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OUR ROAD TO DAMASCUS

7 LESSONS FOR A LIFE OF PURPOSE AND MEANING

A vigorously written and thought-provoking inspirational guide to changing your path in life.

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A debut manual looks at St. Paul’s Damascus road experience as a template for human contemplation.

Early on, Assisi assures his readers that despite its title, his book is not about organized religion. Rather, it’s about “unpacking a personal experience of an incredible person who decided to change himself—an experience from which we can hopefully transfer some wisdom into our lives.” As the title indicates, this incredible person is Saul of Tarsus, who had a vision on the road to Damascus and converted to Christianity. This presence of the divine is central to the author’s contentions here; everyone, he maintains, has a one-on-one relationship with what he refers to as “G.O.D.—the Guiding, Designing, Organizing force of the universe. Or whatever other nomenclature one chooses.” Some readers may find these opening assertions confusing—Saul doesn’t decide to transform himself, for instance; he’s essentially ordered to do so by direct divine intervention. And that divine intervention is not some generalized Guiding, Designing, Organizing force but very specifically the Christian God. Still, Assisi smoothly and invitingly broadens his inquiry to include the universal human desire for meaning and purpose in life and his readings of the Paul story. He’s particularly insightful on the many ways Paul’s tale more closely reflects the Christian faith experience than the stories of the other disciples. “Paul never met Jesus in the flesh, he never spent time with him, never had a chance to listen to his teachings directly from him, never followed him in his wanderings or preachings,” the author writes. “Paul was like most of the Gentiles—all who would hear about Christ, but not from Christ. Like us.” In a series of very readable chapters, Assisi turns the underlying precepts of the Paul story—a tale of being “called to change”—into a series of lessons designed to address a broad array of human experiences, from coping with complicated relationships to dealing with grief. The result is a book that succeeds in the tricky feat of being intriguingly spiritual without being explicitly religious.

A vigorously written and thought-provoking inspirational guide to changing your path in life.

Pub Date: Dec. 12, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-73596-752-3

Page Count: 250

Publisher: Rivail Publishing Company

Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2021

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READING GENESIS

In this highly learned yet accessible book, Robinson offers believers fresh insight into a well-studied text.

A deeply thoughtful exploration of the first book of the Bible.

In this illuminating work of biblical analysis, Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Robinson, whose Gilead series contains a variety of Christian themes, takes readers on a dedicated layperson’s journey through the Book of Genesis. The author meanders delightfully through the text, ruminating on one tale after another while searching for themes and mining for universal truths. Robinson approaches Genesis with a reverence and level of faith uncommon to modern mainstream writers, yet she’s also equipped with the appropriate tools for cogent criticism. Throughout this luminous exegesis, which will appeal to all practicing Christians, the author discusses overarching themes in Genesis. First is the benevolence of God. Robinson points out that “to say that God is the good creator of a good creation” sets the God of Genesis in opposition to the gods of other ancient creation stories, who range from indifferent to evil. This goodness carries through the entirety of Genesis, demonstrated through grace. “Grace tempers judgment,” writes the author, noting that despite well-deserved instances of wrath or punishment, God relents time after time. Another overarching theme is the interplay between God’s providence and humanity’s independence. Across the Book of Genesis, otherwise ordinary people make decisions that will affect the future in significant ways, yet events are consistently steered by God’s omnipotence. For instance, Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers, and that action has reverberated throughout the history of all Jewish people. Robinson indirectly asks readers to consider where the line is between the actions of God and the actions of creation. “He chose to let us be,” she concludes, “to let time yield what it will—within the vast latitude granted by providence.”

In this highly learned yet accessible book, Robinson offers believers fresh insight into a well-studied text.

Pub Date: March 12, 2024

ISBN: 9780374299408

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023

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THE 48 LAWS OF POWER

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.

The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.

Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-670-88146-5

Page Count: 430

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998

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