4 Books

I'm reading a couple of history books. One of them is a history of popular music, which happens to be a subject in which I've always been interested. The book is called The Rise and Fall of Popular Music, by Donald Clarke. Written in 1996 and now out of print, it's one of those books you can get for a penny (plus shipping of course) on Amazon. I picked it up at a library sale for a dime! I'm particularly interested in the early decades of popular music. Everyone knows it's all been downhill since about 1934!

The other history book I've been reading is The Forgotten Man: A History of the Great Depression, by Amity Shlaes. These books are more like judicious compilations of facts than actual narratives. I would prefer the latter, but am enjoying them both nonetheless.

Meanwhile, I've moved on to my third Frank Viola opus, this one being From Eternity To Here: Rediscovering the Ageless Purpose of God. I think Viola gets the focus right, consistently. I've just started this one, but I fully expect it to consume my attention and push those other two books to the back burner.

By the way, I'll probably be sharing from this book in future posts, but for now I would strongly urge you to listen to one of his podcasts here. I just listened to Living by the Indwelling Life of Christ, an excellent rendition of a sadly neglected aspect of Biblical (and practical) theology. That is, union with Christ. That neglect, by the way, has had a woeful effect on the church, imho.

Finally, I'm slowly reading Lyle Vander Broek's Breaking Barriers: The Possibilities of Christian Community in a Lonely World (another 1-cent book at Amazon!). I loved the introduction so much that I had to summarize it (here). This will be a slow read, and probably the last to finish among these four.

There, that's what I'm reading. Meanwhile, I'm glad I haven't lost the discipline of turning pages, like Bill Kinnon!