Adam Shields

Short Review: A coming of age young adult book from late 1940s about a boarding school in post WWII world. A very early book to talk about the effects of war on children. It also has a sub-theme of being an introvert which I don't think was handled all that well. But the story as a whole is pretty good and translates pretty well more than 50 years after it was written.

My longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/both-were-young/

Short Review: The Knockoff Economy: How Imitation Sparks Innovation-This is an interesting look at parts of the economy where copyright and patent law do not apply, yet creativity is thriving. Why it works in those areas and why it may (or may not) work in other areas where copyright and patent law do apply. Quite readable. The primary illustrations are in the areas of food, fashion, football, comedy, magic & open-source software. The book ends with an epilogue that looks at music and movies and where they have made mistakes with copyright and where they might learn from the other non-copyright areas of the economy.

Click through for longer review http://bookwi.se/knockoff-economy/

Short Review - A brief, poetic look at the pain and redemption of growing up as a girl seeking to be cherished.

As a man reading this, it is a good reminder of the power of words and the need to carefully cherish the women (especially the younger girls that we might think are too young to understand).

This is a brief books (you can read in less than an hours), but worth picking up if you have a kindle. Just $1.99.

My longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/when-beauty-pursues-you/#

Short Review: This series has been misrepresented (or at least I have misunderstood it.) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a prequel to the second and third books, which are just split because of length, but are really one book. The second and third books are much better than the first. This is a thriller/mystery book worth reading. Interesting to see how a different legal system affects the story line.

Click through for the full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/girl-fire/

Short Review: Last year I undertook a project of reading about how to understand, interpret and think about scripture. I read a number of books. (Here is a summary post.) However, this little book, just under 70 pages, suggests many of the same ideas that the hundreds of pages that I read last year did.

If you want to think about how to understand scripture, how to read it on your own and how think about translation and culture issues, this is a good introduction. It is not perfect, I don't agree with every word, but it has a lot of good advice and clearly presents many of the issues.

David Ker is a bible teacher in a seminary in Mozambique and a bible translator with Wycliffe Bible Translators. He has the background. This book is an edited form of a group of blog posts. So there is a number of topics, but they are dealt with in relatively short sections. This is a book you can easily read in 60 to 90 minutes.


A longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/bible-written-david-ker/

Book Review: this is free right now on Audiobook from Audible if you want to pick up a good version. But I am left a little flat. It is a good Faustian bargain story (make a deal at the cost of your soul). But it just did not feel complete. The motivation and reasons for the actions seemed incomplete. It is not a bad story, and I can see why it is a classic. But I would have enjoyed an abridged version just as much.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/dorian-gray/

Short Review: Sanders is trying to show an Evangelical audience how and why the Trinity is important to Evangelical Theology by quoting Evangelicals. The weakness of the book is the editorial decision to focus on Evangelical sources. There are good things here, but because I am trying to focus on depth of thinking about the Trinity it was frustrating for me. It is like he is trying to show importance of Soccer to the world of sports by only looking at how Soccer has been thought about in the US since 1996.

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

Short review: Chris Haw traces his movement from cradle Catholic to teen Willow Creek to radical poverty ministry at Eastern College (with Shane Claiborne) to Sacred Heart in Camden NJ. Part two of the book deals with the intellectual and emotional adjustments of all of that movement. There were some frustrating points, I would deal with the movements differently, but in the end many of the questions raised I appreciate even if I come to different answers.

Click through for a longer review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/chris-haw/

Short Review: I like coming of age novels. It is interesting to me how many different types of coming of age novels that there are. This is a ‘what it means to find purpose in your life' coming of age novel. Colin is depressed because he is an aging child prodigy and doesn't think he will ever really grow into an adult genius that makes a difference in the world. He has recently been dumped the the 19th Katherine that he has dated (he only has dated girls named Katherine, with a K). On a road trip to discover himself, he and his friend Hassan end up in Gutshot, TN doing oral histories of the people of the small town as a summer job. Colin tries to figure out how to create a formula to predetermine who will be the dumper and the dumpee in a relationship.

There is a lot of humor, a decent bit of language, and a very restrained amount of sex and romance. Much to like about the book, I really recommend it and immediately started another book by the same author.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/an-abundance-of-katherines/

Short Review: This is a good basic introduction to the Apostle's creed. It is written by someone that is from a non-creedal background so many that are not familiar with the Apostle's creed will identify with the writing. It is also well formated for discussion in a small group with short chapters and discussion questions. The Apostles' Creed is the most basic theological statement of the Universal Church and is something all Christians should learn and understand.

Click through for longer post. http://bookwi.se/primal-credo/

Short Review: I don't know how Kingsolver writes about such serious topics without it feeling like propaganda. Most ‘issue fiction' is very heavy handed. Kingsolver somehow write in a way that is about the art of the book and the serious topics just seem to give weight to the art instead of tearing the art down. This is a novel about global warming. But it is about people, not just a topic. An east TN woman is the main character. She is so tied up by her poverty, her oppressive life, and her mediocre marriage that she just wants to escape. Millions of Monarch butterflies come to her husband's family's land instead of their normal Mexican wintering grounds. For her and the butterflies life becomes unmoored.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/flight-behavior/

Short Review: This has absolutely nothing to do with the common cultural understanding of Frankenstein. (Yes this is my first read of it.) I am mixed. On the one hand I can appreciate the classic. I find the discussion of ethics (scientific and medical) interesting. On the other hand parts of it are just odd. Frankenstein (the doctor) is not a great person. He is selfish, and does nothing to really justify the love that his adopted sister/cousin/wife show him (yes he marries his adopted sister at the dying request of his mother, variously she is called his cousin publicly and she raised his younger brothers after his mother died.) Clearly the monster is supposed to have more humanity than Dr Frankenstein and is well spoken, gentle and feels misunderstood. But the monster also is out of control and keeps killing people.

The race to the north pole at the end doesn't make any sense to me. I just don't understand the purpose.

I have a longer review on my blog and a discussion of why classics never seem to live up to their ‘classic-ness' at http://bookwi.se/frankenstein/

Short Review: Throughout the book, the author is using these two lenses to think about disability. On the one hand the traditionally understood disabled (blind, paraplegic, Down's Syndrome, etc.) On the other hand, all of us as humans are disabled by sin and need to realize that we need God and that God works in us best though our weakness. Relatively early in the book the authors says that the body's purpose is to show weakness and point toward a future in Heaven. Overall, I like the split focus, but I found the discussion on traditionally disabled far more challenging and helpful.

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

Short Review: A memoir of a couple's conversion from Presbyterian to Roman Catholic. This was recommended by a friend that has recently converted as well. It is a helpful memoir that speaks of the pain of rejection of by Protestant friends and family as well as demythologizing some of the areas that Protestants often misunderstand Catholic theology.

My longer review is on my blog (about 1000 words) at http://bookwi.se/rome-sweet-home-our-journey-to-catholicism-by-scott-and-kimberly-hahn/

Short Review: The Mystery of God is focused on helping us to understand how to talk about the mystery of God (how God is unknowable) in a way that allows for the revealed knowledge of God (scripture, Christ's incarnation, etc) and placing that in a historical and theological context.

Part one is a mix of historical theology and philosophical background. The authors looking at how historical theologians like Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Luther and others and understood the God as both unknowable and knowable. There is a wide range of theological streams that the authors pull from so they quite adequately prove their point that God as unknownable and mystery is part of long term orthodox Christianity. And then mixed in with the historical theology is the philosophy of what knowing God is all about and how knowing God is fundamentally different from knowing other types of knowledge.

It is here that the authors using their ongoing illustration of how 2 dimensional people could theoretically understand how a ball is different from a circle, but they never can fully know the difference because they are unable to experience the full difference because they lack the ability to move in three dimensions. Or how a cylinder will look like both a circle and a rectangle depending on the angle if you are in 2 dimensions, but it is actually neither a circle or a rectangle in the reality of three dimensions. The illustration has its problems, but it gets the basic point across.

This first section is a bit dense and takes a bit to get through. But that leads to the second section where the authors walk through various doctrines and illustrate how mystery works and makes our theological life richer and more fulfilling. Using the Trinity, Christ's Incarnation, the nature of Election and salvation, Prayer and interfaith relationships, the authors show how we should and should not use the concept of mystery appropriately.

This is a book I am planning on reading again soon. Well worth reading.

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

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The publishers provided me a digital copy of the book for review through netgalley.

Second Reading:

Summary: A meandering novel set in Kansas City with BBQ as a central setting.

In 2012 my favorite novel was Thin Blue Smoke. I ran across Doug Worgul on Bluesky and decided I needed to revisit the novel. I very much remembered the three main characters, LaVerne Williams, AB Clayton, and Ferguson Glen. There are a host of other supporting characters and part of the joy of the novel is getting to go back in time to give context to why those characters are who they are. I have previously written about Thin Blue Smoke in a way that was pretty vague and without spoilers. But I am going to give away more of the story this time. If you don't want spoilers, read this version. If you are okay with spoilers, then you can keep reading.

LaVerne Williams is a Texas-born former baseball player. After a serious sholder injury in 1967, he is let go by the Kansas City Athletics. He is young, married with an infant and without a job or any prospects. The novel is set in the 1990s and by this time LaVerne has become established with a small BBQ resturant with a number of regulars, but little recognition.

AB Clayton wandered lost into the restaurant, commonly known as Smoke Meat, when he was 15. LaVerne offered him a job on the spot and by the main timeline of the book he has been working at Smoke Meat for about 20 years and his whole life is wrapped up in the work and the people of the resturant.

Father Freguson Glen is a theology professor and Episcopal priest. In the 1960s he wrote a pulitzer prize nominated novel but nothing else of note since. He is an alcoholic and lost in many ways, but he has come to find the people of Smoke Meat are a type of family.

The other characters, including Angela, LaVerne's wife, are largely supporting characters. It isn't that they are not important to the story, but they have less developed back stories or they are the "villans" of the story. Thin Blue Smoke moves back and forth through time to help us understand how the characters came to be who they are. This is not an "excuse" for their actions, but context for understanding them.

The characters are given choices throughout the book. AB Clayton grew up with an abusive, addicted, and neglegant mother. He is naive to the way the world works outside of his experience, but he still has hope. Father Glen knows all the ways of the world. He has been given everything, wealth, access, knowledge, but he is lacking some of what AB takes for granted.

This is a novel that is more about the character and the ideas than the plot. I love that type of novel, but not everyone does. There is a climax and conclusion, but because this is a book that is in large part about the problem of evil and choice, the book is more about the journey than the conclusion.

I know that my attraction to Ferguson Glen is connected to my identification with him and his background and thinking, but he is the character that I most identify with. He knows his theology and practices. Throughout the book he often comments on theological ideas and practical pastoral care and does so with great skill. But his desire throughout the book is to see God. I am reading Fleming Rutledge’s book on Epiphany (she is a retired Episcopal priest just like Father Glen is) and she is talking about epiphany as focusing on God’s glory and Christ’s manifestations as an incarnate being.

When I read that, I thought immediately of Father’s Glen’s desire for God. In the book Father Glen is attracted to the Black church and a more Pentecostal expression of faith, but that isn’t the type of faith he has grown up with. Part of the solution in the book is to find real love so that he can understand what pure love is and know that God’s love for him is greater than that. But I also think that Fleming Rutledge if she were his spiritual director might point him toward understanding that God’s glory isn’t about an expressive emotional response, but about an awareness of the greatness of God. Glen has no issues theologically with God or with his history of radical social action in the civil rights movement. His issue is that those things are all theoretical not personal. His father and mother were distant. His brief marriage was annulled. He takes responsibility for his parts in those relationships, but we are shaped by those around us. And when the love around us is always conditional, and the church we attend demonstrates a conditional love, it is natural that we understand all love as conditional.

LaVerne and AB both had difficult childhoods. LaVerne's mother was addicted to drugs and absent and he was raised by his grandmother and her brother. For all of the challenges in his life, his family, especially his great uncle, were there for him to give him a second (or third) chance. Part of the reality of the book is that while not everyone makes good choices in the face of difficult situations, some people have more support in those situations than others. Angela and LaVerne's son passes away at 19 and AB becomes a surrogate son to them. AB's own mother is largely absent. Everyone needs help to mature. AB is naturally kind and good, but being kind and good does not mean the world is kind and good back. Without Angela and LaVerne, AB would likely end up like another side character who didn't have a support system.

LaVerne himself goes through a number of things trying to find his way in the world, but his uncle kept being there for him. Angela was also there for him, but part of what she came to understand was that she could not save him on her own. LaVerne had to take responsibility for himself even as she could continue to love and support him as part of drawing him toward a more healthy path.

Glen grapples with the concept of God's blessing throughout the book. Theologically he is resistant to claiming God's blessing because of what that can mean for those who do not have what we consider God's blessing. If you have good weather and claim it as God's blessing then what does that mean when you do not have good weather? He shifts somewhat throughout the book because he comes to see that seeing God at work is part of seeking after hope. This is not a book of simple theological answers. This is a book of grappling, the type of grappling that we all need to do throughout life.

This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/thin-blue-smoke-by-doug-worgul-2/

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Short review: Some stories are written to be savored. This meandering story is loosely connected to a BBQ joint in Kansas City. But that is just the setting. It is about the way that people come into one another's lives and make an impact. Both for good an ill. LaVerne is the owner of the BBQ place and a former pro baseball player. AB is his assistant and the best friend of Raymond, LaVerne's son that has passed away. Glen is an alcoholic Episcopal Priest and professor and the wise man that cannot take his own advice (think Brennan Manning). There are many other characters and the story jumps through time and from character to character giving the reader background to all of their stories of life, of redemption.

While clearly a Christian novel, this is the type of Christian novel that does not often get written. It has real people, not two dimensional cutouts. They have real struggles with sin and understanding life. They do not all believe the 'right' thing. I hope to see more by this author.

A much longer review and some quotes from that book are at my blog at http://bookwi.se/thin-blue-smoke-by-d...

Short Review: This is a book about the essentials of Christianity written from an Emergent (his word) Christian. Really it is works through most of the traditional areas of systematic theology from a Liberal Protestant perspective. He brings useful counterpoint to many Evangelical theological ideas. So Evangelicals will alternately be frustrated and intrigued. This isn't a book I would say is a must read. But for those that like reading outside their tradition, this is a good book to give perspective to liberal Christianity that takes seriously a real faith in God. While Evangelicals will disagree with a lot of theological points, they will find real and honest Christian faith at the root of it.

My longer review is posted on my blog at http://bookwi.se/heart-of-christianity/

Short Review: - A very different vampire novel. The novel opens with a very young vampire that has been seriously injured and has no memory. These vampires are not changed humans but an entirely different species. The best part of the novel is the discovery of the new culture and rules of the this vampire world. In many ways it feels like a set up to a series, but Butler passed away a year after the novel was published.

The full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/fledgling/

Short Review: This is a short kindle only book that is written for men. Occasionally a little crude and verging on sexist, there is some good advice in it.

The longer review is posted on my blog at http://bookwi.se/orgasms-are-for-women/

This was a pretty good book. Fairly academic, but worth reading. I read about half of it before I had to return it to the library.

Short Review: I hate being the first person to review a book and review it poorly. But this is not a book I can recommend. It is using a cultural wave to get people to connect to Christianity. This is like a church sermon series that uses all of the logos and fonts of a movie or book that is culturally popular but then ignoring the content of the movie or book.

This is not really about Hunger Games. He mentions lines and quote and even the occasional scene. But he says at the beginning of the third section that he does not really think that God is in the Hunger Games. Primarily he is interacting with the movie and not the book. He says that he had not finished reading the book when he watched the movie. And he only mentioned watching the movie twice. I have seen the movie twice and read the book twice but that is not sufficient background to write a book, even a short one.

My longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/finding-god-in-the-hunger-games/

Book Review - The Call of the Wild by Jack London - this is a classic children's book. I read it as a child, probably 25 or more years ago. But the story line was still clear in my head. Buck, a dog that was stolen from his master in California, is taken to the Alaskan Klondike as a dog sled dog. Buck has good masters and bad, but it is the call to return to the wild that is the real theme of the book.

Click through for the full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/call-of-the-wild/

Short Review: I would like to give this a 2.5 star review because I think it has potential. But it needs a good story editor and it needs to figure out what it is trying to do. Conceptually the idea is good. What if the world biggest comic book fan was given super powers. Lots of good science fiction potential. I am not a huge fan of making the guy an idiot, but I can deal with that. There are some issues with story telling because a lot of the story feels like filler and some of the filler stories introduce problems into the plot (like how are there other superheros).

The biggest problem is probably not a problem for everyone. But as a Christian, I am not a fan of Christian fiction that knock you over the head with salvation and then all the problems go away. I don't think that is how the real world works. This story is a superhero story and then makes a hard right turn into a divorce story of the superhero because he is a dufus that hasn't actually paid any attention to his wife and family and refuses to talk about the fact that he is now a superhero. Of course she is going to leave him. And the anti-marriage divorce lawyer also just minimize the potential of real problems instead of making the story better.

I like the potential. I picked up the second book in the series and I think I will read it eventually. But it was not a great book.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/dales-of-the-dim-knight-by-andrea-and-adam-graham/

Short Review: A series of 18 essays about the implications of the Trinity of a variety of areas of a theology and practice. Edited by Miraslov Volf - I did not read this whole book. Instead I read the chapters that most looked interesting to me. It is pretty dense in parts. I will probably come back and read some more of it later. Not an introduction to the trinity, but an introduction to modern theology around the trinity.

A longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/gods-life-in-trinity/

Short review: a good book on the short “Blessed are the...” statements from the Sermon on the Mount as listed in Luke. This is a theological retelling book. It is about helping those of us that have heard this passage for years hear it again and live it as if we have never read it before. This is a hard task, but one that is important and should be encouraged more.

Full review at http://bookwi.se/lucky-packiam/