Review: Religion Saves: And Nine Other Misconceptions

Religion Saves: And Nine Other Misconceptions by Mark Driscoll
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received this audio book years ago from Christian Audio (http://christianaudio.com/) as part of their monthly free audio book. For some reason I never listened to it but chose to go through some of the books I had and gave it a listen.
Mark Driscoll was the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle Washington area. When this was written/recorded I am sure the church was still very active. Within a few years Mr. Driscoll would step down from the church because of claims of him bullying staff members. The church would at that point close it doors within a month. Not having been a member and not knowing much about him, this is all from what I read from sites like Wikipedia. I would tend to think it was true based on the tone of this book. While in a few places he says this is what I believe, the majority of the book is he way it is, take it or leave it.' That is where the problem starts because of what this book is supposed to be.
The theory behind this book is that the church opened up a web site to ask people to post their questions about Christianity and then people could vote on them. The top 9 questions questions would get a sermon based on them. I find it hard to believe that the number 1 question was about the emergent church, but I will have to take him at his word. The topics were wide ranging from sex and birth control to dating to the way churches should be run. Through it all Mr. Driscoll tells you how it should be. While I agree with him on quite a few things, I do not with all. So now, am I less a Christian just because I do not agree, or maybe I am not a Christian at all.
The main problem with a book like this is that it tries to tell you what Christians should be, but in the 2000 years since Christ died, every generation has tried to tell us that. Why should his book define it any better than any others. In listening to it I felt like I was back in my Catholic days and I was having to take what the Pope said because the Church said he heard from God.
The recording was OK. I have heard much better readings of books than this one. Mr. Driscoll read it himself. I would think that he would have had a better understanding of his book, but often there are pauses where there should not be and where they should be, they are not.
I cannot not really recommend this book. I gave it three stars because the content was for the most part OK. The attitude of the author comes through quite clearly.

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Review: RASPUTIN'S LEGACY

RASPUTIN'S LEGACY by Lee Jackson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I received this book as an advanced reader book. In exchange I offered an honest review.

One of the nice things about being able to read eBooks is that I can look at a lot of different types. When I was much younger I read a lot of different types of books. As I got older with less time to read, most of what I read was for school or work. I am now coming around to reading a variety of books. Rasputin's Legacy was a book that looked interesting so I picked it up.

Our hero, with the interesting name Atcho, has done a service to the Russian/US relationships during the Regan era that took place during the first book in this series. To the authors credit, this not one of those books that you have to read the rest of the series to understand this one. What little you have to know is conveyed in a quick and concise style as it is needed.

Because of his service to both countries from the first book, when a man claims to be a descendant of both the czars of Russia and Rasputin, a mystic to the last of the czars, Atcho is chosen to try to stop him. Why? Because in the first book, Atcho had killed him, or so he thought. Also, the CIA and the KGB can not act openly, so things have to be done rather secretively. And, by the way, the man happens to have a nuclear bomb.

With the backdrop of the cold war, our hero and his team, some willing but not all, try to make there way to stop the takeover of Russia.

Stay till the end. Some people are not whom they seem to be in this story.

Writing is clean, and true to the characters. I recommend it to anyone looking for a good suspense story. Except for the violence, it is one that I could recommend to most people I know. Of course, a cold war era book has to have some violence so that is to be expected if you pick it up.


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Review: Pineapple Land Wars

Pineapple Land Wars by Amy Vansant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

To start with, the copy of this book I received was in exchange for an honest review.

So, our story of the Pineapple Port detective continues. I said in my review of her first book, this has the makings of a ensemble cast comedy. (Netflicks are you listening?) This does nothing to change how I feel. The characters stay true to the form set up for them in the opening three books. So there is no surprise there. The surprise is in how this author can take some of the typical things in life and weave a great mystery story out of them. I recommend that if you do not know the players then you should look at books 1 to 3 in the series. Basically, Charlotte is a 25 year old woman who lives in a retirement neighborhood called Pineapple Port. If you have to ask why, well you need to read the early books in the series. She is trying to get her Private Eye Licence (again, read the early books) and helps her boyfriend's and her neighbor's husband the police man to qualify for the hours.

Into all of this a man falls off a balcony on to the mast of his boat and dies. Was it a murder or an accident. Our hero is hired to find out but only because the owner of Pineapple Port wants to buy the land that is up for sale because of her death and so does someone else. Who ever solves the mystery and some other silly events, will get the land.

My only down side to the book is that the bad person still gets to go free again. But a good villain is a horrible thing to waste. The good part is that we are introduced to a two legged cat. Yes, I said that right.

Recommenced it to people who are looking for a light mystery with a lot of humor.

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