New book reviews

I have moved my book reviews to something called Shelfari.  It will save time by providing the cover art, author, and synopsis.  All I have to do is write my own review. Also, the new format lends itself better to smaller reviews. I will still write a longer review every once in a while.

You can also see the cover art for books I read on my "shelf" on the right.  However, it's not easy to see my reviews by clicking on those.  I provided a link above to my newest reviews.

Book Review: My Conversion, by Charles H Spurgeon

Charles Spurgeon is a famous Baptist preacher, renowned for his preaching.   This book is from my grandparents' collection, which means I've had it in a box for a while.  I really didn't enjoy it.  The old writing style was very difficult to follow.

Book Review: Learning ASP.NET 3.5

This book officially has the worst cover of any book I have read.

This publisher chooses a different animal for every book - and chooses a black and white drawing of it - it's kind of geeky.  This particular one is a monkfish - one of the ugliest fish known to man.

This book reminded me of college when I learned/used object-oriented programming.  ASP is much easier now, because you can drag and drop, instead of just typing everything.  Still, it is difficult to learn without real world experience.  Several of the examples in the book didn't work.  Next I want to learn ASP MVC 2.0

Book Review: My Brother's Keeper, Part III - Review

"What the social sciences do (and don't) tell us about masculinity.

I started out ambitiously, but I don't feel like writing a chapter-by-chapter review anymore.

Overall, I was impressed at the author's (Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen) breadth of knowledge.  However, she still seems more interested in women's issues than men's.  This provided a unique perspective for me - one that I haven't necessarily been exposed to.  I am the descendant of two lines where women were housewives and did not work outside the home. Second wave feminism has always been viewed in a very negative light.   (first wave feminism being the right to vote, basically)  And the author, being a feminist, opened my mind a bit about Biblical views (we are all equal in Christ) and cultural history.

Actually, I should mention that I did get a lot out the chapter about the history of men's work.  As a nation we moved from an agrarian society to an industrial society.  Before, communities were tightly knit and work was seasonal. Now, things have changed, and the workplace has become religion for many men.  I would spend more time writing about this, but probably no one is reading this post anyway (other than my lovely wife), and I need to head to bed.

I think the book was stimulating overall.

Book Review: My Brother's Keeper, Part II - Biology

Let's jump right into the Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen book again...fast forward to chapter 5, "What Can We Learn from Biology?"

This chapter has some interesting anomalies of biology which causes us to redefine what is male.  A track athlete, Maria Patino, failed a microscopic test because the results showed the chromosomal XY pattern for males rather than the XX pattern for females.  However, after disqualifying and embarassing her, after further research down the road, it was found that the testosterone did not have any effect on her bone growth or anything else, and did not give her any advantage.

Then there is the case of a very young boy whose genitals were destroyed during a circumcision.  So the parents consulted a psychologist, and "after much heart-searching chose surgical reconstruction for Bruce as a passable girl".  The "experiment" was of special interest to social scientists, because Bruce also had a identical twin.   It turns out that even though he thought he was a girl, and everyone treated him like one, he preferred to do male things, and eventually his parents had to tell him what happened.  And he was not too happy about it, and changed his name to David Reimer.  The point is that social conditioning didn't change who he was, and neither did his lack of male genitals.

Unfortunately, I do not know if this has a point for our lives.  I think I have more sympathy for people who seem to have an ambiguous gender.  People may have a biological setup that does not set them apart as much.  Although, those people, if they do not want to look ambiguous should make efforts to wear the right hairstyles and clothing.

Book Review: My Brother's Keeper: What the Social Sciences Do & Don't Tell Us About Masculinity, by Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen

An intellectual yet readable book about what social sciences have gleaned about masculinity.  And of course it was written from a Christian world view, because it is published by Intervarsity Press.  I bought it at Urbana Missions Conference back in December 2003. 

I feel that I want to write an extended review.  Because I think it is unlikely that anyone else will read this book.  I'm not slamming it.  I just don't think you will find it in your bookstore or hear about it from anyone else.  So I shall summarize it for thee.  So I will write just a little at a time.

Chapter 2 - The Biblical Drama and the Gendered Powers

Van Leeuwen touched upon the issue of interpretation of the Bible - how some fundamentalists take things all too literally.  In this discussion, she is concerned about the Biblical teaching about gender of course.  

"In its extreme form, this approach turns the Bible into something like a dictionary or encyclopedia, where almost any reference to men and women is grist for a fixed set of gendered behaviors.  This tendency to treat the Bible as a "flat book" owes much to the legacy of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy that arose in North America early in the twentieth century.  While claiming to challenge 'godless science' with a high view of Scripture, fundamentalists still let the positivest norms of modern science dictate the terms of the debate.  That is, they uncritically bought the notion that truth could be packaged only in scientifically or historically literal form, though they included in the latter category statements inspired by God and recorded in Scripture."

On the other side, the liberal theologians and some scientists also erred in their beliefs by incorrectly assuming that science is completely free of bias.  "To do effective science....you need to have some prior idea of what it is you are looking for and what it means"

The following excerpt is a slam dunk in favor of science from a Christian world view:

"...Other things being equal (such as native ability and good training) scholars in any discipline who view their subject through the lens of Christian faith are no less 'biased' or 'unscholarly' than ones who do so through the lens of a naturalistic or Marxist or any other worldview.  In fact, it is more honest and fruitful to do scholarship from the standpoint of an acknowledged worldview that can be candidly analyzed and discussed than to presume one is working from a position of impossible neutrality behind which a worldview will be operating anyway" 

Besides this discussion being interesting by itself, Van Leeuwen goes on to explain that the gospel message is that there is now equality between men and women, and all people.  And this is not promoting hegemony (I learned new words, by the way), which means men and women are the same, but just promoting equality.  Paul's statements in the New Testament that command women to keep quiet and in the background must be explained in the context of the Greco-Roman, which was very male dominated.  Van Leeuwen quotes from another book:

"Paul hoped to earn Christians protection from outside hostility by advising them to conform to the public honor codes of the Greco-Roman world.  At the same time he subverted this very world by developing ideas that led Christians to contradict this code in their private lives"

I was actually excited when I read this, because I feel that Scripture is sometimes hard to understand.  And when something is explained in the historical context in a way that makes sense, it kind of lifts a burden off of my shoulders.  So this was just the beginning, I will keep going later!

Book Review: Sacred Marriage, by Gary Thomas

On page 238 of 270, I begged this book "PLEASE END!". And then I turned to Courtney and said, "You know I don't have to finish it. I'm done."

We received this as a wedding gift from my sister (thanks), who told us to wait a few years before reading. Then we started reading it when our small group decided to read it.  And then our baby was born, and we quit reading it.  So I've been trying to complete it.

For most of the time, I thought the author was Gary Chapman, the guy with the Southern accent and huge glasses who wrote The Five Love Languages.  But then only recently did I realize that was not the same person - this was written by Gary Thomas.   It is a strange mix of theology, opinion, church history, personal anecdotes, already accepted  ideas, and outlandish ideas.

I thought it was very difficult to care about what the author was saying, because it was so drawn out and dry.  The various attempts at humor did not pull me back in.  It turns out Gary Chapman is easier to follow.  I am not doing too well on enjoying marriage books.  Is there a John Eldredge book on this subject?  Now that would be great. (Yes, it's called Love and War!)

Book Review: Pride and Prejudice

I have seen the end of this 2005 film about 5 times.  Courtney is a big fan.  I thought it would be fun if I read the book before finally seeing the entire movie.  Interestingly, some of the most memorable parts of the movie actually were not in the book.  The general location and purpose of the scenes were the same, but not the words.  That is forgivable of course.  It's not like Count of Monte Cristo from 2002 where the characters and half of the plot were different.

I thought this was a lot funnier than Count of Monte Cristo (talking about the books now).  And it was more manageable (approx 300 pages vs. 1200).  Most of the suspense in Pride and Predudice is around relationships, misunderstandings, and personality analysis.  I like the character of Elizabeth, because she reminds me of myself.  She does not divulge all of her information until it is safe.  At the end everyone is surprised that she loves Mr. Darcy, because she hasn't told anyone.  I also like to really be sure of things before I tell people about them.  The desired end of P&P is marriage to eligible bachelors.  The desired end of "Count" is revenge.

So even though the desired end of P&P is marriage to eligible bachelors, I still found it interesting and suspenseful.  The emotion of wanting someone to like you, it goes beyond that time period and whatever gender we are speaking of.  But that time period makes in more suspenseful in that women were more dependent on men, legally and financially.  So there is a lot on the line with these romances.

I thought the book an excellent description of various personalities and motives.  It is just excellent!

I'm not a huge fan of literary critiques, they are often too academic and ruin the story for me. So I skipped the introduction that was written by a scholar.  But I'm sure they wrote that the book and author, Jane Austen, were remarkable.

Book Review: Be a People Person, by John Maxwell

When I acquired this book, I still had the idea to increase my business of selling books on Amazon.  So courtney told me about this large collection of books. There is former pastor, who left his ministry, marriage and his books behind. Sad story.  I didn't find any books that were worth money, but I picked out a few that looked interesting.

I have always seen John Maxwell books that my dad has been reading.  My dad keeps up to date on leadership issues.  The Wikipedia article states that John Maxwell has written 50 books.  So I was interested in reading something written by him, and I could always work on my people skills!

This book is from 1994, and the original date was 1989.  So that makes it one of the first books John Maxwell has written. And it is really impactful and impressive.  And it is brief which is nice. It is filled with fun and relevant stories, and is really convicting.  I am definitely keeping it around.

Some good quotes, used completely without permission.

• Charisma is being more concerned about making others feel good about themselves than you are in making them feel good about you!
• Helen Keller said "Security is mostly a superstition.  It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.  Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.  Life is either a daring adventure or nothing"
• An insecure leader, on the other hand, believes neither in himself or others. Insecure people are afraid to risk building others up with compliments, because they are constantly in need of compliments themselves.
• Establish your worth according to God's value system.
• Develop friendships with confident people.
• Be aware of the specific reasons why the other person requires persuasion and perhaps has resisted it.
• People do things for their reasons, not your reasons
• You can get everything in life you want if you help enough people get what they want.
• In the final analysis, results are what matter; attendance and activity don't.
• I act as I see myself.  In fact, it is impossible to consistently behave in a manner that is inconsistent with the way we see ourselves.
• Criticism is something you can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.
• Criticism: don't undermine the person's self-confidence. Attack the problem, not the person.  Look at yourself before looking at others.

Book Review: Beginning ASP.NET

Another selection from the "Stalker Series".  those eyes, looking at you, staring at you from the cover.  My one female coworker called this guy "not hot".  I thought it was more of a Leo DiCaprio look, and I'm jealous of the amount of hair.

This is the fastest I've ever read a tech book.  I actually never programmed any of the examples.  I flipped through the pages very quickly.  It's not so much that I knew everything, but that I just want to get a basic idea of the features.  I don't have time to dwell on every topic.

It introduced object oriented programming and basic database concepts, which was surprising. The book really is for beginners and that's probably why I flipped through it.

Next I would like to read Advanced ASP.NET 4.0 or learn about MVC, or Ruby on Rails. My calling as a Computer Scientist and not just Database programmer has been renewed.So hopefully I will put some Object Oriented programming skills to use in my new job.

(this is the first post I've written with the new Blogger features - very nice.)

Book Review: The Wal-Mart Effect, by Charles Fishman

Courtney has refused to shop at Wal-Mart ever since hearing a presentation about fair trade practices. I go along with it, but I occasionally get food and basic necessities from Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market. My main objection to boycotting Wal-Mart is that there does not seem to be a ton of evidence that Wal-Mart is any worse than other big stores. This book didn't necessarily help me with out, but it's a real gem for understanding the effect of Wal-Mart.

This is the first business book I've read. the writing style is just perfect. It is written in a style that explains business concepts, but also doesn't treat the reader like a dufus. It's the perfect pace for me. Also, I like the author's "high road" approach. What I mean is that he is open to whether Wal-Mart is good or bad. I would hate to waste my time on a biased book. The author both criticizes and praises Wal-Mart. The basic idea is that Wal-Mart is great for consumers and prices, but these low prices come at a cost to suppliers.

I was amazed how Wal-Mart took over the grocery business in a short time. In the early 90s no consumers were begging for another grocery store. The grocery business was well established. But Wal-Mart now is the number one grocer in the world, and it has put others out of business. Just in my neighborhood (Shawnee, KS) there are two empty spaces that used to be grocery stores, and there is a new Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market that is doing well. So...now I know what happened.

Overall this book has opened my eyes to what is behind a low price, and who may be suffering because it's low. The shopper also suffers in ways such as standing in long lines, or having to assemble your own purchase. Wal-Mart affects everyone, even those who refuse to shop there. It has even affected other industries, who have modeled after Wal-Marts efficiencies. I recently applied for life insurance and it is cheaper now than many years ago, but I suffered in the area of customer service - I wasn't provided a number to call or provided any instructions on my application - that's where they saved the cost.

I love the story of the $2.97 gallon jar of pickles. Try to imagine a gallon jar of pickles if you haven't seen one -I sure haven't. And I think it would be ridiculous. But to make a statement, Wal-Mart sold this and basically made a penny off each one, if that. It was so people could look at that prominent display, and truly believe that Wal-Mart had amazing prices. The thing is that Vlasic was help hostage by this, because Wal-Mart threatened to pull all Vlasic products if they didn't keep the gallon jar. And for Vlasic it would have been a tremendous risk to stop partnering with the number one grocer in the world. So they kept going. Not sure if I can tell this story perfectly, this story just shows the power that Wal-Mart has over suppliers.

And then there is the story about the foreign factories. Workers in certain countries get paid 13 cents per hour and make about $12,000 in one career. And they work in conditions that would likely be illegal if the factory were in the U.S. So when we shop at Wal-Mart as the author says it's satisfying and frightening at the same time. The author implies that although Wal-Mart could have tremendous power to improve working conditions around the world, it doesn't as far as he can tell. And this is why Courtney has refused to shop at Wal-Mart for about 2 years now. Honestly I haven't missed it. It hasn't been a pleasant shopping experience on recent trips I've taken there - my main complaints being the inability to find items quickly and the long lines.

This book is the front runner to win my book of the year award, so check it out!

Book Review: Love and Respect

by Emerson Eggerichs

I find this book to be confusing..because it's so simple, yet so expansive. The book is based on one simple concept, but is 324 pages long.

Mostly, I found the book was asking married couples to do what Courtney and I seem to already be doing. And I don't say that out of pride, hopefully. I just think that Courtney and I are both sensitive to each other by nature. Many of the examples put forth in the book were of situations where at least one of the spouses was a very self-centered person, and where there were serious problems.

But..I will say that I am definitely not perfect, and could show appreciation to Courtney more often. There are many ways that I could be more loving. The book purports that as I show more love, Courtney will show me more respect. If one person is not doing their thing, than the mature way to live is to continue to show love and respect, and to not base it on what the other person is doing. I think my childhood models showed this to me, and that is why this concept is not difficult.

I will say that my main complaint about this book is that there are hundreds of examples of "people coming up to the author" or "writing a letter to the author" about how his conferences and writings transformed their marriages. Without all of those examples, it could have been a 100 page book. I am wondering if the publisher thought the book would sell better if it was 300 pages. I am a cynic, but I think there might be some truth to it. Sometimes things are big business that you'd rather believe are not.

Overall, I'm a little confused about what to take away from it. I think watching the DVDs or being at a conference with Courtney would help to get more out of it.

Book Review: The First Twelve Months of Life

I have a new policy on my blog. I used to only blog about books that I read completely. The purpose of that was so I would have an accurate count of the number of books I read. That was more important when I was having a little competition year to year about the number of books that I read. I will not read 30+ books again for a while, I don't think. Also, it would be good to write about books I started, but didn't like...and that is the case with this book.

I ran across it in the library. And Aunt E recommended it. But it turns out that Aunt E was actually recommending "Your Baby's First Year - Week By Week", but called it by the wrong name.

This book, The First Twelve Months of Life, has not had a reprint since 1994.

And it seems to be even older. There was a sentence in there about how "Negroe babies" have certain health tendencies. And it always used the pronoun "he" as referring to the baby. Although this might have been a victory against political correctness in the 90s, it's just weird now. Also it's really boring and tiresome. It's no surprise that it's no longer in print.

So I read a couple of chapters. I am currently reading "Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child"...that is actually really interesting.

Book Review: The Worst Hard Time

This was Courtney's birthday book for 2010 - I read this book for her birthday.

The Dust Bowl is considered to be the worst natural disaster in American history, according to the book. It lasted several years, and also happened in the midst of the Great Depression.

The problems with the land were mostly due to a wheat boom in the late 20s, where the land was ripped up for farming. Then the ecosystem that took thousands of years to develop was thrown off, and Indians who knew how to survive on the Plains were driven out.

Most people actually stayed on the Plains during this time, because they could call the land their own. But if they left, they would have nothing. But they should have left because the dust caused a health problem called dust pnemonia, and the land would not produce anything for years.

Huge dust storms came, cattle died from dust inhalation, and then swarms of grasshoppers came and ate every living plant. Pretty much when they thought times were at their worst, something worse happened, such as scorching heat and no rain.

The New Deal gave people hope (but also paved the way for Big Government - not in the book!).

This book follows the lives of 4-5 families and how they made it through the tough times.

I liked it.

Book Review: Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Administration

Yes, I did read two of these 800 page books to study for my certification exam.

Having taken an exam now, I think one book would be sufficient, and then have a very focused review on concepts that might be in the exam. But this time, my philosophy was to read large books. It actually became difficult to retain everything.

Anyway, Courtney and I call these books the "stalker books", because of the pictures on the front. The people are creepily photoshopped together to make it look like they are in the same room, and there they are staring back at you.




This idea originated with this lovely picture on a different one that I read:

Seriously, if you are doing a photo op for a book cover that will be shipped worldwide, wouldn't you think you would make some kind of effort to look nice?

I really like the inside of these books though. Since the chapters are written by various people, some of them are better than others. But compared to the other book I got, the pace is much slower and there are more diagrams and extended explanations of the reasons you would use various options. So I really like these Wrox books, and this one was good as well.

Book Review: Cosmos

It's been 9 days since a post, I figure I should write one. We were on vacation.
Plus, my life has changed, and I am focused less on "get things done" mode. I feel more freedom to do what I want. Our lives upcoming will probably 90% reacting to needs that have to get done. But for now I still do have some discretion. I am getting very close to taking my SQL Server Administration certification exam, and after that I will feel better!

Anyway, I don't have the time to do this book justice. But we came across Cosmos on sale in the book store, which is at first glance a collections of pictures of outer space. But on second glance, there is a lot of text that accompanies the pictures. On third glance, this text is very scientific and difficult to read. But I tried to read it all.

The book is also like two feet tall, so it was difficult to read...physically.


This book challenged my views of creation. Because due to the way the universe is set up, objects in the universe appear to be really old. And this doesn't match a 6 Earth day creation. Sure, God could make things look old that are really new. But for me a more acceptable answer, is "I don't really know". To me it doesn't matter, and we shouldn't let faith get in the way of honest scientific discovery. Now, I believe scientists are also in the wrong, because they can be closed minded toward Creation. They do not want to admit that science will not have all of the answers.

And that is what I gathered from this book....there have been amazing discoveries, but there are more questions than answers. I am very impressed at the science of outer space. There have been many geniuses in our past that paved the way toward understanding the universe. And now we can send probes out to Pluto, and sending people into space is old news.

The most mind boggling thing is the size of the universe. There are billions of suns like ours. And billions of galaxies. There is no way for me to comprehend it, other than considering it as infinity.

The book has a lot of sweet pictures that I'll show my son or daughter.

PS Hey I've come a long way....for 9th grade science class I wrote that snakes only existed because God cursed a salamander and then it no longer had arms and legs. Shoot. Now, I am willing to venture that a snake is a literary tool to describe the way sin entered the world... There are many questions, and we need to have courage to admit that.

Book Review: Becoming a Dud

This book started out funny and relevant, and toward the middle it was becoming a dud, then it got okay at the end again.

Toward the middle, the authors, who are professional Christian counselors, decide to do a brain dump on everyone about their philosophy of life. And although it existentially had to do with becoming a father, it was a little too deep for what I need right now. I am ready for some practical stuff.

The main premise of the book is that fatherhood is a wild, exciting journey, full of joy and heartbreak. We need to be prepared to be connected with God, and enter into the risk that is inherent with being a dad, not with our own confidence, but that which comes from Him. See what I mean about wanting some practical stuff.

I really want to be there for my child, and get to know him/her. I don't want to lash out at them, but want to understand them. All you parents out there are like ha, ha, good luck understanding a 2 year old. But I'm just talking about a general attitude, one that is not confrontational, but more relational. I need to be prepared that they may like stuff that I care nothing about, and I need to enter into their life and encourage and affirm them. And I will not claim to have it all together, or force my family to think they have it together.

PS If you want a copy of Becoming a Dad, it's $4 at Mardel!

SQL Server 2008 Administration, by Ross Mistry

This book is more of a reference book than a teaching book, but that didn't keep me from reading it! My company paid for it so that I could study for my certification exam coming up.

SQL Server 2008 has a lot of sweet features.

• Resource Governor. Create limits for the amount of CPU that user connections can use.
• Policy Based Management - set constraints on "Facets", such as names of objects. This would have been useful when I was obsessed about prefixes on tables at my last job!
• High availability options, which were also on SQL Server 2005!
  Clustering - On failure, the server automatically fails over to a different server. The disk space is shared between the two servers, and a virtual server manages the name of the server.
  Mirroring - Each database transaction is also sent to a different server to be recorded to its database as well. A high safety mode can be enabled, where the first database can't commit any additional transactions until the second one has reported back with success
  Log Shipping - similar to Mirroring, except the transactions are sent in chunks (called logs) at scheduled times.
  Replication - a publisher sends updates on objects to subscribers

Some very nice things about the book are the "What's New with SQL Server 2008" at the beginning of every chapter, and the bullet point summary at the end of every chapter.

It will be good to have this book around as a reference.

Book Review: True Faced

This book was recommended to me, and really reflects what I've been learning about myself. This book is about the two paths that we can take in our lives - one leads to the room of Good Intentions, where people try to please God and reach perfection by our actions. The other path leads to the Room of Grace, where people are free to share their weaknesses and know that they are already pleasing God.

Now this subject is a little to personal for the Internet, but let's just say I've spent a lot of time in the room of Good Intentions, but am now learning to live in the Room of Grace.

If you are curious to hear more, just ask!

Book Review: The Robe, by Lloyd C. Douglas

This book was recommended by Vince. I went to the library and expected to see maybe a 10-20 year old book. It was actually written in 1942! I later found out that my mom had read it as a teenager.

The book is the fictional story about what happened to Christ's robe. In the well known story of the crucifixion, as written in the Bible, the Roman soldiers gambled to win his robe, as Jesus hung on the cross.

I thought the book was going to lead up slowly toward that moment. But that moment is toward the beginning, and is not really a primary focus of the book. The book focuses on one of the Roman soldiers who crucifies Jesus and wins the Robe, and of his faithful Corinthian slave. Then in the rest of the book, we hear more about who Jesus was, and find out how that affects people a year after the crucifixion.



For me, it was educational about the Roman culture and dominance of the day, and about Jewish culture. It was good to read about how possibly the message of Jesus spread across the world. These are things that I have not reflected on in depth. Honestly, I wish many of those hours I spent in Sunday School or in Christian teaching were spent on historical subjects rather than only theology or Christian living.

This is a really great book, and I recommend it. Learning more (fictionally, but maybe also realistically) about how people who knew Jesus reacted to him, and to his death and resurrection helps me to connect with Jesus as well.

-----------------------------------
I had wondered why it hadn't been a movie, and I just looked this up and it was made into a movie in 1953. It was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture, which I wasn't aware of. I'm not sure I would want to ruin my remembrance of the book by watching the movie. But I do like movies from the 50s.

Also, I read that it was one of the best selling books of the 1940s.