Currently reading?

CrimsonWarrior wrote:I started reading The Fellowship of the Ring at least two months ago I think. I stopped after chapter 4 and have been reluctant to pick it up again because it's just very slow. I know a lot of people really like the Lord of the Rings movies, but are there any big fans of the books here? Do things get better later on?

Fellowship gets really good by the halfway point. The Two Towers slows down during part of book 3 and the beginning of book 4, but then it picks up again. I haven’t finished Return of the King yet.

CrimsonWarrior wrote:I started reading The Fellowship of the Ring at least two months ago I think. I stopped after chapter 4 and have been reluctant to pick it up again because it's just very slow. I know a lot of people really like the Lord of the Rings movies, but are there any big fans of the books here? Do things get better later on?

Big fan here.  I've read the trilogy several times.  Tom Bombadil is a distraction from the main story arc, I'm not sure why Tolkien wrote him in.  Maybe my favorite chapter in the trilogy is chapter 2 of Fellowship when Gandalf explains the backstory to Frodo.  To me it's almost Bible-like in epic-ness.  I'd say give it more time, at very least through the first half of Fellowship.  It can be a little slow, but I got drawn in by the epic-ness of the world Tolkien created.

L8T wrote:

After having read the Bible front to end with my wife a chapter a day we now started reading it chronologically. We do a chapter a day as this allows us to thoroughly study the Scriptures. One chapter usually takes around 1 hour (plus/minus depending on density and length) with all cross references. This will take approx. 2.5 to 3 years.

CrimsonWarrior wrote:I started reading The Fellowship of the Ring at least two months ago I think. I stopped after chapter 4 and have been reluctant to pick it up again because it's just very slow. I know a lot of people really like the Lord of the Rings movies, but are there any big fans of the books here? Do things get better later on?

I love slow, personally. I won't say stop reading...but just be ready for Rivendell.

The quickest pacing is during battles - in terms of print, they're usually over pretty quickly.

eatbugs wrote:

CrimsonWarrior wrote:I started reading The Fellowship of the Ring at least two months ago I think. I stopped after chapter 4 and have been reluctant to pick it up again because it's just very slow. I know a lot of people really like the Lord of the Rings movies, but are there any big fans of the books here? Do things get better later on?

Tom Bombadil is a distraction from the main story arc, I'm not sure why Tolkien wrote him in. 

The Tom Bombadil episode is a microcosm of everything that makes the story what it is. Think about how many manifestations of the Harrowing of Hades there are in this book: Tom rescuing the hobbits from the Barrows, Aragorn calling out the dead army, Sam rescuing Frodo from Cirith Ungol, the delivery of King Theoden, and the two hobbits' journey into Mordor, itself, in order to rescue the world. The hobbits are trapped by death, saved, and then sent on with a purpose - just like we are.

In addition, Tom is shown as what a complete opposite of Sauron might be: he is content with his little corner of creation, and he does not overpower or control anything; that is what makes him Master of it.

If the hobbits had never been to the Barrow, Merry would not have had the Dunedain sword, and so his stabbing of the Witch-King would not have had the same narrative impact.

Etc.

Calvinism and Middle Knowledge: A Conversation, edited by John D. Laing, Kirk R. MacGregor, and Greg Welty

Pethead wrote:Calvinism and Middle Knowledge: A Conversation, edited by John D. Laing, Kirk R. MacGregor, and Greg Welty

Oh, that would be an awesome read! Is it pretty academic?

Sevenoneself wrote:

Pethead wrote:Calvinism and Middle Knowledge: A Conversation, edited by John D. Laing, Kirk R. MacGregor, and Greg Welty

Oh, that would be an awesome read! Is it pretty academic?

I’ll let you know!

Dean Koontz- The House at the End of the World

Jack Carr - The Terminal List.

I watched the series already but my military-loving brother-in-law said the book is worth the read.

Pethead wrote:

CrimsonWarrior wrote:I started reading The Fellowship of the Ring at least two months ago I think. I stopped after chapter 4 and have been reluctant to pick it up again because it's just very slow. I know a lot of people really like the Lord of the Rings movies, but are there any big fans of the books here? Do things get better later on?

Fellowship gets really good by the halfway point. The Two Towers slows down during part of book 3 and the beginning of book 4, but then it picks up again. I haven’t finished Return of the King yet.

This gives me a chance to catalog my history with The Lord of the Rings. *Breathes in deeply*  Let me tell you of a sordid tale about my experience with JRR Tolkien's writings.  When I was growing up, we had a copy of the Lord of the Rings movie.  The one with Elijah Wood and directed by Peter Jackson right?  Afraid not.  No, this was the 80's. This was an animated version directed by Ralph Bakshi, who is kind of a freak and made pornographic cartoons in the past.  It's hardly faithful and cuts out giant portions of the book.  However, what the heck did I know?  I watched it over and over.  The first 30-40 minutes is real good and introduces the Tolkien lore quite appropriately and sparks the imagination.  Usually I would stop about an hour in and give up before it falls off the rails.

They didn't follow up the movie, since it bombed, and, years later, a version of Return of the King was made for television and it didn't measure up in animation quality and I watched it once.   A few years later my sister read the first 60 pages of The Hobbit to me on a long trip.  Later on, I read the whole thing and loved it.  Then I started reading fantasy books that were newer in the bookstore like Dragonlance Chronicles, The Greyhawk series, The Thomas R. Covenant series, Terry Brook's Sword of Shanara series, etc, etc.  Ironically, I never read through Fellowship of Ring, Two Towers, much less Return of the King.  Sadly, I had watched the animated movie so many times that it sapped me of curiosity thus I blew it off for decades.  It's like when I collected comics, I never bought Batman, since I watched so many episodes of Batman growing up and saw the movies, so I thought it was treading over similar territory thus I sapped myself of many great tales like Frank Miller's writings.  Still reading? Suggestion .  Back to what I was saying about picking various fantasy novels.  These were sometimes 9 book series and quite intricate demanding quite a bit of time and attention.  Yet, I let the Tolkien books gather dust on the shelves. Thus I was ingratiating myself in long-winded fantasy novels influenced directly by Tolkien's tombs, but I denied myself the proper order of reading them first. 

Well, fast forward past college and getting into the work place.  I stopped reading fantasy altogether and only read the Tad Williams fantasy series' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn during about a 15 year span.  Heavily recommended for fantasy freaks - I was quite impressed with this action descriptions and creatures.  Finally, the Lord of the Rings movies were coming out and there was much fanfare pre-release of a live-version adaptation of the Rings trilogy.  I was pretty stoked about, since I loved The Hobbit and the first Hour of Bakshi's unfaithful, but entertaining adaptation.  Only issue was - I HAD NEVER READ THE BOOKS completely!  I started Fellowship but couldn't get passed pg. 100 much less get through the more academic Silmarrillion.  I tried about 9 months before the release of Fellowship, but quit before 100... again...  The deadline was approaching and I called myself a Tolkien fan?  I even recommended the books to a friend of mine years earlier who wasn't into fantasy at all - he eventually bought in after some convincing and became a huge fan, putting me to shame.  So, that summer, I decided, "I'm going to get through that sucker."  And... I read it.  Sometimes while watching another movie that was not so great with other people around who found it rather odd.  I don't remember struggling too much with either of the ffirst two books once I got past the first hundred or so pages of Fellowship.  The I got to Return of the King, and man, it was loooooong.  I kept flipping to the back to see how far I had to go and it was 544 pages long!!!  So I started speed reading to get through it.  Then, I discovered my mistake around page 350...  Ahhh, it has about 200 pages of appendixes...  So, I was speeding through the destruction of the ring and was like, "ah, ooops" that ended abruptly.  But I slowed down and enjoyed the scouring of the Shire where the Hobbits get their revenge on Saruman and his goons.  I had no idea, I thought Saruman would have died in the war or at Ghandalf's hands but by Grimer Wormtongue - insane!!!

Thus I completed the trilogy in time to see the movie so I could compare and contrast, wiping the sweat off my brow.  And, was, quite disappointed to see how rushed the Fellowship adaptation seemed.  However, Pete did redeem himself with a director's cut and improved on it but it wasn't perfect nor exactly what you think of the visuals while reading but that is impossible thus an borderline invalid criticism. 

So you'd think I would have gone back to the books many times by now and have my Tolkien lore memorized knowing it like one should know the bible... Nope, never even finished the Silmarrillion much less revisited the most highly regarded tale of the 20th Century.

BTW, I never read Dune but have seen all three adaptations and enjoy them all.

Just Thinking: About the State by Darrell Harrison and Virgil Walker. Great book that analyzes current political issues biblically. Uses lots of Scripture. I'm reading it for two different reading challenges.

Jack Reacher: One Shot by Lee Child

I'm now reading Spiritual Depression: It's Causes and Cure by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. It's a collection of 21 of his sermons written in book form, and man, I wish someone had given it to me a long time ago.

Preston Sprinkle: Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has to Say

Pethead wrote:Preston Sprinkle: Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has to Say

Oh, this one would be on my list as well. Review?

I've been listening to a ton of Theology in the Raw, especially as he has been researching the role of women in the church and there's been many fascinating interviews in the last year.

Sevenoneself wrote:

Andreas89 wrote:Fault Lines by Voddie Baucham

Thoughts/Review?

I finished it, and I can say that I have become more aware of what CT/CRT/intersectionality is and where it stands opposed to reality and especially biblical revelation. I also understand the racial thing in the USA a bit better now, funnily enough because Voddie also shared his own experience. I said funnily because he rejects standpoint epistemology.

Commando-Johnny Ramone

The wife and I just finished reading:
Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage by Gavin Ortlund

And just started
Don't Hold Back: Leaving Behind the American Gospel to Follow Jesus Fully by David Platt

deathisgain wrote:The wife and I just finished reading:
Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage by Gavin Ortlund

Excellent book.

Pethead wrote:

deathisgain wrote:The wife and I just finished reading:
Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage by Gavin Ortlund

Excellent book.

Diddo. And I recently listened to an interview online with him and Al Mohler discussing this issue. It was a good listen.

Sevenoneself wrote:

Pethead wrote:

deathisgain wrote:The wife and I just finished reading:
Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage by Gavin Ortlund

Excellent book.

Diddo. And I recently listened to an interview online with him and Al Mohler discussing this issue. It was a good listen.

I enjoyed some of it, but felt it bogged down in repetitive dialog sometimes. My wife didn't really enjoy it. She doesn't like deep theological stuff, feels like it just gets into a bunch of technical babble.

Walter Wink - The Powers that Be
 
I picked this one up because another Jonathan Pageau fan recommended it, and while there are some decent points made from a guy with a very interesting history in nonviolent resistance movements, his flawed (and left-wing-based) understanding of the Old Testament, Church history, and history in general taint his presentation, and he makes the idea of breaking tyrannies/dominions the main point of Jesus' life and death.

I haven't finished it, so I'm not sure what he's going to have to say in the chapter concerning homosexuality.

I’ve been slowly making my way through Kenneth Stewart’s Ten Myths about Calvinism: Recovering the Breadth of the Reformed Tradition. I’m really enjoying it and recommend it to anyone interested in the topic, whatever your perspective.

Pethead wrote:I’ve been slowly making my way through Kenneth Stewart’s Ten Myths about Calvinism: Recovering the Breadth of the Reformed Tradition. I’m really enjoying it and recommend it to anyone interested in the topic, whatever your perspective.

Sounds great. From the title it looks like it's more thoughtful and broad, and not just ear candy.