Against Nothingness

Jorge Luis Borges, A Universal History of Iniquity . Penguin Classics, 2004. Translator: Andrew Hurley.  A long time ago a good friend of mine recommend Borges to me. At the time I read Fictions and quite enjoyed his short stories. I remember them being strange, thought-provoking, and genre bending. Somehow I never gave Borges another thought. Never, that is, until I came across this book and, stirred by the distant association of the name "Borges" with enjoyable reading, started reading. I was not disappointed.  This is Borges first book and it is a kind of non-fiction. I am fairly certain the stories are embellished, but this only makes them better. What you have here are short stories from the old west, medieval Islam, ancient Asia, and more, each focused on the highly colorful life of one individual. These stories are crafted with genius and very enjoyable to read.  Borges is a master writer. I regularly sat back from reading this book just to marvel...

Chinua Achebe, There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra. Penguin Books, 2013.  Achebe is a giant in African literature and his acclaim is well deserved. Until reading this book, however, I had only read his fiction. I picked this up because it was on the 'New' shelf at the library and because it was by Achebe. I was not disappointed.  There was a Country  is part biography, part event driven memoir, and part critique, all surrounding the Nigeria-Biafra war. The biography comes in Achebe describing his early life and personal involvement in events leading up said war. This section of book is more personal and, thus, more moving. The second half of the book is largely impersonal, focusing on the events of and after the war. Finally, as a conclusion, Achebe laments the current state of Nigeria and much that has happened since the war.  On the one hand, I do not know enough of the history to judge this book as an account of events, or of Nigeri...

We Thought We Heard the Angels Sing , by Lieutenant James C. Whittaker. 1943, Public Domain. This is the tale of eight men lost in the pacific in 1942. Stranded on rafts with four oranges, no water, one watch, life jackets, a Bible, and a few flares, they hope for rescue and struggle to survive. In the end, seven make it. On the way some find more than just hope of rescue; some find faith in God. I came across this book because Helmut Thielicke referred to it in one of his sermons. It sounded like an interesting story so I looked it up. I was pleased to find it free online and I read it. This was the right choice. It is an excellent story, worth reading. In reading that recommendation you should know that this is a book which fits into two genres I quite enjoy: Survival and Conversion. One of the first fiction books I fell in love with was The Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. I read it multiple times and then read everything else I could find by Paulsen. It is th...

Mark A. Noll. Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity (3rd Edition). Baker Academic, 2012. 356 pgs.  How do you compress two thousand years of religious history into one textbook? Many have tried and I have, unfortunately, suffered through their attempts (thanks to seminary). You could do a poor overview of as much as possible, cramming in dates and details until the student's head explodes. You could attempt to do justice to major themes while covertly focusing all attention on your favorite moment or person (Martin Luther anyone?). Personally, I don't think there is a good solution. But, if I had to pick one, I would choose Turning Points .  In this book Noll delves deeply into thirteen turning points in Christian history. Obviously there is some subjectivity in which points one chooses (in the introduction Noll lists ten options he considered but left out, just to give us an idea of how complex this process is) but despite this the appr...

Alexander Solzhenitsyn. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich . Signet, 1972. 142 pgs.  I don't know how I made it this long without reading Solzhenitsyn. Somehow. Earlier this year a good friend  pointed me to his  Nobel prize speech , which is well worth reading. That same friend  then lent me this book, which I finally got around to reading. In summary this book is one day in the life of a man sentenced to ten years in a Siberian labor camp.  The book opens as Ivan wakes up and, being slower than normal, is called forward by a guard to receive his punishment. Ivan experiences a minor victory in that his punishment is merely to mop the guardroom floor. Barely 10 pages into the book and the (no doubt realistic) picture Solzhenitsyn paints of a Siberian labor camp is bleak. No matter how Ivan felt, I was struck again and again by just how terrible this all was. His victories were small highlights which lit the extent of tragedy to m...

Vishal Mangalwadi .  The Book that Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization . Thomas Nelson, 2011. 464 pgs.  Though many people seek wisdom, in recent times the bible has become one of the last places search. Vishal Mangalwadi seeks to reverse that trend by examining how the bible has impacted western civilization. The Book That Made Your World is a breathtaking tour of history looked at through the thesis that it was the bible which turned the west into the unique civilization it is: technical and tolerant, scientific and free, just and prosperous. Mangalwadi pursues this thesis through a dazzling, and perhaps overwhelming, array of topics; from rationality to heroism, technology to morality, and much else besides. Though this is a long book of history, I found it quite interesting coming from the perspective of an Indian philosopher who mixed in stories of his home with the history of western civilization. The perspective off...

Stephen R. Lawhead, The Skin Map: A Bright Empires Novel . Thomas Nelson, 2010. 403pgs. Disclosure: This book was provided by Thomas Nelson for review purposes. The Skin Map begins the story of Kit Livingstone's odd travels.  His great-grandfather appears to him and tells him that all throughout Britian are 'ley-lines' which allow individuals to travel through both time and space.  Kit is then invited to join in the quest to find the skin map, a parchment made from the skin of a man who learned much about these ley-lines, mapped them, and tatooed that information onto his body.  Naturally, Kit and his great-grandfather are not the only ones looking for this map, so the race is on. I have read Lawhead before and enjoyed his work.  This book was no different.  It was suspenseful and engaging, and with Lawhead's typical ability to write characters that are human and easy to relate to.  The idea behind this story is interesting, and I found Lawhead...

I remember reading Jurassic Park for the first time; I was young, and it introduced me to an author and a style that I enjoyed immensely. Since then, I have been a fan of Michael Crichton's books. Some of his books have been disappointing (like State of Fear and Timeline) but most of them have ranged from good to highly entertaining, which is the perfect range when one is looking for reading which is relaxing but still possessing some substance. That said, Kristina, Hannah, and I went to the library this weekend, and as I walked with Hannah, diligently keeping her from tearing pages out of library books, she pulled off of the 'popular' shelf a book entitled Pirate Latitudes . I wouldn't have given it a second glance, except that out of the corner of my eye I caught the author: Michael Crichton. How could this be? Sadly, Crichton passed away in 2008, and I was certain I had read all of the books he had published at that point. The answer was in the flap: appare...