Right or Reconciled?

My latest book was written by none other than Bishop Joseph Garlington, the pastor of my church. Right or Reconciled? covers perhaps his most passionate topic: reconciliation. This reconciliation he calls for centers around racial reconciliation but also covers interpersonal relationships and other dividing grounds like gender, economic status, or political leanings. 

Garlington writes eloquently and with a fair measure of humor. Reading his writing is much like hearing him speak. In fact, I heard his voice in my head as I read. He includes countless scriptural references to back up his points. I've never heard someone speak as well as he does on this topic. Much of his study and thought can be found in these pages. I'm not sure that a better source exists when it comes to reconciliation, at least from a Christian perspective.

There's too much meat in this book to go into much depth here in a review, but I will say that you will be blessed by reading this book, no matter your background, race, age, gender, or political affiliation. That said, this book is only a shadow of his preaching. I probably didn't get a lot from reading this book because I've heard these points dozens of times during his preaching. His sermons are available here: http://www.livestream.com/covenantchurchofpittsburgh, and I highly recommend just about any of his messages. He's much funnier, poignant, and real in person. Lately I've begun to transform my life by living out reconciliation (a journey begun just a week or so before reading this book), and I'll leave you with a question that could change your life:

"Do you want to be right or do you want to be reconciled?"

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars (he's really better in person)

(86/100)

Prayers of a God Chaser

I'm done reading books as "devotionals" - I was reading books a chapter at a time, here and there, but while that worked great for A Purpose Driven Life and maybe one or two other books, I've found that splitting most Christian books up weakens their overall message and flow. Worse yet, if the book is a mediocre book I tend to lose any benefit I might get from it. I'll continue to read the Bible in short segments, but not other books.

Prayers of a God Chaser, by Tommy Tenney, is one of those mediocre dime-a-dozen Christian books that fill Christian bookstores everywhere. I actually purchased this quite a while ago but never got around to reading it until recently. I've not read his first book, The God Chasers, but I guess it must have been pretty popular because it spurned a number of spin-off books, like this one. It seems like Tenney is merely trying to cash in on the success of his first book in this series, because there's not as much substance as I would have hoped from a book about prayer. 

Tenney goes through 11 types of prayer that he identifies. Each one gets its own chapter in which he briefly describes it, gives both a Biblical and real-life example, and then describes how it can be put into practice. The types of prayer are:

-Desperation

-Repentance

-Hungry Heart

-Wisdom and Guidance

-Intercession

-Total Surrender

-Inspired Faith and Divine Declaration

-Struggle

-Adoration

-Emptying

-Commitment

This book could be powerful, but it's pretty thin, both spiritually and literally (150 pages with generous double spacing, whole pages devoted to chapter titles, etc.). Tenney always included enough to make me think "Oh yeah, I know that kind of prayer" but never really compels the reader to do anything but pray. I could see this benefiting a new Christian, but there really isn't much here for someone who's been praying and going to a spiritually thriving church for years.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

(85/100)

Ballparks: Yesterday and Today

Ballparks: Yesterday and Today is clearly meant to be a coffee-table book. It is very long to showcase photos of famous ballparks throughout history. The writers also included a history of ballparks and then go into each major-league baseball team and provide histories of their ballparks along with several photos of each. Coming in at 450 pages, you could spend many minutes perusing this book if you pick it up off someone's coffee table. If you attempt, as I did, to read this cover to cover...well, that would be a mistake.

There are two problems with this text. The first is that it was written not for the baseball fan, but for the architect. The writers focus more on the design and construction of the parks than on the historic moments that etch the ballparks in our minds. That, however, can be forgiven. The biggest problem lies in the editing - or the lack thereof. Errors pop up nearly every other page of text. This ranges from spelling errors to grammatical errors to just plain lazy stupid errors. There are several notes about where pictures are supposed to go that were left in the text. There are points where dates are wrong (like a park's opening date occurring after the last game was played) and other reviews I've read have even mentioned other factual errors. Also, they updated the book for the 2010 season and the copyright page says the book was published in 2007. On top of that, they never went in to update other things, so it says things like "the ballpark is scheduled to open for the start of the 2007 season." My favorite aside from the picture notes was when they talked about the best built ballparks from the "2th" century.

A few simple mistakes are excusable, but the amount of errors in this book prove that this was never meant to be anything except a coffee table book. There are some nice pictures of ballparks, so if you are really into the architectural design of ballparks, you may enjoy this book. Otherwise...save your time and money.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

(84/100)

Vital Dust

Published 15 years ago, Christian De Duve's Vital Dust feels at times like it's at the cutting edge of latest research. Only brief moments display the age of this science book, which is a bit of a rare quality.

Duve traces the history of life and searches for meaning in all of it. Spanning from biochemistry (his field) to philosophy (not his field), Duve attemps to synthesize several fields of science and thought into an ultimate meaning of life.

He begins with a sweeping tale of the origins of life, beginning with theories on life arising from nonlife, moving to RNA and DNA origins, to unicellular life, to the diversity of multicellular organisms. Then, he discusses the nature of the human mind and the theories surrounding the existence and meaning of human consciousness. He then makes a stab at identifying the meaning of human life.

I read a lot of science non-fiction books and enjoy most of them. Very few, though, stick out from among the rest as "essentials" - books that I feel are essential reading for anyone interested in science. This book falls in that category, although with an asterisk. I have yet to read such a compelling narrative of the origins of life. Somehow Duve writes for both scientists and laymen alike. I must admit that there were moments where I felt lost, but the moments were brief and did not take away from my experience reading the book.

Duve's only fault occurs when he attempts to dabble in the field of philosophy. He  confesses several times that philosophy and psychology are fields where he has only passing knowledge about and dug deeper into in an attempt to further the scope of this book. His limits in these areas render the last 50 or so pages quite a bit weaker than the first 250.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in science. If you don't consider evolution to be even a remote possibility of the emergence of life, then you probably won't appreciate this book. That would be a shame, though, because this book is beautiful.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

(83/100)

Polarized America

Have you ever read a 200 page long research article? I just did. Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches, by Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole, and Howard Rosenthal, takes on the issue of determining the cause of polarized politics in America. Its structure and flow mimic that of a research article, and it reads that way as well. The authors take an enormous amount of research, statistically analyze it nearly to death, and deliver their results and suggestions for moving forward.

Their main hypothesis is that America becomes increasingly polarized as the gap between the rich and the poor widens. Plenty of factors play into this as well, like taxes, immigration levels (particularly among non-citizen immigrants), and major societal events like the Women's Suffrage movement and the Civil Rights movement. They prove their hypothesis through rigorous statistical analysis, shown through numerous charts and graphs. In the end, they bemoan the polarization of society and yearn for moderation once again. After all, government runs much more efficiently when polarization is limited. Blame falls to both sides of the table, but the authors chastise Republicans more for encouraging greater wealth inequality, which has exasperated the situation.

I enjoyed this book most of the time. The statistics clearly back up the hypothesis of the authors, and the charts and graphs are particularly interesting. I appreciated reading a book that dug deeper than surface-level. Most political books act as a forum for someone's ideas and theories with little research support. This book falls on the other end of the spectrum - just a couple of ideas with overwhelming research to back them up. The problem, though, as I read the book was the fact that I only possess the equivalent of one semester's worth of statistical knowledge. That helped me quite a bit, but this book dug into second semester statistics and beyond. I have to admit that I was lost and confused for about 25% of the book.

Despite the occasional confusion, I still found this book to be both refreshing and informative. However, given its statistical depth, I would warn potential readers that at least a semester's worth of statistics is a prerequisite to getting anything significant from this book or understanding a majority of it. I would heartily recommend this book to anyone with a statistics background who also has an interest in how the political system works.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

(82/100)

The Green Trap

I've been reading some pretty thick books lately, and I really felt as if I needed an easy read. I also needed a good read. The Green Trap, by Ben Bova, was an easy read but not a good read.

Bova reminds me a lot of Michael Chrichton. He has a background in science and uses science in some way in his books, some of which are science-fiction while others, like this one, are more action/adventure. In The Green Trap, part of the plot surrounds a plan to easily and efficiently create hydrogen for fuel.

The plot surrounds Paul Cochrane, who goes to visit his brother only to discover that he had been murdered. His brother had created the mechanism that created hydrogen, and it quickly appears as if there are many people that would like to get their hands on that and willing to go to extremes, like paying millions of dollars or killing. Cochrane meets Elena Sandoval, who at first is one of the people trying to get the info but then later becomes romantically involved with Cochrane and works with him to find the info so it doesn't get into the hands of the wrong people. These wrong people then pursue Cochrane and Sandoval with plenty of action and a few twists.

Before I critique the book, allow me to point out that this book has an average of two stars on Amazon.com. That almost never happens. Usually there is some contingent of people that love a book no matter how bad it is. As a result, most books fall between 3 stars and 4.5 stars. Two stars? Almost unheard of.

As far as the bad stuff is concerned, where do I start? The characters, first of all, are stereotyped and lifeless. The main character, Paul Cochrane, has absolutely no depth whatsoever. His "relationship" with Sandoval is so poorly written that it actually made me wince as I read the lovey-dovey stuff. This is an action/adventure "thriller," so plot tends to carry more weight than character...but the plot here fares no better than the characters. There's huge holes, events that happen for no reason whatsoever, and painful predictability. There's some mild excitement and one twist right at the end that I really enjoyed. But that's it. Just enough for me to give it some stars.

Reading this book made me yearn for the Left Behind books. I think that sums it up pretty well.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

The Holy Vote

As I wind through the nonfiction stacks at the library, I slowly make my way through the Dewey Decimal System. I now have found myself right square in the middle of the politics section. Hoo boy. As you may very well know, I am an avid "soapboxer" who loves getting sucked into political debate, with the downside being that I often wind up getting frusturated with the state of American politics. As a result, I avoided the books that would get me really angry (written by Fox News hosts) and ones containing blatent lies and slander from both the right and the left, and wound up with basically only two choices from this bookshelf. I wound up with Ray Suarez's The Holy Vote.

As a political Christian, I always am intrigued by people who write about where faith and politics meet. Suarez reviews a number of hot-button faith-related issues and covers the feelings coming from both sides of the political spectrum. Each chapter focuses on one issue and usually zooms in on one or two case studies. Gay marriage, abortion, taxes, poverty, the role of Christianity in federal government, and religion/prayer in schools join all have their own chapter, as does the history of Christian politics and the racial divide in faith-based politics.

Suarez finds Christian arguments of a wide range for each issue, but devotes more of his time to the Religious Right's opinions, largely because that's what tends to dominate the debates. Suarez did a really nice job with that, although I'm already familiar with the different sides of these issues. I appreciated his careful inclusion of reasonable and intelligent quotes from religious leaders. He intentionally avoided most of the arguments of the most sensationalist media figures.

I was really bothered, though, by Suarez's insertion of his own opinions. This occurred typically only once per chapter, but felt out of place. Suarez identifies himself at the beginning of the book as a faithful and practicing Christian, but never identifies his political affiliation. It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to figure it out - Suarez is totally in the pockets of the Democrats. Unlike a Jim Wallis, who is definitely liberal yet consistently calls out errors he sees on both sides, Suarez seems to mold some kind of spiritual position on every stance the Democratic Party takes. While I happen to agree on many of these points, I also feel like it is important to put faith first, politics second. I didn't really get that vibe reading the book.

I'm not sure who to recommend this book to. If you are interested in faith and politics but haven't read a lot on the topic already, then this book is a good place to start.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

80/100

City of Ember

City of Ember by Jeanne Duprau is probably better known as a movie than as a book. I, for one, have not seen the movie, but read the book as a part of the vocabulary curriculum that I write for our grade level.

The book whisks the reader to an underground world, named the City of Ember. Here, people live their whole lives unaware of any other existence other than dark and dreary life with little hope. 12-year old Doon and Lina have just graduated into "adulthood" by receiving the job assignment they will live with for the rest of their lives. Driven by curiousity, the two kids quickly find themselves in the middle of an adventure they never could have anticipated. The supplies and resources required for the City of Ember are running low, but they just might have stumbled upon the solution.

Duprau writes with wonderful flourish. Working with middle school level writing, Duprau finds few limitations to the creation of an underground dystopia. Ember's society is well thought out, and Duprau carefully addresses all of the problems that a subterranean world would face. I'm sure you could scrutinize it heavily enough and find inaccuracies, but you'd have to dig really deep (yes, I said that on purpose). It's the kind of book that you want to keep on reading and when you get to the end you are left wanting more...in a good way. The ending, by the way, is magical.

I whole-heartedly recommend this book to children ages 10 and up! Adults would likely enjoy reading this book aloud to children possibly as young as 8 and up. There's a lot of great stuff here, although it doesn't quite cross over as an adult read in the same way that the Harry Potter or Chronicles of Narnia books do. Mind you, that will not affect my rating.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

(79/100)

The Eastern Stars

For the past 40 years, Major League Baseball has benefitted from great talent hailing from the Dominican Republic. There are currently more professional baseball players from that country than any other country outside of the United States. This book, The Eastern Stars by Mark Kurlansky, looks at how baseball has transformed the town San Pedro de Macoris.

Kurlansky begins by going through a whirlwind tour of the history of the Dominican Republic. He also goes into the daily life of a typical resident of San Pedro de Macoris. Life in the Dominican Republic is not easy - much of it revolves around working in the sugar cane fields, other agriculture, fishing, tourism, or working for American factories. Inflation and insecurity has made matters worse. Most residents struggle to make ends meet, but they usually can at least afford to feed themselves, unlike their Haitian neighbors. There is one hope to escape the dismal outlook: baseball.

Kurlansky goes into detail about how baseball grew to be such an important staple of Dominican life. He also sketches out the path that baseball took, growing from small-scale hobby occasionally funded by the government, to large-scale baseball schools that groom top athletes into baseball stars. As a result, one small town (San Pedro de Macoris) has blossomed into a baseball factory (ever heard of Sammy Sosa or Robinson Cano?). Kurlansky also discusses some of the stuggles Dominican players have once they make it big.

I was really let down by this book. I was a bit foolish to think that it would be mostly about baseball - it was only about 60% baseball, 40% history - but I also feel like the book had some legitimate flaws. Kurlansky clearly is more comfortable writing about culture and history, of which he possesses a lot of knowledge, particularly about the Dominican Repulbic. Baseball...not so much. Kurlansky seems to understand the basics, but not to the level of a baseball fanatic, who I imagine make up a large portion of this book's audience, whether he wants that to be the case or not.

In the back section, Kurlansky gives short bios of all 79 professional baseball players from San Pedro de Macoris. They are probably the most boring writing that I've ever read. The bios consist of all of the transactions that each player had with exact dates of when they were signed, traded, or released. Then he writes a sentence or two about their statistics. NOBODY wants to read about transaction dates, not even these players' mothers. The statistics contained errors as well - like attributing 67 homers to a pitcher, when that pitcher actually gave up 67 homers. He also overexaggerates stats, like when he brags about a player hitting .500 for a year...but fails to mention that was over just 4 at-bats.

Books about baseball tend to attract baseball fans and few others. Kurlansky's lack of research about baseball is embarrasing for such an accomplished and highly regarded author.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars - well written from a technical standpoint but the baseball errors and limited research are too pervasive to be acceptable.

(78/100)