Kruse's Keys: Read "How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told" to Be Astounded

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This is a laugh out loud, wincingly raw, weepily sad, grind your teeth TMI memoir by a husband and father whose life is torn apart one day when his wife informs him that she wants a divorce and has been cheating on him with their neighbor for the last three years.  To add insult to injury the neighbor is a man who “wears cargo shorts, on purpose."  The book is rife with this brand of biting humor.  But the book's power comes from Key's eventual introspection and self-evaluation as he grapples with where this Christian church going couple's marriage went wrong. 

The author's journey toward self awareness is one that is equal parts humorous and horrific.  As a Christian reader the best parts come from him seeking wisdom through reading through the Bible--it's hilarious in its irreverence and realness--such as this review of some of the Old Testament: “Exodus read like Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope and the book of Joshua now felt more like Return of the Jedi, with the addition of extensive real estate transactions.”  The horror comes from the way he and his wife talk to one another (apparently to be funny) with the husband  most at fault in these verbal clashes.  

After numerous ups and downs, the reader will no doubt begin to wonder if the book's title is tongue in cheek or a red herring.  Luckily hope begins to emerge as both Harrison and his wife decide to do the excavation necessary to cut back the callouses of their hearts.  This comes through a combination of therapy and a real Jesus loving church.

On therapy: 

"You pay pros to clean your teeth and replace your brake shoes. Why won’t you pay someone to give your marriage a little more mileage, too?"

On their church:

They hug us. They feed us. We feed them. They feed our children and we feed theirs and they feed Gary when we’re out of town and when they’re out of town, we feed their cats. All we’re doing is feeding each other, basically, with hymns and prayers and sermons thrown in there to remind us why.

Two of the author's observations at the memoir's end perfectly frame the talent and gleaned wisdom of the author:

“Compatibility is an accomplishment of marriage, not a prerequisite.”

“We won’t be traumatizing our children with our divorce. We’ll traumatize them with our marriage, as God intended.”

Caveat:  This is not (was not for me at least) an actual how-to book, I disagreed with many of the takeaways (and language) on the church and marriage but it did serve as a wakeup to never let my wife's and my heart reach the point of needing excavation.  Date nights are important, listening is important, serious introspection is HUGE.  You can see in the memoir that both parties neglected each others "bids" beginning early on after their wedding ceremony.  You can read more about 'bids' in this Atlantic Monthly article "Master's of Love" that is so foot-stompingly good that it is on my yearly re-reading list.  

Kruse's Keys: Read "Right-Hand Shores" to See One Community's Post-Civil War Struggle to Find Its Place in the World.

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One afternoon two weeks ago, this book appeared on the crowded counter in the upstairs library of our home.  Neither Emily nor I had ever seen it.  

I leafed through the description and was intrigued by the endorsements on the back--one author called him a "novelists' novelist"--that caught my eye since one of my favorite writers James Salter is often called a "writers' writer.

I asked around the house. Did this book get lost in the shuffle of our Christmas bounty?  Queries to our extended family yielded no clarity.  It remains a mystery.  The only thing to do was to open to page 1.

I'm glad I did.

Reading Tilghman's writing is effortless--which means he's both incredibly talented and works hard at it.  His 2012 tale (one of 4 in a series I found out later) of a family's doomed (cursed?) farm on the Eastern shore stretches across generations from the Civil War and through to reconstruction.  He creates deep characters that bring the complex community surrounding the farm to life as he not only captures the entangled master-slave dynamic but also the fraught relationship between farm owner and newly freed men following the Civil War.  That he unfolds this story through the backdrop of the main character's scientific obsession with creating a peach farm comprised of thousands of trees is remarkable.  

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Kruse's Keys: Read "Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools" to (re) Connect with the Creator Calling You

 

Author and Pastor Tyler Staton (of Bridgetown Church in Portland) lays out a persuasive call for the church broadly, and the believer personally, to return to the prayer practices of the early church and Jesus.  Specifically, he notes the early church community came together 3 times a day to pray as a matter of practice (as noted in the Didache).  While he doesn't advocate for the the idea of physically gathering together as a church body 3 times a day which would prove difficult for most--he does urge for the idea of praying corporately in our own homes and/or workplaces 3 times a day.

Specifically, he suggests framing the 3 prayers as follows (like the monks, try to picture Jesus' face while you pray):

1.   Morning.  Use the Lord's prayer as an entry point to a conversation where you join God in what he's doing already in the world and in your life.  Habit:  Before you reach for your phone when you wake up--breathe in and out the Lord's prayer.  Especially frame your day with the mantra: "I am your servant, may your word to me be fulfilled"

2.   Midday.  Praying for the "lost."  This is a deliberate shift in the middle of your day from all self focus and noise--to others.  This is an acknowledgement that our work, our busyness is not what stands--it's the eternal things.  Habit: take a 5 minute walk before or after you eat lunch and prayer for your circle of family and friends who may not yet know and follow Jesus.  

3.   Evening.  Recounting the day's bounty and goodness.  For 99.99% of us no matter how bad our day was--we can find plenty to be grateful for.  This practice of again shifting the focus off ourselves and expressing gratitude is a powerful way to "cleanse" your day and soul.  There's a song sung during Passover called "dayenu" which means "it would have been enough"--Staton mentions a Christian pastor's translation of it as: Thank You God for Overdoing It!  Habit:  Incorporate dayenu into grace at dinner time to reflect on your day as a family.  Incidentally, when I googled dayenu to learn more about it I came across a VERY entertaining dayenu video by the Maccabeats: Dayenu for multiple generations

Additionally, Staton delves deeply into prayer in general but also in the specific--as in why doesn't God answer our prayers, or Why do we have to pray if God knows our thoughts.  Broadly, his observation is that prayer comes down to relationship.  God wants a relationship with us and prayer is the primary medium through which that occur.  And in asking God we bring our focus to the relationship and expose our own vulnerability.  An aspect I enjoyed most in this book (and in Staton's Sunday teaching) is the way he examines the text of the bible in its original language to expose where our own blind spots are.  Matthew 7:7 is a great example of this--this is the often quote passage of asking and receiving, seeking and finding etc.  The author notes that the best translation from the Greek is actually this: "Keep on asking and you will receive, keep on seeking and you will find, keep on knocking and the door will be opened for you."

Finally, he extols Mary's example to the news she received from the angel: Yes, have your way Lord"--that's a powerful prayer.   And it's a prayer that Jesus repeated as the hour approached: "your will be done." I especially loved author David Brooks observation from his book Second Mountain that he shares as Staton notes: "Commitments, not feelings, are how we show our love."  David Brooks further observes that a commitment is "falling in love with something and then building a structure of behavior around it for those moments when our love falters."  That building a practice of prayer in a nutshell and it's why 

"Prayer is a journey that starts in need and ends in relationship."

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Kruse's Keys:

4        The 'whys' of prayer when it doesn't go our way outlined here    

6        This book is about establishing practices

14      Prayer isn't about resolving our anxiety.  Don't be anxious but pray about everything isn't necessary a causal linkage.

14-16    4 reasons we don't pray: 

                1. Fear of being naive. "Prayer always means submission". this vulnerability is somethign we                         have to embrace.

                2. Fear of silence

                3. Fear of selfish motives

                4. Fear of doing it wrong

35       "Prayer is the act of seeing reality from God's point of view." Phillip Yancey

37        Spiritual health means not being hurried

38        The modern spiritual disease today is "efficiency" Merton

40        "Be still" comes from latin 'vacate'--prayer is a vacation from the control we think we have over 

             our own lives.

44        "Stillness is the quiet space where God migrates from the periphery back to the center, and prayers              pour forth from the life that has God at its center."

50        In our stillness we demonstrate consent.  Consent to the work of the Holy Spirit.

51        Practicing silence is a sacrificial gift to God--not something that we are meant to 'get' something                 out of.

56        Foundation of prayer (according to Jesus is this):     REMEMBER

                    Remember who God is

                    Remember who you are

                    Remember who we are to each other

57        #1 obstacle to prayer is our inability to receive the love of God

58        Catholics frame the Lord's prayer by the moniker "Our Father" which is apt since it frames for us                  who exactly we are talking to

59         use of the term saints for Christians makes sense because it doesn't meant they are good but they                 have received the goodness of God.  You can't become a saint yourself--someone else (that is 

            God) makes you one.

60        As we pray "Our Father" this is really about us asking him to remind us of his love for us.  the love             of a father.

76        Sin = I try to meet my most primal need without God

79        God sympathizes with our sin struggles--that means he co-suffers with us.  

123        Why do we have to ask God for something if he already knows what will happen?  Namely     

                because prayer is about relationship and vulnerability.  

126        God is a relational being to know, not a formula to master--thus we get verses that say God 

                doesn't change juxtaposed with ones that talk about his heart changing.

127        Sometimes God uses prolonged waiting in prayer to form something in our inner being.

134           Prayer in the middle voice means we are joining God--we are active participants in a story                 began by someone else (God)

138        "Yes, have your way Lord" is a powerful prayer.  It's the prayer of Jesus' Mom Mary and it's the                 prayer of Jesus in the Lord's prayer.

140        Intimacy with God yields fruitfulness (not the other way around)--this comes through:

                    - Prayer as a reflex throughout the day

                    - Prayer as a practice in the form of disciplined contemplation

                    - Fiery please of intercession

140        tsedaqah--Hebrew for personal righteousness -- it's the same word for outward justice

140        "private spiritual practice without equal devotion to costly public compassion [is] not only                         dysfunctional but oxymoronic"

142          "prayer is the furnace that fuels mission."  

142         "I am your servant, may your word to me be fulfilled"

144           The above is a prayer of consent--join God and asking Him to complete that work in you

146        Moody prayed for the lost by beging God to reveal himself to those people in a way that they 

              could perceive and receive eternal love.

158        Prayer that births new life is slow--requires dedication

170        "Prayer is a journey that starts in need and ends in relationship."

175        Most literal translation of Matthew 7:7 is "Keep on asking and you will receive, keep on seeking 

               and you will find, keep on knocking and the door will be o  you can dealt to Satan as C.S. Lewis notes in the Screwtape Letters

196        didache early church routines

199        "Commitments, not feelings are how we show our love."  David Brooks: a commitment is "falling                 in love with something and then building a structure of behavior around it for those moments                    when our love falters."  Second Mountain

214        The 33 years of David's reign as king are the only time before Jesus rose again that everyone 

               could access God's presence there in the city center where he placed the ark of the covenant                        before the temple was built.

228        yada is Hebrew for knowledge.  It's also used to denote sex.  Knowledge is something intimate, 

               learned in relationship not a book

230        Monks pictures the face of Jesus as they pray.  This serves to anchor their prayers

233-4     4 categories through which you can practice confession:

                1. Blatant (lust, rage)

                2. Deliberate (church sins not societal ones)

                3. Unconscious (deeper thought patterns that lead to sin)

                4. Inner Orientations (most hidden, where and in whom am I placing my trust).

                    

Kruse's Keys: Read "The Life Impossible" to Escape Into Magic Realism in Ibiza

The Life Impossible. In the vein of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Matt Haig's latest tale is magical realist amble into the intersection of mathematics, environmentalism, science, philosophy, extraterrestrial life, loss, and grief--and the fact that it all takes place in Ibiza makes this story shine.  While Haig's third novel doesn't rise to the level of his Midnight Library, it still stood out as a guilty pleasure of a read--one that doesn't demand too much of the reader (most chapters are only a page or two) while delivering beautiful writing at the same time.  Unfortunately, much like in his previous novel "How to Stop Time," it fizzles at the end as the environmentalist meanderings come off as overwrought in its emotionalism.  

My 2025 reading list is here.

Looking for book ideas? Check out our 2024,  2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014 reading lists!

Kruse's Keys

19    "I was watching myself in the third person."  on the term 'beside myself'

33    "Maybe it was the islands.  Maybe they sent people insane."  Love the idea of being sent insane instead of driven insane. 

91    "To see everyone on Earth as someone's grief waiting to happen."  Beautiful way to capture the psyche in how Grace Winters sees the world.

133     Authors comments that love is not the rare thing in life, rather it's being understood by someone and understanding them.

172    "I suppose that is one of the purposes of all reading. It helps you live lives beyond the one you are inside.  It turns out single-room mental shack into a mansion."

188    "duende" in Spanish describes the feeling of truly connecting with the essence of life in some way--popularized by the Poet Lorca.

247    "chiaroscuro" the method in Italian art of having so much darkness in a painting so that the light around someone like John the Baptist takes on a holy appearance

259    Great example of author's prowess in describing people and setting

270    "Maybe that was what madness was: the loneliness of understanding what others can't."  Interesting notion.

2025 Reading list

Looking for book ideas?  Check out our 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014  reading lists!

The graphic above shows what I had planned to read this year.  I made it through a good number of them but I didn't make it to some notable reads: The Showman and Tattoos on the Heart in particular.  

Below is a graphic showing what my wife and I actually read:

Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools: An Invitation to the Wonder and Mystery of Prayer.  Author and Pastor Tyler Staton (of Bridgetown Church in Portland) lays out a persuasive call for the church broadly, and the believer personally, to return to the prayer practices of the early church and Jesus. Incredible read: "Prayer is a journey that starts in need and ends in relationship."  My full review is here.

Cutting for Stone (Libby, Ethiopia. Jack and Emily both read).  This has been on my reading list since it's publication in 2009.  Listening to it over the course of 20 hours completely pulled me back into Ethiopia where we lived for over 2 years--it also made me wish I'd read it while I lived there.  The author creates a world so immersive that it inhabits your thoughts to the point that you find yourself pausing unexpectedly during the day to consider Shivah's plights or Genet's betrayal.  Verghese's ability here brought echoes of Mafouz's mastery in creating an entire world across generations in the Cairo trilogy.  The unique aspect of this novel is the way in which the the author can present fascinating surgical details in a manner the average lay person can at least pretend to understand--all the while weaving a tale with multiple layers of betrayal, intrigue and redemption.

The Life Impossible (Spain). In the vein of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Matt Haig's latest tale is magical realist amble into the intersection of mathematics, environmentalism, science, philosophy, extraterrestrial life, loss, and grief--and the fact that it all takes place in Ibiza makes this story shine.  While Haig's third novel doesn't rise to the level of his Midnight Library, it still stood out as a guilty pleasure of a read--one that doesn't demand too much of the reader (most chapters are only a page or two) while delivering beautiful writing at the same time.  My full review is here.

Right-Hand Shore.  Reading Tilghman's writing is effortless--which means he's both incredibly talented and works hard at it.  His 2012 tale (one of 4 in a series I found out later) of a family's doomed (cursed?) farm on the Eastern shore stretches across generations from the Civil War and through to reconstruction.  My full review is here.

How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Story Ever Told (Libby/Jack and Emily both read).  This book's power comes from humorist author Harrison Scott Key's  fearlessness in revealing the most raw, intimate emotions surrounding his wife's infidelity. My full review is here. 

May the Wolf Die (Libby, Italy). Named one of the New York Times "best crime novels of 2024"--this debut novel from scientist/researcher/author Elizabeth Heidler nails all the gritty Naples details down to the trash strewn highways that contrast with the breathtaking coastal waters.  Her experience living in Naples for 3 years more than a decade ago—working as a research analyst at the US Navy base in Capodichino—shines through with her careful eye for all things Bella Napoli.  Having lived there for three years myself-I can attest she gets it right.  One disclaimer: We should have read this instead of listening--the narrator's Scottish? accent trying to do dialogue in Italian was VERY distracting.  

Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco  (Libby). I accidentally got the abridged version (~3 hours) instead of the unabridged (~22 hours) which ended up being a good call as this book was just okay for me--not being super into business and deal-making--I shouldn't have been surprised.  It's well written and the details and conversation reflect the incredible work put in by the authors. 

A Death in Brazil (Brazil).   Published in 2004, in the second year of Lula’s long-fought-for-presidency, “A Death in Brazil” delves in the background of Brazil’s first popularly elected president Fernando Collor de Mello and the murder of his campaign treasurer/criminally corrupt money launderer Paulo Cesar Cavalcanti de Farias (known as “PC")--that’s the obvious death in Brazil.  In telling the story of Fernando and PC’s rise he contrasts it with current President Lula’s populist ascension and ambitiously lays it all across a selected violent history of Brazil–that’s the broader metaphorical death in Brazil. My full review is here. 

Reasons to Stay Alive.  I’ve enjoyed reading Matt Haig’s novels over the last several years and when I saw that he had written a very raw memoir of sorts I was eager to read it.  That it turned out to also be a “how to be a friend to someone suffering from depression” guide made it an especially powerful and necessary read. 

Necessary in the sense that chances are all of us will know someone battling with depression–Haig labels these people as “depressives.”  Ideally, the reader closes the book with a heightened sense of empathy but also an expanded menu of tools to help be a better listener and a more thoughtful (and more diminutive speaker/responder).  My full review is here.

Our Missing Hearts.  Celeste Ng (author of Little Fires Everywhere) has penned a beautiful and thought provoking dystopian (?) story about a United States where blind allegiance to country has stamped out any criticism or dissent--no matter how constructive.  "The Pact" is published and encapsulates this ethos to the extent where children are taken (aka the missing hearts) from any families not deemed appropriately loyal to the Pact. Far-fetched perhaps but no longer something unimaginable.

Leaf by Niggle. A good friend gave me a copy of this J.R.R. Tolkien short story that is ostensibly about an artist and his painting of a tree but which of course is about much more. Tolkien wrote it as he struggled with his own anxiety over whether he'd be able to ever finish the Silmarillion. In Leaf, the main character xxx realizes (eventually)

Nathan Coulter (Audible).  The first novel from Wendell Berry's Port Williams series.  I regret not having read anything from Berry's considerable compendium until this year.  I recall virtually rolling my eyes years ago when my mother raved about his Memory of Old Jack--it sounded like a lethargic and boring premise.  Then earlier this year I was watching a sermon from pastor Tyler Staton on the Beatitudes where he talked about Berry's incredible life in an illustration on being 'pure in heart.'  This got me hooked and led me to the first in the series of 9 books about Berry's imagined town across many generations.  This first novel is a richly detailed and contemplative story about one family and a father's relationship with his son and the land they work.

Elizabeth Ritchie and the Kingdom of Whatnots.  A young girl gets called into another world in a plot to assassinate an evil king--chaos ensues (My 12 year old daughter Betty's next book which she'll self-publish).

James.  My full review is here.   This is an incredibly imaginative retelling of Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" that boldly centers the narrative on the character of Jim. More than just a new perspective, it's a searing indictment of the institution of slavery and a powerful reminder of the terror of everyday life for enslaved people. Through Jim's narrative, the reader is forced to confront evil in all its iterations.

For an author as prolific as Percival Everett, "James" feels like a magnum opus of sorts—perhaps even a catharsis. If not a total cleansing of the soul, then at least an unburdening of the anger, outrage, and generational injustice that he would argue make up the Black experience in America. His acknowledgments section sums it up best, adapting a well-known Twain quote: "Heaven for the climate; hell for my long-awaited lunch with Mark Twain."

Rumors of Another World: What On Earth Are We Missing?  (The full review is here) This is a weighty book and not one you can breeze through quickly but rather calls the reader towards a meditative examination of how society models and sells life today is the antithesis of the contemplative path God intended.  The book seeks to answer three basic questions: 

1. What does the current world tell us about heaven?
2. Why is the world so bad then?
3. Where are the natural + supernatural intersections - and what’s their effect on our daily life?  

The Covenant of Water (India). Spanning nearly a century (1900-1977), Covenant takes place in southwestern India in the Kerala region and focuses on a Malayali Christian family and a mysterious drowning affliction that affects someone in each generation.  Of course, like all great novels it’s about much more than  one challenge–its encompasses love, betrayal, and secrets–” this is the covenant of water: that they're all linked inescapably by their acts of commission and omission, and no one stands alone ... all is one. "My full review is here.  

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry (Emily and Jack read). The book is a product of decades of conversations with mentors and biblical study.  In one conversation with another pastor/mentor, that man shares some bad news:

"The #1 problem you will face is time. People are just too busy to live emotionally healthy & spiritually rich & vibrant lives." 

The solution, Comer argues, lies in a "slowdown spirituality," a deliberate embrace of ancient spiritual disciplines (see also Tyler Staton’s “Praying Lke Monks, Living Like Fools"–my review is here). He emphasizes that "attention is the beginning of devotion," and "what you give your attention to is the person you become." Time, our universal limitation, demands intentionality, and sometimes, as Anne Lamott wisely puts it, "No' is a complete sentence"—a thousand "no's" for every "yes."  What we’ve seen in the U.S. over the last century is an inversion of money and time.  Unlike in the past where leisure and rest were valued, we spend time to get more money.

All the Light We Cannot See (France). "Who knew love could kill you?" the main character, a blind teenager named Marie-Laure, questions as the Nazi Paris invasion uproots her comfortable and predictable life in there.  What unfolds is a story that seesaws between shocking and inspiring, horrifying and redemptive and which stands as a stark reminder of what a world at war looks like at the most visceral level.  As I tore through this novel is 3 quick days, I lamented that I'd let it waste away for so long on our bookshelf.    

A Place on Earth.  Berry's writing is somehow comforting–that’s a strange thing to say about a novel--it's the rare book that is more observation than narrative. Ostensibly the novel is about a town during World War II.  A town whose youth have gone to fight and who families go on living in the limbo that is war abroad.  But the novel is actually about the land, the environment and seasons, the floods and droughts, the earth and woods–somehow Berry has written a story where the people are the scenery.  My full review is here.

Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon (Brazil)  Author Jorge Amado is one of the best known Brazilian writers so I thought it was high time that I read one of this novels.  Gabriela is a story of a 1920's Bahian cacao town struggling against modernity whose entire arc is upended by a poor and beautiful young woman from the northeast. For a novel written in the 1950's, the storyline is surprisingly salacious at times as Gabriela proves to have an intoxicating effect on every man she encounters. Despite some racy scenes, the narrative remains in realm of literature teetering on magic realism and flirting with beach read status.  For this reader, I likely won't revisit Amado but it was a good data point on Brazilian literature. 

Hannah Coulter. Hannah Coulter, the penultimate novel in Wendell Berry's Port Williams series, offers a touching first-person account of its title character's life from her childhood to WWII’s aftermath to the turn of the century.  So while it was published 45 years after his first novel Nathan Coulter  (my review is here) from a narrative chronological aspect Hannah spans the life of Berry’s Port Williams corpus and reflects the maturity of an American literary master in ways his earliest novels might not.  It’s a deep narrative, full of sorrow and triumph, heartache and love, pain and healing–stretching across the human experience while also recounting the decline of the American farming sector’s way of life. My full review is here. 

When the Cranes Fly South.  The book very well could have been called "Things Unspoken" given the main character's intense interior monologue of emotions, outcries and thoughts that he largely keeps locked up throughout the entire novel. The book’s unique narrative construction consists of alternating rambling first -person chapters of an old aging man’s thoughts and conversations, punctuated by shocking staccato entries in a journal kept by the various caretakers and family who look after the old man.  The effect is striking. The 89 year-old old man–Bo–is awash in memories and emotions, and each day is often a struggle–these chapters are rich and then you turn the page are slapped with a dry, clinical sentence-long summary of Bo’s life that day.  It’s powerful.  It’s sad.  It’s a purposeful choice that author makes.  Review Pending. My full review is here. 

A Moveable Feast (Paris). Hemingway's novel hit different this time around reading it at the midpoint of my life.  Having walked the same Parisian streets and cafes.  Having lived nearly a decade of my life overseas, I feel Hemingway's emotions and insecurities in a much more visceral way.   Certainly of course, Hemingway's Paris no longer exists but it's beautiful to hear his young writer's voice developing itself as he describes, the city and its country and the expats that inhabit it.  My full review is here.

Andy Catlett: Early Travels. My third Wendell Berry novel this year.  This was a quick, light read covering the childhood experiences of a young 9-year old Andy Catlett as he spends time on his grandparent's farm and learns about his family's deep connection to the land.  Every story I read from Berry's fictional "Port Williams membership" draws me deeper into the author's beautiful, introspective writing.  His novels don't have driving narratives but instead the characters--the people--are the narrative.  

Someone Like Us (Ethiopia) This novel is far less sweeping that his previous novels, it still builds out Mengestu's tapestry of the immigrant experience in America by focusing on an Ethiopian father and son's evolving relationship.  Told against scenes shifting from Ethiopia to France to Chicago and times past and present, Mengestu doesn't shy away from difficult topics like mental health and substance abuse and the toll they take on memory and relationships.  In an era where terms like "immigration" carry a charge weight, Someone Like Us adds important context and hopefully develops increased empathy in the reader on the myriad struggles faced by immigrants by everything from police stops to just not knowing how America works.  Books like these are important in personalizing difficult topics and allowing the reader to grapple with a story in which there are no easy answers. My full review is here.  Also see my review of his amazing third novel: All Our Names, a book that I call the Great African Novel.  See his other beautiful novel: All the Things That Heaven Bears here--my review is here.

Street Girls: Hope on the Streets of Brazil. This is British author/journalist Matt Roper's first of four books highlighting the child-trafficking and child-prostitution problem in Brazil. Rather than an extensive review I typed out verbatim the contents of one letter from a street girl that Matt worked with through MeninaDanca.  The book is also filled with letters from the girls--their heartbreaking tales--many pushed into prostitution by their families as pre-teens. My full review is here.

East of Eden. While his earlier Grapes of Wrath may have earned him a Pulitzer, East of Eden is widely acknowledged as a better and more mature novel and I was surprised at how readable it was 70 years after its original publication.  Sadly, I don’t believe that I ever read East of Eden back in high school but I’m glad I finally grabbed it off my book shelf where it had languished gathering dust the past 14 years!

Certain novels continue to be widely read because they capture and bring to life timeless themes and ideas, such as family, loss, original sin, forgiveness, rivalry, greed, and daring.  East of Eden covers all of these but most importantly it captures the great divide between the East and the West at the turn of the century with the narrator observing that: “I always found in myself a dread of West and a love of East.” This notion would be captured once again by another virtuoso author named Chris George Latore Wallace some 45 years later in his seminal album Life After Death.  It is here in his single “Going Back to Cali” that Mr. Wallace opines “If I got to choose a coast, I got to choose the East I live out there, so don't go there.”  There too in Chris Wallace’s West lied uncertainty, foreboding, and in his case–death–that same year. My full review is here.

Meh

Caste: The Origin of our Discontent.   The book is at itks most powerful in her research on how the Nazi party/government studied the caste system in the United States and sought to emulate it in its systemic subjugation and extermination of the Jewish population.  Most shameful (for the United States) though is her keen observation that in post-WWII Germany you don’t find echoes and monuments and memorialization of Nazi heritage, i.e., you don’t have monuments to Rommel or colleges and highways named after Hitler.  This distinction is a striking one and worth considering as relics still remain despite the recent shifting political winds.  Ultimately, even an unconvinced reader must acknowledge the the troubled history and origins that Wilkerson lays out, and that while an outright caste system may no longer remain in the United States, vestiges of it echo still today across the spectrum of the black existence here from health challenges to the stories told to children on how to survive even today (for more on this read Coates’s “Letter to My Son). My full review is here.

Duds

Fresh Water for Flowers.  Was listening to this novel on Libby.  But I think we gave up.  Not our cup of fresh water tea.

You Shall Know Our Velocity.  Do NOT recommend.  It very mysteriously appeared on our bookshelf when I was organizing and I thought it must be some type of sign--it was not.  This is early Eggers from 2002 about a pair of friends who set about on a haphazard journey around the world to give away $32,000.  It's a catchy premise but doesn't deliver--the characters aren't particularly likeable and much of the action is mired in dense philosophical ponderings.  Instead read some of his other excellent tomes: What is the What?, Hologram for the King, and The Circle.   The first I read in 2011 and the latter two I read in 2014.

To Read List

The Showman: Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky

Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good.

The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother

The Barn 

There and Then. 

People Like Us. 

Embarrassing List of Books I've said I'm going to finish for several years:

Tribe of Mentors.  Currently reading for the last four years. My full review will be here...one day

The Italians. Was reading but misplaced the book.  If I find it I will finish it.

Kruse's Key: Read Deere's "Surprised by the Spirit" to Learn About Healing Today

Jack’s Deere’s “Why I Am Still Surprised by the Spirit: Discovering How God Speaks and Heals Today” walks the fine line of personal testimony and historical/theological analysis as he tackles the subject of the Holy Spirit, “signs and wonders”, and healing in today’s church. At one time Deere was an avid naysayer of healing in the modern church–as a seminary professor he scoffed at what he viewed as snake oil salesmen purporting to heal amidst overwrought theatrics and questionable motives. All that changed when a pastor named Dr. John White led a prayer service at his church that culminated in a miraculous event after which Deere clearly heard God’s voice call him to repentance for his arrogance and lack of faith. Shortly thereafter he was introduced to John Wimber and “praying for the sick became a permanent part of [his] life.”

As someone who has spent several years in Africa and befriended many missionaries, I’ve never doubted that God still heals today but I’ve never considered it as something attainable in my own life or for my own loved ones. Deere’s story has changed my mind because he doesn’t focus on healing or miracles except in the context of an intimacy with God the creator. These things should glorify God–should focus people’s eyes upward–never on the person or on self-gratification

Looking for book ideas? Check out our 2024,  2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014 reading lists!

Notes

98 Rebuttal against Hebrews 2: 3-4 used by cessationists.

114 Scriptural reasons that God heals:

Because he is asked

Because he has compassion and mercy on the sick

To bring glory to himself

In response to his promise to the elders

In response to faith

To lead people to repentance and open doors to the gospel

To remove hindrances to ministry and service

To reach us about himself and his kingdom

To demonstrate the presence of his kingdom

For sovereign purposes known only to himself


120-121 We tend to doubt God’s goodness, especially when we are asking for something big. We believe Satan’s lies that God only heals us or heals people when we/they are good. “We overcome the accuser by placing our confidence in the blood of Christ.


143 N.T. mentioned 7 specific demonic inroads:

Anger and unforgiveness

Sexual immorality

Violence

Hatred (envy, jealousy, & selfish ambition)

Occult practices

Long term idolatry

Blasphemy (attributing evil to God)


172 Part of his daily prayer:

Now Lord consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.


173 1949 Scottish Hebrides revival


182 Every day I pray to be like Barnabas: “a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith” through whom “a great number of people were brought to the Lord.” (Acts 11:24)


205 A spiritual gift: an endowment of grace empowered by the Holy Spirit to build up the people to God


215 Best translation of the bible: “The one that says to love your enemies.” …”we don’t fail because we can’t defend our view of the millennium, we fail because we want some things more than we want a friendship with God.”


216 Pray Psalm 119: 18

Pray for God to open your eyes.

“Open my eyes so that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.”

AsK God to dazzle me with his beauty (Psalm 27:4)

Ask the Father to grant me a work of the Holy Spirit to love his Son like he loves his Son.

Ask God to grant me grace to one of his friends

Ask God to let me be one of his best friends

The goal is is to enjoy God, not endure Him.


217 Before he preaches any command, he gives them a person to enjoy.


222 Christians are to focus on three things:

Prayer

Love

Spiritual gifts


227 Leaders in the church today are burning out because they are crushed by the bulk of the ministry of the church, a ministry that the church members are supposed to be doing.

2024 Reading List

Looking for book ideas?  Check out our 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014  reading lists!

The Extraordinary Mountain Creatures of North America.  My 12 year old daughter Betty's first (self) published novel.  

Brazil: A Biography (Audible).  Just finished listening to this 28 hour history of the country. I can't imagine living or working in Brazil and not having read this comprehensive history that dates back to Brazil's "discovery" in the 1500s.  I plan to read the book itself over the next few months and take copious notes! Essential Brasil read.

The Collector of Leftover Souls: Field Notes on Brazil's Everyday Insurrections.  This book is a collection of essays by reporter Eliane Brum.  In it she sheds light on different facets of Brasilian society normally buried in darkness: Os povos indígenas, minorias sociais, os povos que vivem à margem da sociedade, longe dos núcleos de poder.  Essential Brasil read.

Why I am Still Surprised by the Power of the Spirit: Discovering How God Speaks and Heals Today.  Great read--my full review is here. 

Beartown. Recommended to me as "Friday Night Lights" except with hockey.  That's a pretty fair description for this fast-paced read.  Set in the backwoods of a dying hockey town in Sweden--it's got sports, betrayal, and possibly murder--sports noir at its finest.  And it's a trilogy!

Clandestine in Chile.  Don't recommend.  I really looked forward to reading this novel since I've always loved the magical realism of author Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  To be clear, Marquez has some beautiful writing but this journalistic retelling of filmmaker Littins secret mission to film inside Chile and expose the brutality and horror of life under Pinochet reads less like a spy novel and more like an ambling fait accompli/much ado about nearly nothing.  

Brazillionaires (Audible).  Incredible Michael Lewis-style tale of the rise of the 21st century rise (and fall for some) of a billionaire class in Brazil told against the backdrop of corruption, favelas, soccer stadiums, kidnappings and Miami real estate. This book offers keen insight into the Brazilian psyche and society writ large.  Essential Brasil read.

Greenlights (Audible).  Don't read this, I repeat, don't read this.  LISTEN TO IT! The audible version is narrated by author Matthew McConaughey and he's phenomenal: vulnerable, funny, self-deprecating, raw, and at times outrageous!  The book is partly autobiographical and partly self-help as he shares his struggles, failures, triumphs and lessons for the reader. 

How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Seen (Audible). A phenomenal and important read.  I listened to it on Audible and about 1/3 of the way through I found it so incredible that I ordered a physical copy so I could reread it make extensive notes.  Author David Brooks offers a framework by which one could be not a better leader but a more caring and empathetic friend and person in general.  I particularly enjoyed some of the questions he uses to better understand where people come from.  One example: In your family what was one thing you could never do?

How to Stop Time (Libby).  By the author of Midnight Library (my review here).  Author Matt Haig is a gifted storyteller and I loved his tale of this secret society of quasi-immortals who through a genetic anomaly age only 1 year for every 14 years on earth.  It contains all the best elements of historical fiction as the main character's life span centuries, as well as love and loss, and humor.  But what it as good as Midnight Libary?  Not quite.  Toward the novel's end if fizzles a bit, almost as if the author had grown weary--along with the main character--of living and loving across centuries.  

Dancing with the Devil in the City of God: Rio de Janeiro and the Olympic Dream (Brazil book).  Prodigal daughter/Journalist Julianna Barbassa returns to her home city after a childhood spent largely abroad.  Part memoir, part expose, part investigative journalism that covers the national and city politician's ill considered efforts to prepare the city and populace to host the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. Her thorough reporting brings the reader behind the fabric of Brazilian government and societal machinations, triumphs, and dysfunction. Essential Brasil read.

A Promised Land (Libby).  It's riveting. This 700 page (29 hours!) memoir was recommended by a high school classmate of mine in his bi-monthly book newsletter: Mountain Prairie.  Here's a quote from his writeup: 

What I look for in a memoir: Fun-to-read writing; laugh-out-loud humor; deep dives into the “why” of pivotal decisions; a detailed understanding of the people/places/experiences/cultures that shaped the author’s worldview; enlightening historical context; the author’s most brutal challenges and how they were overcome; opportunities to evolve my thinking on a few topics; humility; passion; purpose; commitment; optimism; self-doubt; extreme hard work; and crazy behind-the-scenes stories. What I don’t look for in a memoir: To have my preexisting opinions confirmed; to agree in lockstep with the author’s ideas/choices/worldview; surface-level boringness; or prose obviously written by a team of insufferable PR suits. Conclusion: This book met and/or exceeded all of my criteria and now sits alongside Acid for the Children and Shoe Dog as an all-time favorite memoir.

This memoir delivers--engrossing and full of insights into what a president goes through on a daily basis--from thought process, to congressional politics to family dynamics.  No matter your politics you'll enjoy this humble and thoughtful retrospective.  It ends right after they kill Osama so I cant wait for the next book!

The Invisibles (Brazil book).  Came across this book on a colleague's bookshelf and he kindly let me borrow it.  I liked it so much that I ordered a copy of my own!  A British woman and a Brazilian man fall in love in the 70's and have a child.  Unfortunately, he falls on hard times and ends up jailed under the military dictatorship.  His wife and child flee to England and never return believing him dead...until some 30 years later when a news clip give his son hope his father might still be alive in Rio.  Thus begins a journey for one man's father but also his long lost country--all against the backdrop of a class/tranche of society that often feels invisible--hence the name.   Brasil read.

Demon Copperhead (Libby).  My friend who pastors at Doxology Church in Arlington (amazing place by the way) mentioned this book during a sermon in which he was talking about timeless stories.  He discussed this novel in the context of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield as a story that tells a story and a struggle that transcends time periods and locales.  This Pullitzer prize winning tale is a HARD read that lays bare the realities of the foster system, rural America, the opiod crisit and growing up as a teen today.  The narrated version is INCREDIBLE to listen to--HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

A City in Ruins (Libby).  This is the third in the Danny Ryan trilogy by crime writer Don Winslow.  Racing narrative--great beach read/listen.

Because of Winter. Amazing debut novel by author Nikki Brochetti.