Project 52/20
This is my contribution to the Project 52-2013 group on Flickr this week. The theme is ‘twisted’:
Saturday Snapshot – HHOF (May 18)
(Saturday Snapshot is hosted by At Home With Books - go there to see how you can participate)
I didn’t get much opportunity to take any pictures this week, but when I was tidying out the computer desk I came across quite a few old SD cards. These pictures were on one of them and are from a visit to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto that we made two years ago. The bottom picture is a window in the ceiling of the room in which the Stanley Cup is displayed.
Friday Finds (May 17)
FRIDAY FINDS… is where you share the book titles you discovered or heard about during the past week. These can be books you were told about, books you discovered while browsing blogs/bookstores online, or books that you actually purchased. This event is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.
As usual MizB asks the question:
What great books did you hear about/discover this past week? Share with us your FRIDAY FINDS!
A combination of book sales, thrift stores, online sales, and freebies left me with the above haul of books for the week. They are as follows:
- The Geek’s Guide to World Domination - Garth Sundem (library book sale)
- Strange Pilgrims – Gabriel Garcia Marquez (thrift store)
- Nikolksi – Nicolas Dickner (library book sale)
- Brave New World Revisited – Aldous Huxley (library book sale)
- God’s Favorite Place on Earth – Frank Viola (Christianbook.com)
- Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! - Mordecai Richler (library book sale)
- 3:16: The Numbers of Hope - Max Lucado (thrift store)
- Super Pop! - Daniel Harmon (LibraryThing Early Reviewers ARC)
- Lost City - Clive Cussler with Paul Kemprecos (thrift store)
- The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd (thrift store)
Book Beginnings and Friday 56 – God’s Favorite Place on Earth (May 17)
For the second week in a row my choice of book for my Friday meme combo is one by Frank Viola. This week’s choice is his just released God’s Favorite Place on Earth. GoodReads has the following description:
When He came to earth, Jesus Christ was rejected in every quarter in which He stepped. The Creator was rejected by His own creation. “He came to His own and His own received Him not,” said John. For this reason, Jesus Christ had “no where to lay His head.” There was one exception, however. A little village just outside of Jerusalem named Bethany. Bethany was the only place on earth where Jesus was completely received.
God’s Favorite Place on Earth is a retelling of Jesus’ many visits to Bethany and a relaying of the message it holds for us today. Frank Viola presents a beautifully crafted narrative from the viewpoint of Lazarus, one of the people who lived in Bethany with his two sisters. This incomparable story not only brings the Gospel narratives to life, but it addresses the struggle against doubt, discouragement, fear, guilt, rejection, and spiritual apathy that challenges countless Christians today. In profoundly moving prose, God’s Favorite Place on Earth will captivate your heart with its beauty, charm, and depth. In this book you will discover how to live as a “Bethany” in our world today, being set free to love and follow Jesus like never before.
Now for this week’s excerpts:
Book Beginnings is hosted by Gilion at Rose City Reader, who invites anyone to join in, saying: ‘Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author. Leave a link to your post. If you don’t have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.’
The beginning of God’s Favorite Place on Earth:
In every generation, Christians face the same challenges – namely doubt, discouragement, fear, guilt, division, rejection, and the struggle against consumerism and complacency.
An interesting beginning. I’m curious to see where this one goes, but it might be a little while before I get to it as I have a few other books lined up. However, I might skip ahead to this one anyway.
The Friday 56 is a book meme hosted by Freda’s Voice and the rules are as follows:
*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56.
*Find any sentence, (or few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Add your (url) post below in Linky. Add the post url, not your blog url.
It’s that simple.
From page 56 of God’s Favorite Place on Earth:
As I’ve said and written elsewhere, sectarianism and elitism are like body odor. Everyone else can smell it except those who have it.
Sectarianism and elitism are religiously transmitted diseases that appear symptomless to those who have them. So be sure to take into consideration the testimony of others on this point.
Make no mistake about it: Jesus Christ does not feel at home in a Christian or in a church that is sectarian or elitist. And the root of both is self-righteousness, which trumps every other kind of sin.
Maybe I will skip ahead and get into this book. What I like the most about Viola is that he gets to the point quickly and doesn’t beat about the bush. I’m looking forward to reading this one.
Booking Through Thursday – Returns (May 16)
This week Booking Through Thursday asks the following questions:
What book(s) do you find yourself going back to? Beloved children’s classics? Favorites from college? Something that touched you and just makes you long to visit?
(Because, doesn’t everybody have at least one book they would like to curl up with, even if they don’t make a habit of rereading books? Even if they maybe don’t even have the time to visit and just think back longingly?)
This is a fairly easy question for me to answer. There are quite a few books that I like to return to from time to time, but the one that I go back to most frequently is The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I read it at least once every couple of years or so. It is the book I credit the most with encouraging my love of reading. It is close to 40 years since I read it first and my first recollections of it are reading it at school along with the rest of my class and it being read by Bernard Cribbins on the BBC show Jackanory. I just loved the story from that first moment on. In recent years I encouraged my wife to read it, and I also bought copies for my two children, who have enjoyed reading it as well. I haven’t seen the recent movie adaptation and I’m not sure that I will bother with it at this point.
Other books I like to return to from time to time are Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books, C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia books, and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. As well as these, I also try to read through The Bible every few years.
WWW Wednesdays (May 15)
To play along with this weekly book event, hosted by Should Be Reading, just answer the following three (3) questions…
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?
Here are my answers for this week:
What are you currently reading? It’s the same answer as last week - I have a couple of books on the go at the moment: Jesus: A Theography (Leonard Sweet & Frank Viola) and My First Goal: 50 Players and the Goal that Marked the Beginning of Their Careers (Mike Brophy). The first one is a book I received for Christmas, the other is one I borrowed from the library last week.
What did you recently finish reading? I took time off from the above two books to finish off Moominpappa’s Memoirs by Tove Jansson. I’m slowly working through the eight Moomin books at the moment. I read some of them at least 35 years ago and I’m enjoying revisiting them now.
What do you think you’ll read next? I haven’t quite decided yet, but I may start the new Frank Viola book, God’s Favorite Place on Earth, which came in the mail today, or I may start the next Moomin book. If I can’t choose, I might just start them both!
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