A collection of brief, engaging thoughts to complement Christian Bible study.
King (Steps to the Victorious Walk, 2007, etc.), an evangelist pastor, offers an array of short daily devotionals about Bible verses and their applications to daily life.
In his latest book, the author turns his attention to helping readers build their relationship with God. He’s assembled 90 “devotions,” including for each a Bible verse, some of his own reflections and stories, and what he calls a “meditational thought”: a “thought- provoking point designed to help the reader experience the truth at hand more deeply.” King writes in his introduction that “[t]hose who take a minute and meditate on these nuggets will find the spiritual gold.” Each meditation builds upon the verse in question, leading to King’s clear, succinct final point; for example, he takes a line from Psalm 139, “for I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” and uses it as a way to discuss God’s creation: “Who else but our awesome God could have created such wonder?” He then builds to the meditational thought: “God made all originals and no copies.” Such thoughts are short and familiar but often avoid cliché. King often uses them to rephrase ideas that are common to devotionals, modifying them to be a bit more engaging. Many of them, such as “God is our best insurance,” “Attitude often determines altitude,” and “Names don’t make people, people make names,” should provide readers with springboards for personal meditation. King also contextualizes his summations in a variety of ways, drawing from the verses, real-world examples or his own views. He writes in an inviting, relaxed tone that fits with the book’s structure. Readers will be drawn in and comforted by his friendly nature and left with much to consider.
A collection of brief, engaging thoughts to complement Christian Bible study.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1462739059
Page Count: 196
Publisher: CrossBooks
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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