Christian Audio Free Download – July 2009

Another month is here. Summer is blazing by pretty quickly, but the good news is that there is another free audio-book available from christianaudio.com. This month they are offering Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan.

The God of the universe is crazy about you! His love is the most powerful thing in the world and He wants to give it to you, so you can live for Him. If you have made a commitment to follow Christ, then listen to Crazy Love to be reminded and challenged in your walk. Sharing from his own life struggles and sacrifices, author Francis Chan issues a call for selfless, Christ-like living. Let the love you have received from God impact your life like never before.

Foreword by Chris Tomlin.

There is a web site that goes with this book at crazylovebook.com. You’ll find chapter videos along with some other information available there. Here’s a YouTube video of the author:

Christian Audio Free Download – June 2009

I just downloaded the free audio that christianaudio.com is giving away during the month of June. It’s a title from Eugene Peterson that’s on my “to read” list, so I’m looking forward to listening to it. Remember that it will only be available for free until the end of the month, then they will have a new offering.

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places reunites spirituality and theology in a cultural context where these two vital facets of Christian faith have been rent asunder. Lamenting the vacuous, often pagan nature of contemporary American spirituality, Eugene Peterson here firmly grounds spirituality once more in Trinitarian theology and offers a clear, practical statement of what it means to actually live out the Christian life. Writing in the conversational style that he is well known for, Peterson boldly sweeps out the misunderstandings that clutter conversations on spiritual theology and refurnishes the subject only with what is essential. As Peterson shows, spiritual theology, in order to be at once biblical and meaningful, must remain sensitive to ordinary life, present the Christian gospel, follow the narrative of Scripture, and be rooted in the “fear of the Lord” — in short, spiritual theology must be about God and not about us. The foundational book in a five-volume series on spiritual theology emerging from Peterson’s pen, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places provides the conceptual and directional help we all need to live the Christian gospel well and maturely in the conditions that prevail in the church and world today.

If you come to this post after the free download deadline or would prefer a hard copy, you can find it here on Amazon.com:

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology

Custom Google Searches

Apparently it’s possible to make a custom search engine using Google. I ran across this one recently:

Book Blogs Search Engine

It’s set up to search book blogs (that have been submitted to the engine’s author), so if you’re looking for a blogger’s review of a certain title, you should be able to type it in and see results within the custom search parameters. Pretty cool.

BTT – Gluttony

Book Gluttony! Are your eyes bigger than your book belly? Do you have a habit of buying up books far quicker than you could possibly read them? Have you had to curb your book buying habits until you can catch up with yourself? Or are you a controlled buyer, only purchasing books when you have run out of things to read?

Yes, yes, yes, and sadly, no. Well, not really sadly. I don’t much care for the idea of actually running out of things to read. I would like to do a better job of curbing my book buying, and have begun to put some purchasing holds into place. I use my Amazon.com Wish List as a way to remember books that appeal to me without purchasing right away; I’ll make a note of a book and check for it at the library or Half-Price Books; and if I’m really struggling, I’ll close my eyes and picture the piles of unread books throughout the house. Sometimes these things work, sometimes not.

How about you? Do you have piles of unread books or are you more the “buy it, read it, get another one” type? If you struggle with “book gluttony” like me, do you have any curtailing methods that have worked for you?

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Fiction. Paperback from Quirk Books. Published in 2009. 320 pages. Purchased from ThinkGeek.com.

The subtitle of this book is The Classic Regency Romance – Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! How was I supposed to resist that? It was fun to read along wondering where the zombies would be inserted and in many cases their arrival made me laugh out loud. Not to mention it makes more sense for Jane to be sick from fighting zombies in the rain instead of just from riding to Netherfield. So, I enjoyed the book. Some of it was a bit forced, and I really didn’t feel like some of the inappropriate behavior Grahame-Smith inserted fit in a book that was trying to retain it’s Jane Austen-ness, but as long as you don’t go into it expecting it to still be the same caliber of work as it was before the addition of the zombies, you’re likely to enjoy it.

Publisher’s summary:
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.” So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Can she vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you’d actually want to read.

(I take issue with that last sentence of the publisher’s summary. Who do they think is going to read this except people who have already read and enjoyed P & P?)

New to the Bookshelf

Last Thursday DD and I went to Half Price books in Arlington. It was our first time to visit that particular HP location. We go most often to the one near our house, but are slowly making the rounds to the different DFW sites. Here is my haul for the day:

My SIL and I recently watched the PBS version of Little Dorrit and were both a bit confused about some of the plot details, so I decided I would look for the book and see if I can get it straight and share the info with my non-reading kin. The book is 779 pages long, so if I can’t get it figured out by the end of that many pages, Dickens writing skills are not all they’re purported to be. I don’t think that I have ever actually read a Dickens book before. Shocking, I know.

-
-
This is a revised, updated edition of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. The original book was published over 30 years ago. I don’t really know much about it, but it looked like it might have some good things to say.
-
-

-
I’ve got a lot of books on grief, but mostly they are written for a grieving person. It seemed like it would be a good idea to have one that talked about how to minister to someone who is in that situation, since I know people will not all deal with it the same way I did.
-

Escape by Carolyn Jessop and Laura Palmer

Non-Fiction: Radical Mormonism. Hardback from Broadway Books (Random House). Published in 2008. 448 pages. Purchased at Half-Price Books.

I’ve been attending a local Flower Mound book club (not the one at the library), and this was one of our recent selections. It was not an easy book to read on an emotional level, nor did it really make for a good rousing book discussion. We were all rather appalled by it, which meant there were no opposing viewpoints to banter back and forth. Still, it’s an interesting book, full of details of daily life within the FLDS and with the record of a valiant attempt by one woman to successfully extricate herself from that lifestyle.

Publisher’s Summary:
The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman’s courageous flight to freedom with her eight children.

When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral part of Carolyn’s heritage: She was born into and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the radical offshoot of the Mormon Church that had settled in small communities along the Arizona-Utah border. Over the next fifteen years, Carolyn had eight children and withstood her husband’s psychological abuse and the watchful eyes of his other wives who were locked in a constant battle for supremacy.

Carolyn’s every move was dictated by her husband’s whims. He decided where she lived and how her children would be treated. He controlled the money she earned as a school teacher. He chose when they had sex; Carolyn could only refuse—at her peril. For in the FLDS, a wife’s compliance with her husband determined how much status both she and her children held in the family. Carolyn was miserable for years and wanted out, but she knew that if she tried to leave and got caught, her children would be taken away from her. No woman in the country had ever escaped from the FLDS and managed to get her children out, too. But in 2003, Carolyn chose freedom over fear and fled her home with her eight children. She had $20 to her name.

Escape exposes a world tantamount to a prison camp, created by religious fanatics who, in the name of God, deprive their followers the right to make choices, force women to be totally subservient to men, and brainwash children in church-run schools. Against this background, Carolyn Jessop’s flight takes on an extraordinary, inspiring power. Not only did she manage a daring escape from a brutal environment, she became the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FLDS. And in 2006, her reports to the Utah attorney general on church abuses formed a crucial part of the case that led to the arrest of their notorious leader, Warren Jeffs.

Prefer audio? Download from Audible.com:
Escape

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaimen

Fiction: YA/Sci-Fi. Audio from HarperChildren’s. Published in 2008. Read by the author. 7 hours, 47 minutes. Purchased from Audible.com.

This 2009 Newbery Award Winner is written for 9-12 year old kids. It is a bit simplistic because of that fact, many things not completely explained that a “full grown” sci-fi book would certainly go into. Despite this, which can be a bit of a let down if you’re used to having every character and all the background activity completely explained, it is an enjoyable book. Gaimen does a great job narrating.

I’d only like to mention, that if you are considering it for one of your kids, just be aware that the story does begin with the murders of three people, and has some mild violence as the story is coming to a close, so it might be a bit scary for kids at the lower end of that age range, depending on the child.

Publisher’s Summary:

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn’t live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead.

There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack – who has already killed Bod’s family.

Beloved master storyteller Neil Gaiman returns with a luminous new novel for the audience that embraced his New York Times best-selling modern classic Coraline. Magical, terrifying, and filled with breathtaking adventures, The Graveyard Book is sure to enthrall readers of all ages.

Prefer a hardcopy? Check it out on Amazon.com:
The Graveyard Book

Faith & Doubt by John Ortberg

Non-fiction: Christianity. Unabridged Audio from Zondervan. Published 2008. Read by the author. 4 hours, 46 minutes. Audio from Audible.com (also purchased a hardcover copy from Martel in Lewisville).

John Ortberg is one of my favorite Christian authors. His books have always struck me as being very real; the voice he uses is very conversational and easy to understand. I never have to go back and reread a paragraph for comprehension, though I often want to go back and reread his paragraphs to be sure that I let the sentiment implant itself in my consciousness. As much as I appreciate his writing, his narration of the audiobook left a bit to be desired as far as I was concerned. It wasn’t so bad I couldn’t listen to it, but it was awkward enough in some places that I was not able to just listen because I was distracted by the poor reading (choppy flow, odd words emphasized in the sentence, etc.). In my opinion, a good narrator makes you forget you are listening to someone read. It just didn’t happen with this recording.

The book itself is excellent. Having often been in circles where no one would ever admit to doubts, it is refreshing to see someone willing to say that doubts happen and are not a sign you are somehow a substandard follower of Christ. I’d suggest this book if you are doubting, but I’d also suggest it if you are not.

Publisher’s Summary:

What if the most important word is the one in the middle?

We often think of doubt as the opposite of faith, but could it actually strengthen our relationship with God? According to John Ortberg, best-selling author and pastor, the very nature of faith requires the presence of uncertainty. In this refreshingly candid look at a life of faith, he traces the line between belief and unbelief: less a dividing line between hostile camps than a razor’s edge that runs through every soul. His findings point us toward the relief of being totally honest. Questions can expand our understanding, uncertainty can lead to trust, and honest faith can produce outrageous hope. Written from Ortberg’s own struggle with faith and doubt, this book will challenge, comfort, and inspire you with the truth that God wants all of us—including our doubt.

If you would prefer a hardcopy, it’s available here:
Faith and Doubt

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

Non-fiction: life. Hardcover from Hyperion, published 2008, 224 pages. Speed read while sitting in the Southlake Barnes & Noble with my SIL Connie.

In some ways it seems a bit silly to do a post on The Last Lecture as I have the feeling there may not be anyone left out there that hasn’t read this book yet. Well, I know DH Steve hasn’t, so perhaps I’ll go ahead …. oh, and to be perfectly honest, I didn’t really read the whole thing.

Pausch’s last lecture in book form really didn’t give me any life changing insights; it’s all pretty common sense stuff. Though I am of the opinion that it never hurts to be reminded of what is important in life, and he does a decent job of that. Much of the power of the book comes from the fact that it is written by a man who is dying of cancer, and doing his best to die well.

Publisher’s Summary:

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt,
just how we play the hand.”
–Randy Pausch

A lot of professors give talks titled “The Last Lecture.” Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can’t help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn’t have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave–”Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”–wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because “time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think”). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

If you’re feeling like you’ve got an hour and 16 minutes to spend, here is the lecture that the book is based on: