John Daily > Recent Status Updates

Still just a good the third time around as the first.

I remember reading and enjoying Baldacci's first books but, then, I was in my early twenties. This is filled with literary tropes and stereotypical characters, and chapter 53 reads like a Wikipedia entry on the history of slavery. I'll finish it for the refreshingly original plot of "a black man is accused of murdering a white couple in the the South" (/s), but only because I don't have far to go.

Psalm 97:10-12: "You who love the Lord, hate evil! He preserves the souls of his saints; he delivers them out of the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holy name."

I believe this was my mother's favorite Psalm. I see why.

This book is maddening. It makes references to scripture that does not exist (such as "Genesis 12:21" - I even checked my NASB to be certain). Since this is a truncated version of a nearly 900-page book, there are omissions that are frustrating as concepts are explored without being defined. There are blanket statements that are left completely unsourced and unexplained. (Gen 10 genealogy is fictional. Says who?)

Saw this in the lobby of my hotel, and it was such a quirky, bizarre idea that I couldn't resist giving it a go.

(con't) he'll find her asleep in the living room with all the lights out and Carrraway curled beside her. Or he finds empty wine glasses around the house, in the library, beside the bed, and Russian novels tucked between cushions or left out in the terrace to bleach and dog-ear in the weather."

Tells you everything you need to know without an explicit physical description. Excellent.

This is how you introduce a new character creatively & effectively:

"Lately, there's been the quiet fatigue they both ignore. She's constantly on the verge of a breathy intake of air and whenever she walks into a room quiet it seems she's had to pause in the hallway to first gather herself up, like an actor walking on stage. Sometimes, when he comes home late from the office, he'll find her asleep in the (con't)s

Okay, I'm not a big sharer while I read, but this passage about the protagonist's toddler is creative and hilarious:

"Sometimes she plays a game now where she scatters her stuffed animals all over the living room. "Babies, babies," she mutters darkly as she covers them with white napkins. "Civil War Battlefield," we call it."

I think I like this book.

"What did you do today, you'd say when you got home from work, and I'd try my best to craft an anecdote for you out of nothing."

Wow, that line hits hard.

Thread: I've read two books by Piper ("John Calvin and His Passion for the Majesty of God" which I found lacking and "Supremacy of God in Preaching" which, for some reason Goodreads isn't recognizing as my having read it in 2023 despite my dates being, in fact, in 2023 The first half I loved; the second half should been dropped.).

If you'd like to do this too, you can get a copy for free at Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/345). There are entries for May 3,4,and 5th, and the next entry isn't until May 7th, so you have time to catch up!

Dracula is written in as epistolary fiction meaning, in this case, it is comprised entirely of dated journal entries and letters. As it happens, the book's first entry is May 3, and the last is November 6. That means you can read each entry as I am in "real time," as it happens! This is my second time reading it, but I couldn't resist this unique way of experiencing it.

"The external validation we crave from others is never as satisfying, or lasting, as the internal validation we give ourselves."

This is a surprising, unexpectedly well written, funny (and sometimes cringey) book. I'd been a fan of TableTop for years, but I picked this up because of its unique idea of annotating an old memoir. It's a fascinating and successful format I hope takes off.

"He was the thing that smelled like a ruptured septic tank. Probably because his internal septic tank had, in fact, ruptured."

God, I can't wait for this unclever, derivative, predictable dreck to be over.

Are you kidding? A reimagining of Norse mythology AND Loki?? I'm excited!

"The cabbage on the stove began to boil, filling the kitchen with the smell of poverty."

Well, that's subtle.

I'm so in awe of this book (and this translation). The storytelling is rich and complex, although the story itself is anything but. What surprises me is how absolutely captivating it is. The characters are varied and alive. The tension in the final chapter of book three made my stomach churn, and I began talking to one of the characters to tell them not to do what I was afraid they were going to do. So good.

What a fantastic book! Any fans of Kirosawa films should definitely check this out. It's an epic adventure that has stood the test of time, and is surprisingly funny.

"The problem today, seen as a whole, is indeed not that there is any lack of institutions and publications which provide possibilities for speaking of God. On the contrary, the problem is how a genuine word of God is to be asserted in the midst of this tremendous inflation of existing possibilities." - Gerhard Ebeling, speaking 2020 truth some fifty-four years ago.

I've been using this bible for the past couple of years in sermon prep, and found it to be extremely useful. It's also great if I'm working through a study that starts in the middle of a chapter, and I want to know the context of that chapter within an entire book. However, as I've been reading it, a few (mostly minor) problems have been revealed. Summaries aren't quite accurate (see 1 Sam 6), and eyestrain is real.

Reading this book is like placing a weight on your spirit that gets heavier the further you progress. It's amazing to me that it hasn't yet been translated into English.

I've never read Pasternak before, but I'm in love with the way he saw the world. The book is peppered with prose like this:

"The preparations were begun the day before. The furniture was moved around in the ballroom. In one corner the piano tuner struck the same chord dozens of times and scattered arpeggios like handfuls of beads."

Stunningly simple, yet beautiful.

This book makes me sad. ..not because of the story, but because it's boring and extremely predictable (I've recently hit a "plot twist" that was all but announced a loooooooooong time ago. If Atwood had written the foreshadowing passage in all capital letters it couldn't have been more obvious.).

Don't know why I'm reading this. I don't care about the subject matter; it feels like "news" that's at least two years old. And then there is the problem of the epigraph: "Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike."

If you're too much of a coward to claim your own book , you probably shouldn't start it with a quote about character. Should go fast though.

This has to be the most disappointing book I've read this year. My fingers are crossed, hoping it gets better, but as of now I'm not sure what the point of its existence is (aside from the financial boon it receives from the Hulu series).