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December 10, 2008
Jesus and us losers
This post is in large part a reaction to reading Yaconelli’s “Messy Spirituality” – a short, must-read book which managed to get me crying on several occasions. But rather than do a book review, I thought I’d do my own short exploration of the same theme.
Christianity has in too many ways embraced the drive for excellence from the surrounding culture. Church has become a place where seemingly perfect people come into seemingly perfect buildings and hear seemingly perfect musical performances and seemingly perfect lectures on seemingly perfect doctrine. God is perfect and holy, and so we should all be perfect and holy when we come unto His presence. Those who aren’t perfect (or at least can’t fake it well enough) should wait outside until they get their act together.
I remember being admonished at one church to think about how I would dress and behave if I was ushered into the presence of President of the United States or the Queen of England, and that I should look at coming to church like that because I was coming into God’s presence. In theory it sounds rational.
The good news is that Christianity, at least Real Christianity, is messy. We should know that from looking as Jesus’ life. He was a devout Jew who hung out with Roman collaborators, prostitutes and notorious sinners. When it came to picking the “inner circle” of those who followed him he picked salty fishermen, terrorists, and shady businessmen – most of whom never really understood what Jesus was saying until after He died. What a bunch of losers – but that’s who Jesus liked to surround Himself with.
The people who “had their act together” never cared much for the Jesus, and Jesus only paid attention to them when they got in between God and the messed up people God loved.
It was the messed up people who understood their need, and in that understanding were interested what Jesus was saying about getting closer to God. Their trajectories then became towards God. Some had quite a distance to go; but that never seemed to bother Jesus as long as they were headed in the right direction. Those who “had their act together” were quite content to orbit God, going in circles – perhaps close circles - but never ever getting any closer to Him.
That is much of what is wrong with the church these days. It has become a place for people to pretend to be good, while it should be a place for messed up people to draw closer to God and to each other. That’s why I liked Yaconelli’s book – it is largely a collection of stories about losers who understood that what matters is showing God’s love to the world in whatever imperfect way they can manage. Like I said, I cried though parts of it.
I read another “messy” book recently, Rick McKinley’s “This Beautiful Mess”. In it he talked about how Christianity in its quest for “right doctrine” has dissected our faith, putting all of the pieces in nicely labeled jars of formaldehyde. The only problem is that dissected bodies are dead. Real living bodies are messy and move around too much to understand in that way. He argues in part that we need to learn to be a little less concerned about getting all our doctrines right and more about bringing people into relationship with God. The result is a rather “messy” form of Christianity; but it is one that is alive.
Let’s hear it for God’s losers!
Let’s get messy for Jesus!
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
December 05, 2008
Start Here: Kingdom Essentials for Christians
Start Here: Kingdom Essentials for Christians
by Don Willliams
This book is essentially an attempt at a summary answer to the question “So I’m ‘saved’, now what?” This is actually a question that most churches answer very poorly – usually all a new Christian gets is a quick answer like “Be good, go to church, read your Bible, pray, tell others” and then is left to figure out the details on their own. And as an answer to that question, the book is actually quite good. If I was a pastor I might keep a stack of these in stock to give out (although I would also hope I would do a good job of mentoring people without the book).
The author is also a long time associate of the Vineyard movement, and the book is heavily influenced by that point of view. So while I am almost 40 years past the “So I’m saved, now what?” stage, I enjoyed large portions of the book as a quick summary of what I have learn in the last 10 years as part of Vineyard churches (which is a lot). This may prove useful since on face value it seems unlikely I will continue to be involved with the Vineyard movement much longer (there are no Vineyard churches in San Francisco, and I believe God wanted Anne and I up here to be involved in the city).
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
November 26, 2008
A Year of Book Posts
A Year of Book Posts
As noted Monday, this week marks the 52ns and final weekly book post on this blog. It was an interesting experiment (and certainly one I benefited by); but as there seems little interest in it from my meager readership, I will pass on it for the future.
A quick summary of the year:
I started with 167 books waiting for me on my “to be read” shelves. Actually the situation could better be described as their “overflowing from my too be read shelves”, hence my intent to discipline myself on purchasing new books this year and see how far I could drive that number down.
Over the last year I have:
- read 110 books
- punted 11 books
- purchased 25 books
- borrowed 2 books
Leaving me with a count of 73 remaining (and yes, in the last few weeks I did consider making a final push to get that down to 67 so I would have reduced my initial number by an even hundred; but there were too many other things I also wanted to do).
So, what now?
First, as stated, I will discontinue the weekly posts. I will still post reviews of particularly significant books; but no longer list all of the books I have read. However, since I have found the collection of posts quite useful for me at times (being able to go back and figure out what book it was that had something I was remembering), I will maintain on my computer my own little diary of books read, including the running count of my backlog.
I had considered replacing the weekly book posts with a shortened diary post, simply listing books read, TV watched, movies seen, games played, etc.; and may in fact implement that at some point; but my current plan is to not do so immediately.
As to my smaller but still not small backlog of books, my goal remains to get it down to a single row of books on a single shelf (roughly 20-25 books). On the other hand, there are clearly books available now that I am far more interested in reading than the ones I currently have pending. My solution then is that until that goal is reached I will limit myself to purchasing in any month a number of books equal to half the number I read in the previous month. Thus on aggregate, half of the books I will be reading will be newly purchased and half will be from my backlog. At that rate, I should reach my goal sometime late next year.
I had also intended at this point to purchase an Amazon Kindle E-book reader for myself. I still want to buy a kindle; but plan to wait until after the new year to do so.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 24, 2008
Books 2008/11/24
Current count of books pending to be read: 73
Read two, purchased two
This is then the 52nd (and therefore final) weekly book post. I’ll give a brief recap Wednesday.
Books finished this week:
Cat and Dog Theology: Rethinking Our Relationship With Our Masterby Bob Sjogren and Gerald Robison
Short version – excellent book to remind Christians who is the servant and who is the Master.
Long version – see my previous review.
The Jesus I Never Knew
by Philip Yancey
Another book I had picked up, set aside, and now wish I had read it earlier.
The author sets about to cut through the “tame” Jesus that most Christians believe in – one that is a mix of cultural filters and hindsight – to examine Jesus as he is actually described in the gospels and how He would have been perceived at the time. In the process Yancey describes his own struggles with things like the Sermon on the Mount and the Ascension. The version of Jesus described here is much more like the one I have come to know than the one I see discussed from most pulpits.
Computer Games Played: Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria expansion
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: TBD
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 21, 2008
Cat and Dog Theology
Cat and Dog Theology: Rethinking Our Relationship With Our Masterby Bob Sjogren and Gerald Robison
Anne as I saw the author of this book speak a couple weeks ago and enjoyed it enough that I bought one of his books. This is an “Every Christain should read it” book.
To quote from the book:
There’s a joke about cats and dogs that conveys their differences perfectly-A dog says, “You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, you love me, you must be god!”
A cat says, “You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, you love me, I must be god!”
The books is about how some Christians are like Cats – they act as if Christianity is about them and what God can do for them, while what God is looking for are Christians who are more like dogs who realize that Christianity is about God and how glorious He is. God is not our servant who exists to meet our needs. We are His servants who exist to bring glory to Him. Sometimes God is glorified by blessing people and sometimes God is glorified by people suffering and dying as martyrs and frequently God is glorified by situations in between the two extremes. What matters though is if God is glorified, not how comfortable we are.
This is a lesson I learned a while back – I exist to serve God in whatever way brings Him glory. This book however is one of the best presentations of the idea I have seen.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 17, 2008
Books 2008/11/17
Current count of books pending to be read: 73
Read two, purchased none
Books finished this week:
The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer To The Heart Of Godby Brent Curtis and John Eldredge
I have written before about John Eldredge’s book “Epic” (and the excellent video that was made of him “performing” it). Epic provides an excellent study in the “greater story” we are all a part of in this world. “The Sacred Romance” is essentially a longer and more complete version of the same idea with more attention paid to why we often lose sight of God’s perspective on things.
Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English
by John McWhorter
John McWhorter is one of the linguistic writers that I consistently enjoy reading. He is both an entertaining writer (I started to annoy Anne with the number of times I started laughing while reading this book); and he has an interesting perspective on the English Language. He is also one of the linguists who believe a language is what is spoken and understood, not what the rules say it should be.
This book in specific is an examination of three key historical influences that made English Grammar (not vocabulary) what it is today. In the process of making his case for the grammatical influences of the Welsh, the Vikings, and (he believes) the Phoenicians on English, he also managed to grind a few axes he has with fellow linguists and their unwillingness to ask the question “Why?” Another great book.
Computer Games Played: Fallout 3
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: TBD
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink
November 10, 2008
Books 2008/11/10
Current count of books pending to be read: 75
Read two, purchased one
Books finished this week:
Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forcesby Frank Wilczek
An interesting physics book by a Nobel Prize winner. The book is yet another survey of the current state of theoretical physics (I have read many of these); but takes a sufficiently different approach that it stays interesting and educational. The essential question of the book is – what is the origin of the property of matter known as “mass”? (Hence the pun of the book’s title.) While most physics books assume matter has mass (simply defining it as an essential property), this book asks the question “why?” and uses the examination of why matter behaves in the ways we associate with having mass to explore the current state of physics and to propose the author’s own approach to creating a grand unified theory. I very much appreciated the different perspective presented by the book, and it did allow me to see “the same old equations” in a new light.
The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy: One Book to Rule Them All
edited by Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson
I’ve read several books from the “Popular Culture and Philosophy” series, and have almost universally enjoyed then. While they tend to be far more focused on philosophy and less on the popular culture (some of the essays barely use the popular culture material as an excuse to present philosophical ideas), they do to tend to be educational, and occasionally have been my first exposure to some of the minor historical philosophers. This book is no exception. Some of the essays are deep examinations of the philosophical questions raised by Tolkien’s works, while others use minor points in the stories as launching pads for philosophical digression. Either way, the points made are interesting and enjoyable.
Computer Games Played: Fallout 3
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: TBD
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 03, 2008
Books 2008/11/03
Current count of books pending to be read: 76
Read one, purchased none
Books finished this week:
The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Beliefby Francis S. Collins
Excellent book.
Francis Collins is a geneticist who invented the “positional cloning” technique for finding genes which allowed his team to discover the genes responsible for several diseases. These discoveries led him to be appointed director of the Human Genome Project from 1993 until this year (taking over from James Watson who started it in 1990).
Francis Collins is also a Christian.
This book is essentially his answer to the question “How can someone as smart as you believe in God?” It explains how he came to his faith and how he reconciles it and his equal belief in science (including evolution). It is well written, and his arguments are clearly presented. I strongly recommend this book.
Computer Games Played: Spore, Fallout 3
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: The Lightness of Being
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
October 27, 2008
Books 2008/10/27
Current count of books pending to be read: 77
Read one, purchased none
Books finished this week:
Companyby Max Barry
Ahhh. No one does corporate satire like Max Barry. Think what the Dilbert comic strip would be like if done as a novel by Douglas (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) Adams. That’s what Max Barry’s novel’s are like. I particularly enjoyed his “Jennifer Government”, set in a dystopian future where companies can get away with just about anything to increase sales. “Company” is in some respects a scarier stories since it is set in a plausible present day. I won’t spoil the details here.
Computer Games Played: Civ 4: Colonization
DVDs Watched: Iron Man (film and extras)
Next Book: TBD
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
October 20, 2008
Books 2008/10/20
Current count of books pending to be read: 78
Read one, purchased none
Books finished this week:
Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Maryby Lee Strobel
I generally have liked Lee Strobel’s books in the past; but I find myself with somewhat mixed feelings on this one. His analysis of why so many people who are not in a relationship with Jesus stay away from churches is quite good; but his solutions, seeker-friendly churches like his home (mega) church Willow Creek Community Church, seem too focused on one narrow approach. Or perhaps I am just no longer certain that getting people to go to institutional churches at all a worthy goal in unto itself. Stobel seems to take the position that the key to getting people “saved” is to get them into church, while I believe in a more missional approach where the church goes out and meets people where they are.
Computer Games Played: none
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: Company
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
October 13, 2008
Books 2008/10/12
Current count of books pending to be read: 79
Read one, purchased none
Books finished this week:
Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community Before the Watching Worldby John Howard Yoder
Very interesting book. I’m going to have to look into some of Yoder’s other works.
The book is a short examination of 5 practices of the church (confession, baptism, communion, roles, and meetings) and proposes what they would have meant to the first century church; which, as one might expect, is quite different from what they mean to the modern institutional churches. As an example, Yoder believe that what we now think of as “Communion” (“the Lord’s Supper”, “the Eucharist”) was originally a full shared meal, and that the idea that believers ate together regularly was as important as remembering Jesus’ sacrifice. He reasoning is that the common meal was a means to establish the egalitarian nature of the church – everyone ate together: slave and free, rich and poor, Jew and gentile; and that we have lost that meaning by consuming thimblefuls of grape juice and tiny crackers. Yoder does a similar analysis of the other topics, and has certainly challenged my thinking in certain areas.
Computer Games Played: none
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: Inside of the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
October 06, 2008
Books 2008/10/06
Current count of books pending to be read: 80
Read two, purchased none
Books finished this week:
Anathemby Neal Stephenson
Not Stephenson’s best book; but given the quality of his last six, that still leaves it better than most fiction I have read. The story and world in which it is set are quite interesting, and as with all of Stephenson’s works there are some interesting ideas to ponder. I’m just not sure it needed to be 900 pages this time.
As with all of his books, Anathem is full of little digressions that account for its size. However, while I found the digressions in his previous books to be as compelling as the main story (which is quite an accomplishment for Stephenson since on face value many are on what seem to be boring subjects), in Anathem the excursions rarely grabbed me. Perhaps the world is just too different from ours to lead me to care about those details, while previous books are clearly meant to be some version of our earth, so the digressions seemed more relevant.
When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: The Parts of Speech, for Better And/Or Worse
by Ben Yagoda
A series of entertaining essays on the parts of speech, talking about their history, use and miss-use.
Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: TBD
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
September 15, 2008
Books 2008/09/15
Current count of books pending to be read: 82
Read one, purchased one, punted nine
Well, my books (read and to be read) are all packed up for the move in a week. In the process, I did however cull out those books I didn’t expect to get around to reading (those for which I expect I’ll always have other books I’d rather read more).
Books finished this week:
So Help Me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and Stateby Forrest Church
An excellent history book covering the relationship between church and state during the terms of the first five Presidents of the United States (Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe). A great example of the adage “the more things change, the more they remain the same”. I want to write a whole essay on this after the move, so I’ll hold off saying more.
Computer Games Played: Spore!!!!
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: Anathem by Neal Stephenson!!!!
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
September 05, 2008
A Year in Books
The following picture shows all of the books I read in the past 12 months - starting 3 months before I began logging all of my reading to this blog, so you may not recognize some of the titles from my posts. Actually I read 8 more than can be seen here; but 6 are already on loan to other people and 2 were returned to their owners who had lent them to me.
The three stacks represent the three dispositions of the books. The books in the left stack are those that will be staying on my shelf at home, ready to lend (as some already have been) or for me to refer to. Those in the middle stack will be headed to storage to read again later (or to be punted when I have a bit more distance from them - only about half the books I send to storage stay there past the next culling). Those in the right stack will be donated to the library.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
August 25, 2008
Books 2008/08/25
Current count of books pending to be read: 91
Read three, purchased one
Books finished this week:
Post-Charismatic?by Rob McAlpine
The Pentecostal/Charismatic branch of Christianity has over the years (particularly recent years) has fallen into certain excesses in their pursuit of God. There was the superiority complex of the “Latter Rain” movement, the domineering attitudes of the “Shepherding” movement, the outright greed (and no little sense of superiority) of the “Word of Faith” movement, and the weirdness of things like the “Toronto Blessing”. If you don’t recognize these terms, be happy. These excesses have driven many from the churches that have embraced them. This books is two-thirds historical study of where the church has gone wrong and one third a contemplation of what do to as a result. It is well written and certainly recommended to anyone who has been turned off from the Charismatic movement (or Christianity itself) by these teachings.
I’ll also note that the author has not been able to find a US distributer for this book, and so it is only available in North America through Amazon Canada.
Johnny Depp: A Kind of Illusion
by Denis Meikle
While I have a great respect for the acting profession (another of my own roads not taken), I rarely read actor biographies, contenting myself instead with watching “Inside the Actor’s Studio”. Johnny Depp is however someone with whom I was willing to make an exception – his choices of roles he has taken as well as his choices in how he performs those roles has always fascinated me; and this book did manage to fill in a few of the details I was missing.
Psychoshop
by Alfred Bester and Roger Zelazny
Alfred Bester was one of the most innovative Science Fiction authors of his generation, with a very distinctive style of writing. When he died in 1987, he left behind an incomplete manuscript for a final novel. Roger Zelazny was one of the most innovative Science Fiction authors of the next generation, who also had a distinctive (and occasionally parodied) style, and was offered (and accepted) the opportunity to finish Bester’s final novel. Psychoshop is the result of this posthumous collaboration. An interesting story about a pawn shop that deals in human (and otherworldly) attributes. You can sell your ability to play the violin and purchase some else’s discarded precognition. Of course the story is about more than that; but saying more would spoil things.
An interesting book, and generally fairly seamless between the two authors (despite their individual styles). The descriptions of the two fights are clearly Zelazny’s hand (he was an expert in various martial arts and always describes any combat in great detail); and the pace of the opening sequence was pure Bester; but otherwise it is hard to tell who did what.
Computer Games Played: None
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book:
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
August 18, 2008
Books 2008/08/18
Current count of books pending to be read: 93
Read two, purchased none
Books finished this week:
Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmosby Seth Lloyd
Fascinating book. It has long been known that entropy (disorder) can be expressed as information (bits). The entropy of a system is proportional (via a simple formula) to the number of bits required to describe its state. The second law of thermodynamics says that the entropy of the universe is constantly increasing, and so therefore is the amount of information needed to express it. So the universe is constantly creating information.
The author of this book is one of the world’s experts on quantum computing - using quantum mechanics to create a new kind of computer that take advantage of the “superposition of states” common to quantum systems. You don’t just have 1’s and 0’s; but bits that are simultaneously 1 and 0. Sounds useless; but property programmed, they can (in theory) do certain calculations millions of times faster than the common digital computer.
The book is essentially a cross between the two previous paragraphs – exploring how looking at the universe as one enormous quantum computer producing information in the form of entrpy can be useful for finding solutions to problems in physics and computation.
101 Ways to Reach Your Community
by Steve Sjogren
A follow up to Sjogren’s “Conspiracy of Kindness” that I read a couple weeks ago (I had picked up both books at the same time). This is more practical how-to information following the same concept of showing God’s love to people as a way to point them to Jesus.
Computer Games Played: None
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: Post-Charismatic
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
August 13, 2008
Seeing the Bottom of the Barrel
So, having read 70 books off of my to-be-read shelf over the last few months, certain patterns have started to emerge - certain books keep getting put back to be read “later”. A couple I have put off because they are huge and I haven’t wanted to start on them right now; but there are clearly others for which my original interest has waned. There are no books I can see (more on that in a moment) that I have no interest in; but there clearly are quite a few for which I have titles pending on my Amazon wish list that are far more interesting to me. I have to be honest with myself, were I not being disciplined in my book purchases and therefore had a constant stream of new books coming into the house, I would probably never get around to reading them.
Which leaves me at a quandary – should I discipline myself to read them (given that I have already paid for them), or should I acknowledge that there are things I’d rather be reading and simply punt them now. Fortunately, I have a bit of time to make that decision – there are still a number of books that I am very much interesting in reading; but the bottom of the barrel is quickly becoming visible.
While I am writing about books, two other points of note.
First, I have now read enough books off my shelves that they are no longer cluttered and I have been able to arrange things so that all of them are visible. This is significant progress since all three of the shelves were two-deep when I started.
Second, on September 9, “Anathem” the latest book by Neal Stephenson (my favorite fiction author) comes out. While it is 950 pages, I plan to buy it and read it immediately.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
August 11, 2008
Books 2008/08/11
Current count of books pending to be read: 95
Read one, purchased none
Books finished this week:
Interface Cultureby Steven A. Johnson
A set of musing on the art of user interface design and the interactions between it and culture. This is one of those books that many people refer to and which I probably should have read back in the late 90’s when it first came out, but never got around to. Intelligently written and quite quotable. One of the things the author points out is how often people have guessed wrong when predicting things regarding the interactions of technology and culture. Ten years on, it is interesting to see where Johnson got it right and where he missed the boat.
Computer Games Played: None
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: TBD
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
August 04, 2008
Books 2008/08/04
Current count of books pending to be read: 96
Read one, purchased none
Books finished this week:
Conspiracy of Kindness: A Refreshing Approach to Sharing the Love of Jesus With Othersby Steve Sjogren
This is “the” book on what has become known as “servant evangelism” or “kindness evangelism”. The basic idea is that the starting point for reaching the world with the message of Christianity is to show God’s love to our communities. Based on that, Sjogren has organized his church to start serving their community in “no strings attached” ways. As examples, they give out free coffee at bus stops or offer to clean the bathrooms shops and restaurants, or mow people’s lawns for them. In answer to the inevitable question of why they make these offers, they respond “We are doing this community service project to show Jesus’ love to people in a practical way”. They never take money (even though many people try hard to give them something) and they don’t preach beyond answering any direct question people have. The point is not to tell people about Jesus but rather to show them what Jesus is like. I’m a firm believer in the principle (and have participated in a couple of projects like this), although I don’t like using the term “evangelism” to describe it. I’ll have more to say on this in later posts.
Computer Games Played: None
DVDs Watched: BtVS S6D2
Next Book: Interface Culture
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
July 28, 2008
Books 2008/07/28
Current count of books pending to be read: 97
Read one, purchased none
Books finished this week:
An Unstoppable Force: Daring to Become the Church God Had in Mindby Erwin Raphael McManus
Hmmm. Not sure what to say about this book. The book in an encouragement to Christian Leaders to start looking at the church in a new way. The problem is that I passed this point a few years back, so the book didn’t really say anything to me. The better question is if it might be a good book for someone else who is following the same path I am on; but even there I think “Organic Church” and “Shaping of Things to Come” might actually be better books that provide a more complete picture. Still, I agree with everything the author says, so I hate to give it a bad review; but for me it was more of an “I remember when I was just realizing that” experience.
Computer Games Played: None
DVDs Watched: BtVS S6D1
Next Book: Conspiracy of Kindness
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
July 21, 2008
Books 2008/07/21
Current count of books pending to be read: 98
Read one, purchased none
Books finished this week:
Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Defined a Generationby Chris Turner
The premise of this book is to accept that the TV show “The Simpsons” is primarily a work of satire and to examine exactly what it is saying about America – what are the characteristics of our society that the show consistently satirizes? What is the image of America that is behind the funhouse mirror distortions of the show? For about 100 pages the book does an excellent job of doing just that. Unfortunately the book is nearly 450 pages long, and much of the remainder is a collection of minutia, trivia, and outright digressions (for instance, a multi-page sequence recounting the history of punk rock which could have been reduced to a single page and still made the same point). If it had started the way it ended, it would have been a punt; but given the good start I kept hoping it would return to the initial quality – which it did for about 10 of the final 30 pages. Sigh.
Computer Games Played: None
DVDs Watched: AtS S2 D6
Next Book: An Unstoppable Force
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
July 14, 2008
Books 2008/07/14
Current count of books pending to be read: 99
Read one, purchased one
Yes, this is my Monday post – I am throttling back postings for reasons to be explained Wednesday.
Yes, I made no progress this week for many of the same reasons.
Books finished this week:
The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Churchby Gregory A. Boyd
Computer Games Played: None
DVDs Watched: AtS S2 D4-5
Next Book: Planet Simpsons
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
July 06, 2008
Books 2008/07/07
Current count of books pending to be read: 99
Read four, punted one, purchased none, borrowed one
Yipee! The count of books to be read is down to double digits!
Books finished this week:
Little Brotherby Cory Doctorow
A political statement in novel form. In addition to being a Science Fiction writer, Cory Doctorow is also a cyber-rights (and more generally human-rights) activist as can be seen in his contributions to the excellent blog Boing Boing. He has spoken often against the Patriot Act and how the free flow of information on the internet world-wide is a key guard against tyranny. This book is essentially a synthesis of his two occupations.
The story is about a high school computer hacker who gets picked (with 3 friends, one of which is injured) up in a Department of Homeland Security sweep after a terrorist attack on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. After being “aggressively interrogated” he is released; but his injured friend has disappeared (the DHS do not acknowledge that they ever had him). So the main character decides to make war on the DHS – and in the process shows the futility of several real-world techniques to find terrorists. While Cory’s own opinion is obvious, he does take time to let his characters explain other points of view as well.
The book is a great read as just a novel. As a political tract, it succeed in both warning against the inevitable abuse of power that comes with many kinds of “security” legislation and showing how it is easy to waste the governments money on techniques that can be spoofed by real terrorists with minimal effort.
Great Giveaway, The: Reclaiming the Mission of the Church from Big Business, Parachurch Organizations, Psychotherapy, Consumer Capitalism, and Other Modern Maladies
by David E. Fitch
The book is about how the Modern Church has yielded much of its historical responsibilities to society at large. I liked his description of the problem very much, although I am less convinced by his solutions. As an example – I agree that much of what passes for “worship” in church is really secular entertainment with Christian words; but I do not agree (at the moment at least) that the solution is to return to liturgical forms of worship. Worth reading if for no other reason than to clarify where you stand on the issues the author raises.
The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations
by Brian Fagan
In the years 800-1200 (roughly) there was a well documented increase in global mean temperatures. This book is a survey of the consequences of those warm years on civilizations around the world – with implications on what kinds of things might happen is our current trend of increased temperatures continues. The book struck me as well researched and presented.
The English Languagesby Tom McArthur
A survey of all of the various forms of “English” spoken around the world and a discussion of where English as a language (or a family of languages) might be headed. Well written.
Physics as Metaphorby Roger S. Jones
This book was strongly recommended by another book I read and liked, so I really wanted to give it a chance; but I got though about a third of it and skimmed the rest. It is essentially a Zen Buddhist view of Physics. If the world is a product of our minds, then the laws of physics are just metaphors scientists have created to explain ourselves. Yet another attempt to use the idea of an “observer” from the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Physics to justify metaphysics.
The one point in the book that I did appreciate is the author’s observation that Science does so well at explaining things because it chooses to describe those things that Science is good at describing. By selecting behaviors that are inherently measurable and ignoring those that are not, Science stacks the deck for its own success. But, the book argues, we should not then assume that Science is good at explaining everything.
Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: AtS S2 D1-3
Next Book: The Myth of a Christian Nation
Posted by Steven at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
June 29, 2008
Books 2008/06/30
Current count of books pending to be read: 103
Read three, purchased none
Books finished this week:
How to Choose a Translation for All Its Worth: A Guide to Understanding and Using Bible Versionsby Gordon D. Fee and Mark L. Strauss
Another excellent book from the author of “How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth” which I have recommended previously on this blog. This book is focused entirely on the challenges of translating scriptures into English and how various translations have approached that process. The authors do not recommend any specific translation as “best”; but rather try to provide information to allow the readers to make a better choice for themselves. Well worth it for any Christian, not just in terms of helping to pick translations to read; but to also understand the limitations of any translation they choose.
Prayer and Temperament: Different Prayer Forms for Different Personality Typesby Chester P. Michael and Marie C. Norrisey
An odd book, and not one I really recommend. The book takes a look at various traditional Christian prayer and meditation techniques and examines them in terms of Meyers-Briggs personality types (MBTI), suggesting who is likely to get the most out of them. According to the book I, as an INTJ, would get the most out of the style of prayer developed by the Dominican Friars, particularly Tomas Aquinas. The problem I have with the book is the whole idea that prayer is based on a methodology at all and not simply talking to God. The authors provide a very Roman/Catholic perspective on relating to God which, while interesting, I did not find very helpful.
Where Does the Money Go?: Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisisby Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson
I have said before in the blog, my number one political issue is the national debt and deficit. This book is an excellent layman’s guide to what the problem is, why it matters, why fixing it will be hard, and what is likely to happen if we don’t do something about it soon. Obviously I am already a convert to the author’s cause, although the book provided many details that even I was unaware of. If you have any doubt about the important of this issue that gets very little air-time either from the campaigns or from the new media, read this book.
Computer Games Played: Spore Creature Creator
DVDs Watched: TekWar series d3
Next Book: Little Brother
Posted by Steven at 03:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
June 23, 2008
In Praise of Donald Miller
There are a lot of one-hit wonders in every field of endeavor. People who have one bright idea but never manage to repeat their success. Donald Miller is most definitely not one of those. I have now read two books by him ("Blue Like Jazz" and now "Searching for God Knows What") and both were brilliant expressions Christianity. Not only does his description of Christianity match what I have learned over the last 38 years, but he is also an excellent writer that communicates those ideas with beauty, clarity and humor.
There are many things I like about how he writes: the lack of pretense (he talks about epiphanies he had about God while drinking beer and watching basketball on TV), the honesty (he describes in embarrassing detail his failures and misunderstandings along his journey to know God), the beauty (some passages compare well with Steinbeck's novels). He doesn't talk about doctrines, lists, rules, programs. He simply talks about getting to know God, and that is what Christianity is all about. The author is also clearly well read, mentioning books on physics, evolutionary biology, philosophy, and poetry along the way. Too many Christian authors keep their head buried in the Christian book store, and have no idea what it happening in the rest of the world.
What’s more, as I mentioned above, it is very clear that the Christianity he had learned is the same as the Christianity I have come to know, which is quite different from the Christianity that is practiced in most churches in America. It is a Christianity of relationships and not rules. It is a Christianity of compassion and not politics. It is a Christianity of honesty and humility and not self centered pride. It is, I believe, the Christianity of Jesus.
Most of all, his books are perfect examples of the kinds of conversations I long to engage in when I get together with other Christians. Not talking about doctrines, sins, etc; but simply talking about what we have experienced along The Way.
I STRONGLY RECOMMEND that Christians, non-Christians, and those who are not sure what camp they belong in read his books.
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June 22, 2008
Books 2008/06/23
Current count of books pending to be read: 106
Read three, punted one, purchased four
It was bound to happen eventually – I started reading a book and decided to punt on it. In this case I don’t feel bad at all since Anne tells me it was a book I got as a gift, so it wasn’t one I had purchased for myself (although I do occasionally punt on those).
I’ll also not it has been a hot week here, which means I spent less time on my BTU generating computer and therefore more time reading.
Books finished this week:
The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever ForgottenPaul McKechnie
A collection of archaic English words. While some entries were mildly interesting, after a few pages it all blurred together. This is the book I punted on.
The First Christian Centuries: Perspectives on the Early Churchby Paul McKechnie
An excellent survey of church history up through the year 313. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to get a perspective on the early years of the church. What I particularly liked about this book is that it did not focus only on the “mainstream” church; but gave fair coverage to the various splinter groups that arose in that time. Yet at the same time he maintains a high level of scholarship – disregarding “evidence” that was clearly produced well after the fact. The key is that he is as critical of mainstream church writers (pointing out clear errors in the accounts of some early church histories) as he is of modern pseudo-gnostics. The result is probably as clear of a picture of the early church as we are likely to get.
Searching for God Knows Whatby Donald Miller
I talk in this blog about how “Christianity is not about religion but instead is about relationship”. This book (by the author of the previously praised “Blue Like Jazz”) is the first book that I have seen that really captures what I mean by that. The book is all about how the doctrine, rule, list oriented descriptions of Christianity fail because you can’t capture a relationship into a formula. He also has one of the best descriptions of what it means to live in a fallen world and why we need God. There’s just so many things in the book that he does well that I can’t put them all in this short review. READ THIS BOOK.
Uncovering Alias: An Unofficial Guide to the Showby Nikki Stafford and Robyn Burnett
A survey of the first three seasons of the TV show Alias (I gave up watching in the middle of the third season). This is not an academic book that does any analysis on the show, simply a description of the crew, actors, characters and episodes.
Computer Games Played: Spore Creature creator
DVDs Watched: TekWar series d1, d2
Next Book: TBD
Posted by Steven at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
June 15, 2008
Books 2008/06/16
Current count of books pending to be read: 106
Read two, purchased none
Books finished this week:
The Constants of Nature: From Alpha to Omega--the Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universeby John D. Barrow
Another excellent book by Barrow who wrote last week’s “New Theories of Everything”. Once again, it is as much a books of philosophy as one of physics, although less explicitly so than “New Theories. . .” The topic of this book is the constants of nature – the speed of light, the gravitational constant, Planck’s constant, etc. The book surveys both historical and current thinking about why these factors have the particular values they do (and in fact if they are actually constant). Well written and interesting.
The Rest of the Gospel: When the Partial Gospel Has Worn You Outby Dan Stone and David Gregory
An excellent book that will end up on my ready-access bookshelf so I can easily lend it out. Far too many Christians find themselves struggling with the impossible task of “being a good Christian” when in fact God had never intended us to be Good Christians! This issue is not that we are not to be good; but that it is not supposed to be us that does it. Only Jesus can successfully be a good Christian. As Paul writes in Galatians 2:20 “nevertheless I live, yet not I; but Christ lives in me”. This is the deep truth of the gospel, and this book is one of the clearly and most complete presentation of that truth I have found.
Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: TBD
Posted by Steven at 01:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
June 09, 2008
Books 2008/06/09
Current count of books pending to be read: 108
Read three, purchased none, borrowed one
Had to think about how to record this week since one of the books I read was not in my “to be read list” (it was lent to me by someone who wanted my opinion on it).
Books finished this week:
New Theories of Everythingby John D. Barrow
What a pleasant surprise. I no longer remember buying this book or what drew my attention to it; but what I was expecting when I picked it up this week was yet another physics book on current grand unified theories. While the book does provide a summary of those ideas, it is really a book of philosophy that is as likely to quote Augustine and Nietzsche as Newton and Einstein. It poses questions like what is the relationship between the “Laws of Nature” and “The Universe”? (Are they the same? Is the universe a subset of the laws? Or the other way around?) Or what does the way we study physics tell us about who we are, and what does who we are tell us about the universe we live in? Do we see the universe the way it is only because if it was different, we wouldn’t be here to see it?
The Late Great U.S.A.: The Coming Merger With Mexico and Canadaby Jerome R. Corsi
The author proposes that there is a vast conspiracy to undermine the sovereignty of the United States in favor of a “North American Union” in the pattern of the European Union. I agree that there certainly are individuals working towards such a goal (his evidence of that as well as some independent research on the web support it). However, having established such a conspiracy it is easy to associate things with it that may well be unrelated and motivated by other interests. As a result, there are places in the book that I think the author applies a form of guilt by association, and I remain unconvinced that the conspiracy is quite as vast as he proposes. What engaged me the most (largely because I was already concerned about it) were his descriptions at the start and end of the book of the true economic situation in the US and its likely consequences. Metaphorically, the United States has all of its credit cards maxed, has taken out a second mortgage on its house, and is completely dependent on the good will of its creditors. In light of that, a move to unify with Canada and Mexico is the least of the challenges to our sovereignty.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BFI TV Classics)by Anne Billson
This is the British Film Institute’s book on Buffy, and is quite well written, intermixing summaries of all seven season with analysis of the themes and characters. The author is a fan of the show; but not so much of a fanatic as to hold back necessary criticism (she ravages season 4). A well done introduction to the show.
Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: Constants of Nature
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June 02, 2008
Books 2008/06/02
Current count of books pending to be read: 110
Read one, purchased none.
Books finished this week:
The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mindby Marvin Minsky
This is essentially an updated version of professor Minsky’s theory of intelligence (human or artificial) which he originally elaborated in “Society of Mind”. It is still a complex theory, using many different kinds of elements playing against each other, and one which I would not consider “elegant”; although Minsky addresses this point directly in the book, claiming that while it may be possible at some point to simplify the theory (presumably be merging certain concepts), he believe it is premature to try to do so since the multiplicity of idea provides freedom in their application. I’m still not sure. What I will say is that the version of the theory here is certainly clearer and more comprehensive than the earlier version in “Society of Mind”
Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: New Theories of Everything
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 26, 2008
Books 2008/05/26
Current count of books pending to be read: 111
Read three, purchased none.
This week is an interesting milestone in the project to reduce my backlog of books to be read. First, I have been doing this for 6 months as of this week. Second, I have also managed this week to reduce the number of books waiting to be read on my shelf by one third – definite progress.
Stepping back, in the last 6 months I have read a total of 71 books and purchased 15. What’s interesting is that with the exception of the Christmas break when I made a deliberate effort to clear out all of the “quick reads” on my shelf, this progress has not be a matter of my reading more books than normal; but rather has purely been a matter of discipline in not buying (many) books. Looking at the details and at how my Amazon wish list has grown, I expect in a “normal” year I would probably have read about 55-60 books by now; but would have purchased about 70-75.
This is useful information for me. I’ve always known I read a lot; but I never had a clear idea of how much. That will be necessary information when I finally get my backlog under control and try to keep my reading list at a steady state – it means that I should budget to buy around 9 books a month.
OK, enough with the prologue:
Books finished this week:
What Have They Done with Jesus?: Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History--Why We Can Trust the Bibleby Ben Witherington
Interesting book. The author’s intent was to respond to the variety of theories about alternative or “suppressed” versions of Christianity that have been talked about recently. What makes the book interesting is the methodology – taking a biographical look at those who were close to Jesus (people like Peter, Mary Magdalene, etc.), based only on first century records (discounting those works that seem to have been written later) and trying to discern what Jesus was like and what He taught based on their identity and behavior. Frankly, I’m not sure how valid the approach is; but the result is certainly a different point of view which I am glad that I read – even if I do not agree with all of his analysis (amongst other things, he has some odd ideas as to who the real author of the gospel of John is). His bottom line is that the evidence indicates that first century Christianity was fairly orthodox in its doctrines with the only real debate being about how to view the Jewish law. All of the various alternative Christianities came about later (in the second and third centuries), did not reflect what Jesus taught, and were therefore rightly dismissed.
The Prostitute in the Family Tree: Discovering Humor and Irony in the Bibleby Douglas Adams
Not, alas, “the” Douglas Adams (which I suspect would have done a much better job on the same subject). It is said that if you have to explain a joke, it isn’t funny - this book is proof of that. To some extent the book seems to be an attempt to teach people how to make sermons and lessons more interesting by bringing out the natural humor in the Bible; but it all fell quite flat for me. I have a feeling the author has had to resort to such things because he may not have anything interesting to say to begin with. While I do believe that God has a great sense of humor and there is a lot of humor in the Bible if you have sufficient cultural context to see it, this is NOT the book to read to understand that.
Tales of the Slayer, Volume 4by assorted
Part of the mythology behind the TV series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is that Buffy is just the latest in a very long line of young women who have been called to battle of the forces of darkness. The “Tales of the Slayers” series of books are collections of short stories about some of the other “Slayers” through history. It’s actually quite a rich set-up for a lot of different kinds of stories, and the books have done it justice. I actually read the first three volumes in rapid succession a few years ago and burned out before I got to the fourth, so this has been sitting on my shelf for a while. The fourth book is a little different from the others – another part of the mythology of the series is that (assuming they live that long) when a slayer reaches the age of eighteen, they are put through a test by the watchers (their mentors). All of the stories in this book relate to how other slayers came through that test (or not).
Computer Games Played: Age of Conan (AoC) and LotRO
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: The Emotion Machine
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May 19, 2008
Books 2008/05/19
Current count of books pending to be read: 114
Read three, purchased none.
Sorry this is a bit late getting up – got distracted and forgot that I hadn’t prepared it.
Books finished this week:
The Complete PersepolisMarjane Satrapi
I saw the movie that was made of this book and enjoyed it so much that wanted to read the original. Given the author’s involvement in the film, it is no surprise how similar they are in both voice and visual style, with the only difference being that some of the more tangential side stories had to be omitted in the movie. I’m still amazed at the humility of the author in showing just what a brat she was as a child.
StardustNeil Gaiman
Another book made into a movie (I hadn’t noticed that until I was almost done with it). This time the differences were more significant, including some of my favorite parts of the movie not being in the book at all. Still, Gaiman is one of my favorite authors and I found this to be a thoroughly enjoyable read as a kind of post-modern fantasy story.
11: Indispensable Relationships You Can't Be WithoutLeonard Sweet
An interesting thesis – that all of us are in need eleven specific kinds of relationships in our lives. As examples – we all need someone who will tell us when we are wrong, we all need someone to mentor, we all need someone who can get us moving when we have stalled, etc. On the one hand, I think the author pushed things too far to get eleven (I’m not convinced we all need a relationship with a misfit). On the other hand, I do lack some of the relationships he describes and can see how I am the poorer for it.
Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: What have they done with Jesus?
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 14, 2008
Blue Like Jazz
Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian SpiritualityDonald Miller
Did I mention I liked this book?
Last year I was curious about the whole “Emergent/Emerging Church” movement and picked up a number of books that people associated with it. Once I had read enough to understand what was going on, I back-burnered the rest of them. Unfortunately for me, “Blue Like Jazz” got caught in the backwash. I wish I had read it sooner.
This book is a collection of extremely well written musing on authentic Christianity – with the emphasis on “authentic”. It is a man telling his experiences learning what it means to be a Christian, warts and all; and is one of the most refreshing books on faith that I have read in a long time. Unlike most Christian literature, it is not a book about how things should be by someone who claims to have the answers. It is instead a book about learning how things are from someone who still doesn’t have it all figured out.
The author talks candidly about his struggles to accept God’s love, to love others, and to love himself. It explores the times when his faith wavered, when his sanity wavered, and when his humility wavered. But most of all it chronicles the author’s journey from an institutional, religious form of Christianity to a faith that is simply about having a relationship with Jesus and thereby having a better relationship with other people.
I didn’t realize at first; but Don Miller was part of the small group that started the Imago Dei Community – an unconventional church in Portland, OR. I have heard stories both about how committed they are to the idea of the church being a community and how committed they are to expressing God’s love to people by serving them with no strings attached (you don’t help those in need to entice them to become Christians; you help them because God loves them). Don’s comments about his time with Imago Dei support the stories I have heard.
Back when I was pondering Melissa’s questions about books I thought everyone should read, one direction I explored was thinking about books people in certain categories of people should read. What books should every software engineer read? What books should every Christian read? Were I now to make such a list of books that every non-Christian should read, I think “Blue Like Jazz” might well be at the top of the list. This truth is that most people who object to Christianity are objecting to the instructional religion that bears that name today; but that is not the Christianity I know and experience. The book “Blue Like Jazz” is probably the most honest presentation of the difference I have yet read.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 12, 2008
Books 2008/05/12
Current count of books pending to be read: 117
Read two, purchased none.
Books finished this week:
The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind: Access to a Life of MiraclesBill Johnson
Bill Johnson is a popular author in Vineyard Church circles; but I hadn’t actually read any of his books until now. This book fits perfectly into that awkward middle ground of my life – I already knew everything the author says; but there is much of it I do not put into practice. That is often the case with me reading Christian books – I already know far more about what following Jesus is supposed to be like than I have managed to incorporate into how I am actually following Him. Sometimes I despair that reading more books on my faith is pointless since it will likely take the rest of my life to be transformed into someone who does what I already know I should be doing. On the other hand, there are the occasional books that says things in a way that provides just that smack on the side of my head that I needed to allow God to make the necessary changes in my life. This was not one of those books for me; but it could well be such a book for someone else.
Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian SpiritualityDonald Miller
Wow. It’s not often a book grabs me on the first page and doesn’t let me go. It has certainly been a few months since I finished a book the same day I started; but despite having other plans for the day, I just couldn’t put this one down. I am going to give this book a blog post of its own, so I won’t say a lot now other than: Wow.
Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: Persepolis
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 05, 2008
Books 2008/05/05
Current count of books pending to be read: 119
Read one, purchased none.
Books finished this week:
Swerve: Reckless Observations of a Postmodern GirlAisha Tyler
A series of essays by a young African-American woman about beauty, dating, and the meaning of life. Yeah. A rather unlikely book for me to read. The author was guest reviewer on “At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper” and I found her perspective on cinema interesting so I picked up the book out of curiosity. I’m definitely not the target audience (which may have contributed to it taking two weeks for me to find enough reading time to finish it); but I did find it interesting. She is a “liberated” woman, not in the old Women’s Lib sense of the word; but in a new postmodern sense of knowing who she is and what she wants. Seeing her perspective on things laid out with such good humor was worth the effort.
Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
April 30, 2008
Books and wish-lists
Thinking more about my progress on my reading list (or last week, the lack of progress). As is often the case with these things, I'm really just changing the problem to a different one. In the 22 weeks I have pushed my purchased-but-not-read list down from 167 to 120, my Amazon wish-list has grown from (as I recall) 102 to 169. At least the books on my wish-list haven't cost me any money (yet). As the saying goes: "So many books, so little time."
Also, I don't always purchase everything on my wish list. In fact, keeping them on that list longer tends to give me time to reconsider purchases. Sometimes I see an interview with someone who wrote a book and I'm all excited to get it; but 6 months later is doesn’t sounds quite as interesting. Then there are the occasions when, by the time I end up purchasing the book, a cheaper trade-paperback is available.
I tend to keep a fairly low bar when it comes to adding something to my Amazon wish list (since the incremental cost is only about 10 seconds). When I actually place an order with Amazon, I tend to scan the list for others to purchase (at least enough so that the order qualifies for free shipping), and remove those that don't sound quite so interesting any more.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
April 28, 2008
Books 2008/04/28
Current count of books pending to be read: 120
Read none, purchased two.
Yeah, this was a bad week. While I read some, I didn’t actually finish a book. On top of that I took Anne to a book store and couldn’t resist picking up a couple myself.
An interesting thing in this process is that I have no idea if my slowdown in reading is “normal”. Since this is the first time I have ever tracked my reading I don’t know if I always have followed cycles or not. So, even if I am not making progress, at least I am learning something from the process.
Books finished this week:
Nada
Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: Swerve
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
April 21, 2008
Books 2008/04/21
Current count of books pending to be read: 118
Read one, purchased none.
Books finished this week:
The Normal Christian LifeWatchman Nee
I had forgotten how much I like Nee’s writing. I read his magnum opus “The Spiritual Man” when I was 12, and was impressed with both the logic and spiritual/intellectual insight expressed in those three volumes. Nee’s analysis provided the foundations of my own theology for many years (although are parts I would later gain improved understanding on).
“The Normal Christian Life” is an excellent summary of what it means to live as a Christian, and as I have matured as a Christian I find I have come to agree more and more with what Nee says in this book. In fact, were I to compile a list of 5 books every Christian should read (other than the Bible), this book would certainly make the list, and given the number of Christian books I read, that I quite high praise.
Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book:
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
April 14, 2008
Books 2008/04/14
Current count of books pending to be read: 119
Read two, purchased none.
Books finished this week:
Out of This World: Colliding Universes, Branes, Strings, and Other Wild Ideas of Modern PhysicsStephen Webb
An excellent survey of the current state of physics. The first half of the book is a quick summary of the boundaries of what we know, and the second is a survey of the current competing theories to explain what we don’t know. I’m a bit disappointed that Quantum Loop Gravity (the theory which I hope turns out to be true) is only given about a page; but otherwise I found the book’s coverage to be excellent. If you read this together with “Three Roads to Quantum Gravity (by Smolin), you get a solid picture of where we are at just before they turn on the Large Hadron Collider.
OthersydeJ. Michael Straczynski
I have written previously about my respect for JMS’s work on TV (Babylon 5) and graphic novels (Midnight Nation). He has also written a couple of novels and a collection of short stories. I don’t consider these his best work, and from some comments he has made I suspect he agrees (he is too visual of a story teller to do well with only words). This is one of JMS’s novels – a horror story of sorts. While I enjoyed it, I think there was only about 200 pages of story in this 300 page novel.
Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: The Normal Christian Life
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
April 11, 2008
Happy Birthday Locus Magazine
Locus Magazine has been published for 40 years this month. That probably doesn’t mean a lot to most people – Locus is mostly an “insider’s” rag.
Locus is to Science Fiction (and Fantasy) Publishing what Variety magazine is to Movies – the trade magazine of the business. It covers what is going on behind the scenes with respect to SciFi books and magazines (and a bit on TV and movies; but not a lot). Every issue has:
- Interviews with writers
- Notices of awards that have been won
- Lists of books sold, resold, delivered, published, etc.
- News about key life events involving people in the industry, particularly…
- Obituaries
- Statistics on publishing (how many of what kind of books were sold by what publishers in what countries)
- News about authors, agents, publishers, editors, distributors, book sellers, etc.
- Reviews of novels and short stories
Reading Locus is THE way the SciFi publishing industry keeps track of itself. At one of the first WorldCon’s I attended I was given the advice that if I was serious about becoming a Science Fiction or Fantasy writer, I should start reading Locus to learn how the industry works. I have been reading Locus ever since and can see the value of that advice (even though the goal of getting published myself has been set on the side for the moment).
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April 07, 2008
Books 2008/04/07
Current count of books pending to be read: 121
Read two, purchased none.
Books finished this week:
Alias Assumed: Sex, Lies and SD-6Kevin Weisman
There is a spectrum of books about TV shows that range from true academic books (like many that I read on Buffy) to pure fan books (collections of essays that express “see how cool this show is” in various ways). This book is closer to the latter than the former, and so I will not refer to it as a “TV Studies” book, although I admit 2-3 of the essays could have made it into an academic journal.
The TV show “Alias” was one of my favorites when it first came out; but lost my interest after a couple a years. Just as eating the same food at every meal can become borring, regardless of how good that dish is. In the same way Alias provided the same kind of excitement week after week and eventually became monotonous. This book however did serve to remind me of why I originally liked the show.
Do You Speak American?Robert MacNeil and William Cran
A sequel of sorts to “The Story of English” which takes a closer look at various regional and ethnic dialects in American – where they came from, where they are going, what effect they have. I’m not sure it added much to my understanding over what I already knew.
Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: Out of This World
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March 31, 2008
Books 2008/03/31
Current count of books pending to be read: 123
Read one, purchased none.
Books finished this week:
Permission Granted to Do Church Differently in the 21st CenturyGraham Cooke and Gary Goodell
A good book (I’m recommending it to my pastor). The authors are among those who have felt called to “do church differently” in the organic/simple church model, the book does not really focus on that; but rather on the process of becoming a different kind of church regardless of the vision God has given you - how to seek God, what kinds of problem you are likely to encounter, etc.. While many other books talked about “this is what church should be like”, this is the first I have seen that talks about “and this is how to get there.” I’m not sure there was anything in the book I didn’t already know; but seeing a clear and considered presentation of it was quite useful.
Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: Sex, Lies, and SD-6
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March 24, 2008
Books 2008/03/24
Current count of books pending to be read: 124
Read one, purchased none.
Books finished this week:
The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economicsby Michael Shermer
An interesting book; but it was ultimately unsatisfying. The book was promoted as a presentation of evolutionary psychology and how it affects human behavior with respect to markets and economics; but what came across was a collection of facts and studies without much to tie it all together. The individual observations were in fact interesting; but they seem to be rather isolated from each other; but I kept looking for some clear “because of A then B” type theses and was disappointed that the individual observation never seemed to get assembled into any conclusion.
The author was very clear about his belief that a free market economy (with democracy) was the best possible system (a sentiment I happen to share). Furthermore, he comments several times how evolution left mankind ill suited for such a system (which I found a very interesting claim); but from what I saw he never seemed to close the loop to prove that point. I think he presented the raw data which he intended to support that point; but never followed through with the proof.
Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: Enchanted (extras), Battlestar Galactica Season 3 (extras and select episodes)
Next Book: Permission Granted
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March 17, 2008
Books 2008/03/17
Current count of books pending to be read: 125
Read four, received three that I had ordered a while back.
Books finished this week:
Perdido Street Stationby China Mieville
Just to prove I take my own advice; Meiville’s last three books have all been nominated for Hugo awards, so I thought I should check him out. I’m very glad I did.
The story itself is a kind of strange mix of Fantasy, steam-punk SciFi and Horror, set in a world where there are steam powered robots, and different fields of magic are treated as scientific disciplines (a bio-thaumaturge can manipulate living flesh, etc.). The forces of elemental chaos occasionally sweep through the world creating new species, often chimerical combinations of previous creatures – sentient, mobile, man-shaped cacti; a race of women whose heads are beetles; human-frog hybrids; and the like.
The author starts slowly to provide a chance to understand the world (although the travelogue is never boring); but once the action starts it keeps moving quickly and I had trouble putting the book down. The main plot is about several parties trying to put a stop to a set of creatures that eat dreams/minds (and excrete nightmares) who are inadvertently released into a populated area.
The main character however is the city in which the action takes place – New Crobuzon, which is kind of like a Victorian London with magic and advanced steam technology. The city is ruthlessly ruled by the mayor through his secret police. Crimes are punished by the criminals being “remade” – transformed by magic into a new form. Perhaps they are given the body of a dog, or have steam-power claws magically grafted on to replace their hands.
I enjoyed the book a lot, and as soon as my reading list gets reduced a bit more, I want to read his two sequels in the same world – Scar and Iron Council.
Going to Church in the First Centuryby Robert Banks
A short narrative of what it might have been like to “go to church” in the first century, as told from the point of view of a Roman who was invited to join the group. The book is well researched, although there clearly is some level of speculation. It is well written by a Simple/Home church advocate. I certainly recommend the book and expect to share it with people I know. I certainly would be quite happy to attend a meeting like the one described.
This Little Church Stayed Homeby Gary E. Gilley
I recommend that people always seek out opposing points of view to help clarify their own opinions, and it is in that spirit that I purchased and read this book. It is a sequel to “This Little Church Went to Market” in which the author provides criticism to the seeker-friendly and mega-church movements, accusing them of trading in the gospel for entertainment and slick marketing.
In this book he examines the impact of postmodernism on the Christian church and provides specific criticism to Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life” movement (or at least Warren’s poor use of scripture), Christian Mysticism (particularly Foster’s “A Celebration of Disciple”), the Emerging/Emergent church movement (particularly McLaren and Sweet) and a short epilog on Barna and the Simple/Church movement (although this was clearly added late in the development of the book and not a thorough treatment of the subject).
While the book did not change my mind on any specific points (I already disagreed with McLaren and was suspicious of modern Christian Mysticism), it did provide me some things to look out for - channel markers to use to know if I am sliding outside the main flow of Christianity. There are several points on which I disagree with Gilley (for example, he seems to take the position that anything said by a Catholic is automatically wrong); but I still found hearing his point of view useful.
Creating Your World: The Official Guide to Advanced Content Creation for Second Lifeby Aimee Weber, Kimberly Rufer-Bach, and Richard Platel
I have been meaning to try out Second Life for a couple years now, and at one point I even bought a couple of books on the subject. This is the more programming-oriented one (I already read the more user-oriented one). Having still not tried the service, I can’t speak to how complete it is; but it certainly seemed useful. Perhaps when I get finished with this book-reading project I’ll allocate some time to try out Second life.
Computer Games Played: none
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: The Mind of the Market
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March 10, 2008
Books 2008/03/10
Current count of books pending to be read: 126
Read one, purchased three. Urban vacations can be hard on this list. I tend to be too busy to read much but have access to a lot of new book stores. Road trips aren’t as bad since you tend to have long evenings in hotel rooms to read.
Books finished this week:
Freewareby Rudy Rucker
What a disappointment. While I enjoyed Software and Wetware, this sequel was a real mess. There were a lot of half baked ideas thrown together but almost nothing was carried through to any kind of payoff. The “freeware” of the title doesn’t even show up until nearly the end of the book. I get the sense that Rucker might be setting up some further sequels; but you have to provide a good story with your set-up and this wasn’t one.
Computer Games Played: none
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: Perdido Street Station (already half way through; but the book is 600 pages).
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March 03, 2008
Books 2008/03/03
Current count of books pending to be read: 124
Read two, purchased none.
Books finished this week:
Softwareby Rudy Rucker
by Rudy Rucker
I am reading Rucker’s ‘ware trilogy this week (not quite finished with Freeware). Interesting. All three books are about what it means to be “human”. If you reproduce a human consciousness in a computer program, is it still a human being? If you create a human body and program the brain with an artificial intelligence, is it still human? In the end, does it matter?
The ideas in the book are excellent; the quality of the writing however was variable. I’m glad I read them; but I’m not sure I am as excited about the series as other folks seem to be.
Computer Games Played: none
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: Freeware
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February 29, 2008
Desert Island Media (Books)
This is the continuation of my response to a suggestion for posts from Melissa. Essentially if I had to go a long period of time with access to only a small set of movies, books, TV, games, which would I choose? I previously gave my list of movies here.
Books turns out to be an easier list since I already have a set of books that I tend to re-read periodically, so they are natural choices. The only question is what order to put them in. I will however note that my choices here are definitely influenced by the idea that I would be re-reading them many times. There are books (particularly non-fiction books) that I recommend more highly for reading once; but for books to re-read, this is my list.
The obvious first choice is, of course, the Bible. It is in fact so obvious as to be uninteresting, so I’ll focus on what books I would pick after that (and assume I have on my desert island, or spaceship, or whatever, a Bible). Although if I had a choice of what translation to take, I think I’d currently pick the New English Bible – a British translation.
So after that, here’s what I would pick:
1. "Godel, Escher, Bach : An Eternal Golden Braid" by Hofstadter
As I mentioned in a recent review, this is one of my favorite books of all time, and one I re-read regularly.
2. "Snow Crash" by Stephenson
One of my favorite SciFi books of all time. I re-read this periodically, both for the ideas in the book and for the author’s excellent use of language.
3. "Courtship Rite" by Kingsbury
Another of my all-time favorite novels.
If I could take a few more (perhaps trading in my movie allotment), I would grab:
4. "Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language" by Hofstadter
Hofstadter’s other masterpiece.
5. Cryptonomicon by Stephenson
Another of Stephenson’s books
6-8. The Baroque Cycle by Stephenson
If I could take 8 books, the I would next add Stephenson’s entire Baroque Cycle. Otherwise I would pick:
6. or 9. "The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" by Stephenson
Another Stephenson book.
So yes, if I was able to grab 9 books, I would only have 3 authors represented.
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February 25, 2008
Books 2008/02/25
Current count of books pending to be read: 126
Read one, purchased none. Busy week.
Books finished this week:
Sex and the Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer for the Buffy Fanby Lorna Jowett
I came to this second-generation Buffy-Studies book with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I am very interested in ready any academic book on Buffy. On the other hand, my interest in post-feminist gender theory is indistinguishable from “none”. Fortunately I was pleasantly surprised. The book is well written and actually made some observations about the show that I had not considered before. I don’t agree with all of the author’s opinions; but I have to acknowledge that they are well argued.
Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: BtVS S5.d5,d6, “Man from Earth” (film and special features)
Next Book: TBD (one of several novels, just haven’t picked which one)
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February 18, 2008
Books 2008/02/18
Current count of books pending to be read: 127
Read three, purchased none.
I am now down to 3/4 of my starting level and room in my “to be read” bookshelves is becoming manifest (My goal is to reduce this from three double-stuffed shelves to one in which I can see all of the titles without moving anything).
Books finished this week:
Society of Mindby Marvin Minsky
While I was a student at MIT, worked for a while at and around the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, and saw Dr. Minsky periodically, I never actually got around to reading his classic book on how the human mind works until now. Actually – it may be because of those things that I never read it. The ideas in the book were part of the background of my life for a couple of years, so I felt I had already absorbed the contents without reading it. However, Minsky recently came out with another book (“The Emotion Machine), and when I purchased it I thought perhaps I should read his original work first. Now I have.
Truth is, the ideas in the books seem quite dated now, particularly having read “On Intelligence” which provides a simpler model that actually maps into the structure of the brain. In hindsight, Minsky’s model looks like a rather complex kludge – with additional mechanisms added every time he had another problem he couldn’t solve. Hawkins theory in “On Intelligence” has some missing pieces as well; but seems far more elegant. I’ll let you know when I read “The Emotion Machine” if I think Minsky would agree with that assessment.
The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyoneby Kenneth W. Ford
I can’t recall why I purchased this; but the phrase “for everyone” in the subtitle should have warned me off. It was definitely well below my level and added nothing to my understanding. So far, no books have been punted from my pending list without having been read; but this came close. I’m not sure I would even recommend it to a novice – the book spends too much time covering the “standard model” of subatomic particles and doesn’t get into the meat of quantum theory until the final quarter.
The Church Comes Homeby Robert J. Banks and Julia Banks
Finally, a practical guide to being a part of a Simple/Organic Church (even if they call it a “Home Church”). I have read a lot of books on the movement; but most are focused on why it is a good thing. This is the first book I have read that is focused on the nuts and bolts of doing a simple/organic church. Not sure I agree with everything they say (to them, having a meal as part of the meeting is critical); but I have to acknowledge that they have incorporated input from a large number of sources into the book and so there is a lot of practical wisdom there. Going to hang on to this one.
Computer Games Played: none
DVDs Watched: BtVS S5.d3,d4, “Across the Universe” (film and special features)
Next Book: Sex and the Slayer
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February 15, 2008
Pages Form Church History
oops! I thought I did the last of my reviews of last-year's books; but discovered I had written this one up and failed to post it.
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Pages Form Church History: A Guided Tour of Christian Classicsby Stephen Nichols
This is a survey of twelve influential Christian writers: Polycarp, Augustine, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas a Kempis, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, John and Charles Wesley, William Carey, and Dietrich Bonheoffer. This small group was selected both for their influence and as examples of particular schools of thought within church history. Each author has a chapter, and each chapter follows the same format: a brief introduction, a description of the author’s life and times, a summary of the key points of the author’s theology and their writings, an examination of one of their works in more detail, and finally an exploration of their legacy. A benefit of the repeated format for each author that I had not expected was that it helped me put them into relation to each other in ways that more free-form biographies would not. I came away wishing there were more books done this way.
I would strongly recommend this book for anyone who has heard of these names; but really doesn’t know who they were or what they believed. I’ve done a fair amount of study of ch