by Parker Wayland ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 25, 2016
A brief and rather boilerplate work of Christian apology.
Wayland ponders the universe from a Christian perspective in this spiritual debut.
Who are we? Why are we here? Where did all of this come from? Such questions have befuddled humanity throughout history and have launched innumerable books attempting to suss out some answers. Wayland adds a new submission to the pile with this volume, which attempts to take readers from a place of broad ambivalence and lead them to an acceptance of Christian theology. The author begins by dividing the answers to philosophical questions into yeses and noes, where the noes represent a random or nihilistic view of the universe and the yeses offer a more positive, purpose-driven cosmology. “Each of us chooses ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in many different ways as we grow and mature,” writes Wayland. “But the ‘no’ answer gives no life or hope. It is dead. Only in the ‘yes’ answer is there power to sustain and nourish a life.” Quickly determining that yeses make more sense, the author discusses the difficulty of the search for God, then marvels at the luck of having available to humanity the revealed word of God in the form of the Holy Bible. He guides the reader through his interpretation of the Bible’s portrayal of the nature of God, evil, love, and Jesus, as well as his own faith and mission work. Wayland is a practiced writer and details his concepts and arguments in a personable, almost professorial way. Self-deprecating and learned—his career was in chemical and nuclear engineering—he presents his beliefs as the products of a reasonable and thoughtful mind. His questioning tone aside, Wayland’s views fall well within mainstream Christian dogma. He takes his time getting to his ultimate goal, which is to convert souls to Jesus, and the way his focus narrows from a general curiosity to Christianity by means of a faux-deductive reasoning may strike certain readers as disingenuous. Christian readers—or those curious about the religion’s teachings—should find his message comforting. Those looking for a flexible view of the universe, however, will likely be disappointed.
A brief and rather boilerplate work of Christian apology.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5127-4983-0
Page Count: 110
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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