Daughter’s new dress, check. Picture with the bunny, check. Still needing a few things for the basket, so I drop into the local bookstore and browse through the cute rabbit displays, making my way to the section containing the “true meaning of Easter” selection. Wait. These books seem vaguely familiar to the clever bunny tales I was just reading in the secular section. Oh I see now, the big fluffy rabbit has been replaced by Jesus, hence the “religious” title.... Read more
@stickyJesus: How to Live Out Your Faith Online How do you–a Christ follower–navigate the noise, dodge the danger, talk the tech, and speak hope into the online space? Read more about the new book @stickyJesus. We are giving three copies of @ stickyJesus away this week! Please leave a comment on this post for a chance to win. On one week from publication at noon (EST), we’ll pick a name in a random drawing from all eligible entries received and... Read more
Arthur Boers writes compelling about living more purposefully in “Living into Focus: Choosing What Matters in an Age of Distractions.” In this new book, he encourages us to find those activities that “center us” and pursue them. ,The media bombards us every second of the day in this modern world, he explains. But he encourages us to slow down and relish life, to learn... Read more
Last month my 13 year old asked me to read her favorite book The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen and gave me a list of Dessen books she wanted for Christmas. “That won’t happen.” I said. “Why?????” “Because you know I don’t believe in buying books–order them from the library.” So she did, and thus began our Sarah Dessen binge. I have now read Sarah Dessen’s entire cannon of 10 YA books. And I have to say I enjoyed... Read more
Patricia Stacey’s memoir, The Boy Who Loved Windows, chronicles her journey to heal her son of autism. In the process, she nearly wrecks her marriage, her family’s finances, her relationship with her daughter, and her sanity. She obsessively works to understand her son and fights to find him the best care possible. Ultimately, she is that care, spending hours and hours a day with him, much of it doing “floor time,” an intensive, interactive therapy meant to draw out autistic... Read more
Mark Driscoll, the outspoken (some would say bombastic) pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle has a new book out. It’s on marriage, and it’s co-written with his wife Grace. I was eager to read it: partly because I appreciate pastors who are willing to speak candidly about what the Bible teaches on controversial subjects (I respond to what my husband calls a “Straight/No-chaser” approach) and partly because the Driscolls have very specific ideas of what women are and aren’t to... Read more
My copy of Paula Huston’s “Simplifying the Soul” arrived only a week before the deadline for review, so I must base my review of her Lenten Practices to Renew the Soul (that’s the subtitle) on reading alone and not following each day’s practice. This is a little like reviewing a cookbook on the pictures without making the recipes or a home remodeling book on the grammar without following the advice. The proof is in the pudding, as they say, and... Read more
David Zinc is a Harvard Law grad who has a nervous breakdown on his way to work. And you wouldn’t blame him for feeling a little claustrophobic in his downtown Chicago law firm, a place where he makes big bucks but is so busy he can’t spend the money. He ends up at a bar, and then at a dump of a law firm called Finley & Figg. Because David was drunk from his nervous breakdown and consequent time at... Read more
When you tell a joke, you take a risk, according to storyteller Bill Harley. “The joke teller is making an estimation of what the group is, and then telling a joke that helps to define that group,” he explains. “A joke says, ‘You’re like me — you’ll think this is funny.’” That’s why women tells jokes to each other they’d never tell in front of men, why Republicans tell jokes to each other they wouldn’t tell to Democrats, and why... Read more
Maggie Goes on a Diet written by Paul M. Kramer and illustrated by Mari Kuwayama is a self-published picture book written in rhyme for elementary aged children, but don’t let it anywhere near your kids. Maggie is fourteen years old and obese and is consequently bullied by her peers. She’s also terrible at sports, but decides one day to lose weight. Author Paul Kramer says “he began writing children’s books that deal with important issues that kids face today.” Though I... Read more
What She Read
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