An easily digestible commentary on the life of an inspiring biblical hero, offering hope to those facing their own...
Debut author Craig offers a focused look at the life of Joseph from the Book of Genesis and the negative events that helped prepare him for his greater purpose.
The author notes that although setbacks often have the potential to derail us completely, “The process through which we can be prepared for higher callings and responsibility is directly related to the challenges, obstacles, and even people we encounter on this journey of life.” Craig calls these challenges “interlopers” and asserts that they’re crucial to one’s spiritual development and maturation, and can even help prepare one for a higher calling. He relates this idea to the life of the biblical figure of Joseph, who faced several difficulties that ultimately culminated in his being promoted to a place of power, authority, and great influence in Egypt—second only to the Pharaoh himself. Craig effectively walks readers through the low points in Joseph’s life, from his betrayal by his brothers to his unjust imprisonment, gleaning examples and insights from each situation; in this way, he demonstrates the sometimes-zigzagging process by which God leads people to places of greater influence and responsibility. Overall, this book will appeal to Christians looking for encouragement from a popular biblical character’s story. Those who are interested solely in the life of Joseph, however, might want a more in-depth book, as this is a relatively concise read that uses the scriptural story mostly to illustrate a specific point. The prologue by Union University biblical studies professor R. Kelvin Moore states that the book will “make readers want to read and reread the story of Joseph and God’s providence,” and this is probably true, although it lacks much original insight on its own.
An easily digestible commentary on the life of an inspiring biblical hero, offering hope to those facing their own “interlopers.”Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4575-5776-7
Page Count: 76
Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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