Sophist
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008by Plato Translated by Seth Benardete I'm pretty excited to be moving on to Aristotle.
by Plato Translated by Seth Benardete I'm pretty excited to be moving on to Aristotle.
One Month to Live
Monday, June 2nd, 2008by Kerry & Chris Shook This was a pretty solid book. It had a little bit of the trappings of pop-christianity, but at the root was a solid message: How would your priorities change if you knew that you had only 30 days to live?
Shōgun
Friday, May 30th, 2008by James Clavell Pretty good book. It gets a little racy at times. I read a brand new copy of this book that is also 28 years old. My roommate found it in his bookstore and it has been there since the publisher sent it to them in 1980.
The Four Loves
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008by C.S. Lewis The greatness of Plato's Symposium is to the greatness of this book as the sphere of the Earth is to the sphere of the fixed stars. The four loves are: Affection, Friendship, Eros, and Charity (Storge, Philos, Eros, and Agape). I especially connected with Lewis' redemption of Eros. The sternest feminist ...
Gödel, Escher, Bach:
Friday, May 16th, 2008an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter This is a pretty good book. It does a great job of "continuing" from where my St. John's liberal education left off into the 20th century. The author's style is well-suited for introducing extremely complicated ideas in the most copacetic way possible. However, what the book ...
The Pilgrim’s Progress
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008by John Bunyan Excellent book. I especially like the second part and the aspect of community that it points out. The motley crew of pilgrims all traveling down the road to the King's Dominion is very encouraging and insightful.
Theaetetus
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008by Plato translated by Seth Benardete This is a very important dialogue. Socrates inquires into the notion of "knowledge". It is very interesting what he allows and disallows. He offers a delighful argument against the Pythagorean notion that "Man is the measure of all things"
The Mystery of Capital
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else by Hernando de Soto He keeps saying the same thing over and over again: In the Third World and in former Communist countries, the poor have accrued a huge amount of capital, but they are unable to access this capital in the ...
The Radical Reformission
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008reaching out without selling out by Mark Driscoll I had to resist quoting the entire book here. Mark points out a middle way between sectarianism and syncretism. This involves engaging the culture more than extreme fundamentalists are comfortable with, while also sticking to fundamental doctrines more openly than liberals want to.
Embryo
Sunday, March 30th, 2008a Defense of Human Life by Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen A non-Theological defense of the position that from fertilization (either natural, In-vitro, or cloned) a human embryo deserves all the protection extended to adult humans. After responding to arguments against this position, the authors call for: 1. legislation to protect human ...
The Everlasting Man
Friday, March 28th, 2008by G.K. Chesterton Chesterton offers a different look at politics and religion. He offers counter-arguments to all sorts of little assumptions I have semi-consciously agreed with (e.g. Democracy is naturally superior to Despotism or Rationalism is liberal and Orthodoxy is illiberal).
Blue Like Jazz
Friday, February 22nd, 2008by Donald Miller This is a great book. Once you get used to his style of prose, he starts really dropping some theology on you, but without you really noticing it... until it's too late :D It's edgy without falling off the edge. Jesus is the center.
The Art of the Start
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008by Guy Kawasaki Good stuff on startups... Weird stuff on Theology.
The Good of Affluence
Saturday, February 16th, 2008Seeking God in a Culture of Wealth by John Schneider The author walks through the entire Bible building a case for the inherent moral neutrality of affluence, while pointing out the external circumstances that cause wealth to become evil or good.
Boy Meets Girl
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008by Joshua Harris I read part of this back when I bought it 7-ish years ago. If you get past the jargon-y parts it has some solid advice.
The Qur’an
Thursday, January 10th, 2008translated by M.H. Shakir I'm guessing this isn't the most artful of translations, but even accounting for that it was very difficult to read. There was very little narrative, and the list of Arabic names and English equivalents came up a little short. Since the Qur'an refers to other narratives quite ...
Streams of Living Water
Monday, January 7th, 2008by Richard J Foster Streams of Living Water identifies the "six great traditions of the Christian faith," Gives an historical, biblical, and contemporary example of a person who best exemplified each tradition, then points out the strengths and potential pitfalls of each tradition. The traditions are: Contemplative, Holiness, Charismatic, Social Justice, Evangelical, ...
Freakonomics
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner Interesting book... probably most well-known for pointing out the correlation of Roe v. Wade and the drop in crime in the 1990's. The authors do not applaud the correlation as an intended consequence, but they do point it out.
Isaiah 20
Sunday, December 16th, 2007So... When you are worrying that you don't know what God is saying because it sounds crazy, you might want to check out Isaiah 20. It's a pretty short book. It basically goes: God tells Isaiah "Hey... run around naked for a while." Then the next we hear, God is telling ...
Philoctetes
Friday, December 14th, 2007by Sophocles Translated by David Grene Definitely my favorite of Sophocles' plays... Probably because of the lack of suicide. It was similar to Oedipus at Colonus.
