Back when I reviewed Andrew Peterson’s book on this blog, the publisher, Multnomah Books, asked if I’d be interested in reviewing others on the blog, and I said yes. I wasn’t interested in reading this one, but Becky was, so she did. She was planning on writing a review this week, but with the flood situation, she hasn’t had time. I’m going to post the publisher-provided summary instead.

Belleville, Illinois and Wyoming Territories, 1861

Born into a life of privilege, fourteen-year-old Belinda never questions her security, even as she leaves Illinois with her family to discover new adventures in the Oregon Territory. But when disaster falls, Belinda is left wounded, weak, and alone. Her faith in God gives her the only strength she knows in a harsh new world.

Belinda’s journey takes her to a snow-covered mining camp and a red-roofed brothel in the Wyoming mountains, but not before she must spend a lonely winter with the man who took away the life she knew. Throughout the grief and hope of a strange land, Belinda must decide if her faith is big enough to allow her to forgive.

The satisfying conclusion to the Crossroads of Grace series, With Endless Sight offers a rich story of family, new beginnings, and the freedom that grace can bring.

You can buy With Endless Sight at Amazon.

So it’s been far too long since I posted my original review of Surprised by Hope, the latest book from N. T. Wright. As you may recall from that review, I found myself stunned by the clarity and richness of Wright’s exposition of the doctrines of heaven and the resurrection. (As Wright so cleverly puts it, “heaven is important, but it’s not the end of the world!”) Finally I’m finding some time to come back to it and interact more fully here. Surprised by Hope is split into three broad sections: ‘Setting the Scene’, ‘God’s Future Plan’, and ‘Hope in Practice: Resurrection and the Mission of the Church’. In this post I want to just address the first chapter, titled ‘All Dressed Up and No Place to Go’.

Wright opens Surprised by Hope by positing two questions which he says are often dealt with quite separately but that should really be tied together.

First, what is the ultimate Christian hope? Second, what hope is there for change, rescue, transformation, new possibilities within the world in the present? And the main answer can be put like this. As long as we see Christian hope in terms of “going to heaven,” of a salvation that is essentially away from this world, the two questions are bound to appear as unrelated. Indeed, some insist angrily that to ask the second one at all is to ignore the first one, which is the really important one. This in turn makes some others get angry when people talk of resurrection, as if this might draw attention away from the really important and pressing matters of contemporary social concern. But if the Christian hope is for God’s new creation, for “new heavens and new earth”, and if that hope has already come to life in Jesus of Nazareth, then there is every reason to join the two questions together.

Wright then goes on to highlight just a few of the various beliefs commonly held today regarding death and the afterlife. From the ancestor worship of Africans and Buddhists to the Islamic hope of paradise to the Jewish hope of resurrection, and finally to the Christian view… but what, exactly, is the Christian view? Wright asserts that while there are many popular views of the afterlife in today’s culture, “so far as I can tell, most people don’t know what orthodox Christian belief is.” Yes, there is some belief in “life after death”, but what form does it take, and in what places? What about this word “resurrection”? Wright wants to clear up confusion on these issues.

It’s hard to do much commentary on this first introductory chapter, but it certainly sets the scene for the book. More to come.

Also in this series:

Apparently eleven of my readers were interested enough in getting a free copy of Andrew Peterson’s new book that they left comments. I randomly chose one of the responses…

…and the winner is Bridget, one of my local readers. Congrats, Bridget! I’m sure Roy and Aaron will enjoy the book as well.

Read to the end of the blog post - I’m giving away a copy of the book!

Just when you think you’re familiar with a guy’s talents… then this happens.

I’ve been an Andrew Peterson fan for a few years now. He is an amazingly-talented songwriter; albums to his credit include my all-time favorite Christmas album, Behold the Lamb of God. He’s shown himself to be a bit of a thinker and writer, too; he launched The Rabbit Room a few months ago and it is now a must-read site with book and music reviews and essays on the arts and faith.

Then I hear the latest news: AP’s writing a book. I actually think I got wind of it about 18 months ago from a friend who knows Andy, but had kinda forgotten about it. Now it’s for real: On The Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness.

OTEOTSDOD focuses on the quiet land of Skree, the Igiby children Janner, his younger brother Tink, and their crippled sister Leeli. Oh, and their ex-pirate (are you ever really an “ex”- pirate?) grandfather. There’s something about lost jewels, and a dude whose name is Gnag the Nameless. (How is he nameless, again?) Oh, and there’s this thing about toothy cows. Amazing.

OTEOTSDOD is a work of fantasy and adventure. It feels a little bit like Narnia, but with much more humor and much less allegory. It feels a bit like Monty Python, but without all the naughty bits that you wouldn’t want your kids to see. It feels a bit like The Princess Bride, but without Andre the Giant. And there are footnotes. Can’t forget the footnotes.

Being over 30 I might not be in the target demographic for this book, but I loved it none the less. The cover of the book promises that this is just book one of the saga, and talking to Andrew before a concert the other night he confirmed he’s working on the next volume. This is a set to add to your bookshelves. Fun to read, probably even more fun to read aloud - I just hope AP doesn’t get so popular as an author that he stops making music.

Full disclosure: the publisher gave me a copy of this book to review. Can’t say it influenced my review, though - the book really is good.

And now for the giveaway: they gave me an extra copy to giveaway. It’s gonna be real simple: leave a comment in reply to this post anytime through March 19. I’ll randomly select a winner and send you the copy.

Oh, if you don’t win the giveaway, you can buy the book from Amazon.

Yesterday was Day 2 of the RTCA committee meeting here in Augusta. (Why am I posting a day behind, you ask? Because there’s free wi-fi in the convention center, but they want $10/day to get it in my room. I don’t need it that bad… so I’m only online during the day.) The meetings were rather uneventful.

Traveled around Augusta last night, and was surprised a bit when I drove past the famed Augusta National golf club. For some reason when I picture golf courses I think of them as big, open, in beautiful surroundings. Augusta National (where they play the Masters every year) is plopped down right in the middle of an older, poor part of town. I suppose maybe years ago when they built it it was on the outskirts, but now it’s just a walled-off enclave in the middle of the ‘hood. Strange.

Last night I found a shopping mall (boring; all shopping malls are about the same. why do I continue to seek them out?), a bookstore (also the same, but good for buying gifts for the girls), and a steakhouse restaurant (mediocre at best - disappointing). But I spent most of my time at the restaurant and then in the hotel after dinner working through N. T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope. There will be several blog posts on it here in the near future, but let me say right now that this is one of those books that has been an “aha” book for me. It simply makes sense and puts the pieces together in a way that no book has done for me since reading Lewis’ Mere Christianity and The Abolition of Man back in college. Oh, and Dad, if you read this: I ordered you a copy this morning, so don’t buy one.

Time for the meeting to start again. Gonna make sure those Synthetic Vision Systems are safe.

Tim Keller has been a favorite speaker of mine for some time now. As pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, he reaches thousands each week. He has also become a fixture at pastor’s conferences including John Piper’s conference in Minneapolis (where I saw Keller in person a couple years ago) and Mark Driscoll’s Acts 29 conferences. His dry wit and humor coupled with great insight on ministering to the city make him a must-listen for me.

(As a brief aside, I made this analogy at Piper’s conference a couple years ago: if Piper’s conference were Star Wars, Mark Driscoll would be Han Solo, Piper would be Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Tim Keller is quite easily Yoda. Quite easily.)

When I heard that he had written a new book, I eagerly ordered it (thank you, wtsbooks.com) and put it at the top of my reading stack.

God and Reason have been hot topics lately in the book world; it seems to be the topic du jure for atheists who want to trash Christianity. Keller’s book seems to be something of a response to those books, proposing, as the title suggests, The Reason for God. There has been significant buzz in the Christian blogosphere surrounding the book, and a not-insignificant marketing blitz as well - it’s not often that a new Christian apologetic comes complete with its own website.

Quite frankly, I found The Reason for God to be underwhelming. Keller spends the first half of the book responding to common objections to Christianity (”why is Christianity so exclusive?” “How can God send people to hell?”, etc) and then takes the second half on the positive side of the bargain, explaining why he thinks Christianity is true, and then laying out a bit about Christian beliefs. While the reasoning was solid, it wasn’t anything groundbreaking - it’s the same stuff you’ll find by reading C. S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man and Mere Christianity and N. T. Wright’s Simply Christian. In fact, Keller quotes extensively from Lewis and philosopher Alvin Plantinga. Too often it seemed to me Keller should just be suggesting that we buy and read Lewis and Plantinga rather than reading his repackaged version.

The first half of the book kept my interest pretty well, but I will admit to a waning interest and a lot of skimming toward the end. This isn’t to say that The Reason for God is a bad book, or not worth reading. Put into the right hands, it could be a good introduction to the rational, logical reasons for Christianity. I don’t think it’d answer all of the serious intellectual doubter’s questions, but it’d be a start; good for your college seeker, too. But for someone who’s already familiar with the arguments, has already read Lewis and the like? Don’t bother. Or buy it for the quick read and then give it away. Here’s hoping for something more fresh and insightful next time from the capable Dr. Keller.

Very few things do I enjoy more than finally getting my hands on a new book that I’d been looking forward to. This week is like the double-bonus: Tim Keller’s The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism and N.T. Wright’s Suprised By Hope: Rethinking the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church. I’m about a third of the way through Keller’s book, and I’m quite enjoying it. Nothing groundbreaking so far, but he provides solid, consistent answers to common objections to Christianity in his usual understated, lucid style. You’ve read a lot of the same stuff from C. S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man and other volumes, but Keller lays it out in a very readable style. Can’t wait to get to the end.

I’m almost more keen (if that’s possible) to wade through Wright’s latest tome. My only fear is that if I end up agreeing with him too much I may start to run afoul of the standard evangelical dispensational and pre-mil standpoint that is codified in Noelridge’s (and Imago Christi’s) doctrinal statements. But I need to wade through it and wrestle with it. I’ve heard a bunch of recordings of the talks that Wright has given on the end times over the past couple of years, and they’ve made a lot of sense. So I’m very happy to have a more concrete, written version to work through. Expect some blog posts on that topic.

It’s not a book, but on a separate note, I picked up Say I Am You, the latest CD from The Weepies, with a gift card yesterday on Geof’s recommendation. Good stuff.

One year ago I decided that my blog was the must useful place to keep my reading list, and that proved to be a good choice. I’ve tried keeping reading lists in the past, but was never consistent in recording. This year, though, I managed to record each book and a couple sentences of synopsis and review. I don’t do much in the way of Top 10 lists, but this seems like one place where I have enough data at hand to make a year-end summary. So here goes.

Full list of books I read in 2007.

Total books read: 85.
Total fiction: 68.
Total non-fiction: 17.
Total re-reads: 1.

The one notable series for this year was Harry Potter. I managed to resist the series until this year, but finally decided it was time to give them a try. I was glad I did; they were some very entertaining reads. I started Book 1 on July 11 and finished Book 7 on August 23, and managed to sneak six other books in during that six weeks as well!

A look at my non-fiction stuff betrays my interest in history and science, with a dabbling in music. No real surprises, I guess.

My Top 5 non-fiction reads of the year, in no particular order:

• The Everlasting Man - G. K. Chesterton. This is a classic, took me a while to read, but Chesterton is worth it.
• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin. Goodwin makes history interesting. Very readable, interesting insights into an amazing man.
• Chosen Soldier: The Making of a Special Forces Warrior - Dick Couch. I’m a sucker for special forces/military stuff anyway, and this is an excellent look at what the Army Special Forces folks do.
• No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II - Doris Kearns Goodwin. Got started on DKG, read a second book. Good stuff once again.
• A More Perfect Constitution: 23 Proposals to Revitalize Our Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country - Larry J. Sabato. Some very interesting ideas here, including changing the number of senators/representatives and the lengths of their term, a proposal for a single six-year (extendable to eight-year via national referendum) term for president, and others.

My top 8 fiction reads, again in no particular order (I was going to list 10, but couldn’t find two more that lived up to the standards of these 8):

• Variable Star - Robert Heinlein & Spider Robinson. The title character goes on a “galactic bender”… yeah, and it’s a great story.
• Sun of Suns (Virga, Book 1) - Karl Schroeder. Schroeder manages to create a very believable, imaginative world for his story. I’ve got book 2 sitting in my to-read pile right now. Can’t wait.
• In War Times - Kathleen Ann Goonan. Goonan combines time travel, jazz, and World War II in a way that blows my mind. Easily my favorite non-series book of the year.
• The Children of Húrin - J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien does the classic epic better than anyone else.
• Magic Street - Orson Scott Card. Card has a gift for storytelling and imagination. This novel weaves some of the plot and ideas of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream into a delightful modern fantasy.
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) - J. K. Rowling. I promised myself I’d only include one HP book in this list, and it had to be this one. It caps off the series brilliantly.
• Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present - Cory Doctorow. Most of the sci-fi short stories I’ve read up to this point have been older; it’s fun to read something written recently - the current-ness of the technology and ideas makes them even more believable and frightening.
• The Road - Cormac McCarthy. No, I didn’t read this one because Oprah recommended it. Andrew Peterson recommended it, too! Chilling, spare, and yet ultimately hopeful.

Apparently I am a sci-fi nerd. It’s not that all I read is sci-fi… I guess those just stick out the most to me.

I’ll start a new list for 2008 once I finish my first book. Gotta see how my reading preferences change from year to year.

We visited the library this morning, I needed to pick up a few books for my trip next week.  I had Harry Potter book 6 on hold for me, so I picked it up.  As of this morning I was number 101 on the holds list for HP book 7.  But as I was browsing the “quick pick” section, a librarian walked by and plunked a book down on the shelf…  HP, book 7, one of the non-reservable copies.  I snatched it right back up; it must have been on the shelf less than 10 seconds.

So now I’ll be able to finish the HP series in short order; can’t wait to read through and find out what all happens.  Of course, I do need to set them down long enough this week to prepare the sermon for next Sunday.  Gotta keep the priorities straight.  Still, I’ll have a lot of time in airplanes and a hotel room… 

A month ago today I resolved I was going to put down my endless string of library books and spend a month just reading the Bible. Today is the end of that month.

April 20 I started reading in Genesis 1 and decided I’d just read through, getting a feel for the breadth of the story. A month later I’m through the book of Ezra, maybe a third of the way through the whole Book if you just look at how many pages I’ve covered. It’s been good reading and good reminder.

There have been some times I’ve really missed having some other good book to read - most notably the hours I was on an airplane traveling to Salt Lake City and back, and occasionally in the evenings when something less-than-memorable is on TV and I’m in the habit of reading while the TV’s on.

I think it was a worthwhile exercise, though. It made me more convinced that I need to focus on reading quality books, things that will be worth my time, and avoid just rushing through a long string of mediocre titles just to max out my reading list. (I know there’s no way my list will be as long as Kari’s - no sense in going crazy trying.)

I’m going to be done with work a little big early today. I’m going to suggest to Becky that we make an “overdue” stop at the library.