Category: book report

Book Review: Christian Husband

Christian Husband
Christian Husband

I read this a few months ago, but felt the need to put up a quick review. I picked up this book at a Family Life marriage conference, which was a great experience. Family Life seems really interested in getting all kinds of resources into your hands, and we walked away with a sizable stack of good books. This was the first I read.

The book itself is really basic. The first half explains in simple terms what it means to be a Christian. The second talks in simple terms about what it means to be a husband in light of biblical principles. The entire book follows a growing imaginary dialogue between the author, Bob Lepine, and God about a husband’s responsibilities. Not the most engaging book I’ve read. Even so, the content is worth reflecting on.

Book Reviews

Here’s what I’ve been reading. Leave a comment if you want a review of any certain title.

  • The 9/11 Commission Report
  • The Cluetrain Manifesto
  • The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
  • Tis (by Frank McCourt)
  • The Magician’s Nephew

I think that covers most of it. I have lots to say about Cluetrain, but I’ll get to it when I have a little more time. Ciao!

Moral Failure and National Security

In reading The 9/11 Commission Report, I’ve come to realize what a huge political distraction the Monica Lewinsky scandal was from the U.S.’s pre-9/11 efforts against Usama Bin Laden. At the time, many in America decried the president’s actions based on their immorality. Little could any of us have realized that those actions, far from staying confined to the president’s conscience or oval office, harmed U.S. and global security and may well have prevented counter-terrorism operations against Al Qaeda.

Colonial Bloggers and the Founding Fathers

I was reading A Son of Thunder: Patrick Henry and the American Republic when I realized that political bloggers, far from being a new phenomenon, were an integral part of the national thought life that formented the American Revolution. They may not have been logging onto laptops via wi-fi to change the world, but they were just as subversive, unregulated, influential, and wildly speculative. Sometimes referred to as ‘pamphleteers’, they were often anonymous, took advantage of new media, displayed wide-ranging bias, and used humor as a weapon. Multimedia variants included engravers like Paul Revere, whose inaccurate portrayal of the Boston Massacre still holds great sway.

To read Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, click here.

To read a few current ‘pamphleteers’, check out Polliblogger or Wonkette.

Ugly Americans: The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millions (book report)

I picked up this book in hardback form at the Dollar Store yesterday. Usually the books they have at the Dollar Store are there because they’re no good: no one wants to read them. This book was a notable exception. I’d seen it elsewhere and remembered being intrigued by the tale.

This is not a clean book. It enumerates the rough-and-tumble life of profit-motivated men who have sacrificed living in the hemisphere of their birth in order to chase wealth and excess. But it is a fast read. I started it yesterday evening and finished it, 271 pages later, this evening.

My assessment: First, the book is oversold. It isn’t as intriguing as it hypes itself to be. It’s somehow more real and down-to-earth because of this, enhancing the appeal for me. It’s also been novelized a bit, and the writer’s main information source was the main character. This may have colored his judgement in some ways. The novelization was a good idea, and made it more enjoyable to read. The author also has entire chapters devoted to his actual research for writing the book, which make decent interludes to the story and tell us rather more about the author than is customary. Also, the book has great cover art. Despite the old adage, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” lots of people put lots of work into making great cover art, and there has to be something to that.

The author, Ben Mezrich, has a knack for pleasant description. In the book summary and in the manuscript itself, he describes his subjects as having, “…a warped sense or morality and proportion.” At another point he describes scenery being turned by the speed of a motorcycle into a Monet from the inside of a helmet visor. Good stuff.

This book also re-awakened in me a spirit of adventure that comes with crossing cultures. Mezrich described the hero arriving in Japan for the first time in his professional life. He does a good job of describing the loneliness and confusion that come from being utterly alone in a culture not your own. It made me think of walking alone through the square in Krakow, Poland by dusk-light. Or hitchhiking alone across India for two days. I actually wondered for about a half hour how long it would take me to renew my passport and whether I can afford some time off this August.

I read because it takes me places. By that measure, this book was an absolute success.

In Honor of Memorial Day: How we make military public policy decisions

I saw a fascinating book this morning on the Today show. It’s called AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America’s Upper Class from Military Service – and How It Hurts Our Country. Quite a long title. It’s co-authored by two educated northeast elites whose husband and son unexpectedly joined the military. It details their ‘conversion’ experience and calls for more upper-class sacrifice in the name of better military policy and a bit more national growing-up. Fortunate Son, indeed. You can read the Today Show’s excerpt of the book at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12990432/.

This issue is meaningful to me as a veteran. I read the 9/11 Commission report and think about military policy differently than I did had I not spent almost 6 years of my life serving our country.

Later this morning we’re going to a Memorial Day observance at a cemetery in Kingsburg. I’ll take some photos and post them if they turn out well. Today I’ll be thinking about Nathan Bruckenthal, the Coast Guardsman who died in Iraq and left his unborn daughter behind. The child is typical of many whose lives bear the marks of military sacrifice. For his entire life, he’s owed the thanks of a grateful nations. Heartfelt though it may be, it’s scant replacement for the father he’ll never meet.

Audio Books I’ve Been Listening To

  • The Search: How Google and its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture, by John Battelle.  Fascinating listening.  Battelle knows his stuff, and presents a thoughtful, well-rounded look at search that ranges from the theoretical to the historical, anthropoligical, technological, and literary aspects of search.  He starts his book by examining what he calls the database of intentions.  This is the aggregate or click-stream that comes from people’s searching habits.  What people are searching for is what they care about.  You can see a snapshot of this at Google Zeitgeist.  For some damn reason, Battelle occassionally uses profanity when it’s probably not needed.  I found that *%^&ing odd.  In the epilogue, he lays out a brilliant narrative of the human search for immortality, drawing from the Epic of Gilgamesh, mankind’s earliest known writing. Overall, this book is moderately recommended.  I really enjoyed it, but I think most of my readership would just kinda’ enjoy it.
  • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey.  For some reason, I felt a little cheesy listening to this as an audio book.  I felt like I was back in the 80’s, listening to self-help literature on a cassette tape as I rush from one big-city sales meeting to another.  But the material itself was decent.  I’ve read the book twice previously, so it was mostly review for me.  But the author, who was also the reader, did throw in some new material by way of examples and such.  Covey’s psuedo-Christian Mormon-ness emerges pretty strongly.  Good concepts, though.  The book is divided into two parts.  In the first part, he sets up principles on which he bases the habit.  In the second part, he enumerates the habits themselves.  I found the second part particularly useful.
  • The DaVinci Code, by Dan Brown.  I’ve read the book, and I really enjoyed it.  I know what you’re thinking: “Isn’t that an anti-Christian book?”  Well, sorta.  It’s more anti-Catholic than anything.  It kind of promotes goddess worship and pagan practices.  By now you might think I’m looney or have turned from my faith or something because I said I enjoyed the book.  I assure you, I haven’t turned from my faith.  (I may be a little looney, though.  I’ll let you judge that for yourselves.)  The reason I enjoyed the book is that it’s darn good fiction.  It’s a fun read, and I’ve always been a sucker for a fun read.  Also, I have the ability to read critically.  I don’t believe or buy into everything I read.  I’m not going to read the DaVinci code and worship goddesses any more than I’m going to read it and start searching for the holy grail (also featured).  You see, Brown starts from a flawed premise: that right religion worships equal parts male and female god, and the Catholic church has been suppressing the female side of that equation for centuries.  He also has a bit of a flawed assumption that the (pre-Christian) ancients know more than we do today.  To assume such is to deny both the power of revelation and the wisdom gathered through a long lilterary tradition of philosophers, scientists and Christistian thinkers.  I’m able to enjoy the book because I can take the entire work as fiction and enjoy the story while analyzing and walling off the mistruths, flawed premises, and outright fabrications.  I listened to 6.25 hours of the audio book yesterday, so compelling is the storytelling.

If anyone wants to borrow any of these audio books, I have CDs of them.

Today Show Interview about The DaVinci Code

  • Ian McKellen, on whether there should be a disclaimer at the beginning of the movie to clarify that it’s fiction: “I’ve often thought there should be a disclaimer at the beginning of the Bible. I mean, walking on water? That takes a bit of…….faith or something.”
  • My response: “Yep, Ian, that’s what makes those things supernatural. When you start by acknowledging that such things don’t naturally happen, it means they’re miracles and thus worthy of the telling.”
  • Matt Laurer: “Paul, when you got the call that you were going to be the killer albino monk, how long did it take you to say yes?” Paul Bettany: “It took about ought-point-three seconds to say yes to that. It doesn’t matter what else you have going on. You can’t turn down an offer like that.”
  • My response: “I think if I got a call asking if I want to play a killer albino monk, I’d say yes, too. Who wouldn’t? I’m looking forward to seeing the movie just to see Paul Bettany. He’s great.”

The humans behind the 9/11 attack

I’m reading, as you know, the 9/11 Commission Report.  It’s emimently readable, but nothing like reading fiction.  In fiction, each detail contributes to the story.  In the report, there are many details that don’t contribute to the story.  They are just facts.  And way too many characters.
Perhaps most striking to me today is the account of the pilot-highjackers and their preparations for the attack.  They came to the U.S. a year or two in advance to learn English and attand flight school.  Two of the terrorists stayed in San Deigo for a period of time.  They proved terrible students, and never did learn English.  It must have been lonely, having cut off all communication with their families.  One of them had an especially tough time transitioning to the United States.  When he received work that his first child had been born, it was the last straw.  He went AWOL and returned to his home country (Yemen, I believe).  Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the famous mastermind behind the plot, was furious.  He wanted to kick this man off of the team.  Bin Laden disagreed, and the would-be father was eventually ‘returned’ to the team.  I wonder what his wife thought.  I wonder if she knew what her husband was going to do.  Twisted ideals or no, there’s something elemental in the love of a wife that must have cried out at her husband’s willingess to martyr himself for his faith in a brutal act of savagery.

Before today, I’d never thought about the humans behind the attack; I’d only thought of the acts.  Truly, looking at their thumbnail-sized low-quality photos printed in duotone on the pages of a book was a moving experience for me.  I just stared at those pictures and wondered what kind of zeal must have possessed these men that they would plan for several years to die.  Two years is a long time to know the date of your death, and it’s a long time to lose your nerve or change your mind.  I wonder whether any of them changed their minds, or had to talk each other back into following the plan.

Fascinating to put faces to the savagery.

New Ways to Read?

I’ve always been somewhat of a reading traditionalist.  I like reading books.  I like pages.  I like the smell of old books.  When I open a classic like Plutarch’s Lives inthe 1910 printing from the Harvard Classics series, the scent is unmistakable.  It’s like I’m breathing rarefied air.

So this new step is a real departure for me.  I’ve started experimenting with book content in two new electronic forms.  I bought my first e-book the other day (not counting the Bible that I purchased for my last Palm Pilot) from a company called 37signals.  It’s their manifesto on how to create new companies based around simple web application.  It’s a bit disappointing as a read.

Today I realized that I’ve been subscribed to audible.com for a few months now.  It was one of those trial memberships that I forgot to cancel, and I now have enough credit to download 7 full audiobooks and listen to them on my computer, CDs, or my iPod.

Configuring my computer to download the books was a little bit of a challenge.  I actually had to call audible.com’s tech support, but I solved my own problem while I was on hold with them (and explained to them how I’d solved it, in case someone else has that particular problem).

So, the first book I downloaded is called The Search by John Battelle.  It’s subtitled How Google and its rivals rewrote the rules of business and changed out culture.  I’ll let you know how it is.  Should be 10 hours worth of interesting listening, at the very least.