where Available: ebook is available at New Concepts; print book not available at this time

The author is Lyssa Hart but Night Raven reads like a Kaitlyn O’Connor book.  The characters are so similar to one of her Cyborg books, it’s almost eerie.   Here we have something like O’Connor’s Cyborg meets Lora Leigh’s Breeds mixed with Issac Asimov’s I, Robot stories.

Nika is an industrial technology thief living under the government radar in post apocalypse America.  The world has been wracked by natural disasters, vast parts of the population wiped out by earthquakes, tsunamis, and raising seas.  Now there’s little personal transit, people have GPS chips embedded at birth – supposedly for ’security’ reason, woman are encouraged to have children and banned from working, the few jobs available are filled by males, but it’s cyborgs that do everything from surgery to manufacturing.  They’ve been less successful building robot soldiers.  There’s a LOT of competition for the lucrative government contracts for battle cyborgs that can follow more complex decision making paths.  Nika has been sent into the headquarters of a rival robotics manufacturer to steal their cutting edge technology secrets.

The information that Nika received isn’t complete, but hopefully the combination to the computer will work and she can get the data she needs to get paid.  Unfortunately, she wrote the combination on paper using a pen.  She’s really into antiques. (Like the Lt, Lenina Huxley character in Demolition Man)  He makes an error entering the code and a vault door opens.  Inside are – well, humanoid creatures in some kind of stasis capsules.  She rushes to get the download and flees as the alarms sound.

The cyborgs realize they’re in danger from poison gas and guards are shooting at them.  The flee the building, those that can fly, do, while the others take the one transport available.  Raven and his squad go after the thief.  She was sprayed by tracking pheromones and they follow the scent, but some of them need to stay hidden.  Bull has horns and Raven has wings.  Cham and Lynx can pass as humans.  The other flyers, Eagle Squad and the third squad will rendezvous with them later.

Nika takes the data chip to the CEO of the rival robotics company and he claims it’s a decoy file.  These aren’t robot plans.  Now he wants more than the files and the photos she snapped when the vault opened.  He wants her to bring him one of the cyborgs.  She gets home and finds four of the in her tiny apartment – watching porn movies.  Movies she, ah, marked as ‘favorites’.  Thier porn marathon depleted her credits badly and she’s so pissed, she forgets to be afraid of them.  The cops arrive and the 5 of them have to make a run for it.  Raven is obviously the leader of the group, but he isn’t acting like a cyborg should.  And since when did cyborgs come equipped for getting hard-ons?  And man, she so so felt his when he grabbed her.  And why do all four of them look like they’d like nothing better than to jump her bones?

Nika leads them into the now abandoned and mostly forgotten subway system.  As she continues to interact with the 4 cyborgs, the more she thinks they aren’t really cyborgs at all.  They’re human-animal genetic experiments with cyborg augmentation – but they just aren’t cyborgs.  Not only that, she’s turned on.  Like the Cyborg books by O’Connor, these mutiple partners are at best and uneasy relationship among possessive males.  While the characters seem like a mishmash of various other characters from other books and movies, they do have a life of their own, but what makes the book is the emotional impact that learning the truth about what they are does to the men and what seeing the truth about the rebels does to Nika.  The ending is clever, but I am left wondering if Eagle squad made it or were killed.  I’m rather hoping they made it and there will be a book 2 in the series.  The world building is slow to evolve but makes sense.  The supporting characters, other than the doctor, are just sketches to fill in the background.  The title would lead you to believe that Raven dominated the love interest portions of the book, but that’s not so.  Yes, he’s the squad leader, but it’s Bull and Lynx that are the primary relationships.  Later Cham is added, but Raven is more complex and the last to be drawn in.  Overall Night Raven was a very worthwhile read and it’s recommended for fans of O’Connor, Leigh’s Breeds, and Lara Santiago.

WARNING – RANT:

New Concepts Publishing continues to stay true to their miserable editing quality in this book – to the point where it was actually distracting.  Here are two examples:

“The parameter is secure,” Cham, his own squad mate, announced. Yup, that did say ‘parameter’ and not perimeter.

It what Con said was true….. No that’s not me transcribing incorrectly, that’s the ACTUAL TEXT!

“And a test kit. The water underground is fairly safe, though—still pretty high levels of ridalin, valium, and so forth—commonly prescribed drugs back in the early part of the century to ‘calm’ people ………  Apparently we have a new spelling for ritalin. OK – maybe I should let that one go.  I work in the pharmaceutical industry and I’m just more aware of the correct drug names.

What does NCP have against quality editing?  They’ve substantially cheapened the quality of their print books – riddled not just with these gross text errors, but crappy typesetting, the print job from hell and bindings that allow pages to come loose if you breath too hard on them.  I happened to read an NCP book from a few years back, Weremones, and it was lightyears better than what they’re doing now.  Is this a sign that NCP is in financial trouble?  I hope not.  They have some excellent futuristic/paranormal writers – who in all honesty deserve better than this.

The Best of Fine Cooking: Big Buy

The Best of Fine Cooking

When preparing for my trip to California, I decided to pick up some magazines to read on the plane. So . . . while at Costco I picked up a copy of The Best of Fine Cooking: Big Buy issue. (You get 30% off there) It is a gold mine of great recipes using the foods that are commonly bought at Costco and Sam’s. The magazine is divided into sections highlighting items that are bought in quantity. Featured are bread, canned tomatoes, walnuts, green beans, avocados, peaches, pears, grana padano, strip steak, boneless leg of lamb, sausage, and salmon. There are 75 recipes included in the issue and most look wonderful!!

Also included are suggested menus using the various recipes and a plan for catering your own “really big party” using the provided recipes. The party plan includes a timeline for making each dish which is very helpful if you are a novice cook. There is also a guide for freezing foods and a list of foods to have on hand in order to make improvised soup. With cooler temps and winter approaching I thought this was particularly helpful.

Last week I made the Lemon Chicken Soup with Spinach and Dill which was fabulous and I plan to make marinara for freezing from a #10 can of San Marzano tomatoes this weekend. I anticipate sharing some great recipes from this resource so stay tuned!! This magazine should be on display until November 30, 2009.

Don't judge a girl by her cover by Ally Carter

What is the name of the book?

Don’t Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Don't judge a girl by her cover by Ally Carter

Who wrote it?

Ally Carter

This book is great for

Middle Schoolers (6th-8th graders), High Schoolers (9th-12th graders)

Read this if you’re in the mood to get

An adrenaline rush (Action)   

Kissy kissy (Romance)  

Bum da bum bum…BUM (Mystery)

This book is about

Cammie Morgan’s spy skills again take her past the walls of the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women – a school that itself is undercover as a spy school. This time, Cammie and her friend Macey are in some trouble. Macey’s dad is running for vice president and Macey has to follow her family around to campaign. That is, until a kidnapping plot turns both her and Cammie’s worlds upside down. Questions fill the girls’ minds and worry fills their hearts. New faces and old faces seem to follow Cammie everywhere, including a certain ex-boyfriend and a certain family member who has been missing from her life. All four girls are sure in for a challenge that will require every bit of their spy training.

On a scale of 1 to 5 (1=HATED it, 5=LOVED it) I would give this book a

5

I loved/hated this book because

While far more dramatic than the other two in Carter’s spy series, this latest installment maintains the lighthearted narration of a teenage girl. This book is definitely different than the other two. There is a lot more action, and it isn’t staged by her teachers this go-round. Instead of Cammie attempting to disappear as a pavement artist, this one is more about the danger of spying. I’m not saying this is bad or good, it kind of feels like a good progression for Cammie as a character. Many people say this is their favorite of the series, but I just can’t pick a favorite – I love them all!!

Summer Reading Club Reviewer

Marlee V.