It’s Sad

With the passing of Robert B. Parker last week, the community of his fans grieved. I count myself as a member of that community. His Spenser, Jesse Stone, and Sonny Randall novels entertained us for over 50 years. I’m sad when I realize that, if I don’t discover some more of Robert B. Parker’s titles, I have only 16 more to go until I have no more new ones to read.

Should I read them all this year or savor them over several years?

Awesome

I finished reading The Shack a few days ago. I’m still reeling from its reading. I’m not even sure how to review it.

From the jacket:

Mackenzie Allen Philips’s youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later, in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for the weekend.

Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack’s world forever.

I think it has changed my world, too. I’ve always wondered and imagined what the encounter with God will be like. 1Yes, I believe we will all encounter God eventually I pray that mine will be as wondrous and transformative as Mack’s. In fact, I suspect that Mack’s encounter, as he describes it, is only remotely as wondrous as an actual encounter will be.

When you read this book, you will ask yourself, “Is this really true? Is it factual?” I don’t know if it’s factual 2You’ll understand when you finish the book, but I believe it’s true. It left me craving to be with God on a minute-to-minute basis. I want to be more gracious with those around me. And I yearn for the time when God will reveal himself to me more fully.

I agree with Wynonna Judd when she says, “Reading THE SHACK…has blown the door wide open to my soul.”

Footnotes

Footnotes
1 Yes, I believe we will all encounter God eventually
2 You’ll understand when you finish the book

My Kindle Shipped Today

 

Kindle
Kindle

A Christmas gift from Mrs. Major and Sweet Dau Major and birthday gift from Old Dad, my Kindle finally shipped today.

In case you don’t know what a Kindle is, it’s an electronic book. Kindle users can download books from Amazon.com or upload files to be read from their own computers.

Sweet Dau gave me an appropriately decorated Visa debit gift card with “KINDLE FUND O’ DADNESS” emblazoned on it. I couldn’t figure out how to apply that card as a partial payment for the Kindle so I pre bought a bunch of books. Here’s the list:

  • Rusty Nail — J.A. Konrath
  • Night Fire — Catherine Coulter
  • The Motive — John Lescroart
  • Valdez Is Coming — Elmore Leonard
  • The Millionaires — Brad Meltzer
  • Farewell, My Lovely — Raymond Chandler
  • The Big Sleep — Raymond Chandler
  • Black and Blue — Ian Rankin
  • The Prince of Beverly Hills — Stuart Woods
  • Third Person Singular — Kj Erickson
  • Death of a Charming Man — M. C. Beaton
  • Thr3e — Ted Dekker
  • Shakespeare’s Landlord — Charlaine Harris
  • Killing Floor — Lee Child
  • Total Recall — Sara Paretsky
  • Tunnel Vision — Sara Paretsky
  • Hard Time — Sara Paretsky

Thanks Mrs. Major, Sweet Dau, and Old Dad.

Fear Itself Review

Fear Itself by Walter Mosley is a mystery. Paris Minton is a black bookstore owner in the mid-1950s, who is a reader and a thinker, but a scaredey cat.

His world is turned upside down when his friend, Fearless Jones, comes to ask for Paris’ help in finding a man named Kit Mitchell. Paris is apprehensive, but Fearless is his friend. He knows Fearless will protect him because Fearless is as much of a brave one and reader of people’s hearts as Paris if fearful, logical, and intellectual.

The case leads to missing jewelry, a missing family treasure, and four murders.

My favorite quote from the book:

“I liked looking up words in the dictionary. It calmed me, because there was no tension in the definitions. Definitions were neutral: facts, not fury.”