Recently in Books Category

Recently, as part of the Thomas Nelson Blogger Reviewer Program, I received a copy of Eli Gold's From Peanuts to the Pressbox: Insider Sports Stories from a Life Behind the Mic. The work is an autobiography looking back at the life of a kid from NYC who skipped most of high school to watching sporting events that found himself in the right place in the right time many times over who advanced up the ranks of sportcasting.

I give the work three stars. It was an easy read; something to read while trying to fall asleep at night. For me, a sign of a great autobiography is one that the subject shares not only the events of his life, but why those events were important enough to recall as well as the lessons learned.

Overall, this work is a feel-good retelling of Eli's favorite stories, without much added depth. Eli's work has been overall contained to hockey, NASCAR, Alabama football and basketball. If you're familiar with any of these sports, there will be many stories that will be quite enjoyable and fun to read. If you're not, but have some idea of the benefit of sport, there are stories that will make you laugh, or make you stop to think for a moment.

All in all, a fine book.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/2

I recently read Christianity in Crisis: The 21st Century by Hank Hanegraaf as part of a blogger reviewers program with Thomas Nelson Publishing.

The majority of the book included an item-by-item rebuttal of many "Christian" preachers that promote a Gospel message that is not congruent with the actual New Testament, including Texan Joel Osteen. I thought that this breakdown was a bit longer than it needed to be; however, if you're a subscriber to one of religions quasi-based on the Gospel or are trying to engage someone in debate who is a subscriber, Mr. Hanegraaf's detail will be very much appreciated.

The final section of the book attempted to answer the question "So, if all of these ways are wrong, what's the right way?" While a fine attempt, I believe the author was too limited in his scope of what is a proper way to practice Christianity. The author's assessment resulted in what seems to be the typical response by fundamentalists (i.e. "a Bible-believing church", which is a veiled attempt to basically say any church that acknowledges the role of Tradition is excluded).

The Catholic Church, the faith I subscribe to, is a Bible-believing church, by our own understanding of the role of Scripture and Tradition; however, from my upbringing in the Bible Belt, I know far too many would exclude me from grace for this assessment. I believe the author's work would be more inclusive, accurate and provide greater assistance to the Christian world trying to faithfully following the message of Jesus Christ in a world where prosperity and faith preachers derail authentic Christian thought far too often.

With that limitation noted, I still believe the majority of the text is quite fine and worth a read. Additionally, I think a shorter, summarized version would also make for a great tool for the armchair theologians in the United States who are trying to get a quicker answer to why these preachers "don't seem right" to them.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/2

Arriving in stores tomorrow is The Noticer by Andy Andrews and published by Thomas Nelson. In the book, the author follows the life of a homeless youth who is found by Jones, a wander himself who "notices" enough about people to help them see a new way of thinking. In addition to helping the homeless youth realize that he's able to do more than sit under a pier, Jones seems to help everyone in the town one way or another. He's everyone's best friend, yet no one really knows anything about the "noticer".

The book is an uplifting, quick read that did not draw me to any new thoughts, but reminded me of simple things I already knew--to be kind to others, that life isn't all about yourself, and that life can be great or horrible depending on simply how you choose to view your situation. The author writes the book in a tone that suggests that the end is already known and thus lacking suspense. Jones seemed too good to be real and I struggled with that throughout the book.

Despite these limitations, the book is just right to remind the reader that even the worst of situations have a silver lining and a reminder for us not to take things for granted. I think the book would make a great gift for the always too-cynical high school guy.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/2

Over Spring Break, I read Fr. Martin McGee, OSB's latest book, Christian Martyrs for a Muslim People, published by Paulist Press. This is a story of nineteen Catholic martyrs who died, for being Catholic, while serving a virtually completely Muslim population in Algeria.

While the land that is now Algeria was once a booming Catholic world before the Islamic faith traveled to north Africa, overall, Catholicism had only existed because of French colonial activity in the area. When Algeria gained independence in the mid-20th century, the vast majority of Catholics left the region. In the 1970s, the Algerian government consolidated many Catholic services still in the area (such as schools), leaving the various bishops, parish priests and monks with virtually no Catholic population. In fact, the book mentions one parish whose only Catholic parishioners were monks of a local monastery.

In a great multi-faith twist, the Catholic ministers began to serve the Muslim population--not in religious services, but through social work. The priests and religious would operate libraries and serve the non-religious needs of the community, despite the threat from extremists to remove Christians from Algeria.

The horrible actions of a few resulted in the death of nineteen Catholics in the 1990s.

Fr. McGee takes a great look inside the lives of these nineteen, explaining why they would face almost certain death in order to serve a population who was not Catholic nor would become Catholic anytime soon.

This is a great read about an aspect of our global Catholicism that I had known nothing about (beyond perhaps seeing these names on the annual list of Catholics killed for the faith). This is truly an amazing story and all Christians (not just Catholics) should read this as both a testimony of amazing lives and as an example of ways to interact with folks of other faiths.

I recently read The Truth About You: Your Secret to Success by Marcus Buckingham and found the book interesting. The book comes in three pieces: a ~30-minute DVD, an actual book and a notepad, stylized as a "ReMemo" pad.

Truly, I cannot decide if I liked the DVD (which the book asks you watch before reading) or not. I have a personal preconceived notion that a charismatic guy talking about self-discovery is faking it. Mr. Buckingham seems very genuine, but for me, I had to work hard to actually listen to him. In reality, the DVD has some great basic "truths" about life--nothing groundbreaking or worthy of a call to mother to tell her you've discovered the newest nugget required for life.

The book is an "interactive book", which I wasn't sure what that meant when I started reading it. I expected the book and the DVD to work in tandem with each other, to be weaved into use more. After watching the DVD before reading the book, the DVD is referenced but not used again. An interactive book, in this case, means the book, while mostly text to read, does include various prompts with space for you to write a response.

My biggest critique is that the book seems to just repeat what the DVD already said. Sure, there's a bit more depth and reading it gives you a chance to think about it in a different way, but I had the urge to skip paragraphs because of the "I've already heard this from him" line of thought.

That being said, I think the book still has a great market--groups. While individually, I think the book was good--not great--as a self-discovery tool, the book has great potential to be used as part of a group to help individual members discover more about their strengths and weaknesses. Whether you're a corporation, a prayer group or whatever else, using this DVD/book/notepad set as a guided practice to help individuals discover and discuss the results would be quite fruitful. As an individual, I wanted to "skip ahead to the good stuff", but the good stuff about this book is what my mind naturally wanted me to skip. In a group setting, I would have been "called out" early for this and been able to more deeply enjoy the book's strengths.

In short, if you're really yearning to discover more about your strengths or weaknesses, give this book a try. If you feel alright about what you already know, find a group of folks who are like-minded or are yearning and experience this book together.

After the jump, you can explore the first few pages of the book.

Disclaimer: I was given this book by the publisher, Thomas Nelson, as part of a program for book reviewers, but given no direction to follow nor compensation for this review. DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/2

I just completed this work, one of the newer books published by the Paulist Press, The Rights of Catholics in the Church.

The work, by Rev. James Cordien, is obviously the work of a scholar of canon law. While very factual, the presentation is dry. At the end of the discussion in each section, Cordien adds needed flavor through a case study.

While the presentation is dry, the work is a comprehensive look at the rights of Catholics in Church (true to the name!) while admitting that these rights are not always respected. The sense from the author is that as the Church adapts more the notion of "rights of the faithful", some of the difficulty is presented by the Church, through her priests or bishops or through the institutions of appeal or lack thereof.

In many sectors of the Church, the faithful are sadly believe that "Father is always right", no matter the situation. This work brings to light many of the rights that I personally was not fully versed on, such as the right to educate children or for religious formation. Some rights, like the right to form assemblies of the faithful, are more well-known through their fruits, the many lay association movements that now exist in the Church. Other rights, such as the right to receive the sacraments should be explored in greater depth--many pastors prohibit individuals from marrying because of parish "registration", something not foreseen by the Church.

The work is divided into three broad sections: "An Overview of Rights in the Church", a section that looks at the historical development of rights and freedoms in the Church, from the apostles to the revised 1983 Code of Canon Law. The meat of the book is found in the second section, "The Rights of Catholics in the Church". This 100-page section speaks of twenty-eight rights identified from the Code of Canon Law by the author broken into relatively easy to understand sections that follow a logical order. Many of these discussions overlap since many of the rights are rooted in common themes, especially the active participation of the faithful in the life and ministry of the Chuch. The final section, "Limitations On and Defense of Rights in the Church", after acknowledging the rights, explores the limitations and nature of appealing when a person's rights are denied.

All in all, I give this book three stars for "I liked it". I probably won't read it cover-to-cover again, but it'll stay in my reference collection and add to my understanding of canon law. I do hope the author completes a second volume discussing the obligations, the flip side of the rights coin, of Catholics in the Church.

Ed. Note: This marks my 500th post on this blog. I probably should figure out my organizational structure soon!

Discovering that they are loved by God, people come to understand their own transcendent dignity, they learn not to be satisfied with only themselves but to encounter their neighbour in a network of relationships that are ever more authentically human.

Men and women who are made “new” by the love of God are able to change the rules and the quality of relationships, transforming even social structures. They are people capable of bringing peace where there is conflict, of building and nurturing fraternal relationships where there is hatred, of seeking justice where there prevails the exploitation of man by man.

Only love is capable of radically transforming the relationships that men maintain among themselves. This is the perspective that allows every person of good will to perceive the broad horizons of justice and human development in truth and goodness.

From the opening of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. You can buy it from Amazon.com or view it online.

As I mentioned before, if a book leaves me thinking about it for a good time following or leads me to tell everyone I encounter that they must read the book, it will get five stars in my book.

This is the life story of Father Ted Hesburgh, CSC, former president of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend. In addition to living the life of a priest at Notre Dame, he was an international player in atomic energy politics, founding member of the Civil Rights Commission and has met more Presidents of the United States and Popes than I could name (maybe not true, but point the same).

One particular story that stuck out for me was when one of the Presidents asked him what he could do to help repay Fr. Hesburgh for all of his work. The good priest said to fly in the fastest plane in the world, at the time being the SR-71. The request was denied at first since the military does not allow that. Without hesitation, Fr. Hesburgh replied that the military works for him.

The section of the book telling about his life as a priest impacted me the most. First, he tells of what the Holy Cross seminary experience was like. Then he tells of his experiences as a simple priest at ND. The discussion of this is some of the greatest vocational material I've read. Perhaps, this might because it wasn't written to be vocation material. Just a priest doing what he was ordained to do.

Fr, Hesburgh is obviously a very intelligent person able to discuss the finer points of almost any topic. In the context of the book, there is a little bit of something for everyone.

The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene, is a story of an old "whiskey priest" trying to escape capture in old southern Mexico. The State had outlawed God. Churches were closed and destroyed. Priests either had to marry, by law, or be killed, almost all opting for death. The Padre finds himself being the only priest, surrounded by the spiritual needy and the demons of his own life, trying to make sense of everything.

I found this book to be a quick read that I found to be thought provoking. I've heard much about this work before sitting down and reading it. I expected the internal conflict within the priest to be greater than what it was. His struggle, while very real, was a struggle between his thought and his action. His thought did not seem to battle itself—he seemed clear that he was a bad priest, that is, a horrible priest not worthy of the title. However, through his actions, he helped the faith of the people whom he admitted he failed in saving.

Looking at the whole of the book, it reminds us that martyrs may not be the ones you expect. Those who are completely unsure of his place in life or of his faith may be asked to sacrifice it all. Those who continue the walk of Christ despite the painful death it will cause is a martyr. They may be lacking in faith and devotion, but there is something holy in the unexpected martyr that, in many cases, speaks loudly to people facing the same crisis of faith.

The work is very good, but I cannot give it five stars. To get five stars, a book has to keep me thinking about it days after I finish reading it. This one was close, but not quite.

"There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described."

An interesting point made by Tufte is that "comparisons must be enforced within the scope of the eyespan". For those readers who do not have this book, there are four separate maps of China with red dots of varying sizes indicating the number of poets born in what location during each of four dynasties. Since these maps extend two pages in the book, they are not a good tool for comparisons.

Can't a comparison be displayed in two separate locations and still be a comparison?

Let's ignore numerical data, as that would clearly be able to be compared outside of a single eyspan. What other types of data can be displayed and compared in separate locations? In many cases, dimensions of the data can be compared. For example, on the two-page example, it is quite difficult to compare different dynasties in terms of exactly how many poets were born in a single area. However, it is not as difficult to compare that the Ming dynasty had a much greater concentration of births along the coast as compared to the Tang dynasty.

We should be careful to say when something can or can't be done.

Small multiples would be well used for displaying the progression of one's facial expression during a class. In lieu of a video or animation, we could capture 9 still photographs of an individual's face- once every ten minutes for the standard 90-minute class. Looking at the presented information, we can determine if the material led to excitement, boredom, shock or another one of the human emotions we express through our faces.

Do no evil.

In addition to being the motto of Google, this is also the credo of information designers. When adding color to information displays, the first question that should be asked "does this help or hurt the presentation of information?"

Colors should interact on a level that allows the consumer to see the data, not the colors. Color should enhance the data, not confuse it. For example, the colors on a CapMetro system map are designed to allow information consumers to follow bus routes on the map. However, there needs to be more care taken in high-traffic areas, such as downtown and the UT campus. In those areas, the multiple colors detract from the information to be conveyed, making it difficult to follow a bus route. In these cases, they should consolidate the lines and reduce the number of objects on the map.

A theme that is constant is that information must be presented in ways that would not confuse the intended consumer. If the data is confusing, it is not useful and the purpose of information, in most cases, is to be useful.