My sixteenth book of 2011 was Think by John Piper. I was excited to see a John Piper book as the free book of the month on Christianaudio.com, but honestly I might have to listen to this book again sometime. I don’t guess I was in a ‘thinking’ mood while listening to it. And you really do have to think to follow Think. But its still available for free at christianaudio.com through the end of the month if anyone wants to listen to it.
After recently listening to the audiobook Stuff Christians Like by Jon Acuff, I’ve started going to StuffChristiansLike.net and JonAcuff.com regularly. And on these sites I’ve seen the book Quitter promoted. It didn’t seem to interest me much. But after he posted that iTunes and Amazon had it for $5.95 and that he reads it, I figured that it was worth a listen. After listening to it, I think that it is a good book.
The name Quitter is a little bit misleading. The full name, Quitter: Closing the Gap Between Your Day Job and Your Dream Job gives a better idea of what the book is about. Actually the whole first chapter is why you should not quit your day job. All in all, I thought this was an inspiring and entertaining book.
Back around the end of March I started my third non-audiobook for the year. Sadly, almost 5 months later, I finally finished it. This book, A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller, is a book that a friend, Stephen Cavness, posted on his blog (thelowercase.wordpress.com) around the time that I was looking for a book on prayer. Stephan described this book as follows:
the best thing i can say about this book is what so many have already said: this is the best book on prayer i have ever read. it instructs and encourages without leaving you feeling guilty or overwhelmed. miller writes in brief practial chapters about not just the “how to’s” of prayer, but also creates a thirst for it- which is always more likely to prompt a sustained prayer life than a call to “duty”. reading this book wont make you pray more or better, but it will certainly help you be able to.
The five months that it took me to read this book should not be an indication of my thoughts of the book, because I think that it is a really good book and I plan to lend/recommend it to others.
This book, Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry, was another free book-of-the-month from ChristianAudio.com. I was surprised to see a novel as the free book, but I was willing to give it a try. It was pretty slow getting into it, well, actually the whole book moved very slow, but by the end it was OK. The book is written in first person, from the view of Hannah Coulter and the reader did a very good job. She really made the character seemingly come alive. After looking into it, I found out that the author uses the town of Port William in all of his books, so there are many characters that overlap throughout his writings. In this book, the title character is advanced in years and recalling her and her family’s lives.
Last week I listened to Stuff Christians Like by Jonathan Acuff. I It’s written by the same guy that does the blog, stuffchristianslike.net. It was a very good book. The author is really funny and can also drive home serious points. The audiobook is read by the author and has extra stuff that is not in the book, like lines from a conversation between him and the sound engineer for the audiobook. I was disappointed to finish this book, but glad that I can start going to his blog more regularly for more of his witty insights.
At the beginning of the year when I set my ten book goal, I didn’t know that Christianaudio.com would have so many free book of the months that I would like or that I would still listen even if I didn’t care a lot about. So I blew through my year’s goal in six months. So I’ve got a new goal for the rest of the year. “TenBooks2″. While I’ve listened to more books so far than I planned, I’ve only read two and a half so far. Hopefully in the second half of the year I can find some time to sit down and read.
Right before leaving for Mexico I finished the audiobook of The Millenials by Thom Rainer and Jess Rainer. Again, this was another book of the month. However, this book was written by the President of the company that I work for, and his son. It was also published by B&H which is part of LifeWay. And it has been in catalogs that I’ve worked on so it so I was curious to read it. It wasn’t quite like I expected but I won’t get into the negatives since one of the author’s name is on my checks (or would be if they weren’t direct deposited).
The reader, by the way, did a pretty good job except for pronounce the authors’ last name “Rainier” instead of “Rainer”.
So I obviously set my goal too low for the year. I finished my tenth book right at the halfway point of the year. So I think TenBooks2 will be coming soon.
I realized that since I have not read a lot of fiction, movies have been made of most of the fiction books I’ve read. And about half way through this book I got to wondering how the movie was. So after spending $18 and 11 1/2 hours listening to this book that I didn’t like, I spent another $3 and two hours watching the movie. And the movie wasn’t any better.
It was a good book. It was not one that I would have chosen, and by the end of it I was ready to be done. But it was still good to hear about this lady who lost use of her legs and arms in a diving accident about 40 years ago. She’s written other books has a radio show and has done a lot. This book is more recent and she talks about the more recent trials of her life. It was encouraging to hear about how she has been able to minister and help others with disabilities. And she humbly points out that if she had been healed like she desperately wanted to be so many years ago then those other people may have not gotten the help that they needed.
I really like books being read by the author and this book was a good example why. A little ‘ha’ at the end of a humorous sentence and the change in the inflections in the voice help make it more personable. I also have noticed that authors reading the book will take liberties like changing ‘book’ to ‘audiobook’ or ‘write’ to ‘read’ that another reader wouldn’t do.
I listened to the audio version of this book from Christianaudio.com. It is read by Adam Black who I thought had a fitting voice for this book.
Book number seven for the year was The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. It was another free monthly download from Christianaudio.com. I really enjoyed listening to this book. It was read by Bernadette Dunne and I thought that she did a very good job. She got a little creepy at times when she would change her voice to indicate the different people in a conversation. It reminded me of the movie Psycho when the guy did the mother’s voice. But this wasn’t a very big issue and probably would have been harder to follow if she hadn’t done this.
This true story was very intriging to listen to and also very encouraging to hear how God protected and led her through the trials. It was slow at the beginning with seemingly needless descriptions of people and events, but I later understood how the details were needed later in the book.
