Biography Books

It is unbelievable that people could kill so many people in such a gruesome fashion. It is even more unbelievable that Immaculee could forgive those killers. This book is about more than just the genocide, it is about the power and absolute necessity of forgiveness. Ultimately, the only one Immaculee could really escape the genocide was through forgiveness. Wonderful book.

Amazing story. I strongly suggest everyone to read the story, it's profound and a real eye opener. As an American, the majority of us have no idea what it's like to be put into poverty and suffering as she and millions like her have experienced.

I love stories that tell how God works in the lives of His people. This story is among the best I've ever read.

Left to Tell is a powerful story of one womens tragedies and survival experienced during the Genocide in Rwanda. This book brought tears and joy to my heart; it inspired me to know that through any horrible and life threatening experience a belief and faith in God will transcend all atrocities man will commit. It is also about how forgiveness can calm and soothe the soul so life can move on with peace in your heart.

I think this is an excellent book, I could not put it down. I ended up reading till 3 in the morning.

I'd just like to correct something is one of the reviews.

Kay Jamison is not a psychiatrist. She is a psychologist who heads a psychiatric department. If you have read this book, you know that.

I've read over a dozen books on Bipolar Disorder. Being Bipolar myself, I really felt a kinship with Kay. My family also read this book and tell me that they now have a better understanding of my illness.

A very good book.

Like others, I came away from this book with a far greater understanding, and more sympathetic view of those people in my life who suffer with manic-depression. I have good friends and cousins who wrestle with this disease, and though I tried to empathize, of course I couldn't.

The one question I have, though, is that I thought people with manic depression who are on lithium should NOT drink alcohol? Certainly, the good doctor doesn't sound like an alcoholic, but there's plenty of mention of drinking... someone, please set me straight...

This was the first stand alone book on Bipolar I have read, and the only one most of my family has read. It is based on the lived experiences of a Bipolar I sufferer (lack of a better word). Kay is a good writter but gets bogged down in accademia speak which is a bit distracting. Unlike the text book she has co written, in comparison, this is easy to read. I still sugest you read it, and keep it on your book shelf, as it promotes bipolar as something normal inteligent successful people can have, instead of the stigma that all people with Bipolar are stupid and dangerous.

A very insightful writing about Bi-Polar illness. I enjoyed the book and it convinced me that the diagnosis is being incorrectly overused.

portrait of a controlable disease . I understand jlalbee manic-depressive illness for the charmed life , but i do not agree . The more learned people know , the better we will be able to be part of the healing process . Some readers might be a bit resentful is not accurate , the lonely and the poor will most likely not read this book . But the more we know , more compasionate we will become and be able to help . Even that i do agree that her case is above the normal person , it takes this kind of person to guide us to the tunnel , so that we can be run over by that train called madness that we all posses in different degrees . So be it .

I cracked this book open with the hopes of getting an insider's view of how corporate manipulation of international loans works. Unfortunately, Perkins reveals little except his takeaway from the experience. The overall feeling of the book was not that he wants to educate us on the machine and how it works but rather issue a mea culpa. It's long on feelings and short on detail. I was looking for something more well researched and detailed like "Blackwater" by Scahill which gives a deep account on how corporate players make money from war and the US government. Unfortunately, Perkins was only able to vaguely confirm what I know to be true, leaving me searching the book racks for someone who can explain the nitty gritty to me. I don't recommend it if you want to answer the "hows" of this really big and complex issue.

A must read book if you ask me! It is well written and you cannot stop reading it until it is finished. Even if only half of the stories are true, I think it opens your eyes to how rich countries (in this case the US) prey on poor nations across the world.

This book lets us know a very important piece of truth about how the world works, in particular how the us works to gain control of other countries. Compulsary for any conscient individual in today's world.

I found the book to be interesting from the standpoint of one man's perspective on two decades of US empire building. I have no doubt he believes what he writes and Americans will surely be reviewing with more than a passing glance the foreign policy decisions, past and present.

I can appreciate this author's guilt by his role in "empire building" but he continually dedicates small portions of the books to self reflecting judgment and, more of less, implicates his upbringing, NSA profiling and a myriad of other BS excuses for why he continued to do what he did. Tell the story but please don't defend yourself to me.

I enjoyed the way the author tied details of modern history to the events of his life. Very thought provoking. I think it is striking the way the individuals who critique it for a lack of statistics provide none of their own.

Either the writer is an arrogant, obnoxious, irritating, attitudinal jerk, or he wants us to think that he is an arrogant, obnoxious, irritating, attitudinal jerk. Either way, I couldn't be bothered to finish this book. Sorry I bought it and thereby increased the guy's income.

Maybe because I am a chef I did not find the book hilarious as would probably a person who is not in the business. But, there were times when I found myself laughing out loud. Unfortunately, not enough times. I also found myself skipping paragraphs and a few pages. I did not find it boring but it was too cutesy of writing. I enjoyed how it showed his time line and if you put your mind to it you can succeed. After awhile I was tired of his long winded decriptions of whatever he was trying to describe. It was okay at first but then became trite. The book was 310 pages and it could have been successful at 200 pages. I had to nudge myself at times to get through. I enjoyed reading about his misadventures with incompentent owners which I could definitely relate to. Also, enjoyed the makeup of the different cooks.

I would be reading and enjoying the book and I would think to myself that I was being too harsh on the author when I would get to the next paragraph and I would see that my original opionion of it only being 3 stars was correct. I would reccommend this book to everyone because everyone has different tastes.

In reading this book, I could actually hear Anthony Bourdain's voice in my head. Since this was written prior to "A Cook's Tour" and "No Reservations" I felt as though I was getting the uncensored, ungroomed Tony Bourdain.

My ex-husband told me that I shouldn't read this book because if I did, I may never want to eat out again. Total crap. If anything, this makes me want to go out to eat more often, knowing how much work goes into preparing our meals. But the rule is simple, appreciate good food and the hands who prepare it and you can't go wrong.

It might be offensive to people at times, but overall I found it honest and entertaining. Adding it to my permanent collection of stuff to read over and over again.

Being in the restaurant business for 23 years I thought I had stories. I couldn't put the book down. I feel like I worked with him. This is a must read!!

I like Bourdain, but was hoping there would be a lot more tips about what to avoid/look for in a restuarant. The book was mainly about his life as a drugged out chef. entertaining, but not educational.

Thanks, from one waiter to another. I probably don't have another thing to add as all of these scenarios have happened to me. Great read with really good visual images. I was right there in the Bistro with you.

Working in a tourist town where eating and drinking are one of the main things to do, I really related to the writer. Cracked me up and may very well have made me more tolerant. Easy to follow, and fast reading, or you can pick it up anywhere. Not sure a customer who never worked that side of the table would change their habits/behavior. It is a service industry-to the maxx!

I think this book was excellent. It was a great storyline version of what it's like to be a waiter/waitress. I can totally relate to it and i think everyone should read it whether not your a waitor or even a customer to your favorite restaurant. Once you read it, you will appreciate being a waiter or maybe even appreciate the waiter/waitresses that you have when you go out to eat!

As with any discourse on the increasing bad manners of John Q Public, I fear that the wrong people will read this book -- the same syndrome as people who are going to not silence their cellphones and text through a movie are inevitably those who come too late to see the reminder that that behavior is unacceptable. In Stewart Onan's Last Night at the Red Lobster, the faces behind the service staff were humanized, and far too few people read that book to gain some insight into a segment of society that usually remains invisible. This book, in particular the Appendices, should be required reading for anyone who picks up a menu, but I fear the people who don't regard service staff as more than punching bags will continue with their rudeness and sense of entitlement.

Drama: Without it we are soon bored. With too much drama, we are soon looking for peace and quiet. Waiters usually have no drama as they routinely do their jobs, so naturally the dramatic moments stand out. The Waiter who writes for the Waiter Rant Web site entertains us in this self-revealing memoir by sharing his highest and lowest moments serving the public in the New York City area.

Now, life for waiters in New York tends to be more dramatic than elsewhere in the United States: New York diners are demanding, loud, and aggressive. I well remember my first meal in a nice restaurant with people from New York. It was in Boston. If our waiter didn't sprint to our table within five seconds of these people wanting something, they headed off in a jog to find him. If this meant pushing into the kitchen or pounding on the men's room door, so be it. I wanted to crawl under the table and dig a hole.

Since then, I gotten used to dining with people from New York: There has to be a 30-minute heated discussion with the hostess over which table we will sit at while they threaten to take the whole party elsewhere (and often they do!). They usually don't even start thinking about what to order until after the waiter has returned six times to ask if everyone is ready. Everyone wants to order some item that's not on the menu and bitter complaints follow if that's not permitted. When the food arrives, they automatically send the entrees back to the kitchen to be redone while saying spiteful things about incompetence. The main table conversation is about how bad the restaurant is (led by those who picked the restaurant). Argh!

I hesitate to imagine what it must be like to be a waiter in these places. It might make a person a little cynical; n'est-ce pas?

The Waiter is one of those serving warriors who has done for this a long time. No, he doesn't plan to act on Broadway. No, it isn't a second job to support his family (he's unmarried and unattached). No, he isn't going to grad school. He does it to earn a living.

How did he get there? The Waiter started out in seminary, wanting to be a Catholic priest. He got angry about the way things were run in the church (and didn't realize that Catholics don't have a monopoly on inappropriate behavior) and quit. He earned a college degree in psychology and worked in a series of forgettable health care environments run by very sleazy people.

After losing a mental health job, he realized that he needed work to tide him over and avoid depression while he looked for a "good" job. Since his brother was working as a waiter part-time while he was in school, his brother suggested that The Waiter join him at Amici's, a suburban New York Italian restaurant. In the process, he learned that he had jumped out of the frying pan into the fire because Amici's was a very emotionally toxic environment, one where the survival of the fittest would have impressed Darwin.

I won't tell more of the story, but you'll get your share of ugly customer behavior, callousness, poor management, bad hygiene, and ripping off the customer. These are portrayed in calendar order, interspaced with the seasonal challenges of various holidays (Mother's Day is the worst for servers and customers) illustrated by horror stories.

The writing is extremely slick in the beginning, so much so that it seems like the stories are likely to have been "improved" as new journalism stories often are to be a "better" story. Amici's isn't quite to be believed, but you can make up your mind for yourself on that point.

The bulk of the book is sited at The Bistro where The Waiter doubles as the restaurant's manager whenever Fluvio, the owner, is away (which seems to be all of the time). The squabbles between The Waiter and the rest of the staff and with Fluvio are straight from sit-com heaven. When Ken Blanchard is looking for his next coauthor to write a parable about what not to do in business, he should look up The Waiter.

The craziness moves on nicely from episode to episode, but eventually focuses in on The Waiter's desire to escape waiting by becoming a writer. He begins to pay more and more attention to the Waiter Rant blog and dreams of writing a book. Well, you know how that turned out.

I thought the most interesting parts of the book came in how he came to understand himself better through being a waiter. Think of that part of the book as "Confessions of a Snippy Waiter."

Because of his psychology training, he's very good at explaining why waiting appeals to some people . . . despite the horrible drawbacks.

You'll probably cut back on your fine dining after you read this book. There's a tendency to make all customers seem like infants who lack motherly love and are willing to spend ridiculous sums to get a little attention from someone who is willing to pander to get tips.

Some (especially those from New York City) will be offended by the various guidelines for being a customer.

I was shocked to learn that I was demeaning servers whenever I gave them a tip over 25 percent. Who knew?

I would wish you bon appetit, but this book will probably spoil your appetite with its various stories about hygiene and getting revenge on customers.

In my opinion this book presents a ground-breaking philosophy to the Christian community as well as anyone who enjoys thought provoking literature. A must read. "Searching For God Knows What" by the same author is just as good, if not better!

I know that a lot of people love Donald Miller and I know that I am in the minority, but I just didn't "get" this book. It was a bunch of unorganized ramblings.

The book was very good - it is very simplistic which is a relief from the self-righteous philosphical types. It uses stories to explain very difficult issues such as why Christ had to humble himself and come to earth to save the world. It is an easy read that will impact your soul.

I'm not completely done reading this book but WOW, it's such an incredible journey. It was difficult at first to read because the author is a bit sporadic but I've finally got his "style" down and actually, it adds some flair to the book. There are times that I'm laughing and then the next sentence I'm crying. For anyone trying to gain perspective on what a real relationship with God is like, what real people are like, and just the feeling that you're not alone, this is the perfect book!

I started this book last night and have made my way through about a quarter of it, so I admit this isn't a full review of the complete work (I will complete this review when I finish the work). That being said, so far, I am not impressed. I kept hearing that this book was an absolute gem, that it would change the way I think, that it was the new "On the Road", and that it would awaken in me a new Christian spirituality. Well, maybe not those exact words, but that's the general idea. Within the first three chapters, this book reveals itself for what it is: a vehicle to promote liberation theology and a liberal theology in general.

Miller has some valid points, for example, that Christians are called to help the needy and that we spend most of our time thinking about ourselves rather than others, but he seems to think that promoting social justice and welfare programs was the whole point of Christ's incarnation and sacrifice, not to heal our relationship with God and to think of Him first, our neighbors second, and ourselves last. His theology is sloppy, inconsistent, and shows a lack of understanding concerning 2000 years of Christian teaching. In interviews, he makes the statement that he is a writer, not a pastor, but one needs to realize that when one writes a nonfiction work on a topic, that the author takes on the role of a teacher in many ways for the topic he has chosen. It's fine that Mr. Miller admits he is not a theologian or an expert, but that doesn't stop him from making claims and giving criticisms of a theological nature. As I mentioned, I have not finished the book yet, so I don't know if his teachings become more solid or not.

In addition, it was obvious that part of Mr. Miller's goal in writing this book was to sway people to join a political party. He is highly critical, and in some instances absolutely slams, the Republican Party for not "giving a crap" about the message and mission of Jesus, and (as a member of the GOP myself) I can openly and easily admit that some of it is deserved; the Compassionate Conservatism we heard about a few years ago seems to have been swept up by the vacuum cleaner. However, Miller never shows equal criticism for the Democratic Party (there is no need to go into detail here, as this is a book review and not a political debate). For a man that spends a good portion of his book decrying institutions, he seems to pull his punches with the ones he likes.

Finally, many say this book is "conversational" in its delivery. I disagree. It reads more like a child's book report. Short, choppy, awkward sentences abound, stuff like: "I went to a play on a date once. Plays are good. Dates are good too. Dates where you go to a play are sometimes good too. You should pretend you like plays and make happy noises if you go on a date to a play." I am paraphrasing here, but that is the general idea. I kept expecting Miller to say his favorite food is pizza and he has two cats, a dog, and a sister.

I will finish this book, if for no other reason than to give it a chance, but I am not hopeful of much improvement or some great insight. If someone has told you how great this book is, be suspicious.

Audition: A Memoir
A very revealing life story of a celebrity!
Once into the book, it was hard to put down as I learned more and more about her life. Her success now once again shows how you can do anything you put your mind and efforts to.

I've read two-thirds of Audition, and did a 180 degree turn in my opinion of Ms. Walters. Her life as a young girl echoes much of mine, with the exception of the financial security. Perhaps it was the time of "children are to be seen, not heard," that made her into a strong and sincere person dealing with her contacts. It was a time when we all had more empathy toward one another, and the "really big show people" having come from the bottom, were "really" big! Great life story! I'd recommend it any day.

I loved Ms. Walters' book. It was fun to learn the details of her young life and see how she developed into the journalist and TV personality she is today. The nice surprise is how exciting it was to experience again the important historical times she documented so well as she covered many really important stories over the years. We get to read behind the scenes happenings. For instance, years ago we saw her interview with Fidel Castro, but in the book there is so much more on the subject. Same thing about the talks leading to the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty, etc.
Ms. Walters was so careful to thank everyone who helped her in her personal and professional life--she seems like an extremely nice woman. I found myself cheering for all her successes, although she didn't shy away from admitting failures. I think the book is well-written and it was something I was happy to get back to in all my free moments until I finished it.

This was a very enjoyable read. The best part of the book involves her interviews with famous people. She is able to intersperse tidbits about world leaders, celebrities, politicians and newsmen with her own personal life. Also, she explores her early foray as a journalist and tv host during a time when television was just starting to make an impact. It was interesting to note that Barbara's father was famous in his own right as well and she honestly acknowledges that she got into her career through her father's connections. Of course, she had to keep auditioning to prove herself and eventually became a celebrity herself. Fascinating story!!

I have been reading this book slowly over the past 2 weeks. Not because I read slowly, but because the book is pretty boring. I am now stuck in the middle of it questioning if I should continue. I find myself skimming pages to see if she is still talking about the same topic I just bored myself with for the past 10 minutes. Did I really need to read an entire chapter on the "Shah" and his tent party?? Did she need to write an entire chapter on her trip to China with Nixon?? I guess this was exciting for her but in my opinion it was not necessary to set aside a whole chapter for this. I am really bored with this book except for the stories of her personal family. When she finally comes into adulthood, Ms. Walters seems to come across as a self indulgent, self-centered person. She let 2 of her marriages collapse so far from what I read, and her daughter is being raised by two woman who are not related to her. I hope all of her dinners, parties and get togethers have made her happy because her family apparently was not enough. For example, she writes that she would be working all week, traveling all over the place and then choose to go to Connecticut for a weekend with just her husband (no kids), instead of spending it with her husband and child. I did not hear of one family vacation or fun outing as a family and I am half way through the book. I feel bad for her daughter who missed out on a lot. I hope her nannies fulfilled her as a child, because it is apparent that her real mother, Ms. Walters did not.

After reading so many crime novels, murder mysteries and chillers, I decided to purchase some "lite" reading for my daily three hour round trip commuter train ride. This book conjured up so many emotions it was at times impossible to contain myself. Anyone who has owned a dog for any amount of time can identify with this book. I have owned a Boxer named Max for the last 10 years and I can see Marley in him. John Grogan did an excellent job in writing about his relationship with his dog. I found myself laughing out loud at some of the antics of Marley and as I neared the final chapters I found myself getting a little "misty" eyed.... O.K....I cried. In part for John and Marley and in part for my own dopey, loveable and at times crazed Max. For me, any author who can bring out emotions in me, has a fan for life.I highly recommend this book for anyone who has yet to read it, who is thinking about owning a dog and for anyone who has a four legged best friend.

I cannot believe that someone else has experienced what I have with my own crazy dogs. 'Marley and Me' has taken me back down so many wonderful roads. It has reminded me of the wonderful love of my pets and it reassured me that I can face the inevitable. As I write this, I am living life with my precious boxer, Moses, to the absolute fullest. Mose has just turned 12 and her health is slowly declining. Through the wonderful words of John Grogan, I am able to reflect and accept.
I'm sorry I did not pick it up sooner, but I know I chose it at this point in our lives for a special reason. Many thanks to Mr. Grogan and especially, Marley.

What a funny and heartwarming story. As a dog owner myself I can certainly relate to some of Marley's antics. I could not put this book down and I read very very few books.

I can't wait to see the movie which premieres Christmas Day.

I love dog books and this one is very entertaining. It is a must read!! Get it before the movie comes out!!

When I picked this up I wanted something fun and light as I knew I had a busy week. Well I couldn't put it down. It was everyday stuff but yet so heartwarming. It was the story of a dog but also of a growing family. It was a story of what is important in life and that moments won't last forever. It was a story of love and commitment and making your mark on someone's heart. Really enjoyed it.

This guy understands what Jesus would REALLY do. This book is easy to read and hard to put down. It appeals to my idealistic side. I recommend it for Christians and people considering Christianity.

Claiborne has some great points, such as the silliness of some Christian fads, things like the "prayer of Jabez" (forget it already?), Christians spending millions on castle-like churches, etc. And he challenges Christians to engage and change the world, because even evangelicals get caught up in daily life and forget what they are called to do.

But sometimes he gets carried away in his activisim and forgets the Bible he's trying to live by. He sterotypes the youth groups of America by his bad experience. He's ignorant of the realities of war, unwilling to accept or understand that sometimes war is necessary. And, Shane, war can bring peace. It stopped the Nazis and Imperial Japenese, didn't it? The alternative was to let America, and Christianity, be destroyed. You can love your enemies, but you can always hold their hand.

Also, he makes it sound like we attacking the people of Iraq, and not the terrorists and insurgents in control of their country. Drinking left-wing propaganda, I see?

In fact he does alude that he does drink their kool-aid more often than a Christian should. He mentions by name violent "reformer" Malcolm X, killer Che Gueverra and that cop killer in Philly that left-wing kooks are always trying to release.

He also seems to like John Dominic Crossana, a liberal theologian who has spent a career destroying Jesus and professional liar Michael Moore, etc.

So living on the streets, among other homeless and jobless left-wing extremists, Claiborne at times has drifted away from Christianity. Other times he has dead-on insight into some of the churches problems.

By the way, Jesus wasn't homeless. He grew up in a home and during his ministry made his home where ever he went.

Yes, by my rating you can see that I love this book, however that's not what I intend to write about. I simply want to say that you should not rely on the reviews to form your opinion of this book.

I have repeatedly recommended this book to my friends, Christian or not, and whether they liked it, or agreed with it etc, it made them think, it created dialog. For those reasons alone I recommend this book. I do not believe that simply because one reviewer claims it to be biblically grounded, or not biblically grounded should change your decision to read it you need to read it and make your own decisions because whether you agree with him or not there are some important concepts that need to be considered even those who rated it poorly have said this. If you feel like you won't agree and don't want to lend money to the cause then go to a library, buy a cheap used copy, or borrow one. It would be irresponsible to make a judgment about the author based on someone else's review.

*edit note* I'd like to appologize for the weird punctuation, it's a bad habit.

"Christianity," says author Shane Claiborne, "often has offered little to the world, other than the hope that things will be better in heaven." This statement appears on the first page of the book, and it's a big clue that Shane isn't spinning a newer, fresher version of the same old predictable Christian party line that everyone else repeats. In fact, the whole purpose of The Irresistible Revolution is to present a radical idea of what it means to be a Christian. Even more importantly, it's about how one man, without aggrandizing himself, chose to do something daring, heroic and good with his life. Instead of buying into the prescribed formula for Christian living, Shane challenges us to break free of the empty roles and rituals "the living dead" pledge allegiance to, and take the path of Love. He talks about how he was "suffocated by Christianity, but thirsty for God."

Say good-bye to Jesus message t-shirts, big expensive churches, and tele-evangelical pleas for followers and cash. Say hello to a man who speaks in love, acts in love, serves humanity in love. This book is a collection of Shane's autobiographical stories about his transformation from a cookie-cutter evangelical youth to a disciple who thinks outside the box and who isn't afraid to shine his light for the world. We are fortunate to be on the planet at the same time with one so aware and one so willing to walk the talk. If you only read one book this year, make it Irresistible Revolution, and allow the passion from Shane's mega big heart to move you to loving action.

Message of Love:
"People always want to define you by what you do. I started saying "I'm not too concerned with what I'm going to do. I am more interested in who I am becoming. I want to be a lover of God and people."

What does it mean to love and how is love of God demonstrated? This is the fundamental question Shane explores and answers. Is it by passing out God-flyers on street corners, or is it by passing out bread to the homeless and poor and then teaching them how to make bread for themselves? In January 1997 Shane and five other like-minded cohorts moved into a little row house in Kensington, a poor neighborhood in Philadelphia, and formed The Simple Way. The Simple way is not just about managing poverty, but completely ending it.

"There are plenty of liberals who talk about poverty and injustice but rarely encounter the poor, living detached lives of socially responsible but comfortable consumption." To eradicate poverty it's essential to redefine the meaning of family and to become radically inclusive. There should be no difference between your relationship to someone who's connected to you by marriage, blood, religion or nationality and to someone who lives in the street or another country. Violence and disregard is born out of a narrow, rigid belief about family. Shane asks us to consider "what happens when people fall in love with each other across class lines?" There is nothing worth killing for, but there's something worth dying for -- and that is the love in our hearts that we have for each other.

Did you know that each day 35,000 children in the world starve to death? It's like a 911 event every single day or a tsunami that never ends. Poverty is not created by God. It's created by you and me because we don't see our brothers and sisters as ourselves. What's needed are concrete acts of love. No one can see God, but we can see each other, and God can live in and through us. Shane recommends "instead of waiting for God's special plan for your life, go find where God is doing work, and join in."

Shane Claiborne has written a highly personal account of his journey as a follower of Christ and the call he feels to live radically for Christ. Much of The Irresistible Revolution is inspirational. Shane writes primarily to American evangelicals, who he calls out of their depressingly normal lives. Along the way, he levels numerous criticisms at the church, many of which seem on target.

The American evangelical church is in many ways indistinguishable from secular culture -- by its materialism, marketing, bigger-is-better mentality, and celebrity adoration. Worship services and youth ministry have almost become forms of entertainment. The church cultivates believers, but not always followers. Shane challenges his readers to take Jesus at his word when he spoke about the poor being blessed; the last being first; loving our enemies; denying ourselves; and serving Christ himself by serving the poor, lonely, sick, and imprisoned. And Shane criticizes the mixture of faith, patriotism, and conservative politics that characterize parts of the evangelical landscape.

Shane doesn't beat up his readers. He writes with a light, often humorous touch. He teaches almost entirely through stories, mostly his own. One of his appealing qualities is his willingness to take the unconventional route, to take risks for God. He seems to have cultivated an enjoyment of risk-taking, almost like that of a prankster. There is a streak of mischievousness that runs through his stories.

I wanted to like this book. There isn't very much about my walk of faith that I would call radical. Serious and heart-felt, yes. Sacrificial, to a degree. But radical, very little. One line from the book has stayed with me: "We have insulated ourselves from miracles. We no longer live with such reckless faith that we need them. There is rarely room for the transcendent in our lives."

However, as I read deeper into the book I began to notice many problems. By the end of the book I was pretty tired of these problems, several of which I describe below. Nevertheless, The Irresistible Revolution contains many good observations and will probably inspire and stick with many readers.

Now for the problems:

- I noticed an occasional harshness, even scorn, toward Christians with whom Shane disagrees. I don't know why he thinks this attitude is okay.

- Shane criticizes the mixture of biblical faith and right wing politics that exists in much of the church today. But his own politics are clearly left wing and his own faith and vision for the church are just as tinged by those politics. Nowhere does he acknowledge the truly difficult judgments involved in rightly engaging the culture with the gospel. Nor does he acknowledge the long cultural and moral slide that the Christian right has tried to address or propose alternative ways to address it.

- Shane is anti-war and anti-death penalty. His theology on these issues is anchored in Jesus' teaching to love our enemies and appears to preclude any use of violent force under any circumstances. Does he even believe the fight against the Axis powers in World War II was wrong? One of his heroes is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who opposed the Nazi regime. Shane approvingly quotes Bonhoeffer and calls him a fellow resister, but nowhere mentions the problem (for a pacifist) that Bonhoeffer tried to assassinate Hitler.

- Shane condemns the Iraq war, but the war he condemns is a straw man. Based on his description, one would think the war is merely an American conquest of Iraq. In fact, it is more complicated, consisting of a war to depose Saddam Hussein, a war against the Jihadists who subsequently poured into Iraq to destabilize the new democracy, and a civil war between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

- At times Shane seems anti-capitalist, but he does not make his position completely clear, nor does he say what economic system would be an improvement over capitalism.

- Shane seems to romanticize the poor and credit to them a nobility that I don't see. He even refers to them as his teachers. The poor, at least the poor in America, are not simply victims of economic injustice. In my (limited) experience working with the homeless in San Francisco, I have mostly encountered people with a complex of problems, many being of their own making, and poverty being just one. These people are created by God and deserve practical help and love, but they are not particularly romantic or noble.

- In his anti-war and anti-poverty advocacy, Shane often expresses mushy sentiments about how we're all one big family, regardless of country, race, class, or religion. At times he seems to confuse the Body of Christ with the family of mankind. He sometimes sounds like mainline Protestantism of 50 years ago, with its de-emphasis of orthodox doctrines and its emphasis of the social gospel.

- Early in the book Shane refers to himself as a postmodern: "The things that transform us, especially us 'postmoderns,' are people and experiences. Political ideologies and religious doctrines just aren't very compelling, even if they're true." Perhaps I'm reading too much into these lines, but I found them disturbing. As a philosophical ideology, postmodernism holds that objective truth either does not exist or cannot be known; all one can know are stories, and no story is better than any other story. Reality, truth, and value are held to be arbitrary cultural and linguistic constructions. But Christianity has always claimed that objective truth exists and is knowable -- truth about God, mankind, and the world -- not exhaustive truth, but real truth. I don't know what we're left with if we abandon this philosophical foundation.

- Shane rightly asks what Jesus has to say about this life and this world, but at one point he asks a strange question: "Even if there were no heaven and there were no hell, would you still follow Jesus? Would you follow him for the life, joy, and fulfillment he gives you right now?" But Paul came very close to answering this question in 1 Corinthians 15: "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." And: "If the dead are not raised, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.'" If the gospel offers anything, it offers hope -- hope that we are not accidents, that we are loved by a good God, that our lives are going somewhere, and that we don't face personal extinction at death. It is only this hope that gives sufficient impetus to follow Jesus.