Blue Like Jazz

 

Blue like Jazz by Donald Miller was published in 2003 and has been one of the most influential books among young Christian evangelicals. When I was putting together my summer reading list I felt like it needed to be on there since I was the only person I knew of that had not read it.

I could not have read this book at a more perfect time, I feel as if God was almost saving this book for right now, because this time in my life is when I am dealing with most of the issues presented in the book.

For those of you that are not familiar with this book, it is a series of twenty essays and memoirs from Donald Millers life. He simply take the reader through situations he has encountered inside of Christianity, and the great thing is in these memoirs he is very transparent. Not sugar coating anything, he shared how nervous he was to share the gospel on his college campus, how he was a selfish roommate, and a greedy Christian. By doing this he shows how there is power in being honest about ourselves, and accepting where we fall short and letting Jesus change us. So many times we try to be perfect people in the church. We don’t want anyone to see our fault lines or who we really are and how guilty we feel. Don Miller shows all his scars and how he changed because he was honest about them with himself.

He opens the readers eyes to see that Christianity is bigger than the typical 40 year old white couple with 9 kids and Jesus stickers all over their face. Christianity includes people who smoke pipes, drink beer, have tattoos.

His writing style is very casual and the book is very easy and enjoyable to read, I would love to put this in the hands of everyone who has been burned by the church, this book could be a great introduction to Christianity for some people.

Un Lun Dun

China Mieville has the craziest imagination I’ve seen in a long time. I picked up Un Lun Dun because on the cover a reviewer said it was like a mix between Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, and The Phantom Tollbooth, and The Phantom Tollbooth is one of my favorite books of all time. This description is pretty accurate. It’s about a couple of girls’ trip through an alternate version of London called Unlondon, where everything that is kind of broken or forgotten about in London finds a life of it’s own. A villainous smog wants to burn the whole city and absorb it into itself and the girls need to stop it somehow. With them on their adventure come an old-fashioned scuba diving suit filled with water and fish, a man whose head is a pincushion and his hair needles, a bus conductor who can conduct electricity, a talking book of prophecies, a boy who is half-ghost, a milk carton that rolls itself, an explorer whose head is a birdcage, and many other strange figments of imagination. All the buildings are made of wallets and washing machines and shoes and junk, some have jungles in them, there is a tree made of the streams of fireworks, there is a ghost town, a tower of billions of books, and a bridge that connects to everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

And, of course, the carnivorous giraffes. They are terrifying.

The whole thing is full of twists and turns, and though it might seem like total nonsense to sum it up like this, it’s not just a silly plot. The whole thing is very carefully conceived and constructed. China Mieville doesn’t waste words and he doesn’t waste your time. It all makes sense once he explains why everything is the way it is; his ideas are mostly based on wordplay and they are always really fun/whimsical. For example, Unlondon is just one of several “abcities”. Others mentioned are Bhagdidn’t, No York, and Hong Gone.

It’s extremely amusing and very well written. I will definitely be reading more of China Mieville’s work.

My Summer Reading List

Tags

books, china mieville, f scott fitzgerald, literature, princess and the goblin

All reading lists should be more ambitious than achievable.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Swamplandia by Karen Russell
Love Does by Bob Goff
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Manalive by G. K. Chesterton
Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis
Un Lun Dun by China Mieville
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower I) by Stephen King
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Story of My Life by Hellen Keller
The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald

 

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is Sherman Alexie’s first book for a younger audience. It’s basically just his own story. I was never really interested in this book, but after multiple people told me I should read it and I saw how much the New York Times loved it, I decided I’d give it a shot.
It’s really good. What stands out is Alexie’s one-of-a-kind tone. I’ve never seen such flippant, attitude-laden writing. Strangely enough, it doesn’t come off as cocky. He begins by aggressively asserting how much of a loser he was since the day he was born, and you are immediately sucked into his blunt, sarcastic humor. Some of it was a little on the vulgar side, but even then, it’s not very offensive. You get to see a very real picture of life as an Indian reservation and the poignant contrast with middle class White America. You get a lot of pain mixed in with the humor and ultimately a meaningful but realistic and relatable story. Alexie also throws in a few doodles here and there – almost like a Diary of a Wimpy Kid sort of thing, and they actually made me laugh out loud.

If you come across it in a bookstore, read the first chapter and you’ll see what I mean. It’s very short and to-the-point, and it deserves all the praise it’s getting. Alternatively, the ebook version also looks just as nice as the print version,  which is really rare, so go that route if you have an eReader. Sample it!

http://www.amazon.com/Absolutely-Diary-Part-Time-Indian-ebook/dp/B006T2O8TW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1337315640&sr=8-2

Scandalous Book Review

Tags

d a carson, jesus raising lazarus, literature, religion, resurrection of christ, theology

Scandalous, by D.A. Carson, is a book focusing on the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ. In this book Carson brings new light on common texts of the Bible. In the first chapter he covers the cross and the ironies of the cross, such as “The Man Who is Mocked as King is King”, or “The Man Who Can’t Save Himself Saves Others”. Throughout the book Carson brings new meaning to very common texts that most Christians have read before. In his chapter on Jesus raising Lazarus he spends a great deal of time explaining and expounding on why Jesus waited for four days to come and resurrect Lazarus, along with exegesis of the rest of the story.

Carson is also a scholar and it does show in this book, however while he does tackle theological concepts such as propitiation he does so in clear and plain language. So the person who may never have heard of propitiation isn’t lost. While he is clear, he does not lose any of his robustness; he repeatedly goes head first into an issue and explores all sides of the matter. In his chapter on Roman 12 he does this very well, giving reasons for Satan’s rage against Christians, then giving application on how Christians are to overcome Satan’s rage.

Overall this book has been incredibly helpful in gaining a deeper understanding of Christ’s death and his power over death. The cross may be the most common story for Christians, but it is also our most important story and cannot be expounded on or pondered too many times. Carson does a fantastic job of getting beneath the surface of a text and into deeper waters that I had not seen before. I highly recommend this book.

My Summer Reading List

This is my blog reviewing the books that I am going to read this summer. I going to be focusing on the content of the books I read and not on style or any of that jazz because I don’t know enough about the technicalities of writing. I do however understand theology and history so that is what my posts will be focusing on.

Here is my reading list for the summer:

1. Holiness by J.C. Ryle
2. Blue like Jazz by Donald Miller
3. Prodigal God by  Timothy Keller
4. Scandoulous by D.A. Carson
5. Simply Jesus by N.T. Wright
6. Rid of My Discrace by Justin Holcomb
7. Vintage Jesus by Mark Driscoll
8. The Confessions of St. Augustine
9. Bloodlines by John Piper

I’m not going to necessarily read these books in this order, but I will read them all!

-Ian

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