Conservative Book Talk

If you haven’t heard of the emergent movement, chances are you know a college student who has. If you want to understand young christian college students, the general spirit is very well conveyed in this work. As one of the aforesaid, I was pleasantly surprised by how much the book spoke to me (an a non-emergent), and its accuracy in describing my emergent friends.

“Why We’re Not Emergent” spends about half its 200 pages unraveling the confusion around emergent theology or lack thereof. My emergent friends could be best described as Unitarian liberals with postmodern leanings, which is about as specific as I can get without quoting the authors verbatim. If you want to understand if further, read this book, or at least watch one of the authors duke it out with emergents here:

http://www.therebelution.com/blog/2009/04/video-the-emerging-church/

The authors take turns writing the books’ chapters. Kevin’s are more in depth, and inspired a lot of reflective moments for me. He goes through the theological underpinnings of the emergent movement, explaining step by step their pagan/Unitarian similarities and why its important to believe that Jesus was about more than doing good and caring for the environment. Ted’s, I admit, were more interesting. He relates a lot of things to movies and obscure pop culture references, but by and large he taps into my generation’s psyche in a meaningful way. Both make great use of footnotes to entertain, so be sure to read those too.

Overall, read this book.

Tags: Emergent Church, Kevin DeYoung, Religion, Sincerelyornot, Ted Kluck

I had to use this textbook for a principles of management class. Bought it for the term, sold it at a profit, and will be buying another copy for the next management class of my own volition. My expectations for textbooks, especially business ones, are pretty low. This one met,and actually exceeded those as a textbook. Its well worth it for either a beginning class (ie, required textbook, so you’re going to buy it regardless of what I say), or or a high level class requiring case studies (yes, I said that: I’m voluntarily buying the thing next term). The telecourse guide is helpful, the website blah, the videos double blah.

THE GOOD: It covers every imaginable phrase, concept, and topic within the realm of basic management. Every word you could possibly need for a degree is covered in here with encyclopedic precision. Every theory gets its own table or illustration or graph. The student may get very little on the reality of business (memos, financial statements, and other real-life applications are not the point here), but the theories are solidly packed in: this may be boring, but its what you need for an intro business class. And lets face it, the book is designed to be an encyclopedia for future classes. One extremely useful insert: the case study that fronts every chapter, usually on some well known brand. Each chapter then refers back to that company in all its examples. This really drives the plethora of words home, and helps keep all those facts straight. Also, the book comes with a telecourse guide that can be useful to review for a multiple choice test: itself-tests were invaluable.

THE BAD: The book doesn’t stop with a plethora of words (which we do need): it goes on to a plethora of media. This book comes with a telecourse guide, website, and videos. While I always take notes for my own memory benefit, read the telecourse guide before exams and you’re good. Works for the test, not for remembering anything later (again, as an 01 class, where the point is to teach you these words for long-term use in other classes, this is a bad thing). In addition to the telecourse guide, the book offers a website with more tests (the answer key is screwy), and a series of videos to go with the chapter readings. Said videos had little redeeming value, being poorly done, formulaic, unrealistic, and teaching nothing new while pratting on about this or that wonderful brand, The videos were also over two hours a week of time. Taken together, this is waaay too much time to be spending on one class. Its just over the top.

Also, it has these politically correct inserts every so often about ethics and including women and the environment and all that jazz. These inserts are boring and entirely irrelevant to real life or the theories. I’ll happily overlook thsoe for the quality explanations and definitions, let alone the really good case studies.

THE LOWDOWN: All in all, great book. If you’re taking a higher level class and need some help with terms or case studies, its well worth the investment. I’ll be taking my own advice on this one in the next term. for the record. The telecourse guide is worth buying if you don’t want to take notes, and as a review in print of the tests. The website, skip. The videos, skip. The book, buy on Amazon (about $30 used international edition).

Tags: Business, Non-Fiction, Sincerelyornot

Part 6 of 6

I’m not big on short stories, mysteries excepted. After reading this book, my horizons have been broadened, and I’m going to go find some more fun short stories to check out. Unfortunately, this anthology includes a selection of “mystery” stories that are more like horror, or fairy-tales gone amok; so I can’t recommend the whole batch of 50. That said, there are too many stories for one review: this is review 6 of 6, the (more than ten) short stories which are clearly NOT mysteries; with few exceptions, horror stories.
• The Clock, by A.E.W. Mason
• The Silver Mask, by High Walpole
• Suspicion, by Dorothy L. Sayers
• Treasure Trove, by F. Tennyson Jesse
• Philomel Cottage, by Agatha Christie, p. 2
• The Mad Tea Party, by Ellery Queen, p. 4
• The S. S., M.P. Shiel, Prince Zaleski.
• The Two Bottles of Relish, by Lord Dunsay, Mr. Linely
• The Most Dangerous Game, by Richard Connell
• Faith, Hope, and Charity, by Irvin S. Cobb

I’m not bothering to recap these, because they are, by and large, that type of horror story that makes you shiver but is so stupid that, the second your brain kicks in, you start shaking with uncontrollable laughter. Three were reviewed in other sections anyway. And with that we wrap up a review of 101 Year’s Entertainment. I didn’t like it overall, but there were some good things to recommend, and an interesting lesson in history to be drawn.

The volume as a whole has several strengths. First, the historical aspect of each story is mentioned in some way, either in the story itself (set during 1800s England or what have you) or the editorial comments. The different genres within detective stories and mysteries are all given their turn, and the eras of each are evident by the context. Also, the different writing styles create a genre-within-a genre effect; the colorful language of the 1920s contrasting vividly with the refined philosophy of the 1840s. Most interesting of all, variety. There are all kinds of stories here, from the philosophical (The Problem of Cell 13) to the probing (The Criminologists’ Club) and the downright problematic (The Mad Tea Party).

It’s the problematic variety (mainly the stories above) that get to you after a couple hundred pages. Yes, there are some fine stories, and they are interesting to read in comparison to the other stories. Really, though, what is entertaining about justified mass murder (The S.S.), or torturous deaths (The Silver Mask and, more variously but still equally gruesome, Faith, Hope, and Charity)? Can’t we have variety and quality? The editor obviously thought so, but then, the editor’s taste leans toward the macabre (note, his own story gets into the “Criminals Win” and “Non-Mystery” categories); and therein lies the biggest problem with an anthology like this. Its totally up to the editor’s tastes as to what does and does not get included. And this editor, sadly, falls into his own category of “Doyle-imitators”; a mystery writer wannabe whose style is not entirely without merit, yet also without talent (and often without even that first qualifier, “mystery.”)

I don’t recommend the book, though if variety is the spice you want in your reading life, some of the short stories mentioned hereto would be a good place to start (I suggest parts 2, 3, or 5 of this review for a list: the stories above are, as I mentioned, more in the realm of terrifying stupidity than of stupefying mystery). Overall, however, the idea behind the book has led me to broaden my horizons in the short story realm. That bit of wisdom, however, can be easily shared without having to trudge through (all) the above.

Tags: 101 Years Entertainment, Ellery Queen, Mystery, Sincerelyornot