Category Archives: book reviews

Book Review: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

Some time ago I picked up, at Barnes & Noble, a copy of their Classics edition of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Of course I’ve known about this book for a long time, and perhaps should have read it a long time ago.  Alas, no matter. It’s read now.

I give it an unqualified 5 stars, and will do so on B&N soon. Not that the book needs my review. It’s staying power for over 150 years speaks for itself. The things I like about the book:

  • It’s well written; the English is clear, especially considering how little education Douglass had had by the time he wrote this. A little training in reading, and a whole lot of self-study did wonders for him and his book.
  • The book gives insights into the slave life that I haven’t read before. And I’ve read a fair amount on slavery. I realize he was in Maryland, not the deep south, and that might account for some of his experiences and how slaves lived as not being quite what I would have imagined. That’s a good thing.
  • The length was about right.
  • Although the book was an inexpensive volume, the quality is good. After reading you can barely tell I read it, the wear is so little.

What I didn’t like about it:

  • It doesn’t tell any details about his escape. I realize that when the book was originally printed he couldn’t give those details, so that those who helped him would not face consequences. I wish, however, years later he had added some of those details.
  • The Introduction was waaaaaaay too long. It was written by Robert O’Meally. I read it first, along with a review that was contemporary to the book. O’Meally wrote much too much. In hindsight I should have just read the book, then come back and read the Introduction.

This is a keeper, at least for now. I’m not sure I’ll ever read it again, but I may. It can also serve as a reference book for my work-in-progress, Documenting America: Civil War Edition. After that, we’ll see. I think, however, I’d like to pass it down to my grandchildren. The further away we get from the Civil War, the more we need books like this.

Book Review — Soul Shift

Recently our church had an all-church study of the book Soul Shift: the Measure of a Life Transformed, by Steve DeNeff and David Drury. Our pastor preached sermons from the book and our life groups studied it during Sunday School hour.

If I had to describe the book in one word, I’d say “disappointing.”

It is essentially a discipleship book with a cute title. DeNeff and Drury identified seven ways in which a practicing Christian’s life should change to be wholly devoted to God:

  • from Me to You
  • from Slave to Child
  • from Seen to Unseen
  • from Consumer to Steward
  • from Ask to Listen
  • from Sheep to Shepherd
  • from Me to We

Each of these is given a chapter in the book.

While there’s nothing wrong with the book, I suppose I was disappointed because there’s nothing new here.  It’s the same old discipleship stuff packaged differently, perhaps for a different audience.

The book is well written, though possibly a little boring in places. Also, whenever the authors used first person, they always indicated which of them that first person applied to. This was a minor annoyance that I was somewhat able to ignore as I got through the book.

I don’t think I’ll be keeping this one, nor will I likely ever read it again.

Book Review – The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

It was at a thrift store, I think, that I picked up The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? by F.F. Bruce. Originally published in 1943, the small paperback I bought was from July 1971, and a printing of the 1959 revision of the book.

I had seen this book referenced in various other writings about the New Testament. Other writers always made it sound like a book I’d like to read sometime. When I finally found it on those mixed shelves, I was surprised at how small it was. 120 pages is all. Sure, the font is small, but still it’s a fairly short book. I haven’t done any reading into Bruce’s background, and why he would write this book and what his qualifications are to do so. That research remains in the future for me. For now the book stands on its own without me knowing anything about the author.

As, perhaps, it should be. While we want to know for most non-fiction that the author knows what he’s talking about, whatever they write should make sense regardless of who wrote it. Bruce’s little volume does.

I was surprised to see that such a small book was so highly prized and referenced. Yet, as I read it, I could see why. Bruce makes an excellent case that the New Testament is reliable both as “a witness to God’s self-revelation in Christ” as well “as a record of historical fact.”

I’m already a Bible believer, so Bruce was speaking to someone who was anxious to have his current beliefs reinforced. He didn’t disappoint me.  Starting with why it matters whether they are reliable, he moves on to the probable date the books were written and how they came to be accepted into the canon of the scripture. From there it was on to the gospels, a special chapter on the gospel miracles, thence to Paul’s writings, then Luke. He digs into the archaeological evidence for what the New Testament says, and concludes with looking at contemporary and near-contemporary writings to show how they testify to these scriptures. All this packed into 120 pages.

Bruce certainly doesn’t waste words. Nor is this work boring, though it is scholarly. I think Bruce was writing to the average Christian of the 1940s, to give them confidence, in a world that was beginning to question, that the documents upon which their faith rested were indeed reliable. He achieved that aim, in my not-so humble opinion.

This book is a keeper. Perhaps someday I’ll re-read it; or maybe go back into it as a reference for something else I’ll write in the future. If you have a chance to read it, by all means do so.

Book Review – The Oxford Inklings

I’ve known about the existence of the Inklings, the writers group to which C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien belonged, for some time, and have wanted to read a good book about them. I had bought one for my Nook, but it turned out to be mostly a picture book—some words to support it, but not an in-depth analysis like I was wanting. For years I’ve been aware of Humphry Carpenter’s book The Inklings (1978), and have intended to read it, but have never been able to find it.

I finally found that analysis by searching, and came up with The Oxford Inklings: Lewis, Tolkien and Their Circle, by Colin Duriez. Ordered it at Barnes & Noble; it came in in March, and I read it in April.

I give this book 5 stars, and highly recommend it to others who want to know more about this group.  The book is scholarly, yet at the same time very accessible, easy to understand. Duriez has obviously done research, and knows what he writes. I learned much from this book, such as:

  • How large the Inklings were, much larger than I realized. While Lewis and Tolkien were the core, almost two dozen other writers took part in the group at various times.
  • How long they lasted, from the mid-1930s till Lewis’ death in 1963. The main years were from 1940 till 1960.
  • Exactly what kind of group it was, for improving as writers and for the fellowship only fellow writers can enjoy.
  • How important C.S. Lewis was to the group. Duriez presents him as the glue that held the group together, or perhaps better described as the rock around which the group revolved. Tolkien was as well known, and as active in the group, but Lewis more central to the group’s history.
  • The other things C.S. Lewis had going on in his life, such as the Socratic Club, his tutoring, and his lecturing. It’s been a while since I read a Lewis biography. Perhaps I read some of this before, but if so I’d long forgotten many of the details.

Suffice to say that I enjoyed this read. As a writer myself, who has been a member of several writers groups, mostly short-lived, it was of great interest to see how this group did it. I’m going to keep this on the shelf, in my growing Lewis collection. My only caution to other readers is that, if you have a good background on the biographies of Lewis and Tolkien, you might find this a little too elementary in places.

Book Review – Pollution and the Death of Man

I’ve read a couple of books by Francis A. Schaeffer, and heard/read much about him, so when I saw his book Pollution and the Death of Man at a thrift store, I bought it and put it at the top of my reading pile. I finished it about a month ago. Today I’ve finally gotten around to writing a review. My verdict: 3 stars only; not recommended to others.

The book dates from 1970, at the height of the early environmental movement. Shaeffer was living in Switzerland at that time, and looked from afar on that movement in the USA. He attempted to write a Christian response to these issues. As always Schaeffer’s writing is clear and easy to read. My problems with the book, which keeps me from rating it higher and recommending it to others, are:

1) poorly stated premises and intent.

2) no clear conclusions drawn, i.e. what then should Christians do.

3) over-reliance on two magazine articles, to refute them.

The book I have is a paperback, published in 1992 by Crossway Books. It includes an added chapter to what Schaeffer originally published, written by “Udo Middleman”, as well as reprints of the two articles. The book itself, that is the material provided by Schaeffer, is less than 100 pages.

As I read that material, I had a hard time telling the difference between what Schaeffer declares is the way things are, as opposed to how he suggests it ought to be. This led to some confusion. The book appears to have been written to refute claims in the two articles from the late 1960s which said that, at least in part, Christianity was to blame for the environmental crisis, what with their “have dominion over the earth” mentality. Not so, says Schaeffer. A Christian is a steward of the earth, a protector, and should act accordingly. That is the gist of what I took away from the book.

Some excepts and comments:

So pantheism is not going to solve our international ecological problem. Lynn White’s position [one of the articles] is not going to solve it because it is obvious in practice that man really does have a special role in nature that nothing else has. And, third, a Platonic view of Christianity is not going to solve it.

He came close to losing me with his discussions of pantheism and Platonic views. I had to plow through this part, the only part of the book that was difficult to understand.

The value of a thing is not in itself autonomously, but because God made it. It deserves this respect as something which was created by God, as man himself has been created by God.

I agree with this completely. The creation of all things by God is what gives them value. Nature has value because it was created by God and forms a vital part of what man is.

He made me as I am, with the hungers of my spirit and my body. And he has made all things, just as he has made me. He has made the stone, the star, the farthest reaches of the cosmos. He has done all this!

Again, I agree. Well stated, Mr. Schaeffer.

It is the same when we have dominion over nature: it is not ours. It belongs to God, and we are to exercise our dominion over these things not as though entitled to exploit them, but as things borrowed or held in trust. We are to use them realizing that they are not ours intrinsically. Man’s dominion is under God’s dominion.

Again, well stated. This is the closest Schaeffer comes to stating a solution to environmental problems.

…a truly Biblical Christianity has a real answer to the ecological crisis. It offers a balanced and healthy attitude to nature, arising from the truth of its creation by God. It offers the hope here and now of substantial healing in the nature of some of the results of the Fall, arising from the truth of redemption in Christ.

This is a good summary, although it really offers no specifics for how a Christian should deal with the environmental crisis, if indeed in 2015 it is still as dire—or if it is worse—than it was in 1970. Schaeffer may have been trying to make his book timeless, but in so doing he lessened the value of it by presenting no practical solutions.

For here is our calling. We must exhibit that on the basis of the work of Christ the church can achieve partially, but substantially, what the secular world wants and cannot get.

A valid statement, I think, though I’m not sure he has really made his point in the book.

When we have learned this—the Christian view of nature—then there can be a real ecology; beauty will flow, psychological freedom will come, and the world will cease to be turned into a desert.

This is perhaps a stretch. So i agree with his somewhat soft conclusion, that the Christian should be a steward of all that God has given us. This includes nature and the natural environment. Schaeffer spends too much time on visual pollution and the spoiling of the picturesque beauty of nature’s appearance, rather than on the structural aspects of environmental degradation.

The bottom line is: The book isn’t bad, but I suggest you not waste your time on it. Find a better book dealing with environmental protection. I don’t plan on reading this a second time, and so it will go in my giveaway pile.

Book Review of “The Art and Craft of Storytelling”

I don’t remember where I picked up The Art and Craft of Storytelling by Nancy Lamb. It’s not a used book, so I bought it at a bookstore somewhere, possibly the nearby Barnes & Noble or at a writing conference.

I started this book sometime in early 2012, I think, and read as far as page 118. I found it to be a great resource in exactly what the title says: the art and craft of storytelling. I also found the author to have a good attitude toward new writers. So many how-to-write books, blogs, and conference presentations seem to be far removed from the newbie. Typically the author or presenter is decades into their career and don’t really relate to the new writer. Nancy Lamb does.

I even took time to track down an e-mail address for her and wrote her an e-mail, thanking her for her book and her attitude. That started a brief e-mail exchange between us, and she was just as helpful in those as she is in the book.

At that point in time I put the book aside, other matters pressing me. In late July I was looking for a writing book to read and picked it up. I had forgotten about it in the more than a year since I put it back on the shelf. It looked like a new book, but I found a little marginalia in the early chapters. So I went to the last chapter and read it to see if it sounded familiar. It sort of did, but the book had none of the usual signs of being read through.

I vaguely remembered Lamb’s name and thought Maybe I exchanged e-mails with her. Sure enough I found them, learned where I was in the book at that time, and decided I would read the rest. Feeling kind of crazy, and having just read the last chapter, I read the chapters one by one from the back to where I had left off before. This worked because the chapters somewhat stand alone. On occasion something was referenced to an earlier chapter, but those were easy to work through.

Lamb has a logical approach to her work. She covers many things that relate to how a story comes together, what its elements are. Her writing is clear and helpful. The best part is she hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to be a new author. I like that.

This book is definitely going in my library, and I’ll read it again. I’m sure I”ll get something out of it each time I read it.

Book Review: “The Art and Craft of Storytelling”

Normally I post book reviews to An Arrow Through the Air. However, since this book is about writing for writers, I’m posting it here. This is what I just wrote on Goodreads. Note: I’ve edited and edited, and I can’t figure out what’s wrong with this text, cant get it to be the right size. Well, maybe that last thing worked, though the overall formatting of this is messed up.

5 of 5 stars false

The Art and Craft of Storytelling by Nancy Lamb

Nancy Lamb’s book on writing is one of the best I’ve read. She has avoided many of the mistakes experienced writers tend to make in their advice books: forgetting what it’s like to be a new writer, and a writer who has not yet been published by a trade publisher. She also avoided slanting her book toward trade publishing as opposed to self-publishing. I’m not a new writer (been at it for 12 years), but after years of frustration I elected to self-publish. Everything in Nancy’s book was very applicable to crafting a story for self-publishing.

If I had one criticism, it’s that the last couple of chapters were general writing advice, the type that applies as much to non-fiction and magazine article publishing as it does not fictional storytelling. Maybe you have to include that in a writing book; certainly the specific language usage relates to the excellence of a story. But it seemed to be the same things I’ve read in two dozen writing books, whereas the early chapters were new and fresh and incredibly useful.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about how to craft compelling stories. This one will now find a place on my reference bookshelf.

Read from August 26 to September 10, 2012

Creating Unforgettable Characters

At some point in time, I think at a writers conference in Kansas City in 2007, I picked up a used copy of Creating Unforgettable Characters by Linda Seger [Henry Holt, 1990]. I figured it would be an easy read at 221 pages. But it just bubbled up to the top of my reading pile in early December.

Actually, it wasn’t on my reading pile. That is a mixture of fiction and non-fiction for pleasure reading or self-improvement/education about things other than writing. I have a separate stash of writing books, not really in a pile, not really sorted as to which to read next.

I had just finished several reading pile books in a row, decided it was time to read a writing craft book, and this one looked good. The age of the book didn’t seems to be a problem to me as I started.

Seger consults with script writers and film makers, and so many of her examples of character development were from those areas. She made frequent use of television programs I never watched (such as Murphy Brown) and movies I never saw. It was kind of hard to understand her description of a character when I had no clue about that character.

Segar’s book is divided into the following chapters.

  • Research
  • Character Consistencies and Paradoxes
  • Creating Back Story
  • Character Psychology
  • Character Relationships
  • Supporting and Minor Characters
  • Dialogue
  • Nonrealistic Characters
  • Beyond Stereotyping
  • Solving Character Problems

I have not previously read a book about characters, but I’ve read a lot about it in magazines and on-line forums, and sat through several classes at writers conferences about character development. The advice in this book pretty much matched what I’ve heard/read elsewhere. Characters need to be multi-dimensional. Heroes need to have flaws; villains need to have virtues. Characters need to act consistently, but not so consistently that they seem to be made out of cardboard.

Paradoxes are good. The woman who loves football. The man who makes floral arrangements. The woman psychologist who follows boxing. The thug kid who’s an A student. These all make characters seem more real.

I liked what Seger wrote about researching a character, and about creating back story. These are probably two things that writers (me included) probably fall short in most easily. She gave me some things to consider in these two areas.

I had in mind to write more, but must end now as I have much else to do tonight. I’m glad I read this book at this point in time. While perhaps a newer book would be more advisable, if a writer should have a chance to pick this up, you might as well and glean from it what you can.

Book Review: The Templar Revelation

It was at my nearest thrift store, I think, that I paid 50 cents for The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ, by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince [1997, Touchstone, ISBN 0-684-84891-0]. On the cover of this paperback it says “As featured in The DaVinci Code“. I figured it was worth the modest investment to see how The DaVinci Code was related to it.

As far as is possible, I feel I wasted my 50 cents. The book is awful. It is divided into two part: 1) The Threads of Heresy, and 2) The Web of Truth. I read about half of part 1 and spot read 20 to 30 pages of part 2 (150 out of 373 total pages). The most common phrase used in the book is “as will be short later,” or various derivatives of that. John the Baptist was more prominent than Jesus, as will be shown later. Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ wife or concubine, as will be shown later. The Knights Templar were adherents to the cult of Mary Magdalene, as will be shown later. The Cathars understood the true importance of the Baptist and the Magdalene, as will be shown later. How tiring, with never a forward reference included, such as “as will be discussed in Chapter 17.” How much later? What chapter should I go to? Why don’t you just explain it now.

The second most common phrase is “according to modern scholarship.” The authors seemed enamored with any study/publication in the last hundred years that in any way contradicts the traditional Christian message and belief. Nineteen hundred years of scholarship is tossed aside simply because it isn’t the latest. This, too, was tiring.

The book does indeed follow The DaVince Code. Or, rather, based on publication dates, The DaVinci Code follows The Templar Revelation, and is its fictional counterpart. DaVinci’s Last Supper, the true purpose of the Knights Templar, the mysterious old or new Priory of Sion with its train of grand masters—all are here. Even some names of Dan Brown’s fictional characters came from historical figures mentioned by Picknett and Prince. Dan Brown must have read this 1997 book before writing his and publishing it in 2003. Although, that blurb on the cover references TDC whereas the latest date on the title page if TTR is 1998. What gives? I thought publishers put the date of the latest printing on the copyright page. Apparently not any more.

The Templar Revelation is poorly written, not from the standpoint of writing craft, but from its lousy scholarship. Despite many footnotes it is poorly referenced, I came away with a sense of the authors wanting to believe anything that would poke holes in Christian orthodoxy. Every hack professor is believed; hundreds of theologians are not. Clearly the authors were trying to strike a balance between a popular book and a scholarly work, and achieved neither. At one point it reads, “As we have seen, most modern Christians are surprisingly badly informed about developments in biblical scholarship.” [page 362]

Hey, Picknett and Prince, that’s because we have settled the question. We have no need to delve into the questionable works you cite to see what Satan has inspired. We believe the gospel message about Jesus’ life and teaching as told by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We believe Christian doctrine as first outlined by Paul and later confirmed by thousand of works by a hundred early Christian authors. We believe that other gospels you seem enthralled with disappeared not because the church tried to destroy them but because they carried no authority, being obviously contradictory and bogus, thus rejected by scholars of a formative age. We don’t need to revisit the question. We are not badly informed; we know whom we have believed in, and why.

If you see The Templar Revelation in a used book sale, leave it there and use your pocket change to buy a sno cone or some other nutritionally void stomach killer. The stomach will recover faster than the mind, should it be infected with this garbage. I’m not going to finish this. I’ll put it in the garage sale pile, and hope to recover half my investment.

Book Review: The Good Life by Charles Colson

I bought The Good Life [2005, Tyndale, ISBN 0-8423-7749-2] by Charles Colson at full price at Borders about six months ago. I bought it because the small group study our Life Group was about to start, Wide Angle: Framing Your World View, said that the two were companion books. I didn’t like the Wide Angle book, so I bought The Good Life, thinking the two together might work. The $25 price tag on it, though, I knew was excessive for our Life Group.

However, having the book in hand, and it being a companion to our study we were about to do with the video series only (no book), I decided to keep and read it. I’m glad I did, even though I didn’t think it went with Wide Angle as well as the latter book suggested. Colson, with his collaborator Harold Fickett, did his usual excellent job. The subtitle of the book is Seeking purpose, meaning, and truth in your life. It is a follow-up book to Colson’s How Now Shall We Life, a worldview book I blogged about previously (and again here). That was a great book, so I entered this one with high expectations.

The book is full of stories. Colson/Frickett tell stories to illustrate points. It begins with the Normandy graveyard scene from Saving Private Ryan, where the older Ryan says to his wife, “Tell me I’m a good man.” Most of the stories are from real life, however. Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco is the poster child for corruption. Jamie Gavigan, a Washington DC celebrity hair stylist, is the poster girl for excess consumerism. Nien Cheng, an educated Chinese woman who ran afoul of the Cultural Revolution, shows steadfastness and honesty under duress. John Ehrlichman, a colleague of Colson’s on President Nixon’s staff, shows how a life without repentance and acknowledgement of wrongful deeds can be anything but the good life.

With each story, Colson/Frickett give many annotations of the points being illustrated. Frequent mention is made to How Now Shall We Live?, indicating how the worldview of the person in the story is illustrative of a right or wrong worldview—or perhaps I should say of a beneficial or destructive worldview. While some of the same themes span both books, The Good Life is not a re-hash of How Now Shall We Live. It is a different book. The authors are encouraging us to adopt a Christian worldview and make it a real part of our lives. In this way we will live the good life, make our lives count for something. Thus, the book is evangelical in intent and content.

I will probably read some or all of this book again. Certainly, when we return to the Wide Angle study in our Life Group after the fourteen week interruption for an all-church study, I will be seeking to pull illustrations from this to go along with the video lessons. But one of the reasons I’ll read it again is that, by the end of the book, I had forgotten the beginning. No joke. In many of the latter chapters the authors would say “Remember the story about ___________”, referring to an earlier chapter, and I would have no idea what that story was. Rather than go back and find and re-read it, I just plowed ahead, knowing I’d be going back in support of our Life Group study.

That forgetting so completely the early parts of the book concerned me. The reading is easy. Did I read in a distracted manner, thus not retaining? I had some time gap between the first part of the book and the latter parts, but not that long. I shouldn’t have forgotten it so easily.

Were there too many stories? I wonder if that’s true. The book contains a lot of stories. Perhaps retention of so many is difficult. Or was the book written in such a way that the words and organization did not facilitate retention of the stories? I know as a writer I shouldn’t blame the reader. If the reader doesn’t get it, blame the writer. That’s one of the mantras of the poetry critique forums I’ve been in.

But sometimes the reader doesn’t get it, despite clear and excellent writing. I suspect that’s the case here. For whatever the reason, my retention was lacking. I won’t lay that on the authors, though I do mention it for consideration of my readers.

By all means pick up a copy of The Good Life and read it. I don’t think you will be disappointed. Then, if you haven’t already, find How Now Shall We Live? and read that. The two are related and supplemental, and worthy to have in the Christian’s library.