Category Archives: book reviews

book reviews, books

Book Review: “The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Vol. 3”

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This was a good read for me, but probably of little interest to most readers.

A few months ago, when looking for the next book I wanted to read. There’s no shortage of bookshelves in the house, plus a couple of dozen e-books on my phone. I wanted to read something I was fairly sure I would enjoy yet wouldn’t want to keep. I was in an obscure part of our basement, where we had a few dozen books on a shelf, and I spied the perfect book: The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Vol. 3.

I have no idea where we picked up this book (at a used bookstore or garage sale, no doubt) nor when (at least eight years ago). When I bought it (and it had to be me—Lynda wouldn’t have spent even 50¢ on it. And I knew next to nothing about Virginia Woolf other than a vague notion that she was a writer.

Pulling her letters off the shelf and diving into them caused me to do a little research on her. She was a British author of novels and prose. The period of the letters in this volume, 1923-1928. During this time Woolf wrote three of her novels: Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, and Orlando. She was also writing articles and reviews for literary magazines and, on occasion, giving lectures.

And writing letters. The book includes 637 letters. That’s one letters every 3.5 days—and that’s just the letters that have been collected. No doubt she wrote other letters that the recipients didn’t preserve.

The letters were more personal than business. Many were to Woolf’s sister,  Vanessa Bell. Many others were to a good friend from adulthood, Vita Sackville-West. Much of the contents we would consider gossip. Woolf was part of what is known the Bloomsbury Set, a group of authors and critics that met in the Bloomsbury section of London. Their heyday was 1905-1920 or so. Thus, this volume is after the days of Bloomsbury.

But Bloomsbury still played a part in in Woolf’s life. Many of the letters are to those who had been part of the Bloomsbury set. They talked about their writings and thoughts, but also about each other and about others in their set. Yes, gossip. And Woolf admitted as much in her letters. I read the book over July to Nov 2024, with an interruption of about a month due hospital stays and illness.

So I come down to my usual questions. How do I rate this book and why do I rate it thusly, will I ever read it again, is it a keeper, and do I recommend it to others. I give it 4-stars, mainly because I like to read letters as unfiltered history. I would have to say, however, that I’ve enjoyed other collections of letters more. I got through all 575 pages, but at times I would read a paragraph, and wonder what I had just read. Was it distracted reading by me or material in the letters that failed to hold my attention.

I don’t see myself ever reading this again, thus it isn’t a keeper. I also don’t recommend it. That is, unless Virgina Woolf is a literary study for you, or you just like reading letters—any letters.  One warning if you do want to find and read this letter. My copy was a trade paperback, and it fell apart in two pieces as I rea it. So be gentle with it if you do read it.

 

Bible study, book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: Astronomy and the Bible

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A good, short read, I highly recommend it.

Lynda and I are in the process of selling books. Not books I’ve written, but books in our personal inventory: books we inherited from parents or bought though the years. One man who bought one book from me wanted to browse what we had. In a box tucked away in our basement storeroom was a book Astronomy and the Bible. It was published in the 1980s, but I don’t remember seeing it before.

The author, Donald B. DeYoung, is a scientist and university professor of physics and astronomy. In his years of teaching and speaking at many events, both academic and Christian, he’s had to answer many questions. How are star distances measured?  Has the earth’s tilt changed? What is a quasar? What is the Anthropic Principal? The book consists of these questions and DeYoung’s answers.

I found the book fascinating, and easy reading. The format of questions and answers facilitated quick reading, DeYoung’s answer style also made for easy reading. I was able to finish the book before the buyer came to pick it up.

Since the book was published in 1989, the two deep-space telescopes have been implemented by NASA. We know a lot more about the universe than we did at the time of publication. A few of his answers would be somewhat different in 2024 than they were in 1989. But except for that, the book seems accurate even today.

DeYoung is a professing Christian, and a believer in a young earth. He says there is some evidence in the cosmos for creation about 10,000 years ago. But he does a good job of presenting both old earth and young earth evidence. The reader can decide, taking DeYoung’s answers with other works, both scholarly and popular, and come to their own conclusions.

I give this book 5-stars. It’s a short read, and a good read. But it is sold, so I will likely never read it again. If you’re interested in the subject, and happen to find a used copy of this 35-year-old work, go ahead and read it. I recommend it.

book reviews, expatriate life

Book Review: from a land Far, Far Away

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A cheap cover, basic layout, but good editing. But hey, for 91¢ and Tate Publishing, what can you expect?

Sometimes you pick up a book and don’t remember where you got it. This one we seem to have picked up in a thrift store named “Heart & Hand” for the inflated price of 91¢! It’s from a land Far, Far Away: Letters From the Front Line of the War On Terror by Wes Trueblood. He served as an English teacher, a civilian employee for the US Military. Earlier in his life, Trueblood had been in the military. In one letter he mentioned he was “no longer an ordained minister”, so that’s also an item on his resume.

The book is a series of letters Trueblood wrote to a mailing list back home—family, friends, and friends of friends. The letters told his impressions of the countries he went to: first Iraq in 2007, then after a year in the USA, to Afghanistan in 2009. The book looked interesting especially due to our time in Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

In terms of information, the book did not disappoint. Trueblood’s impressions and conclusions about the two countries pretty much match my own. He was hampered in learning about the countries because he was essentially in a war zone and could not get out among the local population.

Thus he gave a lot of information about the bases he was at. Who lived with him, as roommate and as other base residents? What were the site rules? What type of recreation did they have? Were they in danger? After a while, it got tiring. Trueblood kept trying to distinguish between miliary people and civilians (such as him) who worked for the military. Those parts became kind of boring after a while. I read them all, but not closely enough to really understand the differences.

One other problem was that the “letters” were really a newsletter sent by e-mail. It reads differently than letters do. That was a little off-putting for me.

So, should you read this book? is it a keeper? How do I rate it? I think you would have to ha e a special interest in these countries or in this part of the world to make this book worth your while. It is now a keeper for me, and will go straight out to the donation pile. And I rate only 3-stars. It is really 3.5 stars for me. It’s well put together, and I’m glad I read it, but the stars rating is for others, not for me.

book reviews, poetry

Book Review: Dorothy Wordsworth – The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals

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Well worth reading for any Wordsworth fans.

A couple of month ago, I posted that I was reading The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, sister of poet William Wordsworth. These are famous journals in the world of poetry, specifically in the British romantic movement era. I read this slowly, about five or six pages a day at my noon reading time, either in the sunroom or at my reading spot in the woods.

I must admit to having a difficult time concentrating on this book. Dorothy’s main entries had to do with the weather, where they walked and who they saw, what letters they received and who she wrote to. Sometimes she wrote about household items, such as making pies and bread, doing laundry. Many entries had to do with health issues. Both Dorothy and William were frequently ill and spent much of their days in bed, to rise at supper time then be up most of the night.

William’s poetry does figures in the journal, which is what most interested me. Dorothy sometimes wrote, “W is working on an ode” or “W is working on a sonnet.” Sometimes she would give the name of a poem. “Peter Bell” is mentioned quite often at one stretch. It makes me want to pull out my Wordsworth poems books (I think I have two) and read them.

Place names feature in terms of where they walked or rode to. The book included two maps, but so many of the places mentioned weren’t shown on the maps that I gave up referring to them. Coleridge also features in the journal. He came and went frequently, went away from his wife right when she was about to give birth. The impression Dorothy gives of Coleridge is not flattering.

The book included 140 pages of notes, printed as end notes tied to a page and a journal date. I started out reading the journal entry then flipping back to the notes. I gave up on that when I came to realize the notes more often than not compared this edition of the journal (2002, edited by Pamela Wolf) to earlier editions (stretching back over 130 years). That kind of information would be of great interest to a researcher, but not so much to a casual reader such as me.

So, on to my usual questions. How do rate this? Will I read it again? What will I do with the book? The extensive notes and lack of an adequate map cause me to rate this 3-stars. No, I don’t think I will ever read it again; thus I don’t plan on keeping it. It is already put in the donation pile.

Bible study, book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: Two Books About The Apostles

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Two books covering the same subject in different ways.

Among the books we have in our house are those that belonged to my late mother-in-law, Esther Cheney Barnes. She didn’t have a huge library, maybe 150 books or so. They have been in boxes the last ten years, I looked at them a couple of times, but didn’t want to mess with them.

Over the last six months, Lynda has been going through her mom’s books, sorting into keepers, reads and discards, duplicates of ones we might already have, and get rid ofs without reading. Two small books among those covered the same subject: the lives of the apostles. One was The Master’s Men: Character Sketches of the Disciples, by William Barclay. The other is Thirteen Men Who Changed the World, by H.S. Vigeveno. Both books are short, under 160 paperback pages. That was perfect, I thought, for taking on our last trip.

The two books, while covering the same subject, handle the source material very different. Barclay’s book is essentially a topical Bible study. He looks at what we know about each apostle from the gospels and Acts. Besides the Twelve, he includes a write up about Nathaniel and James son of Alpheus. But he does not include Paul the apostle. After giving the Biblical record, Barclay give information contained in early church records. When he does this, Barclay is careful to separate legend from info biblical accounts.

Vigeveno’s book reads more like creative non-fiction than a Bible study. He takes the same tact as Barclay, first presenting what we know from the Bible than adding what we know from legend. But Vigeveno tends to accept the legends as truth and incudes legendary information in the character sketches. He writes well, and the book is engaging, but Vigeveno’s book is a little less reliable than Barclay’s is.

1959 and 1958 were the dates of publication of the two books. The paperback books I read were from 1973 and 1980. So I think it’s fair to say those of you reading this review are unlikely to run across either of them. If you do, should you read them? I say yes. They are both entertaining short reads about a biblical topic.

But are they keepers? In my mind no. I don’t ever see myself reading them again. So off to the sale/donation pile they go.

book reviews, Politics

Book Review: The Final Days

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An excellent historical account of a traumatic time in our country. Well worth the read.

When we made our road trip back east, the final two nights in New England were in a resort on Cape Cod. In the lobby of the main building was a table of books. The resort made them available to guests. Lynda grabbed one for us to read. Having just finished a Watergate related book, she picked up The Final Days by Woodard and Bernstein.

Years ago, I read a lot of Watergate books, and found I enjoyed the topic. I lived through it, though at the time of the break-in and the first unraveling of the cover-up, I was a busy college student, taking a full load of courses, working a lot of hours, having just started going out with my first girlfriend, and the news about Watergate, if I even heard it, made no impression on me.

So this book was immediately interesting to me. Lynda, having read less on the subject, was also interested. We read some aloud in the resort those two nights, then in car while driving home. It’s a long book, so we didn’t finish it on the trip. Reading it aloud became our afternoon and evening activity during the two weeks between our trips, and we got it done.

I think the book was the basis for a movie, perhaps of the same name. I remember seeing that movie. Hence, as we read and the story line seemed familiar, I was able to tell Lynda what was coming next, and I was usually correct.

This tells about the last six months of the Nixon presidency. The cover-up of the Watergate break-in—that is, keeping the seven people involved in the break-in quiet through the payment of hush money—began to unravel in April 1973, when John Dean, the main architect of the payments, revealed he was talking with federal prosecutors. The firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox came in October 1973, but it was not until spring of 1974 until most of the things going on became public knowledge. Nixon announced his resignation on August 8, 1974 and left office the next day.

The book concentrates on the last six months, but of necessity tells of other activities. Much time is spent on the taping system Nixon had that recorded much of the dirty work of the cover-up and Nixon’s involvement. The court wrangling, various decisions on how to minimally comply, and the toll it took on the lawyers and other in the administration are all covered in some detail. I enjoyed reading about it all.

The authors’ sources were unnamed, but it was easy to guess who some of them were. They were well-connected to the administration, especially to the legal teams. I liked how various “underlings” were brought into the story and what their roles were. I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense, but sometimes the secretaries or aides not involved in policy decisions played unsung roles and it was good to know about them.

One key topic was resignation vs. impeachment. Those around Nixon, both his lawyers and other key staff, realized he could not remain as president after having committed the crimes he did. But convincing him to resign rather than fight it out was a delicate process of helping him to see that his actions in the coverup were not as innocent as he claimed. Perhaps he drifted into the coverup somewhat innocently, unthinkingly, but he still was a key participant.

The books is excellent. I give it 5-stars, and recommend it for any Watergate buffs who haven’t read it yet—or anyone who wants to know some details of that part of our history. But it is not a keeper. Despite its lack of a cover (lost when we got the book), I’m putting it in the donation pile. I don’t think I’ll ever re-read any of my Watergate era books.

book reviews, C.S. Lewis, Christianity

Book Review: “God In The Dock” by C.S. Lewis

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An excellent anthology of Lewis’s essays.

I continue to work my way through the writings of C.S. Lewis, hoping to get through them all in my lifetime. I got a late start on it, so am having to read them a little faster than I would like. Thus, I’m not sure I have the comprehension I want of his works.

The most recent book of his I completed was God In The Dock. This is a collection essays Lewis wrote over his lifetime, many of which were published in magazines, a few being pulled from things never published. The book itself was published posthumously by Lewis’s editor, Walter Hooper. The book is divided into four parts: theological essays; semi-theological essays; and essays on ethics rather than purely Christian. The fourth part to the book is excerpts from a number of letters that Hooper felt made a good addition to the book, consistent with the other subject matter.

I read this book in three different time spans, one each for parts 1 and 2 and a third for parts 3 and 4. I think this was a good way to do it. It kept me from becoming bogged down reading the same kind of things all over again. And the short nature of essays made it easier to concentrate on what Lewis was saying in them, as compared to his longer works that caused me to zone out.

One essay that particularly stood out to me was “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment”. Lewis wrote it in 1949 when the U.K. was debating whether incarceration should be retributive or healing. Lewis makes a good case that maintaining a prisoner in jail until he is “healed” can be a form of tyranny. Never declare the patient healed and you can hold him forever. The article, which was published in an Australian magazine, prompted response letters and a rejoinder by Lewis. Oh, he did live to argue and debate! I intend to study this sequence of article and letters more to get a better handle on the subject. It’s always good when you can

I think Hooper did a very good job in putting this anthology together. But it does get a little confusing. The version I had was in an even larger anthology titled The Timeless Writings of C.S. Lewis. But God in the Dock was also published as a stand-alone book. But as I look at the contents, it seems that several essays varied depending on the edition of the book.

Also, Lewis had one specific essay titled, “God in the Dock”, from which the book title is derived. That creates some difficulty. When someone says, “Lewis said this in God in the Dock, are they referring to the essay or the anthology? And which essay within the anthology? It makes citing the work somewhat difficult.

I give the book 5-stars. Although some of the essays weren’t stellar, that will be true in any anthology. I’m keeping the volume in my growing C.S. Lewis collection. Most likely I’ll never read it again cover to cover, but I’ll re-read different essay in it and perhaps write my own in response.

book reviews, C.S. Lewis

Book Review: “The Problem of Pain” by C.S. Lewis

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The first of Lewis’s Christian apologetics books, and I didn’t understand it.

One of my life goals is to read everything that C.S. Lewis wrote. I’m a long way from meeting that goal, but inching along, book by book, essay by essay, article by article. I’m sort of going in order that the books were written—though not exactly. I’m putting off reading his fiction, the space trilogy, in favor of non-fiction. I may not stick with that, but that’s what I’m doing right now.

So, after finishing and reviewing my last book, I decided it was time for a C.S. Lewis book. The next one in order was The Problem of Pain, his 1940 book, written by request, to help explain to the common man what Christianity was all about. The world was at war—at least Europe was , so Lewis took up the challenge. Thus this was his first book written on what we call Christiam apologetics, a fancy word for defense of Christianity.

Alas, I struggled with the book, much as I did the first two or three times I tried to read Lewis’s later book Mere Christianity. Lewis lost me early on when he mentioned the “Numinous”. Here is, I think, his first reference to it.

In all developed religion we find three strands or elements, and in Christianity one more. The first of these is what Professor Otto calls the experience of the Numinous.

Huh? What the heck is a Numinous?

Lewis took a long paragraph to explain what Numinous was, but this brought no clarity to me. Since this was in the Introduction, it seemed, as I read, that grasping what that meant perhaps was essential to understanding the whole book. Since I didn’t understand it, I suspect it caused me to partially shut my mind off. I read the rest of the book, but truthfully I didn’t comprehend what I was reading.

Alas, I never really recovered from the partial mind shutdown. I say that to my shame. I know this is Lewis’s way, to bring up terms and -isms in a shorthand way, expecting his less-well educated audience to somehow grasp the concept. I kept feeling that in Mere Christianity, and in a very deja vu kind of way with The Problem of Pain.

So, how do I rate this book, is it a keeper, and will I ever read it again? 3-star, yes, and yes. I think I really need to understand this to understand Lewis. I’m sure there’s good stuff in it, stuff that will help me in my Christian walk. But I won’t get back to this very soon. It’s on to the next book, whatever that is.

book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: Inalienable

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3-stars is the best I can give this. It could have easily been 2. Yet I’m going to read it again to see if I’m being too harsh with it.

Back in January, I went to an event at our church titled: “How to Navigate the 2024 Election Year”. The evening involved dinner and a book, as well as a guest speaker. His name is Eric Costanzo, and one of the books to choose between was his, Inalienable: How Marginalized Voices Can Help Save The American Church, coauthored with Daniel Yang and Matthew Soerens. That’s the one I chose. The event was okay, not great. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I went mainly to be supportive of our pastor.

So I read the book, taking over a month to go through it. It was published in 2022, which means it was mostly written in 2020 and 2021. I found the book a little difficult to read. One was the frequent references interspersed—but the authors said in the first chapter they would do that, so it wasn’t a surprise. The other was the frequent use of buzzwords. I have a internal buzzword meter that is kind of fine-tuned. Use a buzzword once and I ignore it. Use it twice and I get a  little irked. Use if four or five times in every chapter and I have to fight the urge to puke. That’s where this book is.

The first chapter takes the place of an introduction, with the title “Why the American Church Needs Saving”.  Very early comes the phrase, “many evangelical Christians in the United States have silently tolerated or openly embraced nationalism, sexism, and racism, ‘compromising our values for power.” That’s pretty clear for the premise they hope to prove.

Since I am part of the evangelical church, I guess he’s talking about me. Seems that whatever I—we—have done in our Christian walk is all wrong. Yet, in the entire 221 page book, they skirt the issue of who is responsible and give no action steps other than listen to the voices of the “global south,” which is defined in the book as those parts of the world lying south of white Europe and white America.

In an attempt to not offend people, they don’t give names of who is to blame. It’s clear that they are opposed to the evangelical church’s embrace of right-wing Republican politics. They condemn that embrace, as I do. But they don’t mention names, and they really don’t get into specific issues. It would have been nice for them to have picked a date, place, and time when the American church started to go bad to the point that it needs saving, because, assuming they are correct, that would give us a point in time to go back to, figure out what we did wrong, and make corrections going forward.

As to racism, the point is well taken. Sunday mornings tend to be the most segregated moment of the week, and that’s sad. Why is that so? The book didn’t really say, but they strongly imply it’s white racism that is the root cause. The authors seem to imply that forced diversity is the answer. I’ve always been a proponent of natural diversity, where, as an individual of reasonable intelligence and loving care, I come to recognize my prejudices, set them aside with God’s help, and embrace all people as equals before God.

To me it seems wrong-headed to say, Hey, our congregation is too white. We need to find some blacks, Asians, and Hispanics to reach out to. But I may not know any. Why? Simply because in my day-to-day roamings—to the grocery store, the doctor, on my walks, or wherever the chores of a given day take me—I may not meet people who are different than me, or the circumstances may not be right for discussing church with someone.

The other, main problem I see in the book is the continuation of the war on the individual. My review is much too long already, but throughout the book the authors work in that the existence of marginalized groups is due to individualism. I reject that, but explaining why will take more than one post.

Two other things about this book that irk me. While it includes many references to and quotes from their primary sources, the notes are endnote rather than footnotes. I hate endnotes. If it’s important enough to make a reference to it, it’s important enough to have it right on the page where I can easily see it without flipping a hundred pages away. And second, it does not include a list of suggested reading. The quote from probably two hundred sources (see the endnotes to find the names), but don’t suggest the 5, 10, or 20 that will help the reader the most in continued study of what’s wrong with American evangelicalism.

As it is, I give the book 3-stars. I almost gave it 2, but I realize the authors are trying to do a good thing here and address a problem they see. I’m not discarding the book. I hope to read it again, in the not too distant future, in hopes of learning something I missed, and to better understand the authors’ opinions.

book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: Guard Your Hearts

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The book was republished with a new cover in 2008, and may have been updated from the 1994 edition I read.

Due to the current remediation work taking place at our house, we had to take all the books off the built-in bookshelves in the living room. The workmen then took the bookshelves out to get at the damaged areas. As I pulled books off the shelves, I saw some I didn’t realize were there. Most of the books went into boxes temporarily. They currently decorate our dining room floor, with no end in sight.

One such book was Guard Your Heart by Dr. Gary Rosberg. Published in 1994, this book came out in the midst of several men’s ministries, including Promise Keepers. Rosberg wasn’t part of that, but he was the founder of a different movement called CrossTrainers.

The book is excellent. You would think a book now 30 years old might be a little dated. Perhaps it is, but I found it to be excellent. Dr. Rosberg, a practicing counsellor (well, he was at the time; could be retired for all I know, though his website doesn’t indicate that) points out many things that men struggle with: juggling work and home; workplace difficulties; allocating time; maintaining spiritual vitality.

The book looks at what Rosberg calls “frontal attacks” and “sneak attacks that men he surveyed say are what they experience in their Christian life.  Each of several of these attacks are covered in separate chapters. I found the advice given useful to me, even though the book was written for younger men who are still in their careers.

I rate the book 4-stars. It loses one star simply due to its age—there are probably slightly better books written in the last five years dealing with the same issues. But don’t get me wrong: this is very good and well worth the read. Alas, however, it is not a keeper. To the donation pile it will go.