During the month of June 2014, I will be reading the following books:
SPIRITUALITY: Holy Fire by R.T. Kendall
From GoodReads, "Best-selling author and respected theologian R. T. Kendall presents a balanced, biblically grounded understanding of the person, gifts, and work of the Holy Spirit in our world today.
The Holy Spirit does not belong to you. Are you Charismatic? He is bigger than your signs and wonders events. Are you Reformed? He will not be imprisoned in the cell of your cessationist doctrine. The Lord Jesus said of the Holy Spirit, "He blows where he will." The words of C. S. Lewis about the Christ-figure Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe are just as true for the Holy Spirit, "He's not safe, but he's good."
Debate about the Holy Spirit has been around for a long time. Holy Fire sets the record straight about His role in individual lives of believers and in the life of the church. You will discover that miracles, blessings, and spiritual gifts such as healing and prophecy all have their proper place, but you also must rightly divide the scriptures if you seek to truly represent the Spirit's work in your life."
CONTEMPORARY FICTION: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
From GoodReads, "This is the long-awaited first novel from one of the most original
and memorable writers working today.
Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd, a New Jersey romantic who dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the fukú — the ancient curse that has haunted the Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still dreaming of his first kiss, is only its most recent victim - until the fateful summer that he decides to be its last.
With dazzling energy and insight, Junot Díaz immerses us in the uproarious lives of our hero Oscar, his runaway sister Lola, and their ferocious beauty-queen mother Belicia, and in the epic journey from Santo Domingo to Washington Heights to New Jersey's Bergenline and back again. Rendered with uncommon warmth and humor, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao presents an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and the endless human capacity to persevere - and to risk it all - in the name of love.
A true literary triumph, this novel confirms Junot Díaz as one of the best and most exciting writers of our time."
CLASSIC LITERATURE: Jane Eyre by Chalotte Bronte
From GoodReads, "Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead,
subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. She takes up the post of governess at Thornfield, falls in love with Mr. Rochester, and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage in a story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman's passionate search for a wider and richer life than Victorian society traditionally allowed.
With a heroine full of yearning, the dangerous secrets she encounters, and the choices she finally makes, Charlotte Bronte's innovative and enduring romantic novel continues to engage and provoke readers."
FANTASY/SCIENCE FICTION: Mentats of Dune by Broan Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
From GoodReads, "In Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's Mentats of Dune, the
thinking machines have been defeated but the struggle for humanity’s future continues.
Gilbertus Albans has founded the Mentat School, a place where humans can learn the efficient techniques of thinking machines. But Gilbertus walks an uneasy line between his own convictions and compromises in order to survive the Butlerian fanatics, led by the madman Manford Torondo and his Swordmaster Anari Idaho. Mother Superior Raquella attempts to rebuild her Sisterhood School on Wallach IX, with her most talented and ambitious student, Valya Harkonnen, who also has another goal—to exact revenge on Vorian Atreides, the legendary hero of the Jihad, whom she blames for her family’s downfall.
Meanwhile, Josef Venport conducts his own war against the Butlerians. VenHold Spacing Fleet controls nearly all commerce thanks to the superior mutated Navigators that Venport has created, and he places a ruthless embargo on any planet that accepts Manford Torondo’s anti-technology pledge, hoping to starve them into submission. But fanatics rarely surrender easily . . .
The Mentats, the Navigators, and the Sisterhood all strive to improve the human race, but each group knows that as Butlerian fanaticism grows stronger, the battle will be to choose the path of humanity’s future—whether to embrace civilization, or to plunge into an endless dark age."
LITERARY EXPLORATION BOOK CLUB: Divergent by Veronica Roth
From GoodReads: "In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago world, society is divided
into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.
During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are--and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, Tris also learns that her secret might help her save the ones she loves . . . or it might destroy her."
INTERNATIONAL READS BOOK CLUB: No selection for June 2014
GRAPHIC NOVEL: X-Men First Class #1 by Jeff Parker (writer), Roger Cruz (penciler, inker), Victoria Olazaba (inker), Val Staples (colorist), and Nate Piekios (letterer).
From GoodReads, "For millions of years, mankind's place on Earth was unchallenged -
until five young people paved the way for a new kind of human. While students at the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Angel, Beast and Iceman taught the world what it meant to be X-Men. These are the hidden stories of the team that laid the foundation of a mutant dynasty Collects X-Men: First Class #1-8."
-Joseph
Soli Deo Gloria
