Book Reviews 2018

Airframe, Michael Crichton

January 14, 20202018After reading Jurassic Park, I couldn’t help but devour more Michael Crichton. Airframe was available at my library so I picked it up. Jurassic Park, to me, was exciting because of the originality of the story. But it was also clever, well written, and well researched. What ensued in Airframe has the same type of marks with less success in the execution. The premise of the book surrounds a mysterious accident aboard a passenger airliner from Hong Kong to Los Angeles. The parent company has to battle a nightmare PR scandal while trying to figure out how to prevent this from ever happening again. What follows is a mixture of intrigue, suspense, and fear as employees who are trying to get to the bottom of the case are threatened to quit investigating. Crichton is a master researcher. If you thought he provided crazy details about genetics and the ability to clone dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, his research in the aeronautical industry is mind boggling (not to mention boring). I wasn’t as gripped with this book as some others. I read other reviews like “I couldn’t put this down after I started it” but that wasn’t the case with me. I thought the middle of the book really lagged and I had to push through. Consensus: 3/5 [...]

When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi

January 14, 20202018The question of your mortality always should make one think. This book, more than most I have read this year, has given me pause. The subject matter, death and your legacy, is something that people don’t often ponder. “When Breath Becomes Air” is a memoir by Paul Kalanithi. Kalanithi spent most of his life studying to become a brain surgeon. At one point in his life, he became so crippled with pain that he finally relented and went to the doctor. He found out that he had stage four lung cancer. So this book has multiple angles: the doctor becoming the patient is one of the more critical ones. But other questions arise. What to make of a life dedicated to medicine on the eve of your death? These are the questions that Kalanithi grapples with. And what lies inside this book is both a poignant tribute to his life and work and, more importantly, a reminder that life is short. But not only is life short, it matters what you do and who you touch. We all think that something like cancer will never touch our lives until it does. I love the attitude that Kalanithi writes with because it demonstrates defiance in light of his pain. After reading this book, I seriously grappled with questions like what does what I know matter? In Kalanithi’s experience, he spent his entire life studying to become a brain surgeon. But cancer got in his way. Similarly, just because we know a lot doesn’t mean anything. It all is in vain if we do not have love (1 Corinthians 13). That is a powerful reminder, even if Kalanithi doesn’t explicitly state this from a Christian worldview. I really enjoyed this book. I think more people should read it. [...]

The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro

January 14, 20202018Kazuo Ishiguro was brought to my attention after he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2017. Obviously, this is a huge achievement and his fame led me to his books. Remains of the Day follows a post World War II butler, Mr. Stevens, who is in residence at Darlington Hall. After his new employer, Mr. Farraday, suggests he take a vacation, Stevens embarks on a first-person, journal-written journey that makes him nostalgic on times past, particularly of his former employer Lord Darlington. What ensues is a thought-provoking account of Stevens journey as he grapples with questions of his former employer, love, and loss. This was an enchanting novel; certainly one of the finest pieces of literature in the late 20th century by far.  I loved the asceticism of Mr. Stevens as a true “old English Butler” and the serious moral quandaries he has to face. In fact, one of the biggest issues in the book is when his former employer, Lord Darlington, might be a Nazi sympathizer. The language in this book is so convincing you might look twice to see it’s author is of Japanese descent. Ishiguro masks this so well you would think you were reading Jane Austen or William Shakespeare. [...]

A River in Darkness: One Man’s Escape from North Korea

The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For

The Lost City of the Monkey God

The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

Even If You Don’t: A Love Story

The Martian

Yes, Chef

Gosnell: The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer

The Stormlight Archive: The Way of Kings

All-American Murder: The Rise and Fall of Aaron Hernandez, the Superstar Whose Life Ended on Murderers’ Row

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

The Remains of the Day

The Stormlight Archive: Words of Radiance

The Stormlight Archive: Oathbringer

Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance

Educated

Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures

After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam (2018)

I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

For We Are Many (Bobiverse #2)

A History of the World in Six Glasses

Jurassic Park

Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa

North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail

Preaching That Changes Lives

The Feud That Sparked the Renaissance: How Brunelleschi and Ghiberti Changed the Art World

The Cuban Affair

The Rooster Bar

Star Wars: Last Shot: A Han and Lando Novel

When Breath Becomes Air

Only Human (Themis Files #3)

Airframe

Mistborn: The Final Empire

Hell Divers

God Save Texas: A Journey Into the Soul of the Lone Star State

Star Wars: Thrawn: Thrawn (2018)

Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker

PROOF: Finding Freedom through the Intoxicating Joy of Irresistible Grace (2018)

Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ

The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After

Redshirts

Springfield Confidential: Jokes, Secrets, and Outright Lies from a Lifetime Writing for The Simpsons

Christianity Considered: A Guide for Skeptics and Seekers

Insurgence: Reclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom

Jurassic Park: The Lost World

The History of Jazz

How to Lose a Marathon: A Starter’s Guide to Finishing in 26.2 Chapters

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

Survival Guide for the Soul: How to Flourish Spiritually in a World that Pressures Us to Achieve

Brief Insights on Mastering Bible Study: 80 Expert Insights, Explained in a Single Minute

Star Wars: Thrawn: Alliances

The Bible Unfiltered: Approaching Scripture on Its Own Terms

A Mouse Divided: How Ub Iwerks Became Forgotten, and Walt Disney Became Uncle Walt

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America

Star Trek: Captain to Captain

The Darkness and the Glory: His Cup and the Glory from Gethsemane to the Ascension (2018)

Mistborn: The Well of Ascension

Mistborn: The Hero of Ages

English History Made Brief, Irreverent, and Pleasurable

Michelangelo: His Epic Life

Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology

Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling (2018)

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America

Grit

What is the Gospel?

The Interdependency: The Collapsing Empire

Love Your God with All Your Mind: The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul

The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World (2018)

On Desperate Ground: The Marines at The Reservoir, the Korean War’s Greatest Battle

The Interdependency: Consuming Fire

The Reckoners: Steelheart

Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions

Firefight: the Reckoners book 2

Ethics and Moral Reasoning: A Student’s guide

Calamity: the Reckoners book 3

Skyward: Skyward

Prey

The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (2018)

Legion: the Many Lives of Stephen Leeds

Reckoner’s: Mitosis

Tell the Truth: The Whole Gospel Wholly by Grace Communicated Truthfully & Lovingly

Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God

The Great Evangelical Recession: 6 Factors That Will Crash the American Church… and How to Prepare

Armada

Knowledge of the Holy

Elantris

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban