Matt Shelton

Things I read, liked and bookmarked in the last 24 hours:

• Our Best Bites: Single Serving Pie in a Jar I like pie, and what could be better than single-serve pie?
• Build A Book Nest This looks like a cute idea for a "books I’m reading" bookshelf that wouldn’t be too hard to build.
• Cool Tools: Toto Eco Drake I’ll have to remember this one for whenever I can cobble together the money to remodel our bathroom. This looks like a smart way to get a strong flush using less water.

links baking, bathroom, books, delicious, google reader, home, links, pie, snacks, to-do, toilet, woodworking

I’m on a serious book-reading roll this month. I promise I’m calming down now, because, well, the next book on my plate is The System of the World…

After my mom saw that I was reading Jesus For President last fall, she thought I might like this one by Donald Miller, the sub-title of which is Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality. The authors of Jesus for President footnote Blue Like Jazz a couple of times, so I was already familiar with the book by reference.

I have a hard time deciding which one I like better, to be completely honest. On the one hand, Jesus For President was a hard-hitting look at Christian discipleship in a time when we find ourselves pulled more and more toward secular positions. It made me feel a bit bad about times in which I should have been a better follower of Christ, and guilt can be a powerful motivator!

On the other hand, Blue Like Jazz makes me feel a little more normal about feeling bad. Miller is a fantastic personal story teller, and his insights into his own spiritual growth are engaging, enlightening and motivating. One of the underlying themes is learning to love (God, others, yourself), which Miller introduces as being like learning to appreciate Jazz music – he didn’t like Jazz until he saw someone playing soulfully with their eyes closed, and then he loved Jazz. Being able to accept the forgiveness and grace that comes with salvation and a personal relationship with Christ is parallel to loving yourself (and everyone else).

He also spends a good amount of time recalling events from when he was auditing some classes at Reed College. I have an extended member of the family who went to Reed, and I’m now suddenly very interested in asking him about some of the more sordid events which supposedly take place there. I don’t want details, mind you, but an additional perspective would be fascinating.

There’s one story that sticks with me after turning the 181st page: Miller was part of a small group of Christians at Reed (a certain minority on one of the most secular campuses in the country). During the annual Renn Fayre celebration, the group put up a “confession booth” in the middle of the campus. Rather than accepting confessions, which was likely to cement them as the negative stereotype many viewed them to be, they did the confessing. They confessed their sins, the sins of the church and of Christians at large. They moved people and were changed by the simple experience of saying things like “Christ tells us to feed the poor, and I know I haven’t done the best job of that.” and “Christ said to love your neighbor, and I’ve certainly had a bad attitude when I’m woken up by loud noises from next door.”, etc. This sounds like such a profound experience.

Now that I’ve thought about it a little more (ok, the span of a few paragraphs), I did like Blue Like Jazz more. A little, anyway.

books Christianity, habits, reading

This was on sale for about two bucks in the discount bin at Barnes and Noble. It looks interesting. And short.

It was both of those things. This could easily be the end of my post, but I actually liked the book…

At 181 pages, The Reluctant Fundamentalist is an incredibly quick read. Mohsin Hamid pens this tale in the first-person, speaking to an unidentified individual (who we are led to believe is a journalist) at a cafe in Lahore, Pakistan. This story of a young Pakistani coming to America and finding both academic and professional success only to reject it all and return home within five years is quite compelling. It’s not thrilling, and I make this point singularly because one of the praise notes on the cover is one that makes this book out to be some amazing work of thriller fiction, when in reality it’s not all that suspenseful. In fact, most of “the next page” is fairly obvious, even if it is an interesting story.

Hamid expertly weaves the theme of “fundamentals” throughout the book, and I have to believe that this was the purpose behind the title, using the oft-spoken phrase “Islamic Fundamentalism” as a mental trigger to engage the reader. In fact, there is almost no presence of said fundamentalism in this book, save the last dozen or so pages. Instead, the narrator experiences different aspects of fundamentals throughout this story: the life of an immigrant in America, the academic talents which propelled him into the business world, the business acumen which gave him professional success, love with a woman who was fundamentally unavailable to him, and then the return home to his family in Pakistan.

I really liked this $2 discount book, and I felt a bit insulted for the author that Barnes and Noble was practically willing to give it away.

books habits, reading

This month has already started out as a fantastic reading month. Whether by choice or by circumstance, I’ve found 20-80 minutes almost every day to keep up on whatever I’m reading at the time. (This post is late by an entire book – I’ll post about The Reluctant Fundamentalist later.)

I’ve been meaning to read the rest of William Gibson’s books for a while now. Having read several a few Christmases ago, I’ve been nearly as hooked on his writing as on that of Neal Stephenson. Admittedly, Gibson’s books are shorter, easier reads. They’re also not quite as compelling. Win some, lose some, I suppose.

Virtual Light begins the Bridge trilogy, a trio of stories set around what has become of the Bay Bridge between Oakland and San Francisco, California. The environment, a more anarchistic version of our present, set “in the future” of 2004, is somewhat like the reality of Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy. It is different enough, however, to separate the literary works into distinct macrocosms.

The book is excellent, though not quite as dweeby as some of his earlier stuff. I’ve gotten the impression while reading each of Gibson’s books that he started out writing Cyberpunk and has been trending towards Conspiracy Thriller ever since. I don’t dislike the trend overall, even if I found his first books more interesting. I’ll have to pick up the next two in the series soon to keep the momentum going.

books gibson, habits, reading, trilogy

A semi-repeat from last year, when I aimed to read one book per month, I’ve set a goal for 2010 to read fifteen books, which seems/feels a tad ambitious. These are the first eight in my pile for the year:

Read more…

books habits, reading

Things I read, liked and bookmarked in the last 24 hours:

• How To Enable Windows 7 Secret God Mode God Mode is a simple folder that brings all aspects of Windows 7 control in a single place. It collects all of the Control Panel functions, interface customization, accessibility options, just about every aspect of controlling Windows 7 into a single place.
• Build an OS X Friendly Linux Media Server From Your Old PC Good reference article for setting up linux to stream and share properly with a Mac.

links customization, delicious, google reader, howto, itunes, links, linux, macosx, mediacenter, tweaks, windows7

Things I read, liked and bookmarked in the last 24 hours:

• Peekaru Original Fleece Baby Carrier Cover by Toge My son doesn’t really need this anymore since he’s walking up a storm, but it might be useful for a future kid.
• MagicPrefs is a must download for Magic Mouse owners The Macic Mouse is on my to-buy list if we ever spring for Macs at the office.
• Save Yourself the Reach by Installing an A/C Socket in Your Desk This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this, but this will be as good a reminder as any that I need to remember this technique next time I’m putting together a desk for myself.

links baby, cait, children, delicious, desk, electrical, google reader, links, macosx, magicmouse, parenting, software notes, to-do

Two books in a week… had last January started this way, I would have been done with my 2009 reading by Valentine’s Day with room to spare. Sadly, not all books are as quick and interesting as Tom Brown’s The Wormwood Archive. Tom is a local (to my in-laws) author writing a set of structured criticisms of his home church’s rise to megachurch standing. This would probably be boring on its own, but Tom follows C.S. Lewis‘ epistolary style, and pens his thoughts as letters by or to Wormwood, as found in The Screwtape Letters.

Tom’s church underwent a transformation into a megachurch over the course of a few years. The transformation seems to have followed the methods produced by the Willow Creek Association, shifting its focus from its traditional, family-focused roots toward more contemporary, performance-driven styles of worship aimed at younger, more casaul seekers. Tom’s criticisms certainly are not the first of Willow Creek and their methods, but his hit a bit closer to home, having lived through the transition as a lay leader in a once happy, family-like congregation. Since Willow Creek’s admission a couple of years ago that they might have done it wrong, the criticisms seem more poignant.

To me, however, Tom’s criticisms of his fictionalized self are the most interesting part of the book. He characterizes his own weaknesses as possible in-roads for negative persuasion by “Wormwood” and his minions. This level of honesty and objectivity, while criticizing what has been your faith home for so many years, cannot have been the most trivial of tasks. There is a strong sense of humility, even within such an obviously critical work.

Overall, this was an excellent book, and even if you haven’t read The Screwtape Letters, it’s quite a good read.

books Christianity, church, habits, reading