October 23, 2008 (5 weeks ago) – 10:49 pm
Book: My Man Jeeves
I tried this one out using the free “Stanza” reader for iPhone. Though I’m familiar with the stories of Jeeves by P.G. Woodhouse, I’ve never read one of the books through.
Though it was a good read, and characters are well painted, I was troubled by the idleness of the lives that were [...]
September 17, 2008 – 10:59 pm
book: Watchmen, though a graphic novel, is on the list of Time Magazine’s top 100 novels since 1923.
Tells at interwoven story, subverts the graphic novel genre. A complex piece, with lots of hidden detail for future re-readings. Not for kids, given some of the content. Oh, and they’re turning it into a film, somehow.
book: Soul Mountain
A story of a Chinese writer exploring China; complex, well-written, yet hard to read, this winner of the Nobel Prize for literature is worth a look in terms of understanding the mindset of China under Mao.
Don’t waste your life is the best book of its genre I’ve read for a while. A man in his 60’s becomes convinced of the truth of Christianity, and is struck by the awful truth that he has wasted all of his life in secular pursuits. John Piper expertly weaves together a range of other [...]
Bit Literacy
MIT computer science graduate Mark Hurst has put together a book here that details ways for the average person to be able to cope with the massive influx of “bits” - of digital information - that press in on modern life.
Easy to read, minimally technical, there are a lot of practical ideas to be [...]
February 28, 2008 – 5:56 am
Book: Whose Word is it? The Story Behind Who Changed the New Testament and Why
(US Title: Misquoting Jesus: the story behind who changed the bible and why)
I’ve been meaning to read this for a long while, so I was happy that it appeared in a list of books that I can read for college.
Bart D. [...]
February 17, 2008 – 6:12 am
Book: Escape from Reason
I read this book in a single day, which should give you a feel for its length. Nonetheless, Francis Schaeffer covers some significant ground in just a few pages.
If you’ve ever wondered about the evolution of philosophy over the last 8 centuries or so, this seems a tight summary. This isn’t a [...]
February 16, 2008 – 9:11 pm
Book: The Innocent Man
John Grisham in his first book of non-fiction: the story of a man, wrongly convicted for murder, and the problems in the US justice system. I prefer Grisham when he’s writing fiction - having read the blurb, I knew too much of where the book was going.
February 10, 2008 – 12:18 pm
Book: Show Them No Mercy
The Old Testament talks about a lot of killing - and the New Testament talks about a lot of love and forgiveness. How is it possible to reconcile the two views? This book has four different authors - C.S. Cowles, Eugene H. Merrill, Daniel L. Gard, and Tremper Longman III - [...]
December 14, 2007 – 5:42 am
Book: A Spectator’s Guide to World Views
Edited by Simon Smart, a collection of essays by a range of Christian authors. This book is, I think, targetted at a first-year-uni age group, and seeks to introduce its reader to different ways of understanding the world: Relativism, Humanism, Feminism, New Age, Consumerism.
It works well as an [...]
December 6, 2007 – 10:34 pm
Book: A Spectator’s Guide To World Religions
In a single book, John Dickson presents five major world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Though Dickson is a Christian, in this work, he seeks to present each religion in its “best light”, hoping that in doing so, Christianity will appear best by comparison.
We’ve just spent [...]
November 26, 2007 – 7:55 am
Book: The Dawkins Delusion?
Having read Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion earlier in the year, I was interested to see what (Christian) Oxford Academic Alistair McGrath had to say about the work. This short book - 65 pages of main body, with another dozen or so of footnotes - is courteous in tone, but quite academic [...]
October 8, 2007 – 8:12 pm
Book: After The Apostles
If you’re trying to get up to speed on Early Church History (the first few hundred years AD), then this book might help. Its only trouble is that in trying to condense everything together into such a small space (121 pages), a lot of detail, and at times, the flow of ideas, [...]
October 1, 2007 – 5:44 pm
First, a word of caution: I bought the 1100-odd page mass market paperback of Cryptonomicon, and found that as an edition, it was a little tougher to read: no margins to speak of, and a bit of an odd shape for a novel… perhaps borrow a more expensive edition from a library, and you’ll have [...]
September 18, 2007 – 11:38 pm
Book: The Rise of Early Christianity
Another set reading for an Early Church History course I’m doing at the moment. This one was written by a non-Christian (as far as I can tell) social scientist, and he raises points about the early church that you wouldn’t read elsewhere.
Highly readable, (though the passages where he details his [...]
September 8, 2007 – 7:13 pm
Book: The Little Red Writing Book
Bec had a copy of this at a recent WBW (writers’ group) meeting, and seemed worthy of further investigation, so I picked up a copy the next day.
An excellent resource for thinking through the practice of writing, and provides numerous writing exercises throughout to help sharpen your writing skills. I’m [...]
August 26, 2007 – 2:29 pm
If you’re trying to find out how Christianity went from being Jesus and a few people following him in Israel, to there being a Roman Emperor who considered himself a Christian, the definitive ancient work to read is Eusebius’ Church History.
I read the Penguin edition, which has a long introduction, a map of Roman Europe, [...]
August 6, 2007 – 10:43 pm
Book: The Early Church
I’m studying a subject on early church history, and this book was recommended to me as a way to come up to speed with the events. It delivers that, though not quite what I was looking for. As much as it is chronologcal in its presentation, it’s a number of passes through [...]
August 1, 2007 – 10:09 pm
Book: How to Read the Psalms
Allan recommended this book as a good introduction to the subject that we’re doing next week. The lecturer (Tremper Longman III) wrote it as a way for non-academics to come to grips with the Psalms, and it certainly delivers.
It’s a short book, at around 160 pages. The chapters are short, [...]
Book: Affluenza: When Too Much is Never Enough
A book written by a couple of Australian researchers discussing the change in focus for “the great Australian dream”. Though Australians are three times richer (on average) than we were in the 1950’s, most of us feel that we don’t have enough money for basic needs. A great [...]