( P ) Books

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: 25th Anniversary Edition

Robert M. Pirsig

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 528 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Self-Absorbed, Self-Pitying Rubbish 1 out of 5 stars.
6 of 17 people found this review helpful.

I agree with many of the other one-star reviews, this is actually the worst book I have ever read, out of thousands read, in my entire life. The worst book designation goes to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance because it is extremely, extremely, over-rated. I found it to be one of the most self-absorbed, self-pitying, whining complaints I had ever been exposed to - and I know about those, because I'm a former junior high school teacher.

Not only did it not contain any philosophical insights whatsoever, the book is just plain boring and badly written. The only book I have ever thrown in the garbage can - it's just rubbish, and that's where it belongs. I'm sure the author is a fine human being. I just think he wrote a very, very, bad book. Please don't waste your time on this book.

Editorial Review:

The narration of a summer motorcycle trip undertaken by a father and his son becomes a text which speaks directly to the confusions and agonies of existence, detailing a personal, philosophical odyssey.

The Road Less Traveled, 25th Anniversary Edition : A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth

M. Scott Peck

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 179 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Perhaps no book in this generation has had a more profound impact on our intellectual and spiritual lives than The Road Less Traveled. With sales of more than seven million copies in the United States and Canada, and translations into more than twenty-three languages, it has made publishing history, with more than ten years on the New York Times bestseller list.

Now, with a new Introduction by the author, written especially for this twenty-fifth anniversary deluxe trade paperback edition of the all-time national bestseller in its field, M. Scott Peck explains the ideas that shaped this book and that continue to influence an ever-growing audience of readers.

Written in a voice that is timeless in its message of understanding, The Road Less Traveled continues to help us explore the very nature of loving relationships and leads us toward a new serenity and fullness of life. It helps us learn how to distinguish dependency from love; how to become a more sensitive parent; and ultimately how to become one's own true self.

Recognizing that, as in the famous opening line of his book, "Life is difficult" and that the journey to spiritual growth is a long one, Dr. Peck never bullies his readers, but rather guides them gently through the hard and often painful process of change toward a higher level of self-understanding.

The Power of Positive Thinking

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 172 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A little dated in the presentation, but not the content. 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I found myself a bit distracted by the lack of specific references as to who the annecdotes were about. A lot of "a certain high ranking executive in an important industry, in a major US city..." These days we expect to be told which executive in which industry and and which in which city. Maybe we have all gotten a bit more skeptical about sources in the Internet age.
But that quibble asside, I have been making a concious effort to put Dr. Peale's ideas into practice, and found them very helpful. In another 50 years the presentation will seem more dated yet, but I am sure the ideas will be no less important. I am glad I bought the book.
As as has been noted in many other reviews, this book is about living a rich, full, happy life in a Christian framework. If that's not what you are looking for, keep looking!

Editorial Review:

Faith in yourself makes good things happen to you. This classic guide to self-esteem and success will help you learn how to: break the worry habit; get other people to like you; avoid "the jitters" in your daily work; believe in yourself and everything you do; develop the power to reach your goals, and so much more.

House

Frank Peretti, Ted Dekker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 282 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Extremely Dissapointed 1 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I like to find Christian authors for enlightenment combined with entertainment. I have not read any of Ted Dekker other books; however, I have read almost all of Peretti and was disappointed from this book to the point where I would actually write a review. Finished the book like a bad movie just to get it over with.

Editorial Review:

A mind-bending supernatural thriller from the creators of This Present Darkness and Showdown.

Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker - two of the most acclaimed writers of supernatural thrillers - have joined forces for the first time to craft a story unlike any you've ever read. Enter House - where you'll find yourself thrown into a killer's deadly game in which the only way to win is to lose...and the only way out is in.

The stakes of the game become clear when a tin can is tossed into the house with rules scrawled on it. Rules that only a madman - or worse - could have written. Rules that make no sense yet must be followed.

One game. Seven players. Three rules. Game ends at dawn.

El Conocimiento del Dios Santo

J. I. Packer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 77 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Tremendous Christian Classic 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is one of the great Christian classics that is a must read for every generation. It is not heady theology though it is thoroughly rooted in Scripture. It's underlying theme is the love of God for human kind expressed through his character. I felt very loved!

Knowing God book review 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I enjoyed the book Knowing God by J. I. Packer, it was thought provoking and very insightful. This book was part of a New Testament class and I usually sell my books after reading them but I am going to add Knowing God to my personal library.

Brilliant 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Next to the Bible this is my favorite book. I have read it several times and each time I learn something new. It will definately increase your knowlege of the true nature and character of God. You will not only learn more about God but you will truely know God better..Tell me what you think of my Christain fiction novel The Palace Theatre..The Palace Theatre

Essential Theology 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I have bought more than fifty copies of Knowing God for use in teaching the subject. Packer does an excellent job of helping us to have a relationship with the God of the universe rather than just knowing something about Him. I have never found another book that does as good a job of teaching meaningful theology to people who really want to know God.

Editorial Review:

SPANISH EDITION. "Knowing God" is one of the most important and popular Christian books of our time.

Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

Parker J. Palmer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 54 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

What am I missing? 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I read this book at the suggestion of a counselor who is helping me through depression and lack of interest in my career. While I was touched by his insights and authenticity, I was nagged by the practical aspect (or lack thereof) of letting your life speak. Palmer seemed to have an endless amount of time and resources to find his true calling in life. How does this apply to people who struggle just to put food on the table, who lack the means to get a higher education, or who have a family to support? Palmer's journey seems to be a luxury that many can't afford. Also, he seems to gloss over the difficulties involved in discovering that you picked the wrong path- not only for the self, but for all the others involved (spouse, children, friends).

A lovely book, but too "pie in the sky" for me.

Editorial Review:

With wisdom, compassion, and gentle humor, Parker J. Palmer invites us to listen to the inner teacher and follow its leadings toward a sense of meaning and purpose. Telling stories from his own life and the lives of others who have made a difference, he shares insights gained from darkness and depression as well as fulfillment and joy, illuminating a pathway toward vocation for all who seek the true calling of their lives.

Don't Waste Your Life (Group Study Edition)

John Piper

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 60 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A stunning indictment of self-serving, self-loving American christians. 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I just finished reading this book for the second time. Honestly, the first time it just rolled off me and I failed to grasp its message. This time was different. This time the Holy Spirit reached down and graciously opened my eyes to see what God is trying to tell His people through this magnificent little book.

Thank God for John Piper, or more accurately, thank God for John's passion for the glory of Christ. I have read several of Piper's books, including Desiring God and Let the Nations Be Glad. At the bottom of all of it, though, is our view of who we are in relation to God. Do we see Him as the almighty, transcendent, holy, eternal, loving, just, merciful, righteous Creator who is worthy of every iota of our attention and admiration? Or do we see Him as something less? Is God there merely to make our lives easy and prosperous and happy? Is He there just to prop up our self-esteem and assist our efforts at self-actualization? The way each person sees God determines how each person will live, and more importantly, for whom he or she will live.

There's a huge movement in Christianity today that seeks to convince believers, sadly with a distressing degree of success, that this life is all about us. God is our celestial ATM and the Affirmer of our own self-worth and self-image. Joel Osteen is perhaps the most highly visible example of this right now. It's a "me first" theology, a man-centered pseudo-Christianity which ignores the example and message of Christ to serve, to suffer, to spend and be spent, to die daily, for the good of others and the glory of God. Although I don't follow Osteen, I have found myself living far too much as if I did. That's our default setting as sinful humans -- to love self and the stuff of this life more than we love Christ.

Piper sounds a desperately needed wake-up call to the church of Jesus Christ to cast aside our self-serving, self-deceiving, and ultimately self-destructive perspective in favor of a Christ-focused, Christ-treasuring frame of mind and way of life. By default we seek to live for ourselves and make much of ourselves and treasure the things that advance those goals. Piper reminds us that all of this is passing away, and only Christ is eternal. Only Christ is worth treasuring. Only Christ should be the all-consuming focus of our passion. God, through Piper, calls on us to display His worth before a fallen, dying, rebellious world. And He only gives us one life in which to do it. But instead we show the world the worth of our homes, our careers, our hobbies and our retirement portfolios. In this way we waste our lives.

To every Christian who has fallen into the trap of treasuring this life as if this was all there is, to every Christian who has gotten caught up in believing that God is here to serve us, to every Christian who has been deceived into thinking that the goal of this life is to be happy with what the temporal world has to offer... READ THIS BOOK. Read it openly, prayerfully, repentently, and humbly. May Piper's message, which is nothing less than God's own message, pierce your heart and call you back to a singular passion to glorify Jesus Christ in every aspect of your life, and in that way avoid the irremediable tragedy of a wasted life. The church desperately needs to hear this, to internalize it, and to act upon it. I cannot recommend this excellent book highly enough.

Editorial Review:

John Piper writes, "God created us to live with a single passion: to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without this passion. God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of, but to make much of him in every part of our lives."

Most people slip by in life without a passion for God, spending their lives on trivial diversions, living for comfort and pleasure, and perhaps trying to avoid sin. This book will warn you not to get caught up in a life that counts for nothing. It will challenge you to live and die making the glory of God your singular passion. If you believe that to live is Christ and to die is gain, this audiobook is for you.

Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist

John Piper

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 111 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Love the Lord Your God With All Your Heart and All Your Soul 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

~Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist~ is the book that started it all. Christian minister John Piper offers a profoundly controversial teaching of 'Christian Hedonism' popular in some evangelical circles, particularly amongst Reformed Protestants. The teaching of Christian Hedonism was first advanced in this book.

What might you ask is a 'Christian Hedonist'? 'Christian Hedonism' at its core sounds contradictory. Piper has stated that such a provocative appellation is "appropriate for a philosophy that has a life changing effect on its adherents." Piper notes: "Christian Hedonism is a liberating and devastating doctrine. It teaches that the value of God shines more brightly in the soul that finds deepest satisfaction in him. Therefore it is liberating because it endorses our inborn desire for joy. And it is devastating because it reveals that no one desires God with the passion he demands. Paradoxically, many people experience both of these truths. That certainly is my own experience (p. 13)."

Piper underscored the message of his works with a theme that the Puritan minister Jonathan Edwards was adamant about: "God is most satisfied in us, when we are most satisfied in Him." Piper elucidates, "This is the essence of what it means to love God -- to be satisfied in him. In him! Loving God may include obeying all his commands; it may include believing all his Word; it may include thanking him for all his gifts; but the essence of loving God is enjoying all he is" (p. 24).

For the philosophically minded, it is worthy of notation that this book was born out of a subliminal opposition to philosopher Immanuel Kant's deontology. Kant suggested: "An action is moral only if one has no desire to perform it, but performs it out of a sense of duty and derives no benefit from it of any sort." Piper is adamant that Scriptures contradict this assertion. Actions can indeed be moral when a Christian pursues them for spiritual gain. It's a heartfelt expression of faith to covet spiritual treasures in Heaven, and seek them as a humble servant. And through faith, walking in the footsteps of God, men can and should strive for spiritual treasures, and Crowns of Righteousness in light of the promises of God. How can we accrue eternal rewards? By obeying God, being ambassadors for Christ, striving to labor for His kingdom, taking pleasure in that work, and being diligent in our appointed station in life as servants of God. In doing so, we are laying hold of 'Future Grace,' which is a subject of another Piper book that later capstoned his 'Desiring God' trilogy.

Editorial Review:

Scripture reveals that the great business of life is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. In this paradigm-shattering classic, newly revised and expanded, John Piper reveals that the debate between duty and delight doesn't truly exist: Delight is our duty. Readers will embark on a dramatically different and joyful experience of their faith

PEOPLE OF THE LIE VOL. 1 TOWARD A PSYCHOLOGY OF EVIL: Toward a Psychology of Evil

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 146 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

DANGER - This is a life-changing book 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Twenty-five years ago Dr. M. Scott Peck (author of "The Road Less Traveled" series of books) threw down the gauntlet, challenging the psychological and scientific communities to subject human evil to the same rigorous study as other human behaviors. Only within the last very few years has anyone had sufficient courage to take up that challenge.

Ever been relentlessly lied to - or about - by someone? Ever been stunned to realize that someone in your life somehow behaves as though he's the center of the universe and everything and everyone else is somehow LESS? Ever come face to face with virulent narcissism? This book will help you understand. But beware: such knowledge comes at a cost. Gone forever will be any vestage of naivete.

a helpful primer on thinking about evil 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

After reading, enjoying, and becoming inspired by The Road Less Travelled I had to take Dr. Peck's writing seriously. People of the Lie was a wrenching departure from his first book, a "nice book", as he says. Even tho I am no longer a Christian and in spite of the Christian overtones of POTL, I found it to be not just fascinating but helpful. It is a thought-provoking book, to say the least, and even "over the top" in parts. Still, to this day, perhaps 15 years after reading it, I think about evil in terms of Dr. Peck's principles. Whenever I encounter chronic confusion and pervasive lies I begin to think about the possibility of an evil personality. There are people I have known whose influences and actions struck me as evil, but their destructiveness was not evident at the time, when they seemed completely normal in every way. And that's one of his main points: we tend to think of evil as "back then and over there", not in the mother of three next door or the church deacon across the street, but that's exactly where it can be. And so often that destruction is visited upon children, so that the results are only apparent after years of awfulness, of crushed and crippled spirits, of destroyed souls. And he cautions us: it's all too easy to hate the evil person, but all of us are capable of evil. I believe he's right. This book is indeed an excellent beginning of a more scientific examination of the nature of evil.

Editorial Review:

In the first of a three-volume series, a psychiatrist uses case studies to reveal how evil exists in human behavior and explains how evil individuals can wreak havoc on the lives of people around them. Book available.

The Gnostic Gospels

Elaine Pagels

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Total reviews: 184 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

History of the Early Church 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The Gnostic Gospels is a scholastic look at some of the forces that threatened to split the early Christian Church. The battle, as portrayed by Pagels, was between Orthodoxy and Gnosticism. Her argument is based on ancient texts discovered in 1945 in Egypt. She talks about the battle between the Orthodox "winners" and the Gnostic "loser" on issues such as the nature of God, the meaning of the resurrection, and the role of the episcopacy. Since the Orthodox won the battle, our understanding of Christianity is descended from Orthodox beliefs.

Although Pagels puts forth her case strongly, I am left feeling unconvinced by her argument. Although Gnosticism did not win the battle, much of their beliefs have remained vital. Their understanding of approaching God through knowledge has many similarities to mysticism. Process Theologians share Gnosticism's view of God as part of Creation, as opposed to the ultimate source of Creation. In addition, Pagels paints Gnostics as a unified group. In fact, there were many sects that make up those who Pagel calls Gnostics.

For those who are new to Christianity in the early years following the death of Jesus, this book holds much valuable information. However, I feel that Pagel overstates her case and, as a result, comes off as a bit shallow and uncertain.

Editorial Review:

A provocative study of the gnostic gospels and the world of early Christianity as revealed through the Nag Hammadi texts.


From the Trade Paperback edition.