Fifty Two Fifty Two » Benjamin Roberts

39th & 52nd — Mockingjay (Suzanne Collins)

Benjamin Roberts — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:20:13 +0000

Since this is a new release (and I know that others on here have read/are reading the series), I won’t say much about it. I enjoyed it and certainly thought that it was a fitting end. Maybe not the way that I would have taken it all of the time, but I certainly like what Collins did. Certainly a satisfying end to the trilogy (which isn’t something that you can often say).

38th & 52nd — The Courage to be Protestant (David Wells)

Benjamin Roberts — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:55:00 +0000

This book was not at all what I was expecting. I was expecting something along the lines of a defense of Protestantism instead of being Roman Catholic or Greek Orthodox. However, that idea was far from the actual nature of the book. Instead, it was an argument for old-school evangelicalism against the marketing and emergent styles of evangelicalism (with the underlying notion that old-school evangelicalism is the closest descendant of the ideals of the Reformation). So I was kinda disappointed that it wasn’t quite what I wanted to read, but it was still a decent read after all. Wells was solid theologically (which I was happy about) and he raised some good points. Just not the points that I wanted to be reading about…

37th & 52nd — Christianity’s Dangerous Idea (Alister McGrath)

Benjamin Roberts — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:18:34 +0000

McGrath here offers up a history, analysis and future projections of Protestantism as a movement. He highlights the Protestant idea of the priesthood of all believers and the binding of the Christian conscience to Scripture alone that have caused both the proliferation and fragmentation of the Protestant movement. While this generally seemed to be a fairly solid work, McGrath kinda got on my nerves. I think that was mostly due to the lack of judgment that he made. I can understand not wanting to get people riled up unnecessarily, but this felt like he was taking objectivity way too far. Just let me know what you think about various movements, especially when they end up in such radically different places. Also…it kinda felt like he had a man-crush on Pentecostalism.

36th & 52nd — Religious Affections (Jonathan Edwards)

Benjamin Roberts — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:04:59 +0000

Nothing like some Edwards to really make you look at yourself and force that self-examination that you’ve been unwilling to do. At every page, I was forced to stop and think, “Is that me?”. Edwards here talks about knowing whether our heart and actions are true signs of love for God, or if we’re just deceiving ourselves. Basically, don’t read this book if you want to feel good about yourself, but definitely read it if you want to find the hypocrisy in your life.

35th & 52nd – Hope in a Scattering Time (Eric Miller)

Benjamin Roberts — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 18:51:09 +0000

I picked this book up primarily since it was written by one of my favorite undergrad professors. I thought it was a fantastic book, although I wasn’t too familiar with the subject, as it was a biography of Christopher Lasch. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the writing style as it was quite pleasant and terribly challenging to read, even though it would have been so easy to slip in dry/technical language all the time. It was interesting to see some of Lasch’s ideas fleshed out and see how much I agreed with them (no doubt due to that professor and other students who were able to spend more time with him in classes than I was). So if you’re into radical social critics, this is the book for you. It’s especially potent in that…every time Miller described another Lasch book, I was eager to get out there and read it.

34th & 52nd – Lost City of Z (David Grann)

Benjamin Roberts — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 17:07:37 +0000

Fantastic book. Just absolutely fantastic. I could not put this book down until I finished it (just in time too, since I was running out of light…I’ve been camping this week). Great story of the last great explorer, Percy Fawcett, and his disappearance into the Amazon looking for a fabled lost city. It was an effortless weaving of the past ventures of Fawcett as well as Grann’s own efforts to retrace his steps. Just an effortless, breezy read that sucks you in and never lets you go.

33rd & 52nd — The Imitation of Christ (Thomas a Kempis)

Benjamin Roberts — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 16:42:40 +0000

I can see why this book has appealed to many people over many years, but, to be honest, I just did not enjoy it. I had some issues with it, but most of those were probably issues that I’d have with any medieval Catholic theologian that I talked to. My main issues were the mysticism in the book (it really glamorized the spiritual and the intellectual and downplayed the physical and the vocational) and the format of the last two sections. I just think it’s a dangerous idea to put words in the mouth of Christ. Oh well…I guess that’s just how they used to do it. Doesn’t mean I have to read the book again.

32nd & 52nd — Shop Class as Soulcraft (Matthew Crawford)

Benjamin Roberts — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:17:55 +0000

Although this book presents itself as an “Inquiry into the Value of Work” (at least according to the subtitle), it often reads as something not quite so fair and balanced. Instead, a more appropriate subtitle might have been “An Apologetic for Working with One’s Hands”. Crawford, using general arguments as well as his own experience, attempts to persuade that we have undervalued dirty, hands-on work in favor of (supposed) intellectual work and that we should be more willing to engage in “blue collar” work. While I agreed with the general thrust of what Crawford said based on my understanding of everyone’s individual calling to a particular vocation (or vocations), I would say that he draws too strong of a line. While he was no doubt greatly shaped and influenced by his own life, I think that he tried to make his life too normative for everyone else. However, that certainly is not a great enough of a problem to render this book useless; indeed, it has good insights for everyone on consumerism, consumption, value and independence.

31st & 52nd — The Road (Cormac McCarthy)

Benjamin Roberts — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:15:34 +0000

Dark. Apocalyptic. McCarthy crafted a novel that was right up my alley. I loved the elements that formed the core of the novel; upon further reflection, it felt like a zombie movie just without the zombies (and with the written word, of course). It was all there – the destruction of society, the struggle for survival, the ethics of survival, the idea of carrying the torch of humanity. But, in addition to the bleakness, the book was surprisingly tender. The relationship between the father and the son (as well as between the parents) was tender and heartbreaking. I really began to develop a real empathy for the father as he struggles to keep himself and his son human and alive.

And I think that’s where the real attraction of this genre lies. In these apocalyptic scenarios, it is more than easy to just be one of those two – either human or either alive. You can keep your humanity, but it will usually come with a great price that will be paid quickly as you quickly die. Or you can stay alive by quickly jettisoning your humanity and doing whatever it takes to stay alive (in this case…cannibalism). It’s in that tension between staying alive and staying human that these worlds take flight.

30th & 52nd — Lords of Finance (Liaquat Ahamed)

Benjamin Roberts — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:12:54 +0000

Now this was a book that really got me steaming, got me hopping mad. Of course, this was due to no fault of the book, but rather is almost a tribute to the book. Ahamed presents the story of the economics of the time between the two world wars, with a particular focus on the 4 great central bankers of America, England, France and Germany. The fiscal destruction and devastation that was due to these 4 was appalling, and that’s without considering the fact that they essentially laid the groundwork for the eruption of World War 2 and the grave loss of human life that came about due to that conflict. Of course, there are plenty of secondary characters who earn their share of the blame – such as FDR who would arbitrarily set the interest rate each morning at breakfast rather senselessly and frivolously. But at the root of all the problems was the pettiness of these men and their deep-set nationalism (bordering on jingoism usually). Having sensitive and easily slighted men making financial decisions for countries that are constantly antagonistic towards each other was the recipe leading to chaos. Just one more reason to hate the modern nation-state, I suppose.