Review: Deliver Us from Me-Ville

Deliver Us from Me-Ville by David A. Zimmerman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book was OK. I read it over time so I am sure that helped in losing something in translation. It is a look at us. We tend to put ourselves on the throne and move Jesus off. When we do that, then we are in Me-Ville. The object of the book is to get us out of there and on the way to Thee-Ville
Part of the problem with the book is that I kept feeling that the author was trying to paraphrase what other people had written. In other words, the book, though original, was not an original thought but an explnation of what others have written. He seems to quote Bronhoffer a lot. While he was an interesting man from what I have read about him, I might just read his books and skip this one.
Last chapter I felt was the best. But what can I say.
Recomend for my Christian friends. Not sure others would want to read it.

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Cape Zero: The Fall

Cape Zero: The Fall by Nicholas Woode-Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Got a free copy that the author was giving out as a promotion. In general, Zombie stories are not my cup of tea. I like my zombies cute and functional like on the TV show iZombie. So I approached this with a little bit of skepticism. Still, I thought it would be interesting to try something new.

Zombie culture (except for the above mentioned iZombie is that zombies are mindless unthinking creatures who just attack people. The author here introduces classes of zombies. Some are blind and do not seem to be as intelligent as the others. Then their are sighted ones. They seem to be able to reason things to some degrees. Why are some different? We are never told why, we just have to accept it. And that becomes a stumbling block for me when all of a sudden, some of the sighted ones figure out how to use tools including weapons to accomplish their goals. How? Why?

We follow Peter, a lone wolf, who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Zombies start to over run the area that he is in and he takes sanctuary in abandoned apartment that he finds. This could make for a boring book a large part of the book deals with a fish out of water story. He realizes he needs others to survive, and though he is a lone wolf, he joins a group base on knights and squires. He seems to move quickly up the ranks.

I can forgive a lot of that. What I do not like, is s story that ends but does not end. I realize the author is trying to get me to buy the next book (might be why I got this free one), but I just hare that we are left with mini-cliff hanger. The story does wrap up and there is a completion, but it is set up for the next book.

If you like Zombies and survivalist stories, then you will enjoy the book most likely. I thought the book was OK. You will have to decide.


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Review: Movies Are Prayers: How Films Voice Our Deepest Longings

Movies Are Prayers: How Films Voice Our Deepest Longings by Josh Larsen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Standard disclaimer. I got an advanced copy of the book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I would like to thank them and IVP books for the ability to be able to read it in advance.

I wanted to read this book because I think of myself as a bit of a movie person. Another reason was that my church (life.church) does a series each July called At The Movies where our Pastor takes clips from movies and builds a sermon about them. I expected a kind of insight that Pastor Craig Groeschel gives in the movies. Well, I am not as much of a movie person as I thought I was, and the insight given was not like my pastor's at all. This last fact is not a horrible thing. It is just that they have two different ways of looking at things and I was not expecting the difference.

The book made me want to look into some of the movies mentioned in the book. In fact, it may be worth picking up just for the lost of movies from the book listed in the appendix at the end.

Each chapter starts with a view of a type of prayer and talks about how a particular shows that type of prayer so that we can get an understanding of what he means. For the most part, these movies are relatively well known so as to help us by giving us something familiar. From there he shows us written clips from other movies, here they may be a little bit more obscure, to give us clearer details of the idea, and then rounds it up with going back to the into film to wrap things up.

One of the things that I did a lot of was looking up films to watch later as I read the chapters. The way a silent movie was talked about made me want to rent it right away and watch it. Even though I did find it on an online service to rent I did hold off as there were many other good ones mentioned as well.

I have read many books on the types of prayers that exist. As usually no two books reflect the same list of prayers, and this book did not disappoint in that respect, his list is different also. What was interesting is the way that he weaved these prayers in a story. It is a well know story of creation, then the fall. Followed by redemption and then restoration. Each of the type of prayers follows in those categories. Creation: praise. Fall: yearning, lament, anger. Redemption: confession, reconciliation, meditation/contemplation. Restoration: joy. In the end, the last chapter shows you them all in one movie as a journey.

My only complaint was chapter length. While I did not go back and see if they were evenly spaced out (I suspect they were), there seemed to be some chapters that I wanted to go on longer and felt they were cut short. Other chapters I felt went on much longer that they needed to. This is most likely my fault and not the authors. It is just where I was at when I read those chapters I think.

Recommended for Christian friends and those of my friends who are not antagonistic to the faith and also like movies. I look forward to any books this author may put out in the future.



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Review: Lilith

Lilith by George MacDonald
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book was an interesting read. I can see where C. S. Lewis got his inspiration as Mr. MacDonald was an author that Lewis had read.
The story can seem to drag in places, but I think that is the nature of the time period that it was written in. The authors that I have read of this era seem to like to say a lot of words to say something simple.
If you cannot stick with the story through the long opening sections which seem to make no sense, than I would not recommend the book. It is an allegory of what life is and where we are all going. You take out of it what you put into it.
Not recommended to everyone. You have to want to read it.

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