Charis, Greek for Grace

Source: NetGalley.com

Charis, by Preston Sprinkle
Publisher: David C Cook
Publication date: July 1, 2014
Category: Christian nonfiction
Source: I received this e-galley from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Back in December (2013), I found myself brave enough to get my first tattoo (yes, I've added on since then). I think it was mostly because I'd finally found something I believed in so much I would declare it on my person for eternity. Of course, I wrote about it - it was my first post of 2014, called Words as Symbols. (Check it out! There's a picture and a much more thorough explanation.) For a quick synopsis, the word I spoke about and tattooed is eucharisteo, which is Greek for thanksgiving. But the focus for this review is the root word of eucharisteo, which is charis (see it hiding there in the middle of eucharisteo?). Charis is Greek for grace, which happens to be the title and topic of today's book in review.

So now it should be obvious why this title caught my eye. I've spent a year and a half reading and rereading, thinking, and then tattooing this topic, so when a book centered on a piece of it pops up, it's a must try. This book being Christian nonfiction, the grace in question is God's grace. A grace that has no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It is best defined in the forward, where writer Tullian Tchividjian quotes Paul Zahl's definition of grace:

"Grace is love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return. Grace is love coming at you that has nothing to do with you. Grace is being loved when you are unlovable…. The cliché definition of grace is 'unconditional love.' It is a true cliché, for it is a good description of the thing.… Let’s go a little further, though. Grace is a love that has nothing to do with you, the beloved. It has everything and only to do with the lover. Grace is irrational in the sense that it has nothing to do with weights and measures. It has nothing to do with my intrinsic qualities or so-called 'gifts' (whatever they may be). It reflects a decision on the part of the giver, the one who loves, in relation to the receiver, the one who is loved, that negates any qualifications the receiver may personally hold...Grace is one-way love."

Author Preston Sprinkle teaches Old Testament classes in a college setting and what he noticed was that our current generations of Bible readers have been trained to read the Old Testament morally, looking to the many people and events as ways we should live. When you think of men like Moses and Abraham, you think of freeing a nation of slaves and a man of obedience...not a murderer and pagan. And that's Sprinkle's point of this particular book on grace. Moses and Abraham were not wonderful guys by any means, but God uses His grace to work wonders through the most vile of people. These stories of grandeur are not focused on moral people's moral acts, but on God and His grace alone as the center stage.

Sprinkle speaks quite frankly, often using the Message translation of the Bible, which makes scandalous topics sound even more so. I appreciate frank talk in a book like this (as opposed to sugar coating it), but at points I wasn't sure if it was for shock value as well.  It didn't bother me at all, just something I noticed.

It was a different take on the topic of grace for me. Usually the topic is discussed as far as what grace means and how it can work in your life and the lives of others, which Sprinkle does in Charis as well. However, taking those time old stories and showing them through the lens of grace adds a whole new level of understanding for someone who has heard the same stories her whole life.

Begin the Week with Words

Here's a quote with an "ouch" factor in it!

"Comfort zone: the name we give to the ever-shrinking little space where fear, timidity, and selfishness corral our possibilities, confine our aspirations, and severely limit whatever use we might be to the world around us." The Book of Not So Common Prayer, by Linda McCullough Moore

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Source: goodreads.com

Sometimes the library fairy determines what you will read next. I had my summer list posted for all to see and had read 20 pages into Cloud Atlas, determined to keep going. And lo and behold, I get an email notification that my library hold is ready from my local library. And being an ebook, all I have to do to get started is click "download" on the app. Who am I not to respect the library fairy's timing? After all, it was The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, by Gabrielle Zevin.

Almost all of my favorite blogs have reviewed The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry and loved it. I have to say it was just straight out enjoyable. A.J.'s life and business are sinking, for good reason, but he is too depressed to care. Until a series of fateful events take place and A.J. is given a second chance at family, friendship, love, and life. The story takes us through the latter years of A.J.'s life and definitely glosses over/through a few happenings, but it didn't bother me much because the characters and story are just too enjoyable. The events discussed are the most important for the story's focus too, so you can't complain about unnecessary detail. And of course, as the title suggests, the book is rife with book and author references. Oh, and the abundance of bookish quotes, such as: "People tell boring lies about politics, God, and love. You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to one question, What is your favorite book?" What book lover can resist that? That in itself should make book lovers want to read it. So I join the ranks of those recommending The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry for pure enjoyment.

Now back to Cloud Atlas. Anyone have a book about books they'd recommend?

Summer 2014 Reading List

Going into each season of the year it's fun to pick out the books I'm looking forward to the most. Plus, making a list means I'm might actually get to them...but not guaranteed! I made a list of twelve books to read for Winter 2014 and got around to all of them except for one! That's a personal record as far as following a reading list goes.

So here are the fifteen on my radar, in no particular order:

Now to decide which one I should read first?!

1. The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards
This was the one book from my Winter 2014 post that I didn't finish, so it only seems right to carry it over here. It is on my TBR Pile Challenge, so I will get around to it, but I have a feeling it may end up toward the bottom of this summer reading list.

2. Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell
Between those who have read this book and/or saw the movie, I've heard it is rather complicated to follow at the start, but worth the effort! It is on my Chunkster Challenge, which is a plus. Also, I want to watch the movie with a good friend who goes through movies like I do books. (He has a movie blog, JoeMama's Movie Reviews. He owns thousands of movies...it takes us an hour to go through his cases to decide what to watch. We call him JoeFlix.)

3. Eleanor & Park, by Rainbow Rowell
A big title in YA recently that I want to put on my classroom shelf come September, so I thought I'd like to read it first. You know, while it is still clean and in one piece.

4. Me Before You, by JoJo Moyes
Another book with rave reviews, as well as an author who receives rave reviews herself. (Is there a better way to praise a book than say it had "rave reviews"?) This one and any of her other titles sound promising based on what the majority of people have to say about Moyes's storytelling and writing.

5. Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
There's gotta be a humdinger of a classic on the list, right? If I don't read it during the summer, I'm afraid I won't be able to give it the attention it needs during the busy school year. I made sure to do this with The Count of Monte Cristo last summer and it worked much better than when I read Les Mis (unabridged) three months into the school year the year

6. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck.
Another classic, but one long overdue for me. I teach Steinbeck every year in American Literature, so I should probably be more familiar with one of his most culturally known works. Not to mention, the Great Depression/migrant worker theme will match up nicely with Of Mice and Men.

The Uglies series have really creepy faces on the covers.
Although I like them better than the newer covers,
I keep them covered up sitting in my room. Creepy.

7. Uglies series, by Scott Westefield
This is a series of four YA books I brought home from my classroom shelf for the summer: Uglies, Pretties, Specials, and Extras. The idea is that everyone is born ugly and has major cosmetic surgery at age 16 to make them pretty. The series has an obvious storyline, a problem with the surgeries, etc., but "the true thrust of the story is that individual freedoms are far more important than the need for uniformity and the elimination of personal will" (Wikipedia). The Big Brother vibe comes into play with this dystopian sci-fi, so I'm happy to see it's YA with a deeper meaning.

8. Matched trilogy, by Ally Condie
Also from my classroom shelf: Matched, Crossed, and Reached. At age 17, the dystopian society of Matched does just that...they are each matched up with a member of the opposite sex. Their lives are completely controlled by the government and so you know where this is going...yep, rebellion. Good old Katniss style, whose Hunger Games series came out two years before Matched. But that's okay, I'm getting the full timeline of rebellious female characters, since Tally in Uglies dates back to 2005, three years before Katniss.

9.  Miss Peregrine's & Hollow City, by Ransom Riggs
Again, more rave reviews, which I thought, "okay, sure" and promptly handed my classroom copy off to a number of students to guinea pig it for me. I kid you not, every single one came back loving it. Still, I put it off. Hollow City came out and those same students begged me to get it. When I started seeing great reviews for it, I decided to buy it. When a senior wrote to tell me that handing him Miss Peregrine's the year before made him start reading again, I decided to bring them home to read for the summer. (See, my students do come in handy. I use them to guinea pig all the new YA material, so I can only read what seems most worth it!)

So there you have it...a most ambitious list that doesn't include books I've taken for review, or the three intriguing nonfiction e-books I purchased a week ago, or the other books on my TBR and Chunkster Challenges, or the nine other books sitting on my dresser haunting me nightly, or the bookshelves I pretend I don't see.

Oh dear Lord. Help me.

Begin the Week with Words

Although Rise and Shine did not turn out to be a good book, I did find this good quote.

"In a world that had become like that restaurant, friends and enemies and rivals and lies all with an ear cocked heavenward for the messages from cell phones and e-mails and lunch conversation, the only possible way to be silent was to disappear." Rise and Shine, by Anna Quindlen

The Book of Not So Common Prayer

Source: NetGalley.com

The Book of Not So Common Prayer, by Linda McCullough Moore
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Publication date: June 3, 2014
Category: Christian nonfiction, self-help
Source: I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

The title of this book caught my eye because it deals with a major piece of Christianity and the title plays off of a well known prayer book, The Book of Common Prayer. The title is pretty straight forward as far as what you'll find inside. Linda McCullough Moore discusses why we pray and how prayer changes people as much as it changes circumstances. Some of the information I've heard elsewhere, but there was also discussion that was new to me...this being the "not so common" part I assume.

Unlike most Christian nonfiction books that may speak to prayer in a chapter or scattered throughout, Moore takes the reader through her personal journey of instilling prayer throughout her day, every day. She details her thoughts before, during, and after the process. I liked this aspect, as it gives the reader a clear example of what she means...such as when she talks about her mind wandering. She also goes further than an example and talks about what a problem can mean and how to fix said problem (such as a wandering mind). And last she gives many examples of how she's prayed...many of the examples beyond use of words or other activities (art or music) coinciding with words. Overall I thought the book taught new aspects and clarified others. If you find the information in it repetitive, then you've probably read enough books on prayer and should just get to it!

We Were Liars

Source: Amazon.com

Well, I didn't see that one coming...even with warnings and crazy non-reviews that should've made me suspect some crazy ending (like Andi's at Estella's Revenge, which finally pushed me over the edge and made me read it). We Were Liars follows a few summers of the wealthy Sinclair family on Beechwood Island, where they own four summer homes and an endless supply of money to buy whatever other happiness they could want.

The part you can see coming is that such immense wealth can only lead to no good. The part you can't see - and won't until it smacks you in the face - is the shape in which the "no good" hits. It's tragedy at its worst, preventable tragedy.

Cadence suffers memory loss and debilitating migraines due to the tragedy, so the story follows her as she pieces together what happened that one summer two years ago. Although you are collecting the clues as you read, the ending will still hit you put of nowhere. There's not much else worth saying, because the ending will turn any details I give on end anyway. So read it. It's a relatively fast read too, due to both the size and the suspense.

PS: Summer vacation is almost two weeks in and I've read five books already! I'm stoked!

Anyone else read any REALLY outstanding YA lately?