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Category: Book Bites

  • How I Organize My Library

    Summer is often a time of refreshing. You might not expect that because it is often miserably hot outside here in Florida. But, I like to do some organizing and cleansing over the summer and this takes places in many domains. After nearly becoming without form and void, my library was in need of an…

  • The Well-Educated Mind: Histories

    First it was novels. Then it was autobiographies. Now, it’s history’s turn. As with previous sections in The Well-Educated Mind, Susan Wise Bauer begins with an overview of the genre. Here, she distinguishes between several periods in the history of history: Ancient History Medieval History Renaissance History The “Enlightened,” or “Rational,” Approach Positivism to “Progress-ism” to…

  • The Well-Educated Mind: Autobiography and Memoir

    Last week, I posted a list of novels from Susan Wise Bauer’s The Well-Educated Mind. The next section in her book covers autobiography and memoir, which is a bit more complicated than you might think. After giving a brief overview of the history of criticism of the genre, Bauer guides readers through the grammar, logic, and…

  • The Well-Educated Mind: Novels

    Now that it’s officially summer reading season, I thought I’d give you more of a rundown on the lists in The Well-Educated Mind. You may vaguely remember the overview I gave of the opening section. If not, here it is again. Chapter 5 is “The Story of People: Reading through History with the Novel.” Bauer…

  • The Five Solas Series Sale

    Just in time for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Zondervan’s Five Solas Series is complete. What’s more, you can get a sweet deal on the bundle from Westminster Bookstore. I’ve had the pleasure of reading thanks to the generosity of Zondervan. My favorite so far has been Thomas Schreiner’s Faith Alone. It was the…

  • 2017 Reading Challenge: April Update

    This month, I feel like I did a decent job of diversifying my reading. That trend will probably continue going into the summer, although May is gonna be a little crazy. I added 13 books this month, which is back closer to January and February, with 12 of the 13 hitting categories in the challenge.…

  • NIV Faithlife Study Bible: Intriguing Insights to Inform Your Faith

    If you’re keeping score at home, I’ve now posted on 3 consecutive NIV Study Bibles from Zondervan. First, it was the new NIV Zondervan Study Bible. Then it was the Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible. Now, it’s the Faithlife Study Bible. If you’re not familiar (and even if you are), Faithlife is the parent company of…

  • Reset: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture

    In June of 2014 I hit a wall. Not literally, but my life came to a halt. As a teacher, I had the summer off. But it was all I could do to get out of bed each day and try to summon the energy for productivity. If you can relate to that feeling at…

  • 2017 Reading Challenge: March Update

    Unlike most months, I did a fair amount of re-reading in order to polish up my ETS paper. In light of that, I only finished 9 new books. I know right? Really slacking off here. Some of these I’ll comment on in more detail later. Also, I left off the categories this time because I…

  • Why I Think People Still Like The Shack

    About 4 years ago I thought I was done. At the time, it had been five years since my critical review during a Trinitarianism class at Dallas (you can still see the cage stage). The book had been picked at from every angle, including this genius collection of reviews. But now that they decided to make…