Michael Chabon continues to rock my world. I’m reading The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, and he’s managed to find the perfect balance of old style Brooklyn Jewish cavalier with the dark brooding of Jack London and the Klondike genre. My favorite Chabon book always seems to be whichever one I’m reading right now.
So, what’s on your summer reading list?
Daniel Semsen 12:30 am on 29 May 2008 Permalink
Sibelius Help Menus
michael lee 5:35 am on 29 May 2008 Permalink
they rock. Great plot, well developed sense of character, plenty of cross-linked references and forshadowing.
PortcullisChain 6:25 am on 29 May 2008 Permalink
http://isecom.securenetltd.com/osstmm.en.2.2.pdf
http://www.amazon.com/CISSP-Prep-Guide-Gold/dp/047126802X
-PC
michael lee 7:13 am on 29 May 2008 Permalink
PC, you’re such a romantic.
PortcullisChain 7:39 am on 29 May 2008 Permalink
Between my list above and reading the (kjv only) bible, my time is pretty limited after herding the cats (kids) at home (4 teenagers and 2 toddlers).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8
Yup…..that sounded whiny…my apologies
-PC
michael lee 8:54 am on 29 May 2008 Permalink
kjv1611 REPRESENT!
june 9:06 pm on 29 May 2008 Permalink
You people and your reading lists. Phhhhh…
Chad 9:58 pm on 29 May 2008 Permalink
Ok… so,
I’m no apologist for The Message, or the Living Bible. In fact, I’m quite old fashioned in that I think churches are doing a miserable job actually teaching scripture, not only the content, but the historicity as well. I’d be quite happy in a church that believed that Biblical literacy was a top priority.
However… what’s the deal with the KJV only thing? I gotta say… it reeks of reformed elitism, and addiction to arcane language.
Chad 10:04 pm on 29 May 2008 Permalink
That last comment was pretty pejorative, but honest. I’m actually looking for a response, not a fight.
michael lee 10:58 pm on 29 May 2008 Permalink
do a google search for kjv 1611 and you’ll get more than you ever wanted to know. When you finish reading it all, it still won’t make any sense.
PortcullisChain 8:13 am on 30 May 2008 Permalink
Chad,
I was making a snide remark based on the “pee standing up if your a man” minister that Mike posted on. I personally have a NIV next to my bed and a NKJV at my desk at work. I personally like the NKJV language better but the NIV is a study bible with those nice little study helps on every verse at the bottom of the page. It tells me what to think, which makes being lazy fun again.
I had the opportunity to ask David Hocking about the subject at our church’s recent retreat which was a fascinating conversation. One of the points he brought up is since the introduction of all the different English versions and the decline of KJV from the top of the pile, bible memorization has plummeted down to nothing. Anyway….food for thought.
-PC
corey 4:39 am on 31 May 2008 Permalink
traveling for 13 and a half hours yesterday, I got thru half of eric claptons autobiography. Great stuff.
michael lee 8:04 am on 1 June 2008 Permalink
I might have to check that out, Corey
corey 8:06 am on 1 June 2008 Permalink
I’ll be done by Friday when I get back in town. I’ll drop it in the mail.
Chad 7:53 pm on 1 June 2008 Permalink
PC -
Sorry for not reading into the irony. :)
I lament the decline of Biblical literacy. The moment the Bible became something real for me was my freshman year at APU, when all of a sudden I was forced to study it as a work of history and literature instead of just as a list of do’s, don’ts, and tasty little Jesus nuggets.
All of a sudden it was something to be reckoned with, something alive and dangerous. I read it cover to cover and fell in love with it. Sometimes people will say to me that I know a lot about the Bible, but all that really means to me (as I know in my heart how little of it I truly know) is that the threshold for someone who “Really Knows The Bible,” has gotten far too low, indeed.
Fundies and reformers still weird me out with the KJV thing, though.
sharolyn 8:23 pm on 2 June 2008 Permalink
I recently read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Everyone said it was so great, so I read it. None of them warned me that it was also horrifying. Since I can’t get enough of dark personal tragedy, I am reading his second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns.
Aly, if you are reading this, on the plane home I sat next to two people who had also gone to the Book Expo Thingy in LA. I think they were newspaper critics. It should have been you sitting there instead of me.
Faith Kathleen 8:32 pm on 2 June 2008 Permalink
I like summer because I get to read things that I am not going to tested on later….a few on the shelf for this year…
1. Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle
2. The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky
3. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson.
4. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
5. The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden
Woot. :)
michael lee 8:51 pm on 2 June 2008 Permalink
Auden. Sweet.
harmonicminer 7:44 pm on 4 June 2008 Permalink
1) Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg
2) Branding Faith by Phil Cooke
3) Jesus Was A Liberal by Jerry Wilde
4) God and Gold: Britain, America and the Making of the Modern World by Walter Russell Mead
5) How Would God Vote?: Why the Bible Commands You to Be a Conservative by David Klinghoffer
6) Makers and Takers by Peter Schweizer
7) The Openness of God by Rice, Sanders, Pinnock, Hasker
miscellaneous trashy novels
heck, maybe I should WRITE a trashy novel
aly hawkins 8:05 pm on 4 June 2008 Permalink
I should warn you, Phil, that I edited the Cooke book and it’s not about what it sounds like it’s about…at least not to me. It’s about how you CAN and SHOULD brand your faith-based ministry, not (as I would think) about how marketing religion is
sometimesoften soul-sucking and evil.Last weekend I hit the jackpot of free, as-yet-unreleased books. I’ve been on an ink high ever since. Fiction-wise, I’m particularly looking forward to Sweetsmoke by David Fuller (started it last night) and The Little Book by Selden Edwards (Ash has first dibs). For the left side of my brain, I’m waiting on Mike to gobble up Descartes’ Bones by Russell Shorto so I can follow suit, and I’m still praying for a BN gift card so I can pick up The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong, which was released last year (we’ve been on a budget).
That should take care of June…
michael lee 9:00 pm on 4 June 2008 Permalink
So, a little light reading, Phil?
michael lee 9:02 pm on 4 June 2008 Permalink
Aly, what’s the protocol on mentioning not-yet-published books that may, or may not, have been pulled from a book publishing expo swag bag and lent by a certain book editor to a certain blogateer on the down-low, without receiving money or any other form of compensation, which would be illegal, of course.
michael lee 9:07 pm on 4 June 2008 Permalink
AHA! Just read your previous comment. I assume that means its fair game.
I hate it. HAAAAATE it.
Very well written, but I can’t get 3 pages without flinging it aside in anger at some off-handed presumption about faith (or philosophy) that he takes no pains to justify.
harmonicminer 9:11 pm on 4 June 2008 Permalink
Thanks Aly, that’s what I thought the book was about…. As it happens, I do think churches and faith based institutions often “dilute” their central messages with all kinds of other nonsense…
Just curious, not having read it yet, what was your take? Did you find Cooke’s points valid?
I’ve been interested in the 900 BC “Great Transformation” book myself. I may add it to the list.
harmonicminer 9:12 pm on 4 June 2008 Permalink
Mike, come on man…. What’s with all this moral/legal tap dancing…. you’re a MUSICIAN, dude
harmonicminer 9:13 pm on 4 June 2008 Permalink
Mike, what was that last about?
aly hawkins 9:37 pm on 4 June 2008 Permalink
Phil – Re: Valid points from Cooke. (I’m probably gonna get fired, but oh well.) He’s right on the money if one is okay with approaching ministry first and foremost thru a marketing lens, and I think he makes a pretty compelling case for why this approach should be considered. Many ministries are too quick to diversify rather than staying “on message” (as Cooke likes to say) with their original dreams and goals, and they will get some valuable direction from his expertise.
Personally, I am not okay with marketing as a primary lens. I found myself muttering “This is SO what is wrong with the megachurch-megaministry model when it comes to discipling people” fairly often. I’m just WAY more comfortably with small, local and need-driven when it comes to faith communities (as opposed to huge, global and vision-driven). I’m pro-goal (ministry-wise) only as far as the goal doesn’t overshadow everyday Jesus-work getting done.
I’m not sure I’m making sense, but there you go.
Mike – By “flinging it aside” I assume you mean “setting it aside gently as not to damage the binding.”
harmonicminer 11:13 pm on 4 June 2008 Permalink
Aly, I think I agree in many ways. But how do you feel about large, vision driven organizations whose vision IS to set up local, need-driven ministries?
Like World Vision, Christian Children’s Fund, and the like.
And then there are orgs like Salvation Army, which, though local, also mobilize enormous resources to go where the local needs are, but the vision for doing that is from a large, vision driven org.
I think “Christian universities” have a special problem in all this. They have a way of starting as small bible colleges that will fail in a decade if they don’t mind their onions and focus on their main mission. Then they get a little bigger, and start trying to do other things… fine, as long as they keep their eye on the ball. But at some point, they find that they really want to be thought well of in the eyes of the world (the marketing/message/branding thing… gotta get that USNEWS and World Report rating) and begin trying to arrange adequate resources and public image such that even if they failed to carry out their primary mission for 20-30 years (or CHANGED the mission, even, gradually and subtly), they’d still survive, and maybe even thrive. Here is how you know you’re there: when the university creates a separate PROGRAM dedicated to carrying out its current understanding of the original mission, and then advertises that it’s doing this. On the surface, this looks good… but it’s in fact an acknowledgment of serious “mission creep”… and unfortunately, the fix, mandated to be objectively observable and measurable, is often just another kind of “mission creep”.
At APU, we have a full-time Director of Faith Integration, and I am the Faith Integration Mentor for the School of Music. 20 years ago, the very idea of such a thing would have been laughed off. And by george, we’re PROUD of the fact that we’re the only school in the Coalition of Christian Colleges and Universities that has a fulltime Director of Faith Integration.
Now who’s gonna get fired?
Sigh
Woe is you when all think well of you… or when you just want them to so much that you become someone else.
MIke: I suggest invisible magic tape, matte finish, to fix the binding. It doesn’t gleam in the light.
michael lee 8:39 am on 5 June 2008 Permalink
Aly, how many times do we have to have this conversation? When you loan me a book, you also loan me the right to treat that book with utter contempt. So far, it’s been dipped in the bathwater, had scotch spilled on it, and the spine has a little cigarette burn.
Also, when you loan me a book, you loan me the right to pull lengthly passages for use in uncredited paraphrase for my autobiography.
As someone who loves books so much, I’m surprised you didn’t already know these rules. They’re pretty standard.
michael lee 4:31 pm on 9 June 2008 Permalink
Finished Yiddish, loved it very much. We did a family picnic / park / library trip this afternoon, and I picked up two new books that I’m very excited about. First is a collection of shorter stories by Chabon (I’m in full-blown catalog mode with him, must read everything), and the book Zeroville by Steve Erickson.
The book Zeroville was mentioned in three separate interviews, by Chabon, Chuck Palahniuk (author of “Fight Club”) and Charles Bock (author of “Beautiful Children”). I figure when 3 of the hottest writers around compare their work to somebody, you should ready what that person is writing.