Get Your Read On
We’ve been doing a lot of reading these past weeks, and thought we might share of few of our favorites. Just to note – Richard has been keeping his Shelfari shelf more or less up to date for a couple of years, so you can jump over there and see more reviews and lists. So here it is – what we are reading on Colombia, Theology, and beyond!
From Mamie:
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
- A memoir in which Perkins’ says his function was to convince the political and financial leadership of underdeveloped countries to accept enormous development loans from institutions like the World Bank and USAID. Saddled with huge debts they could not hope to pay, these countries were forced to acquiesce to political pressure from the United States on a variety of issues.
Walking Ghosts by Steven Dudley
- Dudley’s book, which is based on a master’s thesis he wrote while filing reports for the Washington Post and National Public Radio in Colombia in the late 1990s, seeks to dig out the complicated roots of the political party the Unión Patriótica. This leads him into tangled accounts of the FARC, drug trafficking and paramilitarism. The book is dense, but compelling. (For First United folks, Steven Dudley is a child of the church, son of Carl and Shirley Dudley)
From Richard:
Evil Hour in Colombia by Forrest Hylton
- Hylton draws together a very detailed, historical look at the Colombian state since its inception – and it is still readable! The best single source on Colombia’s history of progressive movements followed by severe counter-reaction, all leading to today’s Colombia, described by Hylton as “War as Peace.”
God and Empire by John Dominic Crossan
- Crossan studies the early church and the formation and context of the New Testament – all under the lens of the Roman Occupation, and what God is saying in general about occupation. It is fascinating how we often overlook this all-encompassing fact of first and second century Mediterranean life when we look at the New Testament. It is certainly interesting to me to read this book in the context of Colombia, as a citizen of the United States, and think about what God is saying to us as members of the empire today.
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Ok, so its not all heady stuff. We just finished reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett and Richard is finally ready to dive in to Reducido al Reino de los Pingüinos, a chapter book in Spanish! If you have suggestions for further reading, throw them in the comments!
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Most of my non-secular reading consists of research around what I will be presenting to my adult Sunday School class. I have also enjoyed Three Cups of Tea and Same Kind of Different As Me and most recently, The Help. As someone who was a young adult during those days, it caused me to reflect on how things were and the fact that I was truly aware of all that was going on. Amazes me now. JoAnn
“Bookies” is discussing “The Help” in Feb! I just finished Mark Braverman’s Fatal Embrace (Christian guilt over the holocaust and Jewish victimhood and memory of suffering is the embrace that locks us in the status quo over Israel/Palestine.) He critiques the notion of “empire” too…
Good to know the termites didn’t get ALL your books!
I’ve been thinking about reading the Empire book… took a gospel of Mark class with LSTC prof Dave Rhoads and talked a lot about empire.
I’m more likely to read when someone I know recommends! Thanks
and prayers for you both
Hey, I just gathered a list of McCormick community book recommendations over the Christmas holiday – see below. Figured y’all would want to take a look. If you’re looking for some heady fiction, have you checked out Richard Powers? Lorien loved The Time of Our Singing and Plowing the Dark.
http://mccormick.edu/news/feast-your-eyes-recommended-reading-mccormick-community
Love the concept behind Shelfari. Thanks for sharing the site and some good titles for the future. Seems like another great way for me to spend time I don’t have playing in a virtual bookstore, back tracking books read etc. Fun stuff.