Adam Shields

My full review: http://bookwi.se/em-bounds-man-of-prayer-by-lyle-dorsett-give-away/

Short review: This is a short book. The audio is only 2 hours and 26 minutes. But if you are serious about learning about prayer this is one of the men that helped define prayer for the 20th century. His books, especially Power through Prayer, have been continually in print for almost 100 years. Bounds went through the Civil War and very difficult times after that but seemed more intent on prayer every day until his death. The book is out of print, but audible.com and christianaudio.com both have the audio version available.

Short review: I am a procrastinator. This is a quick book that has some good ideas how to start moving in the direction of training yourself to stop being a procrastinator. Not revolutionary, just solid ideas about things that work for different people.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/procrastinating/

Full review at hhttp://bookwi.se/humanitarian-jesus-by-christian-buckley-and-ryan-dobson/

Short review: This is a good book that I read right after Jesus Manifesto. It is a much better book than Jesus Manifesto but has a lot of overlapping content. It is much more focused on practical theology and why particular approaches are important, and not just an abstract theology. The format was 1/2 theology, 1/2 interviews with Christian leaders that are attempting to live the balance between evangelism and social action/ministry

Full review at http://bookwi.se/no-way-to-treat-a-first-lady-by-christopher-buckley/

Short review: I really like Christopher Buckley. He is funny, has a sharp wit and writes good stories. This one is about a first lady being tried for the Presidents murder. He wakes up dead in bed after yet another affair and she is charged with assassinating the President. This is primarily a court novel and he does a great job making the court scenes interesting to read.

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.

Full review at http://bookwi.se/tourist-season-by-carl-hiaasen/

Short review: This book was ok. Not great, but not bad. It was humorous, but not really laugh out loud funny. It has rough themes, murder, terrorism, etc. Felt a little dated. Listened to audiobook.

Full review at http://bookwi.se/legacy-by-cayla-kluver/

Short review: The main story of this book is the story of the author. She started it at 13, had it published at 16, Amazon picked it up last fall as their first Encore book and she will turn 18 in Oct 2010. The story line is pretty standard. A 17 year old princess is being forced to marry a guy she doesn't like if she can't find a guy she does like. She finds a guy she likes, but her father objects for reasons I won't get into. It is a traditional fantasy romance. But it is well written. It ends on a cliff hanger and the second book is not out yet. I haven't been able to find a date for release, but every thing I see says it is written and ready for publication.

Full review is at http://bookwi.se/jesus-manefesto-by-leonard-sweet-and-frank-viola/

Short review: I wanted more from this book. The intent is good, but I just didn't get much from it. I am all for focusing on Christ but this was more of a complaint about the church based on some fairly flimsy evidence than a real theological justification for why Christ should be the center of our theology and worship. It is not all bad, but I think the focus is a bit skewed.

Short review: Walks through the agricultural revolution that occurred in Asia and the Americas but did not really reach Africa. There is lot of info about why Africa continues to have problems in spite of the international Aid and attention. A very good and well documented book, although it can be a little dry in places.

My full review is at http://bookwi.se/enough-why-the-worlds-poorest-starve-in-an-age-of-plenty-by-roger-thurow-and-scott-kilman/

Full review at http://bookwi.se/beginning-to-pray-by-anthony-bloom/

Short Review: I am in a project of reading about prayer from other traditions. I found this book very valuable. It is short but full of lots of wisdom about prayer. Clearly Bloom is writing from a Orthodox perspective and that different perspective gave me some new language to describe and think about prayer. I am planning on re-reading this in another six months.

Full review at http://bookwi.se/the-jesus-prayer-the-ancient-desert-prayer-that-tunes-the-heart-to-god-by-frederica-mathewes-green/

Short review: very interesting book. It is supposed to be about the Jesus Prayer (a variant of Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me.) But it was as much about Eastern Orthodox perspectives on prayer and theology in general. The first 1/3 is about the theology, practice and history of the Jesus prayer. The last 2/3 is a question/answer format that ranges wide over all of prayer, theology, etc. Right now the kindle version is only $4.26.

Short review: This is John Stott's last book. He focuses on discipleship as an elder disciple. This is a very unpretentious book. I think it is the most readable of Stott's books that I have read. It is very humble in tone and consciously speaking as a last chance to talk.

The best chapter was the one on dependence. I do not think I have read another treatment on dependence quite like it. Stott shows that dependence, the created order of humanity is not to be avoided but embraced. So as children we are dependent of people for everything. Then we gain independence and others gradually depend on us. Most of us then age and we lose faculties and become more dependent. As a man that is almost 90 and in failing health he is speaking from experience.

As with all of Stott's books, this is a very biblical book. I highly recommend it.

Full Review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/radical-disciple-stott/

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/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/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 at http://bookwi.se/permission-to-speak-freely-essays-and-art-on-fear-confession-and-grace-by-anne-jackson/

Short review: I am not sure how to write a short review. My blog post was over 900 words. Anne Jackson uses her own autobiography to talk about some of the messy things in life that much of the church does not like to talk about (depression, addition, porn, sex, abuse at the hands of others). She does this with only as much detail as she needs to show the healing that can come about when the church embraces the hurting. The concept of “the gift of being second” is important to the book. When you go first and create a safe place for confession or healing, it is much easier for others to go second and find their own healing. This is what the church should be about. This is a story book more than a self help book. There are not steps to healing or ways to forgive. Instead it tells stories to show the potential for healing.

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: http://bookwi.se/ten-stupid-things-that-keep-churches-from-growing-how-leaders-can-overcome-costly-mistakes-by-geoff-surratt/

Short review: This is a book for pastors. If you are not a pastor, you probably won't really want to read this book. But it is funny, direct and to the point and worth reading if you are a pastor. Most of the 10 things really are things that should be avoided, but are also common in the church. There is a bias toward growth as a purpose for church. So if you are not a church growth oriented pastor, you probably want to skip this one.

The last chapter is very good. It is really about how you as pastor should approach church growth and your job. In many ways I wish it would have been first, but I think the author assumes that you needed to read the 10 stupid things before the last chapter or you would probably not get the weight of responsibility that is on the pastor, and at the same time forget that it is really the responsibility of the Holy Spirit to grow the church.

Short review: From the author of the Percy Jackson series. This series takes uses the Egyptian mythology to establish a modern fantasy series (instead of the Greek mythology of Percy Jackson). It is ok, but it is not as good as the Percy Jackson series.

Longer review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/red-pyramid/

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/christians-are-hate-filled-hypocrites/

Short review: If you ever present statistics with your church based non-profit or from the pulpit, you need to read this book. It is part Freakenomics part Social Science instruction, part church reform book. What is good about the book is the it directly addresses the research of some of the popular Church social science books like UnChristian of the past decade. On the whole, Wright suggests the church is actually doing a lot better than many want to admit. But in other areas, like how Evangelicals think about people of different races, we are doing worse.

This is numbers book. Lots of studies are presented. But it is written for the lay person. It is not overly concerned with showing how the studies were done except when bad studies are talked about.

Full review at http://bookwi.se/lullaby-baby-by-audrey-fiocociello-an-extended-audio-kindle-book/

Short review: I picked this up to try out the kindle audio/video enabled books. They only work with ipad or ipod touch/iphone. Essentially this is only a song book. It has the music, lyrics and the audio accompaniment for 50 songs. It isn't bad, but not really what I was expecting. The audio accompaniment is very digital sounding.

Full review at http://bookwi.se/why-i-am-a-christian-by-john-stott/

Short review: This is appologetics like I think it should be done. It is primarily story and personal arguments. It is why John Stott became a Christian. He is not trying to argue you into the faith and he is not putting forth evidence to try and show you why you should be a Christian. He is telling his story. He shared the evidence and arguments that were moving to him. The audiobook is on sale at christianaudio.com for 98 cents until Sept 30, 2010

Full review at http://bookwi.se/divine-justice-by-david-baldacci/

Short review: It was a pretty good spy story/mystery. This was a free book from Audible.com to promote its blackberry software. And it was well worth free. I am not sure I would have wanted to pay more. This isn't a standard genre for me, so maybe other would like it more. The audio production was mixed. The narration was good but there was lots of background music and gun shots. I am not a fan of a music soundtrack in an audiobook. Transitions or chapter interludes are fine, but this was way more than that. Just annoying.

Short review: Read this book. We are often confronted by all the bad things going on in the world. And there really are bad things going on in the world. But there are an amazing number of good things too. When you step back and look at things from a longer perspective, it is pretty hard to deny that on the whole we are much, much better off than ever before. Looks at the economy, education, work and leisure, the environment, family, health, stress, crime, political freedom and more. Wright is clear, not everything really is getting better. But most things are. Great book to read as we head toward Thanksgiving.


My full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/upside/