"Who" Giveaway!

It's out--check it out on Amazon! (For the next couple of days, the ebook will be free, plus getting the book lets you claim an entry in the giveaway down below.)

Who Laid the Egg: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B06VYGVVFT

¿Quién Puso el Huevo? http://www.amazon.com/dp/B06WRXK5QH

(I've also got a rehash of this on my website, plus a couple of coloring pages just up yesterday.)


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Who Laid the Egg?

Changes are coming...

I haven't updated since late November, but since then I've started working on a children's book. It's almost done now.

The book started with the munchkin helping me cook up some eggs for breakfast one morning. He's been terribly fascinated with eggs and counting them out for me. He's also fascinated by breaking them open for me. The only challenge is slowing him down enough for me to keep up.

Munchkin has also helped collect eggs with his aunts, so we naturally started talking about...

Who Laid the Egg?

Sneak preview of one answer over on the right:

Ostrich!

I've been working to finalize the book the last few days, and I'm almost ready to put it out, starting with paperback and Kindle version, and possibly a hardcover as well, if people are interested. I'll update you as that happens.

With that said, I've posted on this blog for a lot of years. I may keep it around and post occasionally, but I'm in the process of setting up a new Internet home. If you currently use my www.aesauble.com domain to get here, that's going to change in the next couple of days, and you will need to use www.theloremistress.blogspot.com once again.

There’s a Mouse Under My Sink

First it was squirrels falling out of the trees. (Maybe they were confused and thought it was the Summer Olympics coming up?)

Now it’s a mouse under the kitchen sink.

How do I know? One recent evening, as we were sitting on the couch in our living room, we noticed a rustling noise in the kitchen. It sounded odd, but it stopped after a moment.

Then it started again.

The first reconnaissance trip found nothing. All was calm, all was peaceful, all was quiet—until a couple minutes after we sat down again.

On the second reconnaissance, I waited at the kitchen doorway until I could hear exactly where the noise was coming from. It wasn’t in the pantry. It wasn’t behind the refrigerator. It was under the sink.

I moved a little closer and waited again. When the rustling returned, I opened the cupboard just in time to see a garbage bag stir as ‘something’ jumped out and disappeared.

No—I didn’t actually see the mouse. Circumstantial evidence, however, led us to conclude that the rustling noise was in fact a mouse.

Fortunately, Señor Ratón hadn’t traveled as far as the pantry yet. I’d been planning to find storage boxes for the pantry—eventually—but this was an emergency. The Christmas candy went in our spare water-bottles, while the rice and pasta moved into a big six-quart kettle. I jumbled the rest the spare glass jars I’d been saving for ‘something’. We emptied under the sink as well, moving the garbage can out and setting everything else on the counter.

Of course, that made more clutter in the kitchen. A couple days later, therefore, I decided to compromise. I put the dishwasher soap and a few other miscellanies back under the sink and left the garbage can out. I figured the miscellanies would be safe as long as I kept any and all food out of the way of Señor Ratón.

About twenty minutes later, as I was reading in the living room, I heard a series of small thumps. Mr. Mouse had found the spare scrubber, apparently, and seemed to be using it for his bowling practice.

After that, the soap, scrubber, garbage bags and all went back on the counter.

We haven’t heard anything since. My guess is that the mouse can get under the sink by squeezing past the pipes. Everything else is sealed, so he shouldn’t go any farther unless we happened to leave the cupboard doors open. That’s just as well, because I’ll feel friendly toward him only until he gets into something important.

Though perhaps the mouse was as confused as the squirrel gymnasts—he might just have wanted to practice his shot putting.

At any rate, there’s a mouse under my sink.

The Jesus Story: Review

 

Now that NaNoWriMo is over, my schedule seems to be settling down a bit. (More on that another time.) I’ve taken care of a couple long-delayed projects, but there is one book I’ve put off reviewing longer than I should have—The Jesus Story, by Dr. William H. Marty.

 

 

Part of the delay happened because I got the book early last month, looked at it, and groaned. My first glance picked up an entire section of Dick-ran-after-Spot-type sentences, and I was reluctant to venture further into the book.

 

Eventually, though, I sat down with the book again and found it was an easy read. For a book which subtitles itself "Everything That Happens in the New Testament in Plain English," The Jesus Story lives up to that promise fairly well. The idea of compiling the Gospels isn't unique—plenty of other writers and scholars have written similar books—but The Jesus Story makes it easy to read through the four Gospels plus Acts (in an abridged form) in the course of a few hours. That, to keep things simple, is what this book is and what it does.

For me, that is also The Jesus Story’s major advantage—I’ve looked at my reading rate and realized I should be able to read through one of the Gospels in an afternoon. It should, but somehow the idea of reading one Gospel, much less four, straight through always seems daunting. Having one relatively thin book in hand makes the reading almost a breeze.

In exchange for compressing the story, The Jesus Story has to keep things fairly simple. It's a bonus, making the reading simple as well, but also a minor downfall. As the Apostle John notes, heaven and earth could not contain the entire story of Jesus’s life. That makes it extra hard to fit even the events recorded in the Gospels into 150 pages of normal-sized print without going short-hand.

Add in the fact that Marty tries to translate some ideas for modern readers, and the book gets a little inconsistent. The result is not strictly “dumbing things down,” but it does leave something lacking in the writing and narrative depth.

As far as giving background to the original text, for example, Marty adds some good points of explanation, like the fact that Jews avoided going into Samaria or that leprosy was a particularly dreaded disease at the time. In other places, however, he states other things of equal culture foreignness—the Jewish leaders wanting the legs of the crucified men to be broken—without any clarification.

Also, as I noted before, the writing itself tends toward simplistic. I can only take so many simple sentences in a row, so several sections of the book felt jarringly monotonous, while some of the word choices were awkward, to say the least. If an author is writing for modern readers, I can understand substituting “engaged” for “betrothed.” But “tent of holiness” rather than “tabernacle”? It might get the idea across, but it’s hardly less opaque. I’m also not sure that “grateful” best describes Jesus’s reaction to his disciples’ faith. On a more humorous side, Jesus’s brothers urge him to “go public!” Unlike my previous review, academic this book is not.

Neither of these issues is crucial, but they do make the book feel a bit disjointed, like it's trying to be both comprehensive and simple, or that in avoiding archaic or Christianese terms, it's using modern jargon instead. So, overall, I’d rate the book as okay—not a bad read, but not great writing, and a little flat in places. At the same time, it is a great way to read through the entire New Testament story in a relatively short time. 

For someone looking for a more comprehensive book closer to the original text, I might recommend instead Johnston M. Cheney’s The Life of Christ in Stereo or his other version with Stanley A. Ellison, The Greatest Story. Otherwise, for someone struggling to get through the Gospels or looking for a change of pace, rather like reading a different translation, The Jesus Story seems like a good option. And that, ultimately, is what this book is meant to be—a readable retelling of New Testament history.

[My thanks to Bethany House Publishers for sending me a review copy of The Jesus Story in exchange for my honest opinion of the book.]
 

Image and Imagination: Review

Last week, a number of bloggers posted in commemoration of C. S. Lewis’s death 50 year ago. (In particular, you might like the posts by Lars Walker and Rebecca LuElla Miller.) While I grew up reading Lewis’s Narnia series and have since read a large group of his other works, I don’t have anything profound to add to their thoughts. Over the past week, however, I have been reading a new collection of Lewis’s essays, Image and Imagination, released last Friday.

 

It would be fair to start by asking why yet another collection of Lewis essays? We already have his fiction, dozens of his essays, and volumes of his letters, so why the need for another book? The simple answer is that this book is a collection of Lewis’s academic writing. The challenge is that Image and Imagination is largely a book about literature and the analysis and study of literature, though a more mixed collection than The Allegory of Love or The Discarded Image.

Image and Imagination takes its title from an unpublished essay Lewis wrote, describing his thoughts on the link between reality and imagination. The rest of the book contain a variety of reviews, a handful of prefaces and introductions Lewis wrote for other books, and four out-of-print essays. Two of these, “The idea of an ‘English School’” and “Our English syllabus,” describe how Lewis viewed Oxford’s undergraduate English program. (Rather like Dorothy Sayer’s The Lost Tools of Learning , Lewis explains in these essays his thoughts on higher education's purpose and methods.)

As always, Lewis’s writing is excellent, and his essays are thought provoking, as far as their topics allow. I enjoyed the essays on the English program, if only because Lewis includes an argument about the true origins of English literature (Anglo-Saxon, of course, not Greco-Roman), while “Image and Imagination” takes on the old argument about the how readers understand literature from a different angle.

At the same time, Image and Imagination is a highly academic book. Just reading through some of the book reviews, I was struck by the absurdity of reading anyone’s assessment of a long-forgotten book—one which I’ve never read, am barely interested in for its own sake, and will likely never read. I suspect most Lewis fans, unless they happen to be literary scholars as well, will reach the same conclusion.

For Lewis fans reading Image and Imagination, the main value might be gleaning the various references to old Inklings friends, such as the set of essays on books by Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, and Tolkien. That, and the rare gem—as when Lewis writes in “Image and Imagination” on the impossibility of separating fiction from fact, of creating a world entirely in the author’s mind, without reference to the real world:

“To get a single blade of grass growing in that imaginary world you must make a world indeed—a real universe, self-sufficing in space and time. But only one author can do that sort of stage-set. On this view only God can tell stories.”

So, if you desperately need something new to read, or you need a Christmas present for your Lewis-loving English professor, you might find Image and Imagination interesting. Parts of it are certainly worth thinking about. Otherwise, you'll probably find his fiction or his other essays a lot more worthwhile.

[My thanks to NetGalley and Cambridge University Press for sending me a Kindle copy of Image and Imagination, in exchange for my honest opinion of the book.]

Egypt Fest

 

In my last couple of posts, I've been on a roll—or maybe at a standstill—with my historical research.

Actually, in addition to hunting up books on Medieval lifestyles and New England architecture, I’ve taken a trip on my Egyptian memory-wagon this summer. 

 

That part is due to a review book I’ve been reading this summer—Ancient Egypt in 101 Questions and Answers by Thomas Schneider. This particular book wasn’t the easiest read, since I have an electronic version, and it’s really meant to be a hardcopy, with real paper to flip through, jump back several pages, or skim for the next interesting photo.

Since this was a review copy, I’ll add that it does have some great information. As a Lit major, I was already familiar with the Romantics’ love for ancient cultures, so I knew about Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Ozymandias (Question 2). I did not know, however, that ancient Egyptians had their own set of four primary colors—black, red, white, and green—for the Nile mud, the brightness of sunlight, the red deserts, and the water and vegetation that they saw around them (Question 16).

In addition to this sort of trivia, Schneider covers a wide range of history, politics and culture. He mentions the Israelite Exodus and discounts it, claiming a lack of historical evidence or an inability to fit the story into a particular dynasty (Question 5). Schneider also discusses the possibility that the Western world might have followed the Isis cult instead of Christianity had some of the Roman Emperors had their way (Question 7).

Unfortunately, Ancient Egypt really is a reference book, not a history book. The book itself might be good for a quick browse, and some of the questions are interesting enough to justify a second glance or two. Over all, though, the format gives information in quick bites, rather than in a broad overview. If I wanted to learn about Egyptian history or culture, I would look for a general history and keep this book on the shelf until I had a specific question to look up.

This is where the memories come in—most of what I know about ancient Egypt came from the kids’ pictures books I read growing up. I admit it’s not academic in the least, but if I had to look up Egyptian history, I would probably still start with a stack of Usborne books, Eyewitness books, and that Time Traveler book my family still has.

Then there is David McCauley’s Pyramid. (Not to mention McCauley’s City and Castle for other eras.) Pyramid has step-by-step drawings and cut-away pictures showing a pyramid’s construction.  

And, since I tend to pick up as much of my lore from novels as from histories—a couple of my favorite Egyptian novels are still Eloise Jarvis Mcgraw’s The Golden Goblet and Mara, Daughter of the Nile. Of course, that still leaves The Bobbsey Twins and Their Camel Adventure, as well as the Hardy Boys’ The Secret Warning—about sunken ships, insurance fraud, and a mummy. That’s starting to stray from the history theme, but even Agatha Christie wrote a murder novel set in ancient Egypt, Death Comes as the End.

As I said, my background in Egyptian history is not academic in the least. Unorthodox might be the better term—but it sure was fun reading.

What are your favorite ways to learn about Egypt—or history in general?

[My thanks to Net Galley and Cornell University Press for sending me a Kindle ARC of Ancient Egypt in 101 Questions and Answers, in exchange for my opinion of the book.]

A 25¢ Pay Increase?

...Aren't you glad times have changed! I found this sign a few weeks ago, posted by one of my former instructors:

Read and enjoy!

Fearless: Book Review

Fearless or daredevil? The biography of Navy SEAL Adam Brown, Fearless is the story of a man without fear, who never stops, never hesitates. His story nearly gets derailed along the way, which becomes a major emphasis in this book.

Unfortunately, my biggest reaction to this book would be a minor rant about marketing. Fearless includes the rather lengthy subtitle “The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team Six Operator Adam Brown.” This, with the cover of the book and the general emphasis on Adam Brown as a Navy SEAL, suggests that the book is a military story. 

Author Eric Blehm, however, starts off his prologue by attempting to set this story apart as something different in its genre. Blehm suggests that this is not about a story about “Tom Clancy fiction”—the battle-scenes and behind-the-scenes thriller usually associated with military stories. Fearless is a good story, reasonably told, with plenty of military flavor, but don’t expect much inside info on Navy SEALs or their operations.

Rather, expect a different sort of behind-the-scenes story—one which tells Adam Brown’s journey through love, addictions, restoration, failing, struggling, and determination.

Fearless is actually the story of an Arkansas boy, who grew up in a great family, messed up big, found redemption, found an awesome girl, became an incredible husband and father, and incidentally was driven by his determination to join the Navy SEALs, and then to become an elite operator even within that elite group. To accomplish this, Adam Brown moves past injuries and weaknesses that most people would consider career-changers.

I do have to add a small caveat—parts of the story include strong language and crudities, but nothing an adult or mature teen couldn’t handle. Much of the rest carries a tone of hero-worship even when Blehm tackles a less-than-heroic story. I also found some frustration in the fact that the stories are all third-hand accounts from family and friends, but you can probably get a better sense of the book from the prologue and first chapter available here.

You can also find out more about Fearless online here. It might not be the best told story of the year, and I doubt it would have been written given a different ending to the story. But it is a story of incredible courage, determination, and redemption.

[My thanks to Waterbook Multnomah Publishing Group for providing me with a digital review copy of Fearless in exchange for my honest opinion of the book.]
 

Winning Balance: Book Review

"I was an interesting combination of nerd, tomboy, and girlie girl," Olympic Gold Medalist Shawn Johnson writes in Winning Balance. Shawn knows what it's like to be a girl who doesn't always fit in, who isn't part of the cliques, and who can't always figure out what life is supposed to mean.

She also knows what it's like to lose the gold medal everyone expected her to win—and then to win again where she least expected it.

Winning Balance might best be categorized as an inspirational memoir. With co-author Nancy French, Shawn describes her struggles and successes in finding true balance in life. This is the story of Shawn's journey from her childhood in Des Moines, Iowa, to her introduction to gymnastics, her growing love for the sport—and its competitiveness--and finally to international fame and the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Along the way, though, Shawn tries to follow two competing desires—"I wanted to win, and I wanted to be just like everyone else."

My biggest quibble with the book? Since much of its promo material focuses on Shawn's 2008 skiing accident, I expected the book to address this and her recovery process more in depth. It does highlight how Shawn struggled to find purpose and direction after her win—and how the injury actually helped Shawn refocus on her priorities—but don't expect a lot of detail.

Still, I found Shawn's story to be encouraging and enjoyable. The book is an easy read, and each chapter ends with a short thought for reflection. Enthusiasm seems to win out over depth in places, but overall, I found Shawn to be an engaging role model. She talks openly about the pressures she faced and her family's attempts to keep her sane in the midst of an intense training schedule. I liked her sincerity and vision, and I would recommend this book to any teen girl to read.

For more information about Shawn's story, you can check out the site for Winning Balance, or watch the book trailer:

 
[My thanks to Tyndale for sending me a review copy of Winning Balance, in exchange for my honest opinion of this book.]