The NIV Ragamuffin Bible blends the wildly popular New International Version of the Bible with reflections of the late Brennan Manning (1934-2013), author of The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out. This bible contains 104 devotions, 250 reflections, & 150 quotes from the late Brennan Manning. For those who are unfamiliar with Brennan Manning, he is the author of what many would consider the best books on grace ever written, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out. I read this book over 10 years ago and still view it as one of the best Christian books ever written. The tagline on the back of this bible sums it up best: “Do you believe that God not only loves you, but that he also likes you?” This question is pivotal in our walk with Christ and the aim of this bible is to use the scriptures of the NIV and the reflections of a great man to draw you closer to God and help the reader understand how much God not only loves them, but also likes them! My plan, once my current Bible reading plan is finished is to use a year long Bible reading plan and read it in the NIV Ragamuffin Bible, stopping along the way to read the wonderful reflections, devotions, and quotes, I hope you’ll join me.
Tag: book sneeze
I really have to stop picking up series in the middle to end of the series. After really liking the Heart of Ice – A Triple Threat Novel by Lis Wiehl I figured I would give her another shot and picked up Fatal Tide. I picked well. Even without the background of the first 2 books, Fatal Tide doesn’t disappoint. Fatal Tide picks up with Reese, a 17 year old student at St. Adrian’s academy being ambushed by demonic beings trying to bring about a dark prophecy and just ramps up from there. The main characters Tommy & Dani have been opposing the demonic forces since the first book and the battle culminates in Fatal Tide.
I was impressed with Heart of Ice and was also impressed with Fatal Tide. Lis Wiehl weaves together a compelling action with great spiritual overtones. I would recommend reading the other two books in The East Salem Trilogy first, but even without them, Fatal Tide does not disappoint.
Afloat follows the inhabitants of Eagle’s Talon, a spectacular floating community, as they deal with a series of events that threaten to tear apart everything that they hold dear. Masks will be torn off, relationships tested, and faith restored.
Initially, I was very excited to review Afloat. I had previous experience with Erin Healy with her collaboration with Ted Dekker on Burn. I quickly found however that what I was drawn to in Burn must have been due to Dekker’s influence more so than Healy’s. Afloat just seemed to be missing something as I read it. I can’t say that it was a terrible book, i just found it lacking. I just felt that things could have been tied together a little easier. My recommendation on Afloat is that if you have the opportunity to read it, go ahead, I just wouldn’t go out of my way to get my hands on it.
I love this genre. Some of my favorite movies are Gladiator, Braveheart, & The Patriot. Some of my favorite books are The Mark of the Lion Series, & the Sons of Encouragement Series. The reason that I love this genre so much is that it fills in the gaps for me, it gives me a sense of what the people who lived these lives went through. I know that they are fiction, but when one of these authors approaches historical fiction, they usually do so with reverence for the historical part of the narrative and do their homework in such a way that they are able to fairly accurately fill in the gaps. Some people get really angry when books like Babylon’s Falling are written because they feel like it takes away from the biblical narrative. To each their own I guess, but I love the genre so when I was offered the chance to review Babylon’s Falling I jumped at the opportunity.
Babylon’s Falling starts off with Daniel and his friends on their way to Babylon at the beginning of the captivity. It follows his rise in rank through the empire and ends with his return to Jerusalem. I don’t want to get too much into detail because I want you to read the book. I am not a biblical scholar by any stretch of the imagination so take my analysis with a grain of salt, but I think the author took great care in staying true to what really happened during the biblical narrative and stay true to the source material. Overall, I felt like the author did a great job in writing this book and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and would definitely recommend it to anyone, especially people who like the historical fiction genre.
In this book the Triple Threat club of Allison, Nic, & Cassidy are on the case of a very cunning killer with absolutely no moral conviction whatsoever.
Crime dramas like Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, NCIS, & CSI are some of my favorite types of TV shows so when it came time to pick another book to review Heart of Ice
was very appealing. I liked the idea of three friends who were in 3 different fields related to crime solving all working together to help solve a crime, Allison is a Federal Prosecutor, Nic is an FBI agent, & Cassidy is a crime reporter for a local TV station. I thought the authors did an excellent job laying out who the characters were and what their motivations were. The story wove together really nicely as well. I hope I can go back and read the two previous novels by these two authors because they were a great pair on this novel.
I also took a new approach for this book in that it is the first book I have ever read completely digitally. I read the book entirely on my phone using the Amazon Kindle app. I am happy to say that I really liked it, for my ongoing book reviews for Thomas Nelson, I will continue to download them to my phone (or if I get a tablet in the future, my tablet).
When I decided to read The Christian Zombie Killers Handbook by Jeff Kinley I didn’t know what I was getting into. The author takes an interesting path on how he wrote the book. This book is both fiction and non-fiction.
The author first writes a chapter that tells a story of the life after the zombie apocalypse has begun, then follows it up with a chapter explaining how the chapter before relates to our Christian walk. While reading the book, I felt like it was too disjointed but after reflecting on the experience I realize that the author has a great talent tying together a story that he has made up with the ultimate story into a cohesive unit. I actually finished this book quite a while ago, but have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what review to write. After considering, I have to say that the author has written a pretty good book. Like I said, it seemed disjointed at the time, but after reflecting, I realized how good of a book it really was. If you are into zombie fiction at all or how it can relate to your Christian walk, you should definitely pick up this book.
Being a lover of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, when given the opportunity to read a biography of J.R.R. Tolkien, I was excited. The man gave direction to the entire genre of fantasy fiction, I wanted to know what made him tick.
In this book, Mark Horne does a
great job of explaining how the events of his life affected how and what he wrote about. It has always amazed me how men and women could have the creativity to come up with the worlds that they create through fiction. In his thorough and well researched book, Mark Horne does a great job opening up the world of J.R.R. Tolkien to the reader. One of my favorite parts of the Tolkien story was his relationship with fellow author C.S. Lewis who says that J.R.R. Tolkien was instrumental in his coming to faith. If you are a lover of Tolkien’s work or the fantasy genre in general, you should definitely read this book.
David Ponder is at it again…actually, he gets dragged into it again. David Ponder is now 74 years old when Gabriel decides to visit him and pull him and all previous Travellers to save the world…literally…humanity is on a crash course with destruction and the Travellers must figure out how to save it…
We first met David Ponder in The Traveller’s Gift where he first learned the 7 decisions that determine personal success. I loved that book and with The Final Summit Andy Andrews has done it again. What I like the most about Andy’s books is that he teaches major life lessons using stories that intrigue you and pull you in. When you sit down to read an Andy Andrews book you don’t want to get up, you find yourself rifling through the pages as fast as you can.
The Final Summit does not disappoint in this regard. Writing a review for a book like this is hard because it is such a good book that you really just want your reader to go buy the book…and experience it for themselves without being tainted by your own opinion. So, I will say it again…go buy the book…
Other (highly recommended) Books I have read by Andy Andrews:
One thing I love about being a BookSneeze.com blogger for Thomas Nelson Publishers is that through this program, I am able to read books that I may or may not normally read.
That was how I came across this book. A theme I am noticing is that actions have consequences, in a previous review, I reviewed The Butterfly Effect by Andy Andrews. Where The Butterfly Effect takes a look at the positive consequences of a person’s actions, Seeds of Turmoil takes a look at the negative and far reaching consequences of one man’s (Abraham) actions. He goes in depth into how the turmoil that we currently see in the Middle East is the result of decisions made 4,000 years ago. He talks about how because of those decisions, turmoil in the Middle East is inevitable.
Overall, I liked this book and was very impressed by the depth by which Bryant Wright digs into the history of the region and the turmoil that is inevitable. However, it did seem like the book got a little repetitive and could have ended a little earlier than it did. With all this in mind, I would definitely recommend this book to any serious scholar of the Bible (this is the version I use for my study) who wants to understand a little bit more the implications of the Biblical HIstorical Narrative on today’s events.
If you know me, then you know that since I stopped playing college football at Drake University and entered the “real world” and started driving a desk, I have been waging the battle of the bulge. So when Let’s Do Lunch was available through Thomas Nelson’s BookSneeze program, I decided to get the book to see what the author had to say.
I’ll first say that this is not your normal weight loss book, (I’ve read a few, listed at the end of this post). Roger Wilson never claims to be a health and/or fitness professional. What Roger does claim is that he lost 230 pounds using this plan and has kept it off for 15 years. Another anomaly is that throughout this plan you eat as much food as you want, what matters is the kind of food and when. The other non-health professional diet book that I have read is The Jerusalem Diet by Ted Haggard and they both share essentially the same approach in that the author is speaking from personal experience as to what has worked for them to lose the weight that they wanted. Where I feel this book falls short is the lack of medical evidence from a certified medical professional validating what the author is stating. The author does mention that his doctor’s weighed in and said that he was healthy, but I am a thinker, I want to know why the diet works, I didn’t feel like I got that with this book.
Do I recommend this book, yes, wholeheartedly because let’s face it, America is fat and will this book help people lose weight, yes. But this gets to my next point. In reading this book, and talking to people who work for another diet system (a potential customer of mine actually) I am noticing another alarming trend, less and less emphasis on working out or attaining a certain
level of physical fitness. The author mentions briefly that working out is good, but he doesn’t really recommend working out. The other diet system actually discourages you from working out…that scares me…because it takes the focus off the real issue. Are you overweight, yes, but just attacking your weight is not going to solve your problem because you are losing weight to get healthy. Our bodies are an amazing machine that if properly functioning will heal itself and regulate itself. So the correct approach should be to get healthy to lose weight which includes exercise for the sheer benefit of making you healthier, that is why while as my schedule starts to become “normal” again as I approach my health and fitness and fight the battle of the bulge while I may borrow some ideas from this book (frozen grapes are amazing) my main tool will be P90X.
Related Books/Materials:
- P90X
- The Jerusalem Diet by Ted Haggard
- The Biggest Loser Weight Loss Program by Rodale
- The Fat Flush Plan by Ann Louise Gittleman, Ph.D., C.N.S.
- Body for Life by Bill Phillips and Michael D’Orso
Let me know your thoughts/comments below…