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cri du coeur: Edward W. Said, Orientalism

September 5, 2007 by David Baer

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

Ironically, the great Palestinian-American humanist scholar Edward Said wrote this essentially inaccurate book as a bold and pained cri du coeur two decades before the events of September 11th and the fresh entanglement by the West in the Middle East would render obvious its stature as required reading. One must not attempt to understand our world from the West without a careful listening to the late author’s cry. Continue Reading »

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the point of satiety: Arthur Agatston, The South Beach Diet. The Delicious, Doctor-Designed, Foolproof Plan for Fast and Healthy Weight Loss

September 5, 2007 by David Baer

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

‘Eat up!’, the diet doctor might say. That’s the point of this short introduction to the diet regimen that Dr. Agatston-a heart surgeon-stumbled upon while trying to figure out how to help his patients enjoy healthier hearts. When he discovered that the plan worked for people whose main concern-unlike their cardiac surgeons-was to lose weight, he produced this rarity, a diet book that treats its readers with respect and makes the assumption we want to know how things work. Including our bodies. Continue Reading »

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why they go away: The Disappearing Donor. Where Your Ministry’s Lapsed Givers Went, and Why

September 5, 2007 by David Baer

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

This little book makes available the details of an extensive research project that investigated why donors abandon the non-profit organizations about which they once felt such enthusiasm. In addition, the author provides fifteen short chapters of interpretation and suggestions for the non-profit workers who find themselves on the losing end of this pilgrimage of the heart. Continue Reading »

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two is not a crowd: Sally McGhee, Take Back Your Life! Using Microsoft Outlook to Get Organized and Stay Organized

September 5, 2007 by David Baer

This helpful book cannot be adequately summarized except by comparison and contrast with David Allen’s Getting Things Done. This is so for two reasons. First, McGhee claims in her acknowledgements to have co-developed the system that Allen has gone on to disseminate with extraordinary results. Second, the family resemblance between the two authors’ work is obvious and suggests shared genetics, even down to the marginal quotations that are meant to inspire but which I found irksomely cliché?. Continue Reading »

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natural law for overachievers: Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

September 5, 2007 by David Baer

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

Stephen Covey’s organizational juggernaut wants to align me with the way things are in the world so that I’ll cooperate rather than contradict the `principles’ that govern it. Ever since I bought the audio and print versions of this best-selling life management book and took a colleague’s recommendation to purchase his Outlook add-in program, my inbox is full of eager invitations to attend Franklin Covey seminars.

The numbers tell us that Covey is scratching where many of us itch. He has primed an organization not to let opportunity pass. He must have read his own books. Continue Reading »

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unified satire: R. Reed Lessing, Interpreting Discontinuity: Isaiah’s Tyre Oracle

September 5, 2007 by David Baer

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

R. Reed Lessing has written a sleeper.

His Concordia Seminary doctoral dissertation starts off reading like a cross between confessional screed and a too conventional presentation of biblical form criticism. Before long, however, the careful reader finds himself immersed in a compelling interpretation of one of the book of Isaiah’s most difficult `oracles against the nations’. Lessing understands the difficult text of Isaiah 23 not as a fairly inadequate redactional stitching together of disparate sources, but rather of an intentionally ironic piece of prophetic satire that uses the incalculable power of irony to bring low one of the eighth century’s (!) most potent economic powers. Continue Reading »

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almost to heaven: Donald E. Gowan, When Man Becomes God. Humanism and Hybris in the Old Testament (Pittsburgh Theological Monograph Series)

September 5, 2007 by David Baer

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

Though the Pittsburgh Theological Monograph Series does not exemplify cachet among biblical scholars, this little gem gives its parent reasons for pride. It is one of those studies in biblical theology that challenge biblical piety to reexamine its literary sources. In particular, Gowan finds that the Old Testament takes very seriously the modern-sounding fear of man becoming a god. The biblical version of such an apotheosis is spelled out with special reference to pagan nations and developed by way of the mythological imagery that associates itself with them (‘Prologue: When man becomes God’, pp. 1-6). Continue Reading »

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a weekly review?: David Allen, Ready for Anything. 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life

September 5, 2007 by David Baer

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

I never thought I could get too much of David Allen, the productivity guru whose Getting Things Done system has transformed my work and life habits. But this book borders on too much of a good thing.

At least, that is, if you sit down and read right through it. The trick is to ration. Continue Reading »

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wisdom’s intimacy: Proverbs 7

September 5, 2007 by David Baer

The biblical proverbs are framed in didactic summonses and calls to subjection. One is asked to endure the discipline of instruction, to prefer a rod on the back to the false freedom of the streets. It all sounds very hard and self-denying, and it is. Continue Reading »

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It’s like giving yourself a raise: Mary M. Hunt, Debt-Proof Living. The Complete Guide to Living Financially Free

September 4, 2007 by David Baer

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

With all the passion but none of the overbearing noise of the ex-smoker, the formerly indebted-up-to-her-eyeballs Mary Hunt dispenses not just advice, but a combination of encouragement and practicality to those who are being eaten alive by the modern scourge we call consumer debt. Continue Reading »

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