Eleven Books in Thirteen Days: Snapshot Reviews

I downed a lot of books during the last 2 weeks. It's a good use of the time that is freed up flying back across 9 time zones to teach in Zambia, away from TV, internet, and church responsibilities. Here are some "snapshot" reviews.

 

Lit: A Memoir
Mary Karr

Mary Karr recounts her descent into alcoholism and her struggles to come to terms with God as a necessary part of her recovery. There's a lot that can be learned here about why we resist the divine remedy to our fundamental problems--and the role that community plays in helping us overcome that resistance.

Dead Aid
Dambisa Moyo

This highly-regarded book by Zambian economist Dabmisa Moyo is a critique of the way the West has left Africa in continual dependence by well-intentioned handouts. She offers several market-based alternatives to aid.

Winner Take All:
China's Race for Resources and What It means for the World
Dambisa Moyo
China's rapid growth is providing opportunities and challenges for developing countries all over the world, especially in Africa. Moyo simplifies complex economic concepts for the average reader, but I still found it hard to evaluate her arguments.

Orthodoxy
G.K. Chesterton
I wanted to read it because of the memorable quotes I've read by other authors (quotes I've used myself in preaching and writing). Turns out, about the only things useful from the book were the quotes. The book assumes a familiarity with 20th century Britain that makes tough slogging for any reader not from that era or that part of the world.

Subversive Kingdom
Ed Stetzer

If life apart from God is rebellion, Stetzer calls on believers to join the "rebellion against the rebellion" by living in a way that attracts people to Christ and his kingdom values.

Deep and Wide:
Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend
Andy Stanley
Where Stanley best serves church leaders is by reminding us that our congregations rise or fall largely on our ability to lead. Like his other books, then, this one serves as a useful corrective for ministers who want to dodge the blunt reality that their work is fruitless by saying that what really counts in ministry is that work be faithful. In the deeper and wider Center Church, Tim Keller also refuses to allow church leaders to use "faithfulness" as an excuse for "fruitlessness," and this is a welcome and bracing conversation church leaders need to have with each other. Stanley is less helpful in his promise in Section Five to show pastors of established churches how to transition their churches. This is simply not familiar territory for him, since he started Northpoint Church as a breakaway from his father's church. For an author who writes so well about finding the right processes to effect change, he offers no real process a leader can use to bring about change in an established church. Instead, the section mostly devolves into a satisfying but toothless rant about laity who stand in the way of church leaders who want to transition their churches. And what's with that offensive story about God's conversation with Jesus upon the Son's return to glory? "We're never going to turn the church into a global enterprise with the fishermen you chose as apostles," Stanley imagines the Father saying to the Son, "so let's enlist Paul for that." Yeesh. I'm sure he only meant this as chummy (along with his frequent use of "em" for "them"), but it's simply one more reason that some men who most need to read the book won't crack the cover.

Dad is Fat
Jim Gaffigan
A sweet book on parenting by one of my favorite comedians. Of course, most parents will identify with his observations on raising small children, but his observations on raising five small children in a two-bedroom apartment in the Bowery District of New York City takes the book to a new level of interesting.

Praying Backwards:
Transform Your Prayer Life by Beginning in Jesus' Name
Bryan Chappell

Here are some good reminders that prayer is an exercise for the believer to come into alignment with God's purposes.

Amazing Grace:
William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery
Eric Metaxas

Metaxas may be better known for his bestselling biography of Bonhoeffer, but add this one to your list as well. Metaxas does a good job making Wilberforce and his period come alive, which make the parallels to our own day come to mind very easily. Unfortunately, however, the Audible audiobook edition was performed by a reader with a reedy voice who regularly gulped to clear his mouth of saliva. This may not be noticeable if you're listening in the car on a road trip, but in the intimate context of earbuds, it became maddening.

Lost At Sea:
The Jon Ronson Mysteries
Jon Ronson

One of my favorite books of the trip. A collection of true-life vignettes by the author of The Men Who Stare At Goats. His chapter on visiting with Nicky Gumbel of The Alpha Course was particularly fascinating to me. You should get it in the Audible audiobook edition and let the author himself read his book to you.

The Writing Life
Annie Dillard

For a while now I've had two books on my to-read list about being a writer: Steven Pressfield's Do the Work! and Annie Dillard's The Writing Life. I think I'm hoping these two books will spur me back into writing a novel. Yes, really. About 15 years ago I had a plan and wrote six chapters before setting the work aside. It's gathering dust in a filing cabinet. Is it time to get back to it? Dillard gave me some inspiration.

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