Guilty pleasures and affronts to paper: the holiday roundup
It is Christmas Eve, and I am cleaning off my desk, a task that should involve industrial equipment.
But here are some books for your attention, should you be blog-skipping this holiday season and not engaged in the festive pursuits of marathon Netflix-watching and seeing how many pounds of sugar you can slam in a single day.
Book I’m ashamed to like: The Daily Coyote: A Story of Love, Survival and Trust in the Wilds of Wyoming, by Shreve Stockton. Ever wanted a coyote for a pet? Me either. And yet I held onto this book for far longer than I had intended, because Charlie the Coyote has that oddish Marley look about him. You can follow Charlie at Stockton’s blog, http://dailycoyote.blogspot.com/
Book that is going in the bin right this instant: The latest by Controversial Inauguration pastor Rick Warren, he of The Purpose-Driven Life. This one is called The Purpose of Christmas, and I feel certain that I’d rather be forcibly planted in 27 consecutive Beth Moore Bible studies than read another sentence sequence like this one: “No matter what you do in life, some people aren’t going to like it. And the brighter the light, the more bugs it attracts. When The Purpose-Driven Life became well known, I became a target of mean-spirited critics who seemed to relish attacking and misrepresenting me.”
Sorry to be late to that party.
Book I wish had given more attention: Things That Make Us (Sic): The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar Takes on Madison Avenue, Hollywood, The White House and the World by Martha Brockenbrough. Who doesn’t love a good lecture on semicolon use? “While we haven’t yet found direct evidence of punctuation being lifesaving, we have discovered that bad punctuation led to life in prison for a certain murderous New Jersey housewife who couldn’t hold her semicolons (unlike the Son of Sam, who the journalist Jimmy Breslin called ‘the first murderer anybody ever knew who could use a semicolon’).”
Special award for book that is surpasses every known definition of “vile”: Brocabulary by Daniel Maurer. If you put Rick Warren and Daniel Maurer in the same room, the moral climate of the United States would implode. This book doesn’t just define misogyny; it tries to make misogyny seem glamorous.
The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://bluegrassbooks.bloginky.com/2008/12/24/guilty-pleasures-and-affronts-to-paper-the-holiday-roundup/trackback/
My husband just asked me to read your article. I thought it was because of the headline re: Rick Warren. I am not a fan of PURPOSE-DRIVEN LIFE.
But when he heard me audibly GASP, he knew I had just read the words “I’d rather be forcibly planted in 27 consecutive BETH MOORE BIBLE studies…”
Ironically, I was reading Beth’s blog on LPM site when he interrupted me with the paper. Beth was commenting to a mother whose son was killed in September and trying to provide comfort. All the SIESTAS ( that’s what the blog readers are called) were asked to lift this woman up in prayer.
Beth is a true servant of Jesus and her BIBLE studies and teachings are invaluable to me and my fellow Siestas as we continue in our faith walk. If you are ever forced to be in a Beth Study, call me and I’ll gladly take your place.
If you want an antidote to “The Purpose Driven Life,” try “The Reason Driven Life” by Robert Price.
http://www.amazon.com/Reason-Driven-Life-What-Earth/dp/1591024765/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230952276&sr=8-1