This work delivers a sharp, outdoorsy look at a world full of spiritual marvels.
A debut book offers Christian reflections on daily life and nature.
Writing from the perspective of a lay pastor at a Lutheran church in North Dakota, Johnson is quite clear about his interests. Hunting, canoe building, and snowshoeing are the types of activities with which the author enjoys filling his days. And, as he argues, these outdoor hobbies are prime opportunities for spiritual advancement. From waiting in a hunting blind for a deer to paddling a canoe, the author draws connections from a variety of his favorite pursuits to Christian lessons. What might, for example, a raging Western snowstorm teach a person about God? As Johnson asserts: “I love blizzards because they remind me of who is in control.” Perusing such lessons in a series of short chapters (usually ending with motivational biblical quotes, such as “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Luke 12:22”), the reader comes away with an understanding that opportunities to reflect on the workings of God are almost everywhere in the natural world. In fact, it is the wilderness that allows one to “stop, recognize, and pay attention.” Although such diverse endeavors can be of varying interest (descriptions of searching for flint are about as exciting as they sound), the less familiar the reader is with things like rock climbing, the more there is to learn. Readers seeking an escape from their busy lives may find the notion of silent retreats—in which participants spend time alone in the woods for certain periods—to be a refreshing idea. Even for those who do not already agree with the statement that “we need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness,” many of the author’s depictions of his hobbies prove persuasive enough for the open-minded to want to give them a shot. Readers who already see God’s wonder during bear hunting season may not get much out of this book. But those who never thought to draw a parallel between the two may wind up coming away with new ruminations.
This work delivers a sharp, outdoorsy look at a world full of spiritual marvels.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5127-6899-2
Page Count: 556
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: May 2, 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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