Reading & Blogging about a book a week.
Here is an excellent primer of Christian theology for the neophyte or the long-time believer. Whoever thinks that theology is dull and stodgy needs to read this work to see that studying the doctrines of God is rich, encouraging, and beautiful.
Read this sometime soon, either alone or with a study group. You will be glad that you did.
I included this book as one of my top ten suggestions to building a Christian library. See the list here.
“I conclude that ‘losing my life’ for the gospel is literally impossible because my years on this earth are worth far less than the value of the eternal gospel.”
This sums up well David Sitton’s approach to both missions and to the gospel. Leaving Texas as a young man to the jungles of Papua New Guinea, David brings the gospel of Jesus to those who haven’t heard. He abandons all for something of far greater worth.
Reckless Abandon satisfies in giving a glimpse of what a radical life yields, as well as reading how God moves throughout the world. This is an encouraging book to read.
This book is easily one of my favorite novels to read and teach. I’ve taught this many times, and I no longer need to reread it to teach it, but I do every year because it is so good. This year was no different.
I just read the review I wrote on Gatsby before. It’s pretty good! Mark just reviewed it a few months ago here.
Take my advice: Read this book. It’s THE American novel.
A good friend recommended this book to address our fear of man instead of our holy fear of God. After a slew of complaining parents at school and an ever-tightening knot in my stomach, I decided that I wanted to read it. As it addresses the topic of fear, I think there was much to glean. However, it was a bit too counsel-ly for me. Some aspects reminded me of the books I had to read in a counseling class in college, and that’s not a good thing.
Welch offers important reminders that as Christians, we must not give in to becoming people pleasers, a temptation that I lean toward. God is to be the one I’m trying to “impress.”
I loved this book, my second McLarty novel. I read his The Memory of Running a few years ago, and I loved the narrative voice of the main character Smitty in his writing. Traveler is no different. Jono Riley is a semi-failed actor on off-off-Broadway who is called home to East Providence, Rhode Island after the death of his childhood friend/first love. While there he discovers clues about several other shootings in the area from years ago, and tries to find some meaning.
The main character in this book isn’t Jono; it’s Rhode Island itself. McLarty writes RI so clearly, so powerfully, that the setting plays a main role. Jono returns to his childhood haunts around East Providence and Pawtucket, all the places that are in my childhood. As I read through, I wanted a grinder, a cabinet, and clam cakes on a trip to Rocky Point wicked bad.
If I didn’t have the roots in Rhode Island, I’m not sure that this novel would have had the impact on me that it did. By the time Jono’s mystery wraps-up (pretty hokey, in my opinion), I found that I was thinking about my childhood, my lingering history, my own demons from a small state with a tight grip.
Torvald dominates Nora. Nora acts like a child. Torvald yells at Nora. Nora miraculously gets the cohunes to leave. Torval is devastated. I am indifferent.
Hailed as a brillant work of feminism, this play is overwrought, silly, and unbelievable. It’s in our 10th grade curriculum, and it’s my least favorite one to teach.
