Chase The Lion by Mark Batterson

   How big is your dream? Or another question is: how large is your courage?

   Books cross my desk from time to time that expand the region of concepts. This is one of them.

   The point is we need to consider our approach to life. Will we play it safe or venture out and stretch? Will we stop fearing failure and dream big dreams which may scare us?

   Our dreams should push our faith and provide an opportunity for God to show up and show His power.   Most of the time we just act as though all the Christian life is about if getting up each morning and on Sunday we go to service and sit and listen to the sermon.

   Batterson suggests it is best lived as a life of dreams.

   This is not a text book. Rather it is a dream casting. In the 218 pages plus notes we are urged to think big. A change of pace + change of place = change of perspective. The outcome isn’t the issue. It is the obeying that is important.

    This is the book for those who need the encouragement to try new things. It will give you the fuel for your tank and the assurance you need that someone has your back.

   This book was sent to me free from blogging for books.com(http://www.bloggingforbooks.com) for the purpose of a review. There was no requirement that I like it. But I do. You will like it also.

Two Cozies I Enjoyed

   Every once in a while a person needs to just read for the joy of reading--not having to read for a blog post
   You notice the different name on this posting? That is because I am going to step back from the web postings for Blogging for Books and the Book Look blogger for this one time-- there may be more in the future-- but for now it is not a web blog posting for either of the above two.
   This is rather a look at two cozies I have read that I feel you might enjoy.
    I check out books from my library also so I am always able to find a book to read.
    The first cozy I want to look at is by Sally Goldenbaum titled Murder at Lambswool Farm. It is part of the Seaside Knitters Mystery series. It has a large cast of characters since we are drawn into the village and the area of Sea Harbor, Massachusetts. The story is carried in the third person point of view.
      The murder doesn't happen until the second third of the book, but there is action to carry you up to and past the murder. It has been said by the people who lecture on the genre that the murder is the high point and everything else is downhill.
        Goldenbaum keeps the story moving.
         We have the suspects. And the corpse. Also the sleuth. Of course the law.
         It is a peaceful town we are introduced to. A stranger comes into town. His car is being repaired. But that is just a reason  for his staying even after the car is fixed.
         There is the doctor who is cares for the town folks. He is the one killed. Poisoned. Was it the meal he ate that night?  Who would want to poison him?
          Very little is mentioned about the knitters.
        The other cozy I wish to introduce to you is somewhat different. It is by Teresa LaRue and is called A Talent for Murder. . 
     It is a new series and therefore the first book in that series that will be known as A Flower Patch Mystery.

     It is unique in having a group of sleuths-- a threesome of daughter, mother, and niece. It is told in first person. The niece is the one who is the point of view. The detective is the love interest. It moves well. It will be a good series.
      The title comes from something the murderer says.
      I would recommend these for those readers out there who wish to read something that will exercise the mind, since reading is a form of exercise and mysteries are a type of game played between the reader and the writer.
    

We the People by Juan Williams

Social History

   We all leave footprints on time. Some are known. Most are not. Important things sometimes overshadow the individual.

   When American was founded the people who formulated documents had a vision. They left to future generation the job of modifying and fleshing out the implications envisioned in said documents.

It wasn’t perfect. Nothing ever is. As time went by there had to be other brave trail blazers.

   The rights of men had to be enlarged to include women and the blacks.  Immigration had to be clarified. Human rights needed to be codified. And so on.

   Which leaves us the question; would the writers of our constitution if they were to return today recognize what we have done with it?

   So much had been left for future generations to flesh out.

   Facts. Just the facts. This is what Williams has carefully written. Foundation stories covering birth, education, contribution to American lifestyle of individuals is found here.

   For example, Eleanor Roosevelt is mentioned for her fight for clarity of universal human right. General Westmoreland is mentioned for the rebirth of the Military after the Viet Nam war years; Earl Warren’s flight for civil rights along with Martin Luther King and LBJ-- Betty Friedman and her feminism. Just to name a few.

   Williams writes of the time after the Second World War as a framework for those handled here who reshaped and affirmed the vision of America set down by the founding fathers.

   I would highly recommend this for those who need a good social history grounding. America’s greatness is progressive.

   I have received this book free from Blogging For Books.com for the purpose of a review. All views are those of the reviewer.

A Doubter's Guide to the Ten Coimmandments by John Dickson

    We are all aware that we live under a system of rules and regulations. Just where did they come from?

     We have a book called the Bible which gives us a set of standards which form the basis of life. It is called the Ten Commandments.

     It seems everyone to one extent or another has a conception of the commandments. They may mix a bit of Moses and a Bit of Jesus in their understanding.

    True, these two have shaped the outlook on the issue, but true understanding comes through meditating on the details of each law.

    Dickson takes each commandment in a separate chapter and examines it as to context, language and application. What is revealed may stretch you. That is a good thing.

    As you read and consider what is said you will be grounded in your faith. For example, the first states the teaching of monotheism means there is and never has been more than one deity. This is the basis on which all action we undergo is grounded.

    This book is one that can be used in a basics course in a new member’s group in the church.  I recommend it also be read by apologists to give them some facts to discuss with non-believers.

    These instructions have changed the world and we need to understand them.

     This book was sent to me free by the publishers for the purpose of this review. Viewpoints are those of the reviewer.

     They used booklookbloggers.com as their distributor of this product.

A Doctor In The House By Candy Carson

I found this to be a very good biography from the viewpoint of the wife of Ben Carson. We saw his life story in  Gifted Hands yet if you really want the true picture of who a person is you need a ask a person who is close to him. A wife is.
Carson, the wife, knows the struggles of being married to a gifted pioneer in the area of  neurosurgery.
 At least from the view of having to support a strong man.
  You need to know is he a humble man? How does he deal with his children? How does he deal with those he works with? How does he treat his family?
 It may not be a complete unbiased picture. But it is a look at a man who has had struggles and worked through them.
  I decided to read this book because Carson was for a while one of the Republican candidates running for a chance to be in the 2016 election for United States President, or at least to be considered. He was attacked by Donald Trump and no one heard from him again or even knew anything about him. I just don't think it fair to him.
   It really doesn't matter what  your view of politics is. This is not that type of book.
   It has pictures from the family album.
   I consider it a book people should read to get a picture of  current black history. There are still people to look up to.

The Sleep Revolution by Arianna Huffington

Some Sleep Required

   Sleep is very necessary for health. It is during sleep that our body repairs. But sleep is not inactivity. During the down time our brain is very much at work.

   Most of us don’t get enough and suffer for it. It isn’t something you can store up or catch up on. An acute lack of sleep damages our brain, it seems.

   Let me post something she records in the book. “Health is deeply intertwined with culture: what we eat, how active we are, how much we sleep,” says US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy.

   This book is on a very important subject.

   Huffington divides her book in two parts. Part one is six chapters covering the basics- the problem and the work of the brain during sleep. I found her chapter on the purpose of the dream state to be informative.

   The second part is concerning what is being done to answer the dilemma.

   The first 286 pages are the text. The next 105 contain the three appendixes, the acknowledgements, the notes and the index.

   Back in April 2015 I reviewed Huffington’s “Thrive.” This is a much better book, in my opinion. It should be read by all people interested in the subject, which should be everybody. It is that important.

   This book was sent to me without charge by Blogging for Books.Com for the purpose of this review. All opinions are those of the reviewer and not those of the publisher.

   The publisher is Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC

Rise of The Rocket Girls by Nathalia Holt

 

When someone mentions the early days of the space program they tend to think of men. But far before there was a space program there were the pioneers. And they weren’t men.

Surprise?

 It should be. Women have as much a place in the history of the space project as do the men.

In fact back before the Second World War there was a group of women who were casting their eyes to the skies. And they had only their math skills and a pencil and notebooks to work with. They were called human computers. Their job was to calculate jet velocities and plot missile trajectories.  

These women were known as computers. That designation was given because they computed numbers. They were mostly women because men were being seen as engineers. These women became the programmers.

There was no machine. That came later.

IBM was the one to provide the machine which had to have a language it could understand.  FORTRAN was that language. Directions were keypunched into the machine .

Later HAL became the language.

They were hired because they were good in math.

After the war their interests shifted to getting something called a rocket out of the atmosphere. They formed a company known as JPL. The word rocket was never used because that wasn’t the emphasis the government wanted.

The idea of calling them computers started a long time before the 40’s. Early astronomers in the 1700s would need computers to predict the return of Halley’s Comet. It was during the First World War that men and women worked as “ballistic computers” as they calculated the range of rifles, machine guns, and mortars on the battle field. During our depression years 450 people were working as computers as a part of the Works Progress Administration.

So it was nothing new.

Our space program could not have progressed as far if we didn’t have them. But they were pretty much unknown. So having this story reaching from the 1940’s to the present is needed.

It is a delight to read the development of our program following the women. It was not always easy for them, since ether also fell in live, had families, and held down their job. This was something not held against the men.

I would recommend this book for all who want a better picture of the history of exploration.