Pages & Paws

Writing, Reading, and Rural Life With a Border Collie

Category Archives: Book Reviews – Non-Fiction


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Move Over, Erma: There’s a New Queen on the Scene

Stand All the Way Up: Stories of Staying in it When You Want to Burn it All Down (B&H Publishing, 2020)

By Sophie Hudson

Christian Life/Self-Confidence/Faith/Humor

Move over, Erma Bombeck. There’s a new queen on the humor scene. Her name is Sophie Hudson. And although she may not be new to you, she was to me. Ditto her hilarious, excruciatingly insightful Stand All the Way Up: Stories of Staying in it When you Want to Burn it All Down.

Talk about a breath of fresh air.

Hooked

Anyone who opens a book with monkeys invading an open air lodge in Kenya and stealing Cajun-flavored Pistachios has me hooked. Ditto an author who candidly admits she’s “having issues” with birthdays where a “nine” rolls over into a zero, and her “stand-offish relationship” with fifty.

I hear ya, sista.

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ATTN AUTHORS: Kimber’s 8 Book Review Rules

Shhh! Mom’s snoozing. So it’s just us, okay?

Can we talk? Like, about book reviews? Cuz Mom and I are getting flooded with requests for book reviews. We love it! But we also want to be efficient. So we decided to set and clarify some basic ground rules for our book reviews. Here they are:

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‘Petitions From My Heart’: Little Book, Big Message

Petitions From My Heart: A Scriptural Guide for Effective Prayers by [Carol E. Hind]

By Carol E. Hind

Petitions From My Heart is a little gem of a book for serious Christian intercessors.

Indeed, if you’re looking for a few “quickie” prayer ideas to zip through on the run or a “shotgun approach” to praying, this isn’t it. PFMH is for serious prayer warriors who are committed to “raising the roof” from their knees.

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“Walks With Sam” Wades Into Grace, Dives Deep

Walks with Sam: A Man

Walks with Sam: A Man, a Dog, and a Season of Awakening (Roundfire Books, August 2020)

 

By David W. Berner

 

He had me at “dog” and “walk.” But the rest of this book is so absorbing and delightful, it’s like wading into eddies of grace and riding ‘em into deep water.

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Ever Feel Alone? Why You Should Give New Lucado Book a Look

You Are Never Alone: Trust in the Miracle of God's Presence and Power

You Are Never Alone: Trust in the Miracle of God’s Presence and Power

(Thomas Nelson, September 2020)

By Max Lucado

 

 

Ever feel like no one’s listening? No one cares? Ever feel stuck? Like no one can help you, hear you, or heed your call? Then this book is for you.

Packed with parables of hope, grace, and healing, You Are Never Alone takes readers on a rousing ride through gospel of John. A fresh coat of joy, perspective, and personal polish is applied to Jesus’ miracles, from Cana to Capernaum. A storm in Galilee. A crowd listening to their tummies growl. A paralytic. A blind man. Two cemeteries. And an empty tomb.

The Heartbeat

The heartbeat of this book is this:

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Why “Waking Up” is a Snoozer

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Waking Up on the Appalachian Trail: A Story of War, Brotherhood, and the Pursuit of Truth (BooksGoSocial, 2020)

By N.B. Hankes

Got insomnia? Forget Sominex. This snoozefest will put you to sleep in a foot fall.

Waking Up supposedly chronicles an Army vet’s hike with his brother along the Appalachian Trail as the author looks for “time in the wilderness” to help provide “answers and clarity” regarding his time in Iraq, or… something. (I’m deliberately not linking to it. You’re welcome.)

But this isn’t a hiking book or a trail tome. It’s not even much of a “memoir.” Most of Waking Up is just a convenient springboard for a slow roll into a slathering left-wing socio-economic harangue of Springer Mountain proportions. Indeed, a sizeable slice of the book is spent alternately blasting society for its alleged greed and corruption and blaming everyone else on planet earth for the author’s own lack of preparation, planning, and poor choices.

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From Appalachia to Yale Law: ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Delivers Searingly Honest Memoir of Upward Mobility

Image result for Book Cover Hillbilly Elegy

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

Thorndike Press, 2016

By J.D. Vance

You may want to buckle up before plunging into this memoir. Cuz it’s a doozy. It’s also an eye-opener worth the plunge.

“To understand me, you must understand that I am a Scots-Irish hillbilly at heart” explains the author in the Introduction. He grew up poor, in the “Rust Belt,” in an Ohio steel town that “has been hemorrhaging jobs and hope for as long as I can remember.” But he graduated from Yale Law. That’s a pretty compelling story any way you slice it. So I’d listen up ‘fize you. Like this:

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How ‘Adorning the Dark’ Ignites the Creative Process

Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making

Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making (B&H Publishing, 2019)

By Andrew Peterson

Ever read a book and started jumping up and down with:

 “Yes! YES! He gets it! I get what he gets! Someone has finally put into words what I’ve felt about the creative process for years! Zippity doo-dah, zippity-aye!”

Andrew Peterson’s Adorning the Dark is one of those books.

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10 Reasons Why You Should Get ‘A Higher Calling’

Image result for A Higher Calling Pursuing Love Book cover

A Higher Calling: Pursuing Love, Faith, and Mount Everest for a Greater Purpose (Waterbrook, June 2020)

By Captain Harold Earls and Rachel Earls

A Higher Calling is the compelling true story of one couple’s courage and commitment, devotion and faith in the face of high adventure, unexpected adversity, and spine-tingling danger.

Co-authored by Harold and Rachel Earls, Higher is equal parts biography/memoir, love story, epic adventure, travelogue, and faith-journey. It’s a delightful, uplifting read about two people who sacrifice much to achieve a common goal: summiting personal and actual “Mount Everests.”

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No Foolin’! 7 Novel Hits & Misses

Kimber here. Mom says it’s time for a reading wrap-up. That’s when she does her version of recently read hits and misses. Why? So you can avoid the dumpster fires. Not waste your time on doggie doo-doo that some fluff ball who couldn’t track kibble with two noses published. And grab some Good Stuff.

Me? I’m going to catch up on some zzzzs from the delicious comfort of my brand-new doggie bed, courtesy of MyPillow. (Thanks, Mom! You’re Awesome!)

But first, to books! The stinkers first. These are the titles you don’t need to waste your time on (aka, The Bad, and the Really, Really Ugly):

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