Simple Church by Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger

Rainer and Geiger value simplicity as a means towards achieving mission. Their book, Simple Church, was written for church leaders about managing churches. However, its advice can be extrapolated for any individual or organization. Four words summarize the message: "Clarity, Movement, Alignment, Focus." By clarity, they mean a simple design that implies a process. By movement, they mean a sequence of steps through which the members can progress towards more meaningful participation. Alignment speaks of programs or activities that must all serve the process. Because of the commitment to focus, anything that does not align with the process does not happen, on purpose. The book is a very fast read - if you've read a lot of leadership books it is skimmable, but it is challenging, makes the reader think, and for me, at least, may just cause a realignment of my patchwork of routine projects and activities.

Rainer, Thom S., Eric Geiger. Simple Church. c. 2006. B & H Publishing. Nashville, TN

Persona Non Grata, by Ruth Downie

Here is a murder mystery set in the ancient Roman empire that brings Gaius home from his post as a physician with the army in Britain where he lives with the barbarian, Tilla. He bought Tilla as a slave but twice asks her to marry him. At first she refused. Then she accompanies him to his villa in Italy after he has been summoned home by an urgent letter purporting to come from his younger brother. All the difficulties of any cross-cultural romance come up in this story. His family doesn't know about Tilla until she arrives. The gift she worked so hard on for them is culturally repulsive. Fortunately, she figured that out before she gave it. The new Christian cult has everyone concerned and confused but Tilla begins to experiment with prayer to the new god you address as father and who does not expect sacrifices. I found her mixed up application of what she deduced from one Christian meeting amusing and totally believable. Downie does a great job layering multiple intersecting plot lines that resolve satisfactorily at the end. The story engaged me from beginning to end. I picked the book up for fun and found it touches many of the same themes I work with in my own writing. The research she did about medical practices, poisons, and the life behind the scenes of a gladiator is impressive. She wove it into the story so that the whole piece was both believable and fascinating.





Downie, Ruth. Persona Non Grata. c. 2009. Bloomsbury

Eye Contact, by Cammie McGovern

I was given this book two Christmases ago but because the write up on the back cover made it sound terrifying, I did not read it until this past Sunday when I began reading in the morning and finished the book in the early evening. A young girl who is on the Autism spectrum gets murdered in the woods that connect to the school playground during recess. Two other special education students, both also on the Autism spectrum, witness the crime but are unable to communicate what they saw. At least, they can't answer the police investigators questions in typical ways. Eye Contact is a murder mystery that can only be solved when the adults penetrate the children's unusual logic. Carefully constructed from layers of plot and an assortment of back-story relationships between the adult characters, McGovern has created a sensitive story filled with good information about the Autism spectrum and the many therapeutic approaches that parents of children on the spectrum use. It is a compelling read but not scary which is why I really enjoyed it.

Cammie McGovern, Eye Contact. 2006. Penguin Books

Ahab's Wife or The Star-Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund

The first sentence of this novel hooked me even though Ahab wasn't mentioned again for many pages, indeed: "Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last." It is the story of Una, plopped into the cast of characters living in the middle of the nineteenth century in Nantucket, Kentucky, and aboard the Pequod among other whaling ships. The plot was entirely predictable but I think that both the plot and the protagonist were excuses in which Naslund hid a Dickensian social commentary on the period roles of women, African Americans, homosexuals, and other marginalized groups in pre-Civil War America like dwarves and mentally handicapped individuals. Sprinkled through the pages are tensions caused when the someone doesn't fit or actually acts contrary to the status quo. The book is full of unresolved moral, religious, and ethical dilemmas. Girl babies named Liberty die twice and a boy baby named Justice lives although fatherless and not quite legitimate. The writing is quite good- the book made the New York Times Best Seller List. However, it seems overly long but then, perhaps because of its length and the time it affords for reflection along the way, it is provocative. It is also filled with surprising historical details like the basket of ceramic dildos offered to Una when, newly "married" to Captain Ahab she was left alone at home when the Pequod sailed away for a three year long voyage. I'm not sure why Ahab's Wife was subtitled the Star Gazer, though. That role belonged to another melancholy woman in Nantucket....