Adam Shields

I finally gave up on this. It is one of the worst kindle conversions that I have read. I have just read the first chapter (a long introductory chapter on Barth before getting to Barth's own writing.) But this chapter had at least one typo on virtually every page. Most pages had several. I am not a good copy editor, but if I can read and submitted somewhere between 50 and 100 corrections to the kindle edition on a book that has been out for a while, then either no one is reading it, or no one at the company is paying attention.

I picked it up on sale last year. But I have a hard time recommending it even though I think it is pretty good content. It is just annoying to have to work through what the text is supposed to mean several times a page.

Short Review: I really love this series. It can be more than a little meandering. But the organization isn't the point. The point is the exploration of life and the wisdom that can be gained from it. This third book in the series of memoirs is roughly organized around the Liturgical year. It is very rough. Some of the connections are pretty tenuous. But again, that isn't really the point.

This also fits in with a lot of the resurgent thought recently about the liturgical year, the importance of repetition of the liturgy in general and the importance of regular seasons of grief, joy, celebration, introspection and ‘ordinary time'.

One more of the memoirs to go, the last one is on her marriage.

My fuller review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/irrational-season/

Short Review: I started this series looking for wisdom and assurance about life. Somewhat similar to what I have felt from reading Eugene Peterson's memoir the Pastor. I found that and much more. I started the first of this four part memoir in the spring. It has been just over six months and I have read seven books by L'Engle in that time.

This one is about her marriage as you can tell from the title. I think it is probably important to know going in that it is about her husband's death. It is a remembrance and dealing with grief. Marriage, when not interrupted through divorce, is ultimately interrupted by death. That is the normal way of life.

There is a great deal of love shown here. But also a lot of the importance of the ordinary. Her focus on always staying up for when Hugh came back from acting. (To the point when the kids were relatively young, 6 to 10, they got themselves to school because she couldn't both get up with them and stay up to be with Hugh after the theater.)

I do with there was another memoir about her life after. She lived another decade.

My slightly different but not much longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/two-part-invention/

Short Review: This is what I was looking for. I wanted an introduction to how to think about Barth. An Explorer's Guide to Barth is probably mostly for students, but helpful for those of us that managed to get through seminary without really reading anything by Barth.

It opens with a brief biographical sketch and why Barth is still important. And eventually works to a plan for reading on your own to understand him. There is a chapter on 10 things to read outside of Church Dogmatics and then three chapters on how to approach and think about Church Dogmatics. I am not going to attempt even the short plan for Church Dogmatics (there are three reading plans presented) anytime soon. But I do want to read another biography and then one of his shorter books soon.

my full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/explorers-guide-to-karl-barth/

Short review: I really like Krista Tippett's perspective and voice. Her focus on wisdom and ‘spiritual technologies' are unusual in the world of journalism. Good news and wisdom are not areas where there are lots of focus. So I think we need to pay attention and support it when we see it.

I think the audiobook version of this book is the best version. Because a lot of the book is made up of interviews, you might as well listen to the actual person instead of read the interview. But it can feel like a clip show, especially when you recognize the clips from their original interviews.

I am a bit concerned with how she frames ‘spiritual technologies'. I think the way she uses that phrase can lead her (and the reader) to think of these ideas and practices as tools to overcome the spiritual (or body). Traditionally the term has been spiritual practices. Because you do not overcome the need for them. These are the tools that help us along a pathway for a destination that we do not get to in this life.

I think the book was a little disjointed. And I think there would have been some benefit with more internal evaluation of the ideas.

But overall I did enjoy the book and I will keep reading her. My full review of the book is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/becoming-wise/

I didn't actually read every page of this one. But it was my main devotional reading for the year. I highly recommend this edition of the Book of Common Prayer. The scriptures are in line with the daily reading. The prayers are all included without flipping. The days are well marked with links from the table of contents and it is cheap.

Short Review: Well reading. It is a modern classic (a bit over 25 years old). It is not perfect, I talk about some of the weaknesses in the full review. But it is one of the better books I have read about pursuing holiness.

Full review http://bookwi.se/holiness-bridges/

Short Review: This is a highly readable (and relatable) book on why we need the church. My go to book on why we need the church has been Eugene Peterson's Practice Resurrection. I still really recommend that book. But this is a very good complement to it. Two different writing styles, pastoral styles and generations that in the end agree that the church is not an optional add-on to our faith but an essential part of our faith.

I immediately picked up a copy of this for a young pastor friend of mine and I would like to re-read it before the end of the year.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/community-of-god

Short review: This is more of a 3.5 review than a 4 review. But I generally round up. I like Niequist's writing generally. I think she is relatable and interesting. I think she has a good message. But this is book three of the same essential message, slow down, embrace important things. Focus on what God has for you, not what everyone wants you to do. A good message, but repetition.

I also think there continues to be a problem in her writing about not acknowledging the inherent privilege in her life. (Not in her, because I keep hearing from her and her husband about how they understand their privilege, but somehow it doesn't seem to make it into the books.)

I also think there is a problem with this being a mostly negative message, saying no to the extra and not enough of the positive message (what you are saying yes to.)

On the whole I would have liked the book more if I had not read more of her previous books.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/present-over-perfect/

Short Review: I don't like reading books out of order. But this was on sale and it was the start of a sub-series. So I picked it up. I followed along with the story line fine, but there was characterization that I missed out on because I had not read 6 of the previous 7 books.

The first book in the series was a well done police procedural with a scifi setting. This keeps the primary focus on the police procedural elements, but because the crime is a much bigger crime than the first book, the plot has to follow a number of different actors that are all working with the crimes in front of them. Part of the focus of the book then is the problem in getting the whole picture. That is well done but moves the story from a traditional police procedural to a larger thriller.

I alternated between the kindle edition and the audiobook. The audiobook was well done.

This was okay. I ready about half of it when my Kindle Unlimited subscription ended. I think there was some very helpful things here, but also a bit of minutia that was probably less helpful. Cutting 50 or so pages probably would have made it a better book.

Short Review: This is a historical fiction book set in the 1920s and 30s in the financial world of New York and London with the main characters as being roughly Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Mark Antony and Augustus Caesar. Like most of Susan Howatch's books, this is a book with each of the main characters narrating part of the story from their perspective.

I enjoyed the book, although there were some parts that dragged a bit. But after 700 pages, this is really just part one of the story. So I have to read part two, Sins of the Fathers to get the rest (Another 700 pages).

I alternated between audiobook and kindle book for this. The characters were not particularly lovable, but they were interesting. I am withholding full judgement until I finish the second book. But I would probably rate this a 3.5 if given the chance. It is interesting, but not as good as the Starbridge series.

My slightly longer full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/the-rich-are-different/

Short Review: This is more a 3.5 book, but I always like to round up. The problem is that it is a book of essays. Some are fascinating. Some are merely okay. There are not any that are horrible. It is Rowan Williams, even when he is writing well over my head, he writes well.

Part of the problem is that I listened to this. And some of the essays do not translate well into audiobook format. There are many others that were originally given as talks that do work well in audio, but not all.

I think Williams is at his best when talking about diversity, pluralism and issues of human rights and the philosophy of personhood. These are areas where he is well grounded in his academic and theological background. And he has a voice that I think more in the US should hear because of his own background in the more secular culture of the UK.

There are a few sections that I think he gets too specific in recommendations, but generally those are few. For the most part the strength of the book is how Williams keeps his eye on how the church as the church with its understanding of theology and ethics can inform the secular world around it. Williams never apologizes for his faith or tries to hide his faith. But he does understand that as a person of faith, his ability to impact secular culture is limited to persuasion. And he is well aware of the importance of being a person of faith, among many faiths, even if historically the Church of England is the state church. He does not want to use that historical dominance to marginalize other faiths, or those without faith, because he knows the impact of how similar discrimination has marginalized Christians both in Britain and around the world.

I would probably have enjoyed the book a bit more if it were more focused. Some of the areas were just not engaging. But I do think this book is an example of how the church does have a role within a pluralistic society.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/faith-and-the-public-square/

Short review: I read a couple of Cone's books in seminary. I have been meaning to pick up the Cross and the Lynching Tree for years and haven't yet. I haven't in part because I have ‘moved past' liberation theology. There are parts of it that I can't support theologically, but I think I have also dismissed other parts too easily because I have not properly understood it in context and because I have been blinded to parts of it because of my own racism.

This is not a new memoir. I would be interested to read a new memoir by Cone. He is now 81. He wrote this when he was 49 and very much mid-career. Only a few years older than I am now. It continues to be depressing to read questions that are still relevant. Like ‘how can Christianity co-exist with racism and oppression?'

Cone was born in 1936. He did his graduate work in the late 50s to the mid 60s in the height of the Civil Rights era. He was teaching and doing his early writing and theological writing in the mid 60s and 70s when the Black Power movement was breaking off from the earlier non-violent emphasis of King and Thurman.

Part of what was interesting to me was the line that Cone walked between the Black Nationalist movements that rejected Christianity as a ‘white man's religion' and the conservative Black church that was uncomfortable with the style and method of protest of the civil rights and later eras. Cone could not reject Christ and Christianity, but he also could not accept a Christianity that was complicit in dehumanizing people through racism and segregation.

His notes on how Black liberation theology has mostly rejected marxism as a theological tool of analysis was fascinating because that is precisely the point that many White theologians reject Black liberation theology.

I do wish at some point that every book I read didn't make me want to pick up an additional six. I can never get to all that I want to read.

I have about a 1000 words with some overlapping thoughts on my blog http://bookwi.se/my-soul-looks-back/

Short Review: This is a brief book on Webber's trail to Canterbury with updated stories of others that have also moved from evangelicalism to the Anglican world.

I am glad I read the updated version. I appreciate Webber's thoughts, but the updated stories are clear that one reason for moving to the Anglican world, a way into the small c catholicism that embraces the universal church has not worked out that well over the past 10-15 years. I am still very much interested in the anglican church world. Theologically I have moved toward it for a while. But I appreciate the reality check about the fact that no stream of Christianity being perfect.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/evangelicals-on-the-canterbury-trail/

Short Review: This is an introduction to Reinhold Niebuhr, particularly his writing and a companion to the PBS documentary of the same name (can be streamed free at http://www.pbs.org/video/2365984011/ )

Niebuhr is one of those 20th century theologians that keeps coming up recently. He was a wide ranging thinking and his Irony of American History has been very influential in political circles.

Much of his influence is about the influence of sin on human institutions. And I think he is particularly helpful for progressive Christians to read to balance some of our optimism for what can be changed. Niebuhr himself was a progressive, but one that was very cautious about what it was that he thought could be achieved through either the church or the state.

I have read the Armchair Theologians's guide to The Niebuhr Brothers and I think this is much better and more readable than that. The primary focus here is Reinhold. But there is a lot of discussion about H Richard as well. And this is much less of a book report format.


My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/an-american-conscience-the-reinhold-niebuhr-story-by-jeremy-sabella/

Short Review: I believe this is my sixth book by Ed Cyzewski. He is one of the many younger authors that is piecing together a living by publishing books independently and working as a freelance author for articles and other pieces.

What I like about the ability for independent authors to publish their own work is that many of the traditional constraints on publishing have been removed. Ed does not need to be famous or put out a book a year or have the traditional 180 or 208 pages. Many of his books are on the short side for traditional books, but they are also not free of fluff to expand them to the necessary length. Free, Be Silent, Pray is only 130 pages. A couple of his books are even shorter (several are longer.)

Ed grew up nominal Catholic, but left the Catholic church when he came to faith via an evangelical ministry. In many ways he and I are fairly similar. We are roughly the same age. We both went to seminary but are not pastors. We are both stay at home Dads while working part time. We both have pursued serious spiritual growth. I identify with his style and method.

I started reading this immediately after Jan Johnson's book on contemplative prayer. And I thought the two of them fit together nicely with almost no overlap. The two books come at contemplative prayer from very different angles.

Ed is very personal in his writing. He is talking about what he does and how he has come to find contemplative prayer helpful. Jan Johnson also talks about herself, but she is a bit more distant. She is older and further along in life, which I think is part of the distance.

Theologically they are not very different, but Cyzewski has appreciation for his previous Catholic faith and Johnson has never been Catholic, so when she approaches the ancient church she does so as an Evangelical, not as an Evangelical that used to be Catholic. And that does matter.

My slightly longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/flee-be-silent-pray/

Short Review: This is one of those philosophically oriented sci-fi books. I don't know enough Kant to fully appreciate the book. But I enjoyed it. About the first 1/3 is supposed to not really make sense. But then it starts pulling the threads together. At some point I will read a book on Kant and then come back and read this one again.


My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/the-thing-itself-by-adam-roberts/

Short review: These are two short stories, about 50 pages total, looking at Jesus as a boy in Egypt. Jesus seems to be about 10-12 in the stories. The stories are fine. Interesting, but not anything particularly incredible. One is about Jesus and a local wealthy boy. The boy is not well liked and a bit cruel, but Jesus befriends him and they play. The boy returns Jesus' kindness by stealing from him.

The second story is about Jesus riding a camel in the desert and coming upon the Sphinx, who asks Jesus riddles.

My very slightly longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/the-sphinx-at-dawn/

Short Review: I have decided to read all of O'Connor's fiction this year. I have previously read only her A Good Man is Hard to Find and her Prayer Journal. And A Subversive Gospel is oriented toward someone that is pretty familiar with her work. There are lots of references to her work. I stopped about 2/3 the way through to listen to the audiobook of Wise Blood to get a sense of how she wrote a novel.

This is the type of book that I would like to read more of. It is oriented toward making the reader a better reader of both O'Connor and a better reader more generally. If you wanted to be a lit major but never were, this is probably a good book for you.

I will probably go back and re-read the whole book, or major sections of it once I finish reading all of O'Connor's fiction.

my longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/subversive-gospel/

Short Review: great exploration of philosophy using TV and movie criticism. This is a book to read if you like tv and movie criticism. This is a book to read if you want to learn about modern philosophy (especially Charles Taylor). This is a good book to follow up with if you have read James KA Smith's How (Not) to be Secular (both are exploring Charles Taylor, but come at it from very different tacks.)

And no you do not have to have watched the movies or TV shows referenced to get something out of it. The basic concepts of the shows (which are explained in the book) is good enough. I have only seen a couple of the shows/movies that were explored.


My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/how-to-survive-the-apocalypse/

Short Review: I am back in a season where I really want memoirs. At least the memoirs of my elders. Wisdom can be hard fought. And those that fight through pain can be some of the most helpful.

Gushee has been through a number of battles within Evangelicalism. From the battles within SBC in the 80s and 90s to ethical fights over torture and the environment in the 2000s to his recent movement on LGBT issues, Gushee has been in the culture wars. This book is part of his resignation.

I am not where he is in a number of areas, but I have sympathy. And I think that books like this that show real evidence of faith across theological divides are helpful. Gushee keeps from pointing out villains in his life. There are other christians which which he disagrees, but they are not enemies. And I think that is part of why I trust his resignation from the culture wars.

This is a brief book, but well worth reading.

My full review (nearly 1100 words with probably too much description of Gushee's life story) is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/still-christian/

Short Review: This is a short (43 pages) book that was originally a lecture. As a short introduction to the topic this gives a broad overview. I am tempted to say that this may be too short to be persuasive to anyone that has not been persuaded previously. But I think there is space for a shorter piece like this.

There are certainly a number of longer book length treatments that I would recommend if you are looking for them.

My full review (which is primarily links to longer books that more fully flesh out this short work) is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/christianity-and-race-in-america/

Short Review: A good evangelical introduction to Contemplative Prayer. There is lots of good wisdom about prayer here. I listened to this on audiobook but I want to pick up the print edition eventually because there are a number of good one liners about prayer.

Evangelicals tend toward utilitarianism in many of our religious practices and prayer is no different. Much of my training and teaching in prayer has been in intercession (doing something). Contemplative Prayer is essentially anti-utilitarian approach to prayer. By itself, contemplative prayer is not all of prayer. So we can't over swing to thinking of prayer as only Contemplative Prayer (which Johnson does not do). But it is an important corrective to broadening our understanding of prayer.

I thought it was a bit overly focused on extemporaneous prayer (and thereby against written and fixed prayer.) That is probably natural because of the topic and the bias of evangelicalism toward extemporaneous prayer. But that is probably my main complaint, although primarily it is a complaint of the early part of the book not the later.


My slightly longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/when-the-soul-listens/

Short Review: This is a good change of pace for L'Engle. I have been working through some of her adult fiction and non-fiction this year. (Including the non-fiction book I am currently reading this is the 6th book of L'Engle's I have read this year.)

Traditionally L'Engle's books are pretty character and idea driven. But the Arm of the Starfish is a young adult spy thriller. Compared to the John le Carré book that I read immediately before I picked this up, the spy craft is weak. But as a young adult novel and something different from L'Engle it isn't bad.

One of the things that always annoys me with L'Engle is that her characters often don't seem to be the age that they are identified as. Here Adam, the male protagonist is 16 or 17 (I think it says he is 17, but a web search identifies him as 16). He graduated from high school year and is a marine biology major. But most of the time he seems like he is older, but an immature older teen.

Poly, the daughter of the O'Keefes is 12 and except for the repeated references to her not developing yet, she seems closer to 16. I know that L'Engle is writing in an era where teens were given more freedom so the fact that teens are flying around the world by themselves is part of the era. But the ‘spy' parts of the story don't completely make sense because even in a world that views teens as a bit more responsible than we commonly do now, I can't really believe that either the good guys or the bad guys would put much trust in a 16-17 year old.

Overall not one of my favorite books of L'Engle's but not a horrible book either.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/arm-of-the-starfish/