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A Hero For WondLa by Tony DiTerlizzi
4.25
This is a single review for the whole trilogy. I am cross posting on all three books.
Summary: Twelve year old Eva has grown up in an underground shelter, all alone with just a robot who has cared for her from birth. When the shelter is breached, Eva confronts a world unlike anything she could have imagined.
Young adult fiction is a comfort food of books, but I have not kept my finger on new books coming out, so I am frequently finding books that are new to me, but not new books. I stumbled on Wondla because it is a cartoon series on Apple TV+. I hadn’t seen anything about it before I stumbled one it, but I was looking for something that that I could watch with my kids and my teenage nieces. My kids are starting to get old enough to be able to watch things that have some tension in them.
We binged six of the seven episodes in a weekend and then watched the last a few days later. Season one of the TV series is the first book of the trilogy. And presumably the second season (which is coming but doesn't have a release date) will be the second book. In print, each of the books is roughly 450 pages. I read all three in less than 2 weeks. The first I read as an ebook from Kindle Unlimited, the next two I was able to check out from our local library in print. The Kindle editions were fine, but the print has great art in color that does not come out as well in a black and white kindle file.
A rough rule of thumb is that the intended audience of a book is the same approximate age as the main protagonist. In this case, Eva is 12 and she turns 13 in the context of the story. The cartoon has moved Eva to 16 years old and that shifts the cartoon story just a bit. In many ways, I think 12-13 is the better target. While Eva is very mature for her age, shifting her to 16 changes the story a bit for the 2nd and 3rd books. I haven't seen the 2nd and 3rd seasons of the show, but my guess is that there will be a bit of a romance in them, which doesn't make sense for a 12 year old. But more importantly the younger age makes more sense of Rovender Kitt (Rovee), the wise Alien who finds Eva and teaches her about the forest and becomes a father figure to her. It is not that older teens do not also need father figures, but I think the connection and the dependence works better with the younger age.
I do not want to give away too much of the story. But when Eva escapes the "Sanctuary" (similar to the underground silos in Hugh Howley's books, also on Apple TV+), the world she finds is not the world she was expecting. Eva has been prepared for a high tech human world. Fabrics can heat or cool and heal. Robots have personality and significant capacity. Everyone has a digital assistant that records their life, connects to others and provides information. But the world she finds is alien in every way. There are plants and animals that can't be identified and they are often dangerous. And multiple different kinds of alien species, one of which is hunting her and was the one who destroyed the sanctuary.
A plot point which is never explained in a way that I thought made any sense, is that Eva learns that she can speak telepathically to the animals and plants. That becomes very important to the story as it progresses, but it is unclear to me as a reader, if this was because she was chosen in particular in some way, or because there is something different in her. It would make sense for her to discover that gift in the second book at an event that will be clear when you read it, but that isn't what happens.
In most ways I think this should be considered a post-apocalyptic fantasy book. As becomes apparent, the reason that the sanctuaries exist is because humanity was in trouble and this was their backup plan. So the whole story is post-apocalyptic. As in many other cases, it also becomes dystopian because a leader arises out of the apocalypse. That is the case here. I suggest it is really fantasy more than science fiction because while there is technology, it is more magic than advanced science. Eva never really understands or cares to understand the tech. Instead it is her (magical) ability to talk to the animals and plants and the connection to the land that matters, which feels more magical than science.
As is my preference, this is book that keeps moving, but the characters are important. Several characters are a bit too one dimensional, but most are pretty well developed There is space to make mistakes and correct them. Part of that is Rovee's advice throughout the book to listen to what people do more than what they say. He understands that there are different perspectives. He also understands that people lie. And not all differences in perspective are lies or deception. The attention to the action more than the words matters to the book. Rovee is teaching Eva to discern what matters. Sometimes aliens are good, sometimes bad. Sometimes what you perceive as good or bad is wrong with greater understanding and context. And maybe more important, those around you that seem good, can also do bad things.
This is a middle grade leaning young adult book which is helping the reader to see the world around. The world can be hard. You may get frustrated approaching with your situation or the tasks at hand. But you still have to keep moving on when there is a discernible next step.
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/wondla-trilogy-by-t...
Summary: Twelve year old Eva has grown up in an underground shelter, all alone with just a robot who has cared for her from birth. When the shelter is breached, Eva confronts a world unlike anything she could have imagined.
Young adult fiction is a comfort food of books, but I have not kept my finger on new books coming out, so I am frequently finding books that are new to me, but not new books. I stumbled on Wondla because it is a cartoon series on Apple TV+. I hadn’t seen anything about it before I stumbled one it, but I was looking for something that that I could watch with my kids and my teenage nieces. My kids are starting to get old enough to be able to watch things that have some tension in them.
We binged six of the seven episodes in a weekend and then watched the last a few days later. Season one of the TV series is the first book of the trilogy. And presumably the second season (which is coming but doesn't have a release date) will be the second book. In print, each of the books is roughly 450 pages. I read all three in less than 2 weeks. The first I read as an ebook from Kindle Unlimited, the next two I was able to check out from our local library in print. The Kindle editions were fine, but the print has great art in color that does not come out as well in a black and white kindle file.
A rough rule of thumb is that the intended audience of a book is the same approximate age as the main protagonist. In this case, Eva is 12 and she turns 13 in the context of the story. The cartoon has moved Eva to 16 years old and that shifts the cartoon story just a bit. In many ways, I think 12-13 is the better target. While Eva is very mature for her age, shifting her to 16 changes the story a bit for the 2nd and 3rd books. I haven't seen the 2nd and 3rd seasons of the show, but my guess is that there will be a bit of a romance in them, which doesn't make sense for a 12 year old. But more importantly the younger age makes more sense of Rovender Kitt (Rovee), the wise Alien who finds Eva and teaches her about the forest and becomes a father figure to her. It is not that older teens do not also need father figures, but I think the connection and the dependence works better with the younger age.
I do not want to give away too much of the story. But when Eva escapes the "Sanctuary" (similar to the underground silos in Hugh Howley's books, also on Apple TV+), the world she finds is not the world she was expecting. Eva has been prepared for a high tech human world. Fabrics can heat or cool and heal. Robots have personality and significant capacity. Everyone has a digital assistant that records their life, connects to others and provides information. But the world she finds is alien in every way. There are plants and animals that can't be identified and they are often dangerous. And multiple different kinds of alien species, one of which is hunting her and was the one who destroyed the sanctuary.
A plot point which is never explained in a way that I thought made any sense, is that Eva learns that she can speak telepathically to the animals and plants. That becomes very important to the story as it progresses, but it is unclear to me as a reader, if this was because she was chosen in particular in some way, or because there is something different in her. It would make sense for her to discover that gift in the second book at an event that will be clear when you read it, but that isn't what happens.
In most ways I think this should be considered a post-apocalyptic fantasy book. As becomes apparent, the reason that the sanctuaries exist is because humanity was in trouble and this was their backup plan. So the whole story is post-apocalyptic. As in many other cases, it also becomes dystopian because a leader arises out of the apocalypse. That is the case here. I suggest it is really fantasy more than science fiction because while there is technology, it is more magic than advanced science. Eva never really understands or cares to understand the tech. Instead it is her (magical) ability to talk to the animals and plants and the connection to the land that matters, which feels more magical than science.
As is my preference, this is book that keeps moving, but the characters are important. Several characters are a bit too one dimensional, but most are pretty well developed There is space to make mistakes and correct them. Part of that is Rovee's advice throughout the book to listen to what people do more than what they say. He understands that there are different perspectives. He also understands that people lie. And not all differences in perspective are lies or deception. The attention to the action more than the words matters to the book. Rovee is teaching Eva to discern what matters. Sometimes aliens are good, sometimes bad. Sometimes what you perceive as good or bad is wrong with greater understanding and context. And maybe more important, those around you that seem good, can also do bad things.
This is a middle grade leaning young adult book which is helping the reader to see the world around. The world can be hard. You may get frustrated approaching with your situation or the tasks at hand. But you still have to keep moving on when there is a discernible next step.
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/wondla-trilogy-by-t...
The Search for WondLa by Tony DiTerlizzi
4.25
This is a single review for the whole trilogy. I am cross posting on all three books.
Summary: Twelve year old Eva has grown up in an underground shelter, all alone with just a robot who has cared for her from birth. When the shelter is breached, Eva confronts a world unlike anything she could have imagined.
Young adult fiction is a comfort food of books, but I have not kept my finger on new books coming out, so I am frequently finding books that are new to me, but not new books. I stumbled on Wondla because it is a cartoon series on Apple TV+. I hadn’t seen anything about it before I stumbled one it, but I was looking for something that that I could watch with my kids and my teenage nieces. My kids are starting to get old enough to be able to watch things that have some tension in them.
We binged six of the seven episodes in a weekend and then watched the last a few days later. Season one of the TV series is the first book of the trilogy. And presumably the second season (which is coming but doesn't have a release date) will be the second book. In print, each of the books is roughly 450 pages. I read all three in less than 2 weeks. The first I read as an ebook from Kindle Unlimited, the next two I was able to check out from our local library in print. The Kindle editions were fine, but the print has great art in color that does not come out as well in a black and white kindle file.
A rough rule of thumb is that the intended audience of a book is the same approximate age as the main protagonist. In this case, Eva is 12 and she turns 13 in the context of the story. The cartoon has moved Eva to 16 years old and that shifts the cartoon story just a bit. In many ways, I think 12-13 is the better target. While Eva is very mature for her age, shifting her to 16 changes the story a bit for the 2nd and 3rd books. I haven't seen the 2nd and 3rd seasons of the show, but my guess is that there will be a bit of a romance in them, which doesn't make sense for a 12 year old. But more importantly the younger age makes more sense of Rovender Kitt (Rovee), the wise Alien who finds Eva and teaches her about the forest and becomes a father figure to her. It is not that older teens do not also need father figures, but I think the connection and the dependence works better with the younger age.
I do not want to give away too much of the story. But when Eva escapes the "Sanctuary" (similar to the underground silos in Hugh Howley's books, also on Apple TV+), the world she finds is not the world she was expecting. Eva has been prepared for a high tech human world. Fabrics can heat or cool and heal. Robots have personality and significant capacity. Everyone has a digital assistant that records their life, connects to others and provides information. But the world she finds is alien in every way. There are plants and animals that can't be identified and they are often dangerous. And multiple different kinds of alien species, one of which is hunting her and was the one who destroyed the sanctuary.
A plot point which is never explained in a way that I thought made any sense, is that Eva learns that she can speak telepathically to the animals and plants. That becomes very important to the story as it progresses, but it is unclear to me as a reader, if this was because she was chosen in particular in some way, or because there is something different in her. It would make sense for her to discover that gift in the second book at an event that will be clear when you read it, but that isn't what happens.
In most ways I think this should be considered a post-apocalyptic fantasy book. As becomes apparent, the reason that the sanctuaries exist is because humanity was in trouble and this was their backup plan. So the whole story is post-apocalyptic. As in many other cases, it also becomes dystopian because a leader arises out of the apocalypse. That is the case here. I suggest it is really fantasy more than science fiction because while there is technology, it is more magic than advanced science. Eva never really understands or cares to understand the tech. Instead it is her (magical) ability to talk to the animals and plants and the connection to the land that matters, which feels more magical than science.
As is my preference, this is book that keeps moving, but the characters are important. Several characters are a bit too one dimensional, but most are pretty well developed There is space to make mistakes and correct them. Part of that is Rovee's advice throughout the book to listen to what people do more than what they say. He understands that there are different perspectives. He also understands that people lie. And not all differences in perspective are lies or deception. The attention to the action more than the words matters to the book. Rovee is teaching Eva to discern what matters. Sometimes aliens are good, sometimes bad. Sometimes what you perceive as good or bad is wrong with greater understanding and context. And maybe more important, those around you that seem good, can also do bad things.
This is a middle grade leaning young adult book which is helping the reader to see the world around. The world can be hard. You may get frustrated approaching with your situation or the tasks at hand. But you still have to keep moving on when there is a discernible next step.
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/wondla-trilogy-by-t...
Summary: Twelve year old Eva has grown up in an underground shelter, all alone with just a robot who has cared for her from birth. When the shelter is breached, Eva confronts a world unlike anything she could have imagined.
Young adult fiction is a comfort food of books, but I have not kept my finger on new books coming out, so I am frequently finding books that are new to me, but not new books. I stumbled on Wondla because it is a cartoon series on Apple TV+. I hadn’t seen anything about it before I stumbled one it, but I was looking for something that that I could watch with my kids and my teenage nieces. My kids are starting to get old enough to be able to watch things that have some tension in them.
We binged six of the seven episodes in a weekend and then watched the last a few days later. Season one of the TV series is the first book of the trilogy. And presumably the second season (which is coming but doesn't have a release date) will be the second book. In print, each of the books is roughly 450 pages. I read all three in less than 2 weeks. The first I read as an ebook from Kindle Unlimited, the next two I was able to check out from our local library in print. The Kindle editions were fine, but the print has great art in color that does not come out as well in a black and white kindle file.
A rough rule of thumb is that the intended audience of a book is the same approximate age as the main protagonist. In this case, Eva is 12 and she turns 13 in the context of the story. The cartoon has moved Eva to 16 years old and that shifts the cartoon story just a bit. In many ways, I think 12-13 is the better target. While Eva is very mature for her age, shifting her to 16 changes the story a bit for the 2nd and 3rd books. I haven't seen the 2nd and 3rd seasons of the show, but my guess is that there will be a bit of a romance in them, which doesn't make sense for a 12 year old. But more importantly the younger age makes more sense of Rovender Kitt (Rovee), the wise Alien who finds Eva and teaches her about the forest and becomes a father figure to her. It is not that older teens do not also need father figures, but I think the connection and the dependence works better with the younger age.
I do not want to give away too much of the story. But when Eva escapes the "Sanctuary" (similar to the underground silos in Hugh Howley's books, also on Apple TV+), the world she finds is not the world she was expecting. Eva has been prepared for a high tech human world. Fabrics can heat or cool and heal. Robots have personality and significant capacity. Everyone has a digital assistant that records their life, connects to others and provides information. But the world she finds is alien in every way. There are plants and animals that can't be identified and they are often dangerous. And multiple different kinds of alien species, one of which is hunting her and was the one who destroyed the sanctuary.
A plot point which is never explained in a way that I thought made any sense, is that Eva learns that she can speak telepathically to the animals and plants. That becomes very important to the story as it progresses, but it is unclear to me as a reader, if this was because she was chosen in particular in some way, or because there is something different in her. It would make sense for her to discover that gift in the second book at an event that will be clear when you read it, but that isn't what happens.
In most ways I think this should be considered a post-apocalyptic fantasy book. As becomes apparent, the reason that the sanctuaries exist is because humanity was in trouble and this was their backup plan. So the whole story is post-apocalyptic. As in many other cases, it also becomes dystopian because a leader arises out of the apocalypse. That is the case here. I suggest it is really fantasy more than science fiction because while there is technology, it is more magic than advanced science. Eva never really understands or cares to understand the tech. Instead it is her (magical) ability to talk to the animals and plants and the connection to the land that matters, which feels more magical than science.
As is my preference, this is book that keeps moving, but the characters are important. Several characters are a bit too one dimensional, but most are pretty well developed There is space to make mistakes and correct them. Part of that is Rovee's advice throughout the book to listen to what people do more than what they say. He understands that there are different perspectives. He also understands that people lie. And not all differences in perspective are lies or deception. The attention to the action more than the words matters to the book. Rovee is teaching Eva to discern what matters. Sometimes aliens are good, sometimes bad. Sometimes what you perceive as good or bad is wrong with greater understanding and context. And maybe more important, those around you that seem good, can also do bad things.
This is a middle grade leaning young adult book which is helping the reader to see the world around. The world can be hard. You may get frustrated approaching with your situation or the tasks at hand. But you still have to keep moving on when there is a discernible next step.
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/wondla-trilogy-by-t...
Epiphany: The Season of Glory by Fleming Rutledge, Fleming Rutledge
3.25
Summary: An exploration of the season of Epiphany, a celebration of the glory of Christ's incarnation and revelation of himself to us.
I appreciate this book while also being a bit frustrated with it and I am not completely sure why. I started it last year during the Epiphany season and didn't finish it. So I started it again right at the end of Christmas season so that I would have it done by the start of Epiphany. But again I didn't finish and I really forced myself to finish. I have previously read Rutledge's book on Advent, which is mostly a collection of sermons. And I read about 75% of Rutledge's' Crucifixion and I have dipped into several other of her sermon collections, but again, never finished them.
Sermon collections are not something that really are intended to read straight through. So dipping into them but not finishing is I think to be expected for the genre. But there is something else that I think feels off here. I very much appreciate Rutledge's wisdom and attention to the tradition of the Episcopal church. She turns 87 later this year and we need to pay attention to elders who have seen changes in history. I also think that she is one of the best preachers I have ever heard. I have spent a lot of time watching her old sermons on youtube.
The third things I really appreciate about Rutledge that is in full force here is her attention to Jesus. Rutledge was part of the first generation of women to be ordained in the Episcopal church. That Episcopal church has not always centered Jesus and I think at times she is preaching to a sliver of the church that hasn't centered Jesus. But at the same time, I am not part of that part of the church. I do think there is a need to pay attention to Jesus and his humanity and his death and resurrection. But as much as I did appreciate learning about the season (she is pointing out that Epiphany is a season, not just a single day feast) that centers on Christ's incarnation and glory the attention felt more like retrieval of tradition instead of attention to the need for a season of epiphany.
Maybe I am just the wrong reader for this book, because part of the conception of the whole series is new attention to the liturgical calendar. I want to understand tradition and why the liturgical seasons are as they are, but I didn't feel connected to the great tradition for the purpose of the future. I don't remember where I read it, but somewhere in James KA Smith's work, he talks about the problems of participating in the liturgy while in a culture that doesn't either believe in Christianity or recognize the liturgy. Based on my memory, I think he was talking about the problems of fasting or participating in lent and other seasons that were intended to be communal, solely as an individual. Smith is pointing out that we are not Christians on our own, but in community even as that community is not reflected in broader culture.
Part of Smith's critique of The Benedict Option was that Dreher was advocating retreat from culture when Smith believes that Augustine and others were calling for engagement with culture. What we have seen from Dreher and a significant part of the American church is a reliance on a strongman to get his own way, instead of seeking creative ways to live out the life of Christ within a culture that is no longer designed for you.
I think both Lent and Christmas were writing consciously to help the reader understand how to celebrate the liturgical seasons within a culture that is not designed for us. And in particular how to celebrate when many cultural values are overtly opposed to the underlying values of the season we are celebrating. I don't want to be too strong here, because Rutledge is focusing on glory, in a way that is very cross cultural. I think she is right that the church doesn't understand glory in the way that earlier generations of the church did. But I also didn't feel like I was given much more than just the reality of that lack. Maybe part of the problem is that for Lent and Christmas the problem is that the culture isn't celebrating what the season is celebrating, but Rutlege is pointing out that the church isn't celebrating what the season is celebrating. Those are different problems.
It feels contradictory to both say that this book was too long and didn't do enough, but that is what I am left with. It is about 50 percent longer than Lent (although only about 10 pages longer than Christmas) and I think it either needed to cut 30-50 pages, or pivot to a different lens to look at Epiphany. It isn't that I think anything here is bad or heretical or wrong. It is that either it should have been shorter or covered more ground.
This originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/epiphany/
I appreciate this book while also being a bit frustrated with it and I am not completely sure why. I started it last year during the Epiphany season and didn't finish it. So I started it again right at the end of Christmas season so that I would have it done by the start of Epiphany. But again I didn't finish and I really forced myself to finish. I have previously read Rutledge's book on Advent, which is mostly a collection of sermons. And I read about 75% of Rutledge's' Crucifixion and I have dipped into several other of her sermon collections, but again, never finished them.
Sermon collections are not something that really are intended to read straight through. So dipping into them but not finishing is I think to be expected for the genre. But there is something else that I think feels off here. I very much appreciate Rutledge's wisdom and attention to the tradition of the Episcopal church. She turns 87 later this year and we need to pay attention to elders who have seen changes in history. I also think that she is one of the best preachers I have ever heard. I have spent a lot of time watching her old sermons on youtube.
The third things I really appreciate about Rutledge that is in full force here is her attention to Jesus. Rutledge was part of the first generation of women to be ordained in the Episcopal church. That Episcopal church has not always centered Jesus and I think at times she is preaching to a sliver of the church that hasn't centered Jesus. But at the same time, I am not part of that part of the church. I do think there is a need to pay attention to Jesus and his humanity and his death and resurrection. But as much as I did appreciate learning about the season (she is pointing out that Epiphany is a season, not just a single day feast) that centers on Christ's incarnation and glory the attention felt more like retrieval of tradition instead of attention to the need for a season of epiphany.
Maybe I am just the wrong reader for this book, because part of the conception of the whole series is new attention to the liturgical calendar. I want to understand tradition and why the liturgical seasons are as they are, but I didn't feel connected to the great tradition for the purpose of the future. I don't remember where I read it, but somewhere in James KA Smith's work, he talks about the problems of participating in the liturgy while in a culture that doesn't either believe in Christianity or recognize the liturgy. Based on my memory, I think he was talking about the problems of fasting or participating in lent and other seasons that were intended to be communal, solely as an individual. Smith is pointing out that we are not Christians on our own, but in community even as that community is not reflected in broader culture.
Part of Smith's critique of The Benedict Option was that Dreher was advocating retreat from culture when Smith believes that Augustine and others were calling for engagement with culture. What we have seen from Dreher and a significant part of the American church is a reliance on a strongman to get his own way, instead of seeking creative ways to live out the life of Christ within a culture that is no longer designed for you.
I think both Lent and Christmas were writing consciously to help the reader understand how to celebrate the liturgical seasons within a culture that is not designed for us. And in particular how to celebrate when many cultural values are overtly opposed to the underlying values of the season we are celebrating. I don't want to be too strong here, because Rutledge is focusing on glory, in a way that is very cross cultural. I think she is right that the church doesn't understand glory in the way that earlier generations of the church did. But I also didn't feel like I was given much more than just the reality of that lack. Maybe part of the problem is that for Lent and Christmas the problem is that the culture isn't celebrating what the season is celebrating, but Rutlege is pointing out that the church isn't celebrating what the season is celebrating. Those are different problems.
It feels contradictory to both say that this book was too long and didn't do enough, but that is what I am left with. It is about 50 percent longer than Lent (although only about 10 pages longer than Christmas) and I think it either needed to cut 30-50 pages, or pivot to a different lens to look at Epiphany. It isn't that I think anything here is bad or heretical or wrong. It is that either it should have been shorter or covered more ground.
This originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/epiphany/
King: A Life by Jonathan Eig
4.75
Summary: The first definitive style biography of King in nearly 40 years.
At the end of the audiobook is an interview with Jonathan Eig and Lerone A. Martin, author of The Gospel of J Edgar Hoover. Their discussion about the lack of full biographies and the new sources is compelling. I had not realized that it has been over 40 years since Stephen Oates biography and nearly 40 years since Garrow's biography. Because I have read more recent books like The Seminarian and the The Sword and the Shield (joint biography of King and Malcolm X) as well as a number of histories were King played a major role in just didn't realize until I heard that interview how long it had been since a full biography.
Also detailed in that interview is new sources have been found or released. Eig is a journalist by training and history. You can tell that in his writing, but we are at that transition period when the Civil Rights generation is passing away. Eig says he was able to interview over 200 people who knew King. Some like Juanita Abernathy knew King well and were known figures. But Eig also interviewed minor figures, like his barber in Montgomery.
I am letting that interview at the end frame some of my thinking about the book, but it was clear from the start of the biography that Eig was trying to portray King as a flawed man. Similar to Alter's framing of Jimmy Carter, Eig has significant respect for King as a subject, but to write well about the whole man we do need to understand his weaknesses. I am going to talk more below about how he handles those weaknesses, but in that interview he said he wanted to keep King from being reduced and simplified.
One last point from the interview is that one of the significant sources that is fairly new are FBI files. Not all files have been declassified yet, but some have. Another set was declassified after the book was released. And another large set it scheduled to be released in 2027. Eig has no doubt about King's involvement in extramarital affairs. But he balances that with a more clear understanding of how J Edgar Hoover and the FBI as a whole were not just observers of affairs, but significant opponents of not just the civil rights movement in general but King in particular. The antagonism of the FBI and Hoover in particular was a significant part of how the shift in attitude toward both King and the civil rights movement. It was not just the point when King voiced opposition to the Vietnam war, but throughout the whole movement the FBI was acting as a propaganda machine against the civil rights movement, not just with the public but especially in harming the relationship that King had with the President and the Department of Justice. The affairs were one excuse, but not the first excuse or the main excuse for why the civil rights movement and King in particular were dangerous. The very next day after the 1963 March on Washington, the FBI puts out a memo labeling King as the greatest threat to American democracy. Hoover, as detailed in Lerone Martin's book was a Christian Nationalist with strong views of white racial superiority. He both viewed the civil rights movement as a communist plant or distraction, but also a violation of the natural order.
After King's assassination, COINTELPRO became better known for its work at undermining the civil rights movement with informants and plants and work to internally weaken civil rights organization including threats against funders, but the formal work of COINTELPRO was in existence by 1956. The "anonymous" letter encouraging King to commit suicide is well known, but less well know is how much effort the FBI put into seeding false or misleading stories into he press about Civil Rights leaders (including King) and working to undermine financial support of the movement. I suspect that as much as we know and is detailed here in Eig's book, more will be revealed in upcoming document releases.
Part of what I think is handled well by Eig is King's limitations. Everyone has a limited capacity (no one can do it all or be all things). King was empathetic, a great orator and deeply interested in his faith and justice. But he wasn't a grass roots organizer like Ella Baker or a theoretical philosopher of race and justice. His orientation to avoid interpersonal conflict meant that personal negotiation with political or business opponents to integration had a different private and public mode. But more importantly, his lack of balancing factors in his life meant that he was always traveling and following the action, not focused on proactive work. (Again, this was influenced by the FBI's work to interrupt funding.) The effort of keeping SCLC funded and running was left him unable to be with people in more grassroots ways that kept him energized. King was pushed into a role of icon at a very young age, which asked him to be all things in a way that no human could have.
There is a very good discussion about the 1965-1968 era and the ways that the Civil Rights movements began to break apart. That has of course been discussed widely in many different ways. Part of the traditional discussion is the slowness of change. Brown v Board and Montgomery happened in 1954, but laws around housing segregation, the biggest factor in school segregation in metro urban areas was not passed until 1968. The Cold War, one of the background factors in propelling civil rights forward crashed into Vietnam protests, which lowered the pressure on federal officials to respond to global interests. The slowing of US economic growth in the mid 1960s which moved to rapid inflation and recession in the 1970s and 80s allowed politicians and business leaders to scapegoat civil rights, affirmative action and welfare programs instead of globalization and aging business infrastructure. Many discussion about the breakup of the civil rights movement is about the movement stripped of the larger context of history. I think Eig could have included more about the broader context, but he included more about the context than what I have seen in other presentations.
As I was reading Eig's book I started reading an advance copy of Malcolm Foley's Anti-Greed Gospel. Foley is presenting a model of discussion of race centered on racial capitalism. Broadly, this can be thought of an a different mode of discussion based on racism as an economic reality similar to the way that Critical Race Theory is centered on racism as a legal reality. CRT I think has value in talking about how slow structural changes to US law and practice were. The fact that my kids today go to a school that is 90% racial minorities and 70% low income, when another school just a half mile away in the same district is 11% Black or Hispanic and 7% low income is a structural issues. But racial capitalism as an idea I think also speaks to that structural issue (resistance to changing school zoning because of its impact on housing prices) as well as the way that funding for the Civil Rights movement drying up exactly when it started to expand its target beyond voting rights. King always had a vision for the role of economics in racism, but many of the white participants in those movement did not fully embrace that. And the pragmatic supporters of desegregation who were more interested its impact on anti-communism efforts than on the way that the civil rights movement was connected to a global anti colonialism movement fell away when King started speaking about Vietnam.
No book is perfect, and it is difficult to present a figure like King well when so much of his story is fixed in the minds of most readers. But I think there is value in King: A Life not just because there is new data and that Eig spends a lot of time on Coretta in ways that some others do not (including being the first to write about personal letters between Coretta and Martin). Eig is a punchy writer and the story moves along with force that is not always the case with long biographies. Obviously, this is a book that won a Pulitzer Prize, so it does not need my stamp of approval. About halfway through the book I was not sure there was much different form Oates biography and other shorter versions of King that I had read, but I think the second half of the book showed why this biography has been so well received.
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/king/
At the end of the audiobook is an interview with Jonathan Eig and Lerone A. Martin, author of The Gospel of J Edgar Hoover. Their discussion about the lack of full biographies and the new sources is compelling. I had not realized that it has been over 40 years since Stephen Oates biography and nearly 40 years since Garrow's biography. Because I have read more recent books like The Seminarian and the The Sword and the Shield (joint biography of King and Malcolm X) as well as a number of histories were King played a major role in just didn't realize until I heard that interview how long it had been since a full biography.
Also detailed in that interview is new sources have been found or released. Eig is a journalist by training and history. You can tell that in his writing, but we are at that transition period when the Civil Rights generation is passing away. Eig says he was able to interview over 200 people who knew King. Some like Juanita Abernathy knew King well and were known figures. But Eig also interviewed minor figures, like his barber in Montgomery.
I am letting that interview at the end frame some of my thinking about the book, but it was clear from the start of the biography that Eig was trying to portray King as a flawed man. Similar to Alter's framing of Jimmy Carter, Eig has significant respect for King as a subject, but to write well about the whole man we do need to understand his weaknesses. I am going to talk more below about how he handles those weaknesses, but in that interview he said he wanted to keep King from being reduced and simplified.
One last point from the interview is that one of the significant sources that is fairly new are FBI files. Not all files have been declassified yet, but some have. Another set was declassified after the book was released. And another large set it scheduled to be released in 2027. Eig has no doubt about King's involvement in extramarital affairs. But he balances that with a more clear understanding of how J Edgar Hoover and the FBI as a whole were not just observers of affairs, but significant opponents of not just the civil rights movement in general but King in particular. The antagonism of the FBI and Hoover in particular was a significant part of how the shift in attitude toward both King and the civil rights movement. It was not just the point when King voiced opposition to the Vietnam war, but throughout the whole movement the FBI was acting as a propaganda machine against the civil rights movement, not just with the public but especially in harming the relationship that King had with the President and the Department of Justice. The affairs were one excuse, but not the first excuse or the main excuse for why the civil rights movement and King in particular were dangerous. The very next day after the 1963 March on Washington, the FBI puts out a memo labeling King as the greatest threat to American democracy. Hoover, as detailed in Lerone Martin's book was a Christian Nationalist with strong views of white racial superiority. He both viewed the civil rights movement as a communist plant or distraction, but also a violation of the natural order.
After King's assassination, COINTELPRO became better known for its work at undermining the civil rights movement with informants and plants and work to internally weaken civil rights organization including threats against funders, but the formal work of COINTELPRO was in existence by 1956. The "anonymous" letter encouraging King to commit suicide is well known, but less well know is how much effort the FBI put into seeding false or misleading stories into he press about Civil Rights leaders (including King) and working to undermine financial support of the movement. I suspect that as much as we know and is detailed here in Eig's book, more will be revealed in upcoming document releases.
Part of what I think is handled well by Eig is King's limitations. Everyone has a limited capacity (no one can do it all or be all things). King was empathetic, a great orator and deeply interested in his faith and justice. But he wasn't a grass roots organizer like Ella Baker or a theoretical philosopher of race and justice. His orientation to avoid interpersonal conflict meant that personal negotiation with political or business opponents to integration had a different private and public mode. But more importantly, his lack of balancing factors in his life meant that he was always traveling and following the action, not focused on proactive work. (Again, this was influenced by the FBI's work to interrupt funding.) The effort of keeping SCLC funded and running was left him unable to be with people in more grassroots ways that kept him energized. King was pushed into a role of icon at a very young age, which asked him to be all things in a way that no human could have.
There is a very good discussion about the 1965-1968 era and the ways that the Civil Rights movements began to break apart. That has of course been discussed widely in many different ways. Part of the traditional discussion is the slowness of change. Brown v Board and Montgomery happened in 1954, but laws around housing segregation, the biggest factor in school segregation in metro urban areas was not passed until 1968. The Cold War, one of the background factors in propelling civil rights forward crashed into Vietnam protests, which lowered the pressure on federal officials to respond to global interests. The slowing of US economic growth in the mid 1960s which moved to rapid inflation and recession in the 1970s and 80s allowed politicians and business leaders to scapegoat civil rights, affirmative action and welfare programs instead of globalization and aging business infrastructure. Many discussion about the breakup of the civil rights movement is about the movement stripped of the larger context of history. I think Eig could have included more about the broader context, but he included more about the context than what I have seen in other presentations.
As I was reading Eig's book I started reading an advance copy of Malcolm Foley's Anti-Greed Gospel. Foley is presenting a model of discussion of race centered on racial capitalism. Broadly, this can be thought of an a different mode of discussion based on racism as an economic reality similar to the way that Critical Race Theory is centered on racism as a legal reality. CRT I think has value in talking about how slow structural changes to US law and practice were. The fact that my kids today go to a school that is 90% racial minorities and 70% low income, when another school just a half mile away in the same district is 11% Black or Hispanic and 7% low income is a structural issues. But racial capitalism as an idea I think also speaks to that structural issue (resistance to changing school zoning because of its impact on housing prices) as well as the way that funding for the Civil Rights movement drying up exactly when it started to expand its target beyond voting rights. King always had a vision for the role of economics in racism, but many of the white participants in those movement did not fully embrace that. And the pragmatic supporters of desegregation who were more interested its impact on anti-communism efforts than on the way that the civil rights movement was connected to a global anti colonialism movement fell away when King started speaking about Vietnam.
No book is perfect, and it is difficult to present a figure like King well when so much of his story is fixed in the minds of most readers. But I think there is value in King: A Life not just because there is new data and that Eig spends a lot of time on Coretta in ways that some others do not (including being the first to write about personal letters between Coretta and Martin). Eig is a punchy writer and the story moves along with force that is not always the case with long biographies. Obviously, this is a book that won a Pulitzer Prize, so it does not need my stamp of approval. About halfway through the book I was not sure there was much different form Oates biography and other shorter versions of King that I had read, but I think the second half of the book showed why this biography has been so well received.
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/king/
The Book of Hours by T. Davis Bunn
3.25
Summary: A widower inherits a British estate, but he may lose it before he is even unpacked.
I am trying to read more fiction. This is a goal that I have almost every year. I really am conviced that fiction is important, but I have a tendancy to gravitate toward "important" books. I saw that the Book of Hours was on sale and I picked it up. I read his book The Maestro when I was in high school and I enjoyed it. It was a book about a musician who was a real artist and as he came to faith he saw he could incorporate his faith and art. I real a lot of Christian novels as a teen and I have read very few past my teen years because so few felt worthwhile.
As I read The Book of Hours I couldn't help but think about it as a novel version of a Hallmark movie. I enjoy a Hallmark movie very now and then, but I don't really confused it for great art. It is fluff and fluff every now and then if fine. As much as can enjoy some fluff here and there, I do think that Karen Swallow Prior's critique of Christians as overly attached to Victorian values, and mistake those Victorian values for Christian ones fits here. This is a sentimental novel that deserves the critique that Prior has for senatamental novels. But it also fits all of the standard Hallmark tropes. A widower from out of town inherits an estate. He is penniless and finds the estate is going to soon be sold for back taxes. He meets the town's young (single) doctor who immediately hates him for not caring about the property and allowing it to fall into disrepair. There is a greedy developer to provide some tension.
And while I don't think it really makes sense within the story, the widower's wife and her beloved aunt jointly wrote him clues before they both died that he has to find. If he does, he may find something valuable that he can sell to keep the property. That is if the sketchy gardener (who used to date the doctor) doesn't stop them first. Along the way the widower and the doctor help the local vicar in his fight to get the church bells reinstated in the town again so that the community can remember that God. The sentamental, nearly love at first sight, romance between the grieving widower who seems to have gotten over his late wife's cancer death very quickly after showing up doesn't have any real depth.
The story is fine. For the $2 price I paid, I am not disappointed, but I also have no real interest in picking up another book by the same author. There are a lot of good novels that have more depth to them than this one.
I posted this on my blog originally at https://bookwi.se/book-of-hours/
I am trying to read more fiction. This is a goal that I have almost every year. I really am conviced that fiction is important, but I have a tendancy to gravitate toward "important" books. I saw that the Book of Hours was on sale and I picked it up. I read his book The Maestro when I was in high school and I enjoyed it. It was a book about a musician who was a real artist and as he came to faith he saw he could incorporate his faith and art. I real a lot of Christian novels as a teen and I have read very few past my teen years because so few felt worthwhile.
As I read The Book of Hours I couldn't help but think about it as a novel version of a Hallmark movie. I enjoy a Hallmark movie very now and then, but I don't really confused it for great art. It is fluff and fluff every now and then if fine. As much as can enjoy some fluff here and there, I do think that Karen Swallow Prior's critique of Christians as overly attached to Victorian values, and mistake those Victorian values for Christian ones fits here. This is a sentimental novel that deserves the critique that Prior has for senatamental novels. But it also fits all of the standard Hallmark tropes. A widower from out of town inherits an estate. He is penniless and finds the estate is going to soon be sold for back taxes. He meets the town's young (single) doctor who immediately hates him for not caring about the property and allowing it to fall into disrepair. There is a greedy developer to provide some tension.
And while I don't think it really makes sense within the story, the widower's wife and her beloved aunt jointly wrote him clues before they both died that he has to find. If he does, he may find something valuable that he can sell to keep the property. That is if the sketchy gardener (who used to date the doctor) doesn't stop them first. Along the way the widower and the doctor help the local vicar in his fight to get the church bells reinstated in the town again so that the community can remember that God. The sentamental, nearly love at first sight, romance between the grieving widower who seems to have gotten over his late wife's cancer death very quickly after showing up doesn't have any real depth.
The story is fine. For the $2 price I paid, I am not disappointed, but I also have no real interest in picking up another book by the same author. There are a lot of good novels that have more depth to them than this one.
I posted this on my blog originally at https://bookwi.se/book-of-hours/
The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien by John Hendrix
4.25
Summary: A graphic novel biography of Lewis and Tolkien’s friendship.
This is the fifth book I have read by John Hendrix. I have written about his biographies of John Brown and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This is more like the biography of Bonhoeffer than John Brown. The biography of John Brown was about 40 pages and more similar to Hendrix’s books about Jesus in that length and format. The longer biographies, this one and the Bonhoeffer one, are a combination of text and graphics. It is not unusually for there to be 200 words on a page. Some pages are predominately graphics, especially the sections where a lion and a wizard are narrating the story. But there are long sections that are more text heavy.
And when you think about these as graphic novels, you should think about a graphic novel as a format, not an age target. These are readable for late teens, but they are not children’s books. There are long sections about the academic meaning of myth, or how stories communicate truth. I have seen a couple of reviews that thought those longer sections were not as helpful, but I can see their point. This isn’t a biography of the two men as much as it is a biography of the conversation that Tolkien and Lewis and another friend had about viewing Christianity as “true myth” that helped Lewis overcome his objections to Christianity.
That famous conversation wasn’t just instrumental to Lewis’ conversion to Christianity, it was also instrumental to Christianity reclaiming story as a feature in understanding the Bible and the world around us. I recently read a book about how Lewis was influenced by medieval thought and Hendrix’s book also pointed out how Lewis and Tolkien, because they were shaped by literature, helped to move Protestant Christianity to rediscover story and myth as important intellectual categories. Myth doesn’t mean “untrue” or fiction, myth in Lewis and Tolkien's view was about deeper systems of thought. I don’t think that Lewis or Tolkien would approve of Jordan Peterson’s use of the Old Testament, but Peterson has been influenced by the idea of myth that Lewis and Tolkien were promoting and which is discussed well here.
Necessarily, graphic novels use the format of image to communicate. I think Hendrix does a great job of communicating information, using the format to communicate in ways that text alone would make difficult. And he includes a lightness and humor to his books that is appropriate to the subject, but make the books enjoyable.
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/mythmakers/
This is the fifth book I have read by John Hendrix. I have written about his biographies of John Brown and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This is more like the biography of Bonhoeffer than John Brown. The biography of John Brown was about 40 pages and more similar to Hendrix’s books about Jesus in that length and format. The longer biographies, this one and the Bonhoeffer one, are a combination of text and graphics. It is not unusually for there to be 200 words on a page. Some pages are predominately graphics, especially the sections where a lion and a wizard are narrating the story. But there are long sections that are more text heavy.
And when you think about these as graphic novels, you should think about a graphic novel as a format, not an age target. These are readable for late teens, but they are not children’s books. There are long sections about the academic meaning of myth, or how stories communicate truth. I have seen a couple of reviews that thought those longer sections were not as helpful, but I can see their point. This isn’t a biography of the two men as much as it is a biography of the conversation that Tolkien and Lewis and another friend had about viewing Christianity as “true myth” that helped Lewis overcome his objections to Christianity.
That famous conversation wasn’t just instrumental to Lewis’ conversion to Christianity, it was also instrumental to Christianity reclaiming story as a feature in understanding the Bible and the world around us. I recently read a book about how Lewis was influenced by medieval thought and Hendrix’s book also pointed out how Lewis and Tolkien, because they were shaped by literature, helped to move Protestant Christianity to rediscover story and myth as important intellectual categories. Myth doesn’t mean “untrue” or fiction, myth in Lewis and Tolkien's view was about deeper systems of thought. I don’t think that Lewis or Tolkien would approve of Jordan Peterson’s use of the Old Testament, but Peterson has been influenced by the idea of myth that Lewis and Tolkien were promoting and which is discussed well here.
Necessarily, graphic novels use the format of image to communicate. I think Hendrix does a great job of communicating information, using the format to communicate in ways that text alone would make difficult. And he includes a lightness and humor to his books that is appropriate to the subject, but make the books enjoyable.
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/mythmakers/
His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life by Jonathan Alter
4.5
Summary: A comprehensive biography from an admiring, but critical author.
I picked up His Very Best on audiobook a few days before President Carter passed away. I had wanted to read one of the recent biographies for a while, and the sale price, and then his death moved it to the top of my list.
It is very clear that Jonathan Alter wanted to reassess Carter's presidency and his place in history. Alter frames the book with Carter's attempt to do his "very best." The line is from a question that Carter was asked when he was applying to work with Hyman G. Rickover in the Navy's nuclear program. Rickover asked Carter if he had done his best while at the Naval Academy. And Carter told him that he had not always done his best. But that question haunted Carter and much of his life, he did attempt to his best all the time.
Carter had the mind and personality of an engineer. He expected that when people were presented with the facts they would come to the same conclusions he did. One of Carter's real strengths as the president was that he often thought about the long term in ways that many politicians do not. Carter was far from perfect, but many of the most important results of Carter's legacy took years and in some cases decades, to start to be seen.
Carter was split. He is known for his ability to talk with people do the long term work to bring people together. But he also was known by Congress at the time as not particularly caring about their opinion and at times being outright offensive. The Panama Canal deal happened in large part because his people did cut deals and drew people into supporting a project that was important for the long term. He spent weeks meeting in small groups with not just congress, but with local and state officials who would provide cover for Congressional members who he needed to take a hard vote. But Carter's health care plan, which he knew was of significant importance to Ted Kennedy, was announced without telling Kennedy or consulting him in its development. Carter often offended his own party even more than the GOP because Carter opposed local initiatives as unhelpful pork projects.
Outsiders often come to the office of the President and not understanding how much of the job is acting and being presidential. Carter thought it was a waste of time and money to play "Hail to the Chief" when he entered a room and ordered it stopped. But it was quietly brought back after about a year because his team came to realize that some of the pomp was important to maintaining the office. Carter often wrote his own speeches or significantly edited the work of his speechwriters to remove all of the rhetorical flourishes. His speaking style was bare facts and that made him less interesting to listen to compared to Reagan and others who drew people in with stories and rhetoric. Again, it seems that as his presidency went on, Carter allowed his speechwriters more leeway and his speeches got better.
Part of the thesis of the book is that he was a far better president than what is commonly assumed, but that his post-presidency was less important than assumed. The Carter Center has done good work. Habitat for Humanity is the largest non-profit home builder in the world and in 2022 was the sixth largest home building in the US of any type. Alter is not trying to minimize Carter's post-presidency, but rather reframe it in relation to the presidency and the presidency is the most powerful job in the world and no other can compare.
Part of the post-presidency is that while Carter did have some success in diplomacy, he had a lot of failures and he had bad relationships with all subsequent presidents. Carter wanted to play a role, but didn't seem to understand how to relate to his successors. Routinely when he was involved in a diplomatic role, he would talk to the press before he would talk to the sitting president. And he didn't follow directions or give credit to the sitting presidents well.
Carter was both humble and quite proud. He was uninterested in personal wealth. He did not accept speaking fees, or if he did, those speaking fees were donated to the Carter Center or other non-profits. The home he lived in was worth less than $200,000 at the time of his death. When working in at Atlanta, he and Roselyn slept in a Murphy bed in his Roselyn's office not a full apartment. But he had an ego and it was often bruised.
This biography shows a flawed man who worked hard trying to prove himself to others. He was shaped by his faith, but simply having faith does not mean that you are not flawed. While Roselyn was a significant advisor during the presidency and she changed the role of the First Lady to be more policy oriented, Carter routinely made decision without consulting her, especially early in their marriage. While Carter did appoint more racial minorities and women to the judiciary than all previous presidents combined and had a diverse cabinet and senior advisors, he did not have a great record on race or gender in all areas.
Carter attempted to get his church to desegregate in the 1960s, but his attempt failed. And he maintained his membership in that segregated church until he left the presidency. Atler and others believe that much of the work of his post-presidency was animated by his lack of effort during the civil rights era. There is a tension, if Carter had been active in civil rights, he would not have become an elected official. But Carter did not seem to have taken real accountability publicly for positions and actions that he did take which were harmful to women or racial minorities. And at least some of the things he did claim to have done seem to be exaggerations.
The only type of humans there are, are flawed ones. This books does not paint Carter as a hero. But it does show him as someone that tried very hard to do what he thought was right. And there is an important role for that type of book. I did not come to this biography blind. I had previously read Carter's memoir A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety, Balmer's spiritual biography, Redeemer, and several of Carter's other books, only writing about his book on faith. I have also picked up a longer book about Carter's presidency, President Carter and Kai Bird's biography, but I do not think I will read those soon. From what I have gleaned, Alter's biography seems to be considered the best.
This was originally posted to my blog at https://bookwi.se/his-very-best/
I picked up His Very Best on audiobook a few days before President Carter passed away. I had wanted to read one of the recent biographies for a while, and the sale price, and then his death moved it to the top of my list.
It is very clear that Jonathan Alter wanted to reassess Carter's presidency and his place in history. Alter frames the book with Carter's attempt to do his "very best." The line is from a question that Carter was asked when he was applying to work with Hyman G. Rickover in the Navy's nuclear program. Rickover asked Carter if he had done his best while at the Naval Academy. And Carter told him that he had not always done his best. But that question haunted Carter and much of his life, he did attempt to his best all the time.
Carter had the mind and personality of an engineer. He expected that when people were presented with the facts they would come to the same conclusions he did. One of Carter's real strengths as the president was that he often thought about the long term in ways that many politicians do not. Carter was far from perfect, but many of the most important results of Carter's legacy took years and in some cases decades, to start to be seen.
Carter was split. He is known for his ability to talk with people do the long term work to bring people together. But he also was known by Congress at the time as not particularly caring about their opinion and at times being outright offensive. The Panama Canal deal happened in large part because his people did cut deals and drew people into supporting a project that was important for the long term. He spent weeks meeting in small groups with not just congress, but with local and state officials who would provide cover for Congressional members who he needed to take a hard vote. But Carter's health care plan, which he knew was of significant importance to Ted Kennedy, was announced without telling Kennedy or consulting him in its development. Carter often offended his own party even more than the GOP because Carter opposed local initiatives as unhelpful pork projects.
Outsiders often come to the office of the President and not understanding how much of the job is acting and being presidential. Carter thought it was a waste of time and money to play "Hail to the Chief" when he entered a room and ordered it stopped. But it was quietly brought back after about a year because his team came to realize that some of the pomp was important to maintaining the office. Carter often wrote his own speeches or significantly edited the work of his speechwriters to remove all of the rhetorical flourishes. His speaking style was bare facts and that made him less interesting to listen to compared to Reagan and others who drew people in with stories and rhetoric. Again, it seems that as his presidency went on, Carter allowed his speechwriters more leeway and his speeches got better.
Part of the thesis of the book is that he was a far better president than what is commonly assumed, but that his post-presidency was less important than assumed. The Carter Center has done good work. Habitat for Humanity is the largest non-profit home builder in the world and in 2022 was the sixth largest home building in the US of any type. Alter is not trying to minimize Carter's post-presidency, but rather reframe it in relation to the presidency and the presidency is the most powerful job in the world and no other can compare.
Part of the post-presidency is that while Carter did have some success in diplomacy, he had a lot of failures and he had bad relationships with all subsequent presidents. Carter wanted to play a role, but didn't seem to understand how to relate to his successors. Routinely when he was involved in a diplomatic role, he would talk to the press before he would talk to the sitting president. And he didn't follow directions or give credit to the sitting presidents well.
Carter was both humble and quite proud. He was uninterested in personal wealth. He did not accept speaking fees, or if he did, those speaking fees were donated to the Carter Center or other non-profits. The home he lived in was worth less than $200,000 at the time of his death. When working in at Atlanta, he and Roselyn slept in a Murphy bed in his Roselyn's office not a full apartment. But he had an ego and it was often bruised.
This biography shows a flawed man who worked hard trying to prove himself to others. He was shaped by his faith, but simply having faith does not mean that you are not flawed. While Roselyn was a significant advisor during the presidency and she changed the role of the First Lady to be more policy oriented, Carter routinely made decision without consulting her, especially early in their marriage. While Carter did appoint more racial minorities and women to the judiciary than all previous presidents combined and had a diverse cabinet and senior advisors, he did not have a great record on race or gender in all areas.
Carter attempted to get his church to desegregate in the 1960s, but his attempt failed. And he maintained his membership in that segregated church until he left the presidency. Atler and others believe that much of the work of his post-presidency was animated by his lack of effort during the civil rights era. There is a tension, if Carter had been active in civil rights, he would not have become an elected official. But Carter did not seem to have taken real accountability publicly for positions and actions that he did take which were harmful to women or racial minorities. And at least some of the things he did claim to have done seem to be exaggerations.
The only type of humans there are, are flawed ones. This books does not paint Carter as a hero. But it does show him as someone that tried very hard to do what he thought was right. And there is an important role for that type of book. I did not come to this biography blind. I had previously read Carter's memoir A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety, Balmer's spiritual biography, Redeemer, and several of Carter's other books, only writing about his book on faith. I have also picked up a longer book about Carter's presidency, President Carter and Kai Bird's biography, but I do not think I will read those soon. From what I have gleaned, Alter's biography seems to be considered the best.
This was originally posted to my blog at https://bookwi.se/his-very-best/
The Spiritual Formation of Evelyn Underhill by Robyn Wrigley-Carr
Like all good biographies of writers, The Spiritual Formation of Evelyn Underhill makes me want to read Underhill directly. She wrote about 40 books over her lifetime, most of the later books were based on the talks that she prepared for her retreats. She would prepare a series of 4 to 6 talks over a weekend and maintain that basic outline for the 5 to 8 retreats that she led each year. In addition to her talks, she made herself available for half hour spiritual direction sessions and then maintained correspondence with the retreatants after that. There are multiple books of her edited correspondence in addition to her other books.
This is not a flashy book, but it is a highly sourced book. There are multiple citations per page to ground the book in the actual writing, journals or correspondence of Underhill or von Hügel or others that influenced or were influenced Underhill. I would have like a little bit more about the role of gender and family. She was the first woman to lecture clergy in the Church of England and she did not have children. She also wrote several novels prior to her non-fiction work and I would have liked to hear some more about the role that fiction played in her theological development (if any). And I would have liked more on the development of her influence both in the world of Protestant spiritual retreats and through her writing. I know of her because she was influential, but I don’t really know how or why she became influential so that I reading about her about 80 years after her death.
(Flannery O’Connor was also significantly influenced by Baron von Hügel as was detailed in Terrible Speed of Mercy: A Spiritual Biography of Flannery O’Connor and The Life You Save May Be Your Own.)
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/the-spiritual-forma...
4.5
Summary: Part biography, part spiritual direction guidebook, part instruction in wisdom.
I have known of Evelyn Underhill for a long time, but she was one of those characters of Christian history who I have never read or read about and only had vague impressions of. One of the people I meet with for spiritual direction was talking about her and that prompted me to pickup The Spiritual Formation of Evelyn Underhill by Robyn Wrigley-Carr.
This is a recent book, it came out in 2020, but I am somewhat surprised I haven’t heard more about it. As someone who is a spiritual director, I think this would be a great book to use in a training program. It is not directly a spiritual direction training book, but the book is framed by looking at the influence of her own spiritual director, Baron Frederick von Hügel, and how they both were shaped and how that shaping impacted their work as spiritual directors. My own training was very helpful and it included a number of the old books that shaped Underhill and von Hügel, but with the exception of reading Ignatius of Loyola’s autobiography, there was very little discussion of how biography and social position impacts your work as a spiritual director.
This is not a full biography, and I would like to read a full biography of Underhill, but it contains enough biographical content to make sense of Underhill’s life. At times, spiritual formation can be overly oriented around ideas and practices and not pay attention enough to other areas. Underhill was fascinated with mysticism. Both her and von Hügel wrote books about mysticism before they met. But part of what the book points out about their spiritual direction relationship is that von Hügel was concerned that Underhill was too focused on mysticism and the intellect. His guidance drew her first to see the church as a necessary component, not because we need the church to be saved but because it grounds us in a community of people. There was a theological component to von Hügel’s guidance, as one of the more well known Catholic thinkers in England at the time, he believed in the sacramental nature of the Eucharist. Underhill was Anglican, but also came to believe that the Eucharist was an important mystical reality. Together they came up with a minimum and maximum approach to spiritual practices for Underhill. Because she was a writer as a profession and primarily worked as a spiritual director in retreat settings, she had a lot of seasons of extreme busyness. When she was busy, she had a minimum of 2 Eucharist services a week that she attended. But she also had a maximum of 4 so that she was also encouraged to have a wide variety of experiences.
Similarly, as a way to combat her orientation to individual mysticism and intellectualism, as part of his guidance, she made it a practice to visit 3 or 4 poor families a week in their homes. This was charitable work, but also community building. She wasn’t just being a patron, she was building community across class lines as another way of grounding her faith outside of mysticism and intellectualism.
There is a lot of basic wisdom for spiritual directors or anyone else about how to approach spiritual disciplines and formation.
I have known of Evelyn Underhill for a long time, but she was one of those characters of Christian history who I have never read or read about and only had vague impressions of. One of the people I meet with for spiritual direction was talking about her and that prompted me to pickup The Spiritual Formation of Evelyn Underhill by Robyn Wrigley-Carr.
This is a recent book, it came out in 2020, but I am somewhat surprised I haven’t heard more about it. As someone who is a spiritual director, I think this would be a great book to use in a training program. It is not directly a spiritual direction training book, but the book is framed by looking at the influence of her own spiritual director, Baron Frederick von Hügel, and how they both were shaped and how that shaping impacted their work as spiritual directors. My own training was very helpful and it included a number of the old books that shaped Underhill and von Hügel, but with the exception of reading Ignatius of Loyola’s autobiography, there was very little discussion of how biography and social position impacts your work as a spiritual director.
This is not a full biography, and I would like to read a full biography of Underhill, but it contains enough biographical content to make sense of Underhill’s life. At times, spiritual formation can be overly oriented around ideas and practices and not pay attention enough to other areas. Underhill was fascinated with mysticism. Both her and von Hügel wrote books about mysticism before they met. But part of what the book points out about their spiritual direction relationship is that von Hügel was concerned that Underhill was too focused on mysticism and the intellect. His guidance drew her first to see the church as a necessary component, not because we need the church to be saved but because it grounds us in a community of people. There was a theological component to von Hügel’s guidance, as one of the more well known Catholic thinkers in England at the time, he believed in the sacramental nature of the Eucharist. Underhill was Anglican, but also came to believe that the Eucharist was an important mystical reality. Together they came up with a minimum and maximum approach to spiritual practices for Underhill. Because she was a writer as a profession and primarily worked as a spiritual director in retreat settings, she had a lot of seasons of extreme busyness. When she was busy, she had a minimum of 2 Eucharist services a week that she attended. But she also had a maximum of 4 so that she was also encouraged to have a wide variety of experiences.
Similarly, as a way to combat her orientation to individual mysticism and intellectualism, as part of his guidance, she made it a practice to visit 3 or 4 poor families a week in their homes. This was charitable work, but also community building. She wasn’t just being a patron, she was building community across class lines as another way of grounding her faith outside of mysticism and intellectualism.
There is a lot of basic wisdom for spiritual directors or anyone else about how to approach spiritual disciplines and formation.
When the tactics of fear are used in Christian communities to motivate a life of trust in God and love of neighbour, habits of maturity never have a chance to develop.
….our everyday normal lives provide the material for our spiritual formation: without activities and interests that are not directly religious, we lose the ‘material’ for ‘Grace to work in and on’ and ‘penetrate’, thus these interests should be ‘taken up’ for the ‘sake’ of religion, alternating non-religious and religious study.
Though Evelyn was always candid as a spiritual director, she was careful not to be too directive. Following Ethel Baker’s ideas concerning the ‘excessive’ powers of the director, she imitated the Baron’s reluctance to interfere, believing that the ‘object’ of spiritual direction is organizing the directee’s life so they can walk alone. Von Hügel’s maxim became her own: ‘The best thing we can do for those we love is to help them to escape from us.’
Like all good biographies of writers, The Spiritual Formation of Evelyn Underhill makes me want to read Underhill directly. She wrote about 40 books over her lifetime, most of the later books were based on the talks that she prepared for her retreats. She would prepare a series of 4 to 6 talks over a weekend and maintain that basic outline for the 5 to 8 retreats that she led each year. In addition to her talks, she made herself available for half hour spiritual direction sessions and then maintained correspondence with the retreatants after that. There are multiple books of her edited correspondence in addition to her other books.
This is not a flashy book, but it is a highly sourced book. There are multiple citations per page to ground the book in the actual writing, journals or correspondence of Underhill or von Hügel or others that influenced or were influenced Underhill. I would have like a little bit more about the role of gender and family. She was the first woman to lecture clergy in the Church of England and she did not have children. She also wrote several novels prior to her non-fiction work and I would have liked to hear some more about the role that fiction played in her theological development (if any). And I would have liked more on the development of her influence both in the world of Protestant spiritual retreats and through her writing. I know of her because she was influential, but I don’t really know how or why she became influential so that I reading about her about 80 years after her death.
(Flannery O’Connor was also significantly influenced by Baron von Hügel as was detailed in Terrible Speed of Mercy: A Spiritual Biography of Flannery O’Connor and The Life You Save May Be Your Own.)
This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/the-spiritual-forma...
A Legend of Starfire by Marissa Burt
There is a longer quote that I think is that shows this even more but I am afaid it will act as too much of a spoiler, so I will not share it. But I do think that the theme of the quote, that wrong use of a thing does not invalidate the right use, is an important theme of young adult literature. Young adults need to learn for themselves that all things can be used badly. Violence can be used to protect or to terrorize. Sex can be intimate and life-giving, or it can be violent and abusive. Fire can be used to warm or create or to destroy. Part of the what Wren has to explore is whether stardust and the magic that can be done with it is something that is inherently wrong, or if there is a good there that needs to be reclaimed and used rightly.
This is not a preachy book where the message it is trying to tell overwhelms the story, but part of the depth of good writing means that there is something more than just an action plot to draw you into the story. Wren and the other characters develop and grapple with the world. It is a fantasy world, but that doesn't mean that there are not real things that young adults can relate to. Those real things include trying to find your place in diverse societies, frustration with not being able to do everything you want, courage when you do not know what to do, being drawn (in this case magically) to do what you do not want to do. I think fantasy can be particularly helpful to grapple with real things in YA literature because there can be some distance from current situations.
I feel like this series could go on, but this book was published eight years ago and the first was almost 10 years ago, so I suspect that there will not be further books. I liked these character and felt like they were whole people. I wanted the story to keep going, which is a far better place to be than being bored with the characters.
There are another two books by Burt which I will read before the end of the year.
This was originally posed on my blog at https://bookwi.se/a-legend-of-starfire/
4.5
Summary: After the inital win against the Magicians from Nod, Wren, Simon, Jack and others go to Nod to try to bring the Magicians and the Alchemists back together.
I tried to be pretty vague about my discriptions of A Sliver of Stardust because I do not like spoiling fiction books. But it is pretty hard to discuss a series without at least some spoilers for earlier books. In A Sliver of Stardust, teenager Wren discovers that not only is stardust capable of being used to perform magic, but that she is both able to do the magic and gifted in a rare type of magic that hasn't been seen since there was a civil war among those who use the stardust. Users of stardust split into Magicians and Alchemists and the Magicians traveled to another planet (Nod).
The Magicians were led by a man that was defeated at the end of the first book and presumed dead. Wren at the start of the second book is still recovering from injuries and Jack, a spy from Nod whom she had saved is even worse. It appears that he is no longer able to do magic, but he is also now on the side of the Alchemists and wants to bring those who used and manipulated him to a type of justice.
Wren is called by the Ashes (magical beings) to come to Nod and work to fix the tainted stardust before it harms Earth. That starts the main story of A Legend of Starfire.
I know of Marissa Burt because of her work on a book about Christian Parenting that I found out about via twitter. I know her as a Christian pastor's wife who is outspoken about abuse and who is theolgoically informed and who regularly writes about church politics and theology. A Sliver of Stardust and A Legend of Starfire are young adult fantasy books without any explicit faith themes. They were published by a secular press (HarperCollins) and her bio on the books doesn't mention her faith or being a pastor's wife. But there are subtle nods to faith here and there.
Especially at the end of the book in ways that I am not going to detail, there are several quotes about magic and the world being restored in ways that I think paralells the understanding of the kingdom of God which "makes all things new." These books are not Christian fiction, but I think that Christian writers often do have faith leak out every once in a while. A couple of quotes:
I tried to be pretty vague about my discriptions of A Sliver of Stardust because I do not like spoiling fiction books. But it is pretty hard to discuss a series without at least some spoilers for earlier books. In A Sliver of Stardust, teenager Wren discovers that not only is stardust capable of being used to perform magic, but that she is both able to do the magic and gifted in a rare type of magic that hasn't been seen since there was a civil war among those who use the stardust. Users of stardust split into Magicians and Alchemists and the Magicians traveled to another planet (Nod).
The Magicians were led by a man that was defeated at the end of the first book and presumed dead. Wren at the start of the second book is still recovering from injuries and Jack, a spy from Nod whom she had saved is even worse. It appears that he is no longer able to do magic, but he is also now on the side of the Alchemists and wants to bring those who used and manipulated him to a type of justice.
Wren is called by the Ashes (magical beings) to come to Nod and work to fix the tainted stardust before it harms Earth. That starts the main story of A Legend of Starfire.
I know of Marissa Burt because of her work on a book about Christian Parenting that I found out about via twitter. I know her as a Christian pastor's wife who is outspoken about abuse and who is theolgoically informed and who regularly writes about church politics and theology. A Sliver of Stardust and A Legend of Starfire are young adult fantasy books without any explicit faith themes. They were published by a secular press (HarperCollins) and her bio on the books doesn't mention her faith or being a pastor's wife. But there are subtle nods to faith here and there.
Especially at the end of the book in ways that I am not going to detail, there are several quotes about magic and the world being restored in ways that I think paralells the understanding of the kingdom of God which "makes all things new." These books are not Christian fiction, but I think that Christian writers often do have faith leak out every once in a while. A couple of quotes:
“You will not win this fight. Your evil will not overcome the good just as darkness cannot overcome the light. All will be well.” (p360)
"I make all things new. You will not be my Apprentice. You will be my Child, Little Bird." (p328)
There is a longer quote that I think is that shows this even more but I am afaid it will act as too much of a spoiler, so I will not share it. But I do think that the theme of the quote, that wrong use of a thing does not invalidate the right use, is an important theme of young adult literature. Young adults need to learn for themselves that all things can be used badly. Violence can be used to protect or to terrorize. Sex can be intimate and life-giving, or it can be violent and abusive. Fire can be used to warm or create or to destroy. Part of the what Wren has to explore is whether stardust and the magic that can be done with it is something that is inherently wrong, or if there is a good there that needs to be reclaimed and used rightly.
This is not a preachy book where the message it is trying to tell overwhelms the story, but part of the depth of good writing means that there is something more than just an action plot to draw you into the story. Wren and the other characters develop and grapple with the world. It is a fantasy world, but that doesn't mean that there are not real things that young adults can relate to. Those real things include trying to find your place in diverse societies, frustration with not being able to do everything you want, courage when you do not know what to do, being drawn (in this case magically) to do what you do not want to do. I think fantasy can be particularly helpful to grapple with real things in YA literature because there can be some distance from current situations.
I feel like this series could go on, but this book was published eight years ago and the first was almost 10 years ago, so I suspect that there will not be further books. I liked these character and felt like they were whole people. I wanted the story to keep going, which is a far better place to be than being bored with the characters.
There are another two books by Burt which I will read before the end of the year.
This was originally posed on my blog at https://bookwi.se/a-legend-of-starfire/
A Sliver of Stardust by Marissa Burt
4.5
Summary: Wren Matthews discovers that magic is real, and that not only can she perform magic (and that not everyone can) but that her magical gifts are quite unusual.
I am a fan of good young adult or middle grade fantasy, but I do not pick up new authors randomly very often. I found Marissa Burt on twitter and after following her for several months and being aware of her work on a book about Christian parenting, I notice her comment about her earlier books. I put them on my kindle watch list and then picked up A Sliver of Stardust when it was on sale for audible. And then the kindle edition about a month later when it was also on sale.
I decided that I needed a bit of light fiction at the end of Christmas break and started to read A Sliver of Stardust. Within less than 24 hours, I had finished the book, alternating between reading on kindle and listening to the audiobook. I immediately purchased the second book in the series and a few days later starting reading it as well.
One of the complaints about middle grade and young adult fantasy is that it follows some traditional themes. The main protagonist is often a bit isolated. They often have a history of "clumsiness" or things happening which they can't quite explain. They are "chosen" and welcomed into a world of magic that those around them (often their parents) cannot see or participate in for one reason or another. There is often a mentor or teacher who instructs the in the magical arts. And there is often an evil person who wants power, or wants to use the power they have, for wrong purposes.
These themes (or tropes) are common because there is a developmental reality about the junior high/high school years where children want to be part of something bigger. They often are not involved in overt imaginative play any longer, but books can still play a role in imagining themselves in different situations that serves a similar purpose to the imaginative play of younger children. The transition from child to adult also involves doing things on their own apart from adult supervision to gain confidence in their own skills and decision making and independence. The tropes are common because they are important and part of what kids look for as their are reading.
Part of what I have appreciated with KB Hoyle's writing and the development of the publishing house that she helped to found is that they are conscious of that narrow line between playing with traditional themes and writing becoming too rote or boring. Tropes are tropes for a reason, but as a reader I do want to be surprised.
Wren Matthews is a gifted young adult. She loves science and being smart and sometimes the competition with others she enjoys. At a science competition she is distracted by a woman in strange clothes and what appears to be her falcon. But no one else seems to be able to see the woman. When Wren gets a note from the woman, she eventually discovers that magic is real, and that she (and the annoying Simon) have been invited to learn about magic.
That starts a novel that does involve many traditional middle grade fantasy themes, while still giving a new twist on many of them. The magic involves rhymes, what the rest of the world sees simply as nursery rhymes, but which in the right context and with magical stardust, allow some people to perform magic. There is good and evil and things are not necessarily what they seem.
I do not particularly try to figure out what is going on as I read. But it was pretty clear to me where the traitor was that plays an important role toward the end of the book. Because I am about 1/3 of the way into the second book as I am writing this, I know more than what is just in this first book, but without any spoilers, friendship, character, honesty and perseverance, are all part of what is required to move forward. There is struggle and separation. People are misunderstood. But that is part of life.
I really did enjoy this book. I tend toward pretty heavy fiction or non-fiction and when I get stuck or burned out, middle grade and young adult fantasy is almost always what gets me out of my rut. Marissa Burt has four books and I am sure I will read all four this year.