Chris Tomlin Goodie Bag Giveaway

I am a big fan of Chris Tomlin. The guy is just such an amazing worship leader. I don't know him personally, but he comes across as a humble servant of the Lord, just a regular guy using his gifts for the Kingdom.

Chris released an album of worship Christmas songs this last month. I am hoping to get my hands on it in time to start playing those Christmas tunes - THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING (which everyone knows is the God-ordained day to begin the Christmas season).

Over at Jesus Needs New PR, a great site by Matthew Paul Turner, he's giving away a great Chris Tomlin gift bag, including this new cd. Today only!

A Solid C - Andy Andrews' The Noticer

In The Noticer, an old, friendly sage, Jones (not Mr. Jones), weaves his way in and out of the lives in one small, all-American town. He finds people in their moment of need and helps give them a little "perspective".

I really wanted to like this book. I respect the author, appreciate the publisher, and was interested in its premise. So it was with some anticipation that I dove in. I had a hard time finding a pace with the story. It felt a bit like the author had grabbed the good ideas from a handful of other gems books and tried to condense those into a chapter each (i.e. the early chapter about Jan & Barry sounds very much like Chapman's Love Languages), making it feel a bit jerky in pace. Jones was an interesting character, but I found his character development too vague. I understand that his mystery is part of the point, but there wasn't enough there to grab on to - Is he God or an angel? Does he disappear or is he traveling elsewhere?

I didn't hate this book; in fact, I'll probably pass it on to my parents next. I think it is likely one that will either really resonate with someone or it will fall flat. Unfortunately for me, it was the latter.

Thomas Nelson’s Book Review Blogger: http://brb.thomasnelson.com/

The Best Laid Plans...

Someone recently asked me about this blog. What blog is that exactly? I tried to fake. *sigh* I just couldn't keep up with it. I found that I would rather read books than to write a long review about them. So, alas, I will leave this site dormant, until the fancy hits me to do something else with it.

And they lived happily ever after.

Movie Reviews

I saw three movies over this Memorial Day weekend, and unfortunately, not one of them was a war movie, to align with the tradition my husband and I usually try to partake in during this particular holiday!

I just got around to watching the Pride & Prejudice dvd that I got for my birthday. I'm surprised I didn't see it when it first came out - Sense & Sensibility is one of my personal classics. The first time I watched it I had the kids in the room, which meant I only picked up on about every third sentence of dialogue. But Trinity and I enjoyed the dancing scenes and reenacted them with fervor. I got to watch it again in the middle of the night (sciatic nerve issues), but I kept dozing, so I got to see about every other scene that time. From what I've gathered, it was pretty good! My biggest feedback is that if you have seen S & S or Little Women or most of that genre, you have seen P & P. Stoic oldest sister, rowdy second sister, lots of other sisters, affectionate dad. I've heard lots of fussing about how some of the dialogue is not true to Jane's original message, and there is the debatable kiss at the end, but that didn't bother me. I know some of my friends would be incredulous to learn this, but like the movie, somehow I missed reading this novel. I may need to rectify that.

I also watched the dvd for Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash love story. As my husband said when he gave it to me, this is required for all Cash home libraries. Johnny and I are fourteenth cousins (seriously!), descending from William the Mariner, the first Cash to live in American in the mid-1600s. Not really relevant to a movie review, but a little fun fact I'm sure you needed to know! I thought it was a very well made movie - not as ugly as I had thought it might be. Joaquin Phoenix, although he didn't sound like Johnny when he sang, did a great job. Reese Witherspoon was amazing! I have always liked her, but her singing and acting abilities shone in a new way in this film.

In a strange alignment of the stars, Allan and I actually got to enjoy a theater experience! Well, kind of. We were on the very front row - a rather nauseating experience actually - for X-Men: The Last Stand. I liked the other two X-Men and this one stood right up with those. The great thing with the X-Men series is that they can kill off (maybe temporarily) main characters and keep things fresh by bringing in new and cool mutants. There were some good surprises along the way. Jean's character bugged me - she stood around the entire movie looking oh-so-domineering, even during most of the big fight scenes. I had heard this was the last one, but they definitely left that door wide open at the end.

So, although none of these movies is life-changing in its spectacularity (I think I just made up a word), I liked them all and would recommend each in their own way. Enjoy!

Three Weeks With My Brother

For some reason I'm a little embarrassed to post about a Nicholas Sparks book. When I did a little blog search to see who else has reviewed this particular read, it seems that those who read Sparks are just who I thought they'd be...people who adorn their blog with dancing hearts and those who say, "Oh my gawd, I love Nicholas!" Am I being a snob?

[sigh] So, here I publicly admit that I do enjoy Nicholas Sparks books. The guy knows how to put words down in just the right way to totally tug a woman's heart. I think my mom even has a crush on him! She's usually the supplier of this particular drug.

Three Weeks With My Brother is actually one Sparks book that I could totally recommend to the most manly of men. He weaves two stories together in a very nice way. The first is the retelling of an around-the-world adventure with his older brother, Micah (hence, the Three Weeks). The second is the story of his life from childhood up through when he becomes a bestselling author. The reason why I think a guy could really enjoy this story is because of all of the mischief and mayhem he and his brother caused as kids, as well as the struggle to find himself and his career path as an adult.

The aspect of this book that I enjoyed most was getting the backstory to his other novels. He had such a tough road in a very short time, coinciding with the take-off of his most famous stories. Message in a Bottle was inspired by his father's road of grief following the sudden loss of Sparks' mother. Drawing inspiration from his sister's battle with cancer he wrote A Walk to Remember. Immediately after her death he began to pen A Bend in the Road, thinking of his brother-in-law. Each story, especially in those early years of writing, was inspired by a horrific and trying life event.

I humbly recommend this book - for those with hearts on their blog and those without.

Tears of the Giraffe

I did not have high hopes for the second book in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. Although the first was entertaining and a pleasant read, I wondered how long the series could keep my attention if the strategy was to simply add additional light mysteries for Precious Ramotswe to solve. This installment, though, brought us more into the personal life of Mma Ramotswe, especially with her new fiancee' Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. We also get to know her secretary turned understudy, Mma Makutsi, an amusing character and graduate of the Botswana Secretarial College.

Alexander McCall Smith, as I stated in the earlier post on the first book, obviously has great first-hand knowledge of this culture. He colors a detailed picture that draws the reader into life of this lady of Botswana. From what I have gathered from his bio and picture, he is a white Westerner. There were times that I would catch myself thinking, "I'm not sure an African would think that". He seems to add a Westerner thought process to his main character in order to teach his audience about African life. I'm just not sure rural, native Africans think about the white experience that much.

Mma Ramotswe found it difficult to imagine what it would be like to have no people. There were, she knew, those who had no others in this life...Many white people were like that, for some unfathomable reason; they did not seem to want to have people and were happy to be just themselves. How lonely they must be--like spacemen deep in space, floating in the darkness, but without even that silver, unfurling cord that linked the the astronauts to their little metal womb of oxygen and warmth...

That one criticism, though, is fairly insignificant to the overall experience. Tears of the Giraffe was another pleasant, easy read.

****

Through Painted Deserts

From Through Painted Deserts Author's Note:

September is perfect Oregon. The blocks line up like postcards and the rosebuds bloom into themselves like children at bedtime. And in Portland we are proud of our roses; year after year, we are proud of them. When they are done, we sit in the parks and read stories into the air, whispering the gardens to sleep.

I remember the sweet sensation of leaving, years ago, some ten now, leaving Texas for who knows where. I could not have known about this beautiful place, the Oregon I have come to love, this city of great people, this smell of coffee and these evergreens reaching up into a mist of sky, these sunsets spilling over the west hills to slide a red glow down the streets of my town.

Ahhh...I deeply appreciate the treasure of when an author can pen the feelings that run deep within me. Donald Miller knows my Oregon; he loves my city of Roses. I love that about him. But that's not what this book is about!

Donald Miller, the author of the well-know book, Blue Like Jazz, tells the story of his road-trip journey from Texas to Oregon in this fine book, Through Painted Deserts.
Donald and his friend, Paul, ponder together deep life questions along their way...Is there more to life than dating and working, than the ruts in which the world seems so stuck? What is our relationship with God about? And most of all...Why? [Not How? but Why?]

I picked up this book because everyone and their dog has been reading Blue Like Jazz this year. I have this personal issue with jumping on bandwagons; I tend to subconsciously avoid, at least for a while, those books, singers, television shows which are on everyone's favorite list (someone else described me as "stubborn" when we talked about this - but we all know that that is a ridiculous accusation!). Hearing, though, that he writes with deep feeling about my beloved home, I was drawn to check out his work. So I compromised -- I picked up this lesser known, or at least lesser talked about, Miller book.

I was not disappointed. It was a nice, comfortable read -- kind of like being on a road trip with a good soundtrack playing with the windows rolled down. His messages regarding life and faith are subtle; he has you read four or five chapters of interesting road trip memoir before he slips in a simple life lesson he's been pondering along the way. It's a nice journey to be on.

****