Book Review: Lit: A Christian Guide to Reading Books by Tony Reinke

Front Cover - Lit

Title: Lit: A Christian Guide to Reading Books
Author: Tony Reinke
Publisher: Crossway Books
Genre: Christian non-Fiction


Why read?

"Employ your time in improving yourself by other mens writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for." -Socrates

The written word should be used to improve our instruction, understanding, and knowledge (Romans 5:4). Of course these writings must be placed under the microscope of truth provided to us by the Bible (Psalm 119:105) which helps us discern the infallible from the falsehoods (I John 4:1). Reading is one of our callings as Christians.

A book that is about reading. Lit explores reasons for reading in detail. It raises questions to help understand reading habits and to refine these habits; to analyze what is important and what is a waste of time. Reading is an example to our children.

Lit caused me to take a step back and examine how and what I read. It reads well and the ideas are inspiring and clear. This is an encouraging book that I do recommend. Everyone should read more.

Book Review: The Puritan Dilemma - The Story of John Winthrop

Title: The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop (Library of American Biography)

Author: Edmund S. Morgan

Genre: US, English, and Religious History

John Winthrop was a Puritan.  A Puritan was a Calvinist.  A Calvinist is someone who sees God's hand in everything.  A Puritan did not call himself a Puritan.  A Puritan called himself a godly man striving to please the Lord in all aspects of life.  The Puritans of the early colonial Massachusetts Bay Colony segregated into two contemporary Christian denominations: the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists.

In 1629, John Winthrop found himself elected as the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony on an expedition to the largely desolate New World.  Four ships landed near the Charles River in present day New England in April 1630.  Until his death in 1949, Winthrop served 12 annual terms as governor, and played a vital role in strengthening and building the New England colonies.  He proved himself a competent, intelligent, and persuasive leader who created peace among men with tendencies to disagree.  He paved the road to the representative form of democracy that the United States experiences today.

I highly recommend this book.  Subectively written, the author does an excellent job of understanding the mind of a Puritan and explaining their actions and decisions. The writing flows well and involves the reader. I found myself with an open map next to me looking up towns as I read.

Book Review: Pol Pot Anatomy of a Nightmare

Book: Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare
Author: Philip Short
Genre: non-fiction, World History, Cambodian History

Pol Pot was responsible for the death of approximately two million people during the Kmher Rouge rule from 1975 to 1978. In these three years, the agrarian communists annihilated 25% of the Cambodian population. Pol Pot and the Kmher Rouge leadership eliminated cities, money, emotions, cooking, family, private property, smiling, and any type of individualism. Smiling? How can you eliminate smiling?  It can be eliminated by killing anybody who smiles.  Everyone was to be an extension of the state.  The state was a body.  The body worked to grow in power. When someone worked against this body, they were disposed of much like a weed in a garden is pulled up and tossed into the trash.


From his birth in 1925, to his death in 1998, the biography, Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare follows the unlikely and incompetent Pol Pot. His life is detailed as he ages from failing student to revolutionary uprising to Cambodian communist leader to dying jungle outlaw.  He is remembered in history primarily for the killing fields and the torture camps and the genocide-like massive destruction imposed on Cambodia.  This book digs much deeper into the politics of the times, the connections between the Kmher Rouge, the Chinese, and the Vietnamese, and the philosophy of the communists.




The book was long and dragged on with inscrutable detail. The number of players in the book was endless and the foreign names created an easy route into confusion.  The book contains an index of names with description, which helped, but slowed the reading down even more. Unless one is very interested in southeast Asian history, I would not recommend this book, but instead recommend this blog post which offers a shorter, but thorough glimpse into Pol Pot and the Kmher Rouge.  An excellent book that is more specific to the suffering under Pol Pot that I recommend is: To Destroy You Is No Loss: The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family.

            


                                                   

Book Review: Blind Man's Bluff

Title: Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage
Author: Sherry Sontag, Christopher Drew
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (October, 2000)
Genre: US History, Cold War, political thriller

From 1945 to 1991, the worlds super powers locked horns in a slow motion struggle for information.  The USSR and the USA did not trust each other and it became clear that an effective means to "watch" each other was waged via submerged sea faring vessel.  The era of the submarine began evolving at a furious rate to the point that a nuclear sub can remain underwater indefinitely, creating its own oxygen and water, food being the only limitation.

Blind Man's Bluff is a collection of stories, untold until the 21st century, of various missions made by the submariners during the Cold War.  From wiretaps into land lines made in Russian waters to men overboard, the stories are interesting, thrilling, and educational.

From a former Navy submariner, I have heard it argued that a lot of this book is compiled of exaggerations and even a little untruth.  These same former Navy also stated their displeasure with the book for its liberal manner in sharing tactics and strategy that are still in use today.