August 2020
Welcome to From The Spine. Here’s my new logo designed by my talented friend Beau Cline.
Here are the books I finished in August 2020 and my short reviews of them:
Fiction Books
Matilda has an odd Harry Potter vibe for me. Probably because the characters are very British and the parents are oppressive. Matilda is a magical little girl who teaches herself how to read, reads all the children’s books at her local library, and begins reading through many adult books all before she starts real school. Her family does not notice or encourage Matilda’s brilliance, even after a visit from Miss Honey (Matilda’s first school teacher). Matilda and Miss Honey form a bond of trust as their stories merge. Matilda saves Miss Honey from injustice and poverty and Miss Honey saves Matilda from life on the run with a criminal family.
I recommend Matilda for anyone who likes to root for the underdog.
(Rated G, Score 7/10, Audiobook Read by Kate Winslet, 4:17)
This is the story of a dad and his young boy walking on the road in post-apocalyptic America. Life is an epic struggle every day. There are not many people alive, but the ones that are alive are lawless and starving. Everything has been scavenged, so they must be extra clever and lucky to find even the smallest usable pickings from old homes. They walk the roads heading south, looking for warmer weather, food, and good people. The mantra they have is that they are the good guys and they are carrying the fire. Fire seems to be their symbol of life and hope. The writing style McCarthy has is unique-he abandons punctuation in his dialogue. He uses very descriptive and dark words. He implies a lot of things about his world setting through the character's interactions rather than stating them outright. This is a hard, dark book, but it ends with hope.
I recommend this book for the tough and the strong.
(Rated R, Score 7/10, ebook and Audiobook read by Tom Stechschulte, 6:41)
An Acceptable Time by Madeleine L’Engle (Time Quintet #5)
This is book five in the series of stories that start with A Wrinkle In Time. The main character is Polly, who is the daughter of Meg from the first book. She is taking some time away from her family to study with her genius grandparents (Alex and Kate Murry). While she is at their house in New England a time gate opens and pulls her back 3000 years into history where there are strife and tension between the two tribes living in the area. The Murry’s friend Bishop and Polly’s friend Zach are also pulled through the time gate and play key roles in the drama.
The People of the Wind (good guys) and the People Across the Lake (bad guys) are at odds. The far side of the lake is in a deep drought, and the tribe there has more members, so they have resorted to raiding the People of the Wind. With winter approaching and food supplies rare, war is coming. Then Polly shows up. The native tribes of 3000 years ago believe Polly is a goddess because of her fiery red hair and magic from the future (flashlight, paper, pencil, and scissors).
Zach betrays Polly to the People Across the Lake, hoping in return that their healer will heal his heart which is failing fast. The problem is, that the People Across the Lake don’t really care about Zach; they care about the rain and they think that the sacrifice of a powerful goddess will appease the Mother (nature) and bring rain. The People of the Wind are too few to mount a military rescue, so hope falters as the full moon approaches and the time of the blood sacrifice looms. Like all the other books in the series, it all ends up working out in the end.
I recommend this book for anyone who has read the previous books in the series.
(Rated PG, Score 6/10, Audiobook read by Ann Marie Lee, 9:42)
Jonas is about to turn 12. He is nervous because in his time (way in the future) the 12-year-olds are all given their assignments. That is, they are told what job they will have in their communities. The elders have done their best to take away all the crazy risk involved in things like choice, and individuality. The world seems pretty ideal as the story progresses, but it doesn’t feel right. It feels like something is off. During the assignment/promotion ceremony when Jonas turns 12, everything changes. They skip Jonas, holding him to the end. He is special and has been selected for a high honor. He will be the next Receiver of Memories.
Then Jonas meets The Giver, who is the old Receiver of Memories. The Giver has been burdened with holding all of the memories of the community, and along with those memories, the feelings, and the colors, and the music that accompanies them. This allows the citizens of the community to live in sameness. The Giver’s job is to pass these memories on to Jonas who will carry this burden for the community and allow for the sameness to continue undisturbed. (The sameness feels a lot like the people on Kamazots from A Wrinkle In Time). Jonas spends a year receiving the burdens and joys of the memories from the Giver. With the memories he gets feelings and colors, and he realizes that his world is not right, so he and the Giver hatch a plan to force the community to handle their collective memories and feelings and return to the risky world of feelings like love.
I recommend this book for those who love color, and life and who treasure vivid memories.
(Rated PG, Score 8/10, Audiobook read by Ron Rifkin, 4:47)
Mission Critical (Gray Man #8) by Mark Greaney
Gray Man teams up with Anthem (Zoya) and Romantic (Zach Hightower) in Poison Apple which is a sub rosa (off the books) CIA program. The CIA has a mole who is selling secrets to the Chinese, Iran, and other anti-American actors. The action starts with Gray man finding himself in the middle of a shootout during a compromised handoff of a prisoner who has info about the CIA mole. Anthem escapes a death squad ordered to wipe her out at a CIA safe house, and cons her way over to the UK in search of her father (General Zakharov) who everyone thinks is dead, but is actually an active Russian spymaster working in the UK. Romantic is ordered to lean on the shortlist of CIA employees who had access to all the recently compromised ops to figure out who the mole is. The chase leads to the Five Eyes spy conference where the leaders of all the English speaking intelligence agencies will meet in Scotland. The ultimate plot is against that conference. A bioweapon being made to infect the top spies with pneumonic plague. It’s up to Poison Apple to spoil the attack.
I recommend this book to the Mitch Rapp and Gray Man fans for sure.
(Rated R, Score 8/10, ebook)
The Phantom Toll Booth by Norton Juster
There is a bored boy named Milo who finds himself on an adventure to the Lands Beyond by way of a Phantom Toll Booth. He meets a watchdog named Tock, a Humbug, and many other delightful characters as he travels. They find themselves on an impossible quest to rescue the princesses Rhyme and Reason and thereby restore wisdom to the land. The writing is very clever and creative and tricky. Many of the ideas are plays on words. When he finally makes it home, Milo finds that life is not nearly as boring as he had thought before his amazing journey.
I recommend this book to anyone who loves a good pun.
(Rated G, Score 7/10, ebook and audiobook read by Rainn Wilson, 4:41)
Out of the Silent Planet by CS Lewis
Ransom is kidnapped and taken to a strange planet (mars) as a hostage. There, he escapes his kidnappers, meets the indigenous creatures, learns their language, and ultimately meets Oyarsa, the ruler of the planet. Ransom learns that earth is a fallen/silent planet full of bent people and that though Malacandra (Mars) is dying, it’s people are much more whole and happy.
Click here for a slightly longer review.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in space/time travel or philosophy.
(Rated PG, Score 10/10, paperback 158p and audiobook read by Geoffrey Howard, 5:26)
Non-Fiction Books
To Hell With the Hustle by Jefferson Bethke
Are you stressed out, tired, overworked, stretched thin, over-caffeinated, and under-rested? Most of us are. This book has some ideas about how we got here and how we should change to get out of that place.
So where do we start? We start by looking at who we are and how we got here. We are the sum of our choices, habits, and rituals. Bethke points out that we are at a crazy point in time. We absorb more info and noise in one day than most people in history would have been exposed to in a lifetime and it’s eating us for lunch. “Hurry is violence on the soul.” We are overwhelmed, overloaded, overstimulated, and depressed. He says, “ll tell you what we have left behind. We left behind meaning. And I want it back.”
Bethke argues that we are not meant to live this way, and if we don’t create boundaries and space to recover and rest, we will hit a wall where our bodies will force a reboot (think illness or mental breakdown). “Here’s another way to put it: the big difference between chaos and shalom (peace) is rhythm.” But what is rhythm? Rhythm is making choices day to day, week to week, season to season, and year to year that give us time to rest, slow down, breathe, be present in the moment, and recover. Rhythm is the power of saying no. Rhythm is being able to sit in silence.
Those are grand ideas, but what does that look like in real life? Bethke’s position is that we need to go back to the idea of Sabbath. What’s a Sabbath? I’m still not actually sure because it’s something I’m learning about. Here’s what the book says: it’s a mini act of rebellion. A counter-culture, aggressive stand against hurry and work and stress and screen time. It’s one day a week that you take as a family or home to rest, celebrate, and put down your phone. Bethke and his family try to make it 52 mini Christmases each year- celebration food, family, traditions, rituals. Each with the intent of restoring peace and calm and bringing them back to the most important things.
For me, this is an idea that my family has been pondering lately. We are trying to make Sundays special. We just started, so I’m not sure how well it’s going. We are just trying to be intentional and practice. Each week we get a little better. Silence and saying no and resting and taking time to be present are all things that require deliberate practice. But I think it’s a discipline worth chasing.
The book was very interesting; written from a Christian perspective, and still applicable to anyone living in these crazy times.
I recommend this book for the tired seeking ideas to find rest.
(Rated PG, Score 7/10, Paperback 184p, ebook)
Dear Bob and Sue by Matt and Karen Smith
Matt and Karen quit their jobs to go on an adventure: visiting all of the United States National Parks. This book is a collection of emails from Matt and Karen to their friends Bob and Sue. Each email is a recap of a day in their travels. Some days are at the parks, some days in-between parks. They are equal parts funny and informative. Both authors are sarcastic and enjoy irony, and funny things happen on adventures if you look for them. At each park, they take a picture by the park sign, get their National Parks Passport’s stamped using the official park stamps, and they do a lot of hiking. To make things more affordable, they eat a lot of peanut butter and jelly on their hikes and celebrate with pizza and beer. The book took me a long time to get through because it’s long; 59 parks worth. It took Matt and Karen over two years to visit each park.
I recommend this to anyone who likes hiking, nature, and a good sarcastic joke.
(Rated PG-13, Score 8/10, Paperback 322p)
Preview/Currently Reading-
Here are the books I am currently working on. Join me if you will:
The Adventures of Johnny Chuck (Book 2) by Thornton W Burgess
One Minute Out by mark Greaney (Gray Man Book #9)
Procrastinate on Purpose: 5 Permissions to Multiply Your Time by Rory Vaden
First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently by Gallup
I track all the books I read in a database called Goodreads. You might find it helpful in managing your own reading lists.
Final Thoughts-
This month Audible introduced a new feature for members called INCLUDED. This feature allows members to stream titles in the program or download them for free. I am a huge fan of free books, so I am excited about this new program. A bunch of CS Lewis books and other classics are INCLUDED, so expect to see some of those on my list soon.
Have a book that you want me to read and review? Send me a note and I’ll see what I can do.
Have a book you just read and want to talk about it? Give me a call!
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