Adam Shields
full review is at http://bookwi.se/the-nearest-exit-by-olen-steinhauer/
Short review: This book and The Tourist are great spy books. If you like the Borne movies, you will love these. I think these books are better than the original Borne books, but more similar in feel to the Borne movies (because the world they are set in is more similar.)
Full review at http://bookwi.se/addition-by-adoption-by-kevin-hendricks-a-book-review/
Short review. This was an interesting book. It is short (around 80 pages) and is made up of a curated twitter stream of about a year when the author was attempting to adopt his son from Ethiopia. I am not sure I like the format of a twitter based book, but this was an interesting experiment. I enjoyed learning about his family. The book is in part an attempt at fundraising for water development to give back to Ethiopia, so I think the author has his heart in the right place. If you are a parent you will probably enjoy it.
Full review at http://bookwi.se/pure-pleasure-why-do-christians-feel-so-bad-about-feeling-good-by-gary-l-thomas/
Short review: This is the second book I have read by Gary Thomas and I again am very impressed. Christians often think that pleasure must be bad because so much pleasure can be taken too far and become sin. But Thomas makes a good case that pleasure was created by God and part of being human. The rejection of pleasure is a rejection of God. He is clear all pleasure is not good, but it is worse to reject pleasure out of hand. I think it was a great introduction to the idea of humans worshiping through the participation in God created pleasure.
full review at http://bookwi.se/the-body-in-the-library-by-agatha-christie-my-first-full-ipad-book/
Short review. I am not a huge mystery fan. I just don't get the clues and don't solve the crime. Probably shows my lack of intelligence, but I guess that is the way it goes. Agatha Christie is a great writer, has decent characters, but it just isn't my style of book.
Full review at http://bookwi.se/one-holy-catholic-and-apostolic-a-history-of-the-church-in-the-middle-ages-by-thomas-madden/
Short review. Again this is a lecture series setup as an audiobook. Madden is a good lecturer and the lecture is well organized. I was interested in the historical period. I had some familiarity with it, but this history filled in a lot of holes for me.
Full review is at http://bookwi.se/no-country-for-old-men-by-cormac-mccarthy/
Short review: I have seen the movie before, but the audiobook is much better than what I thought it would be. I listened to it free from Overdrive and the voices were amazing. They perfectly matched the characters (this was done before the movie.)
This is not an easy book to listen to, there is clear violence and the descriptions are detailed. There is also a lot of time jumping without much preparation. So you don't really know you are in a different time or character, until there is enough detail to tell you. If you were reading there might be a chapter marking or something that tells you, but in the audiobook there is nothing. Other than those minor flaws this is an excellent book.
full review at http://bookwi.se/beauty-and-the-beast-by/
Short review. It is always interesting to read the source material before Disney got a hold of it. This is fairly true to the story but it is a pre-modern novel. There is not the internal motivation that is described like what modern readers expect. So when it says she does something to save her father, we don't know why she made the decisions, or what made her father worth saving or her history of trama and abuse, etc.
It is a short story, but worth the 15 to 20 minutes it will take to read it.
Full review at http://bookwi.se/predictably-irrational-by-dan-ariely/
Short review: If you want to know why people consistently make the same bad decisions, read this book. Great discussions about how to set up boundaries to help us make better decisions once we understand why we often make bad decisions.
Full review at http://bookwi.se/the-divine-commodity-discovering-a-faith-beyond-consumer-christianity-by-skye-jethani/
Short review: This is a book to argue with. There is something that will offend just about every Christian, but a lot of really good points. Obviously I don't agree with all the conclusions, but I think it is a great book for wrestling through how we as Christians interact in culture.
Full review at http://bookwi.se/from-jesus-to-christianity-a-history-of-early-christianity-by-thomas-madden/
Short Review: this is a college lecture turned into an audiobook. The format is pretty good. It is very informative, especially about the first three centuries. I am a bit more familiar with the later parts of the book.
Full review at http://bookwi.se/follow-me-to-freedom-by-shane-claiborne-and-john-perkins/
Short review: This is styled as a conversation between John Perkins and Shane Claborne. These are both socially active evangelical talking about leadership. The topic of leadership is quite broad and it is set up as discussions, so really it is a series of essays.
The basic idea is that you can only lead, once you have learned how to follow. Good introduction to the two of them, if you have not read anything by them before. If you have read all of their books before this will be mostly duplicate material.
full review at http://bookwi.se/streams-of-living-water-celebrating-the-great-traditions-of-the-faith-by-richard-foster/
Short review: This is a good view of the different focuses of the Christian Church. It is helpful to see different streams of faith and how they connect with your part of the church. This is a body theology book. Foster is trying to show that the whole body is important, not just the part that you focus on. The book is a bit on the dry side. Probably could be edited a bit. But the content is good.
Full review at http://bookwi.se/boomsday-by-christopher-buckley/
Short review. Great political satire. The basic plot of this one is that a 29 year old blogger proposes that Boomers that are retiring should voluntarily commit suicide to save Social Security and the federal deficit. No one writes funny politcal satire like Christopher Buckley.
Full review at http://bookwi.se/different-eyes-the-art-of-living-beautifully-by-steve-chalke/
Short review: This is a great introduction to the idea of Christian ethics. It is similar in theme to NT Wright's After You Believe. It is not as dense as NT Wright and is much more of an introduction to the topic (instead of a “how to develop virtue” book) it is quite good at that goal.
The main part I did not like was the attempt at showing different sides of thorny issues (homosexuality, just war, capitalism, euthanasia.) I did not think that the issues were really given enough weight. They were 1 to 2 page letters, and did not really address the strongest arguments of their own side or the real issues of the other side.
Full review of the first three books at http://bookwi.se/a-series-of-unfortunate-events-books-1-3-by-lemony-snicket/
Short review. Good young adult books. Tries to take the kids seriously as readers. Love the use of vocabulary. Got a little bored by the end of the third. Not sure if I will read more. Think they would be good for a lot of kids.
Full review at http://bookwi.se/forgotten-god-reversing-our-tragic-neglect-of-the-holy-spirit-by-francis-chan/
Short review: This is a brief and pastoral book about the Holy Spirit. Much of the church has an unorthodox (verging on heretical) view of the Holy Spirit. Chan is trying to show how to have a better view of the Holy Spirit, but not just a knowledge of the Holy Spirit. He wants us to know the person of the Holy Spirit. Great book! Listened to the audiobook and it was read by the author. He is not a professional reader, but has the passion of the author that is really better.
Full review at http://bookwi.se/green-like-god-unlocking-the-divine-plan-for-our-planet-by-jonathan-merritt/
This was a good and orthodox Christian book on how to approach the environment. Merritt is an Evangelical from a conservative background writing to Evangelicals from a conservative background. He is spends significant time dealing with the bible and bases his argument for why the church needs to be more involved in environmentalism on scripture and theology.
Full review at http://bookwi.se/unfashionable-by-tullian-tchividjian-part-1/ and http://bookwi.se/unfashionable/
Short review: I think this is a good discussion of how the church should be interacting in the world. I did not agree with the theology behind some of his positions, but almost all of the illustrations of how the church should be acting I did think were appropriate and good. This is a book that I really recommend, not because it is new and original but because it is concise and lays out the argument for the church reaching the world but not being dominated by the world.
Full review at http://bookwi.se/a-praying-life-by-paul-miller/
Second review six months later at http://bookwi.se/a-praying-life-connecting-with-god-in-a-distracting-world-by-paul-miller-a-second-look/
Short review: One of the best, most practical books on prayer I have read. It really moves the focus of prayer to relationship with God and away from technique. The book is full of good advice, but also stories of prayer from real people. As I said in my full review.
If you want to learn about the variety of Prayer you should read Richad Foster's Prayer.
If you want to motivation on why to prayer, especially as a pastor read EM Bounds.
If you want stories of how prayer makes a difference read Reese Howell: Intercessor.
If you want to see how prayer fits into spiritual disciplines overall read Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life.
If you want a book on how to develop a life of prayer read A Praying Life.
full review at http://bookwi.se/stuff-christians-like-by-jonathan-acuff/
Short review: I read this in two days. It is a good humorous quick read. I am not a laugh out loud funny kind of guy. But I liked this book. It has lots of good, appropriate, sarcasm from a guy that likes the church, grew up as a pastor's kid and is still in the church.
My review is at http://bookwi.se/the-noticer-by-andy-andrews/
Short review. I didn't like it. I felt it was recycled advice from the best of the self help books of the last decade or two. The story form was ok. I don't really like the form where the author pretends to be the actual narrator and there is a mix of actual autobiography and blatant fiction. But getting over that, the issue isn't the story form, it is the lack of originality.
My full review is at http://bookwi.se/sin-boldly-a-field-guide-for-grace-cathleen-falsani/
Short review: I thought it was ok, but it never really grabbed me. There were some decent essays and I identify with the author (went to the same college, I lived in Chicago for 11 years, seem to basically agree theologically, socially and politically). But I never really got into the book that much.