Timothy's Thoughts

A bigail Jones takes a summer job as a nanny only to discover that she is working for a man that the news media has been looking for. It’s the story that will save her job as a magazine journalist, if she can get the story without revealing who she is. A Cowboy’s Touch by Denise Hunter is a romance set on a ranch in Montana. It isn’t the kind of story I would typically buy, but Denise sent me a copy after I participated in a picture caption contest. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. It was a very enjoyable read. I noticed several similarities in this story to the story in Searching For Mom and Mother Not Wanted , so you can imagine that it would be easy for me to slip into the environment of this story. In particular, this story involves a single parent with an eleven-year-old child. That is about the same age as the girls in those two stories. It is a Christian romance, so the book as all of the romance elements you would expect with hints of a growing relationship wit...

I t’s no surprise that Todd Burpo’s book, Heaven Is For Real is a bestseller. People love hearing about that place Shakespeare called “the undiscovered country.” We want to know that there is something after death. Parents who have lost children want to know that their children are all right. People are looking for hope behind that great curtain of death. I believe many people will read Heaven Is For Real looking for that hope and they will find what they are looking for. At the very least, they will walk away having had an enjoyable read. But to be honest, I was a skeptic when I began reading Heaven Is For Real and I don’t think the book has done anything to relieve my skepticism. The book is told from the point of view of a father who hears about his son’s near death experience. Having read the Bible, I believe it is quite possible that God could take a child to heaven for a while. We have plenty of examples. But I see too much of myself in this child. Todd Burpo’s basic argumen...

F or today’s post I want to review Whosoever Will . I try to make it my policy to review only those books that I think people should read. This book is no exception. In fact, I would suggest that you don’t bother reading the rest of this review and go ahead and buy the book. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. If you are, something is wrong with you. Whosoever Will is a written as a critique of five-point Calvinism from by a group of non-Calvinists. I think it’s important to use the term non-Calvinist rather than another term because no other term seems to fit, unless we simply say they are Baptists. Often in the discussion of Calvinism there is an assumption that a person is either a Calvinist or and Arminian . The authors of the book don’t fit well in either camp. If you read nothing other than chapters 1, 10 and 11 then you will have gotten your money’s worth. Chapter one is a sermon on John 3:16 by Jerry Vines. In recent years it seems like we’ve seen a lot of people talking...

I keep saying that I’m not going to review any more books unless I really like them. I’m compromising today by reviewing Rooms by James L. Rubart because I mentioned it in a previous post, saying that I intended to read it to see if there was any truth to the reviews showing up on Amazon.com as a result of people who read the free version. In a word, this book is weird . It is about the owner of a software company who inherits a house on the beach. The house is modeled after the man’s heart. We later discover that the house is demon possessed, so perhaps that means the man is also demon possessed, but that isn’t made clear in the book. In any case, the more attached the man gets to his life at the house on the beach the more he loses of his previous life. People who were once a big part of his life become as if they had never met him. He has memories of these things, but they don’t. I might as well tell you that it’s a case of deus ex machina all over the place. I found the book par...

T his is a book review and to keep the federal government pencil pushers happy, I am writing this review of my own free will. I purchased the book with my own money and neither Tyndale nor C. J. Darlington paid me any money for my comments concerning this book. She didn't even buy me a cup of coffee. That being said, I'm going to try to keep to my previous commitment concerning book reviews and keep this review positive. Fortunately, that isn’t impossible with this book. First, let me say that this book is not what I expected. “Christy Williams never imagined that a stolen Hemingway first edition would leader her back to the sister she left fifteen years ago,” the back of the book says. “But when things begin to unravel, she finds herself on May’s doorstep, fearing for her life. After a bittersweet reunion, will the two discover that some hurts can’t be healed or is there a tie that’s thicker than blood?” After reading that, I expected that the story would begin with Chris...

M ark this one down in the you’ve got to be kidding me category. Thomas Nelson has announced that they are rebranding Book Review Bloggers as BookSneeze. I know Mike Hyatt is a fan of Seth Godin and all of that, but this takes the cake. The name doesn’t fit the image I have of Thomas Nelson. When I think of Thomas Nelson, I think of a old respectable company. I think of Bibles. I think of quality. What I don’t think of is snot coming out of my nose—until now. I joined Book Review Bloggers and review a few books through that program. I have one book that I haven’t had time to review. I was thinking of rushing through it and writing a review, but with the name change, I might just forget it. (Thomas Nelson, you can have the book back, if you want it. I would just as soon never say that I am reviewing a book through the BookSneeze program.) 

In The X and Y of Buy , Elizabeth Pace makes the claim that because men and women think differently those of us who must try to sell products and services must take into account those differences if we hope to make the sale. Throughout the book, she notes differences, such as how women tend to buy from people within their network and men tend to buy from people within the same organization. If the assertions Elizabeth Pace makes throughout the book are accurate, the book will help your company reach out to the half of the population that you are not currently reaching. She does provide references to back up many of her claims. Frequently, she brings up the topic of primitive man and relates the hunter/gatherers of that time to modern man. It is unclear whether she is saying that modern man is the way we are because out ancestors were the way they were or if she is saying that the same traits that make man and woman different today are the same traits that produced the hunter/gather...

T hree heavy hitters in the marketing community went at it this week. It began with Chris Anderson's book, Free . The second heavy hitter, Malcolm Gladwell, wrote a review for The New Yorker titled Priced To Sell: Is free the future? . His review disagreed with much of what Chris Anderson said in his book. Gradwell's claim being that no matter how cheap individual units of something become, the infrastructure of producing the whole will be too large to truly make them free. On Tuesday, Seth Godin came to Anderson's defense with his post, Malcolm is Wrong . So, who is right? Are Chris Anderson and Seth Godin correct that we will reach the point where information is so cheap that we might as well give it away? Have we reached the point? Or is Malcolm Gladwell correct that the cost of generating and delivering the information will prevent us from offering it for free? What was it your mother told you? There is no free lunch. I definitely am going to have to side with Malc...

H ow do you handle criticism? As writers, we open ourselves up for it. We labor over some of the decisions we make with our writing, from what our characters like to the theme of our books to whether to self-publish or traditionally publish. It is all open to scrutiny and every writer has his share of praise and criticism. We love the praise, but the criticism is hard to take. It might be better if we don’t handle criticism the way mediabistro.com reports Alice Hoffman reacted to a less than ideal review . Allegedly, she chose to respond by Tweeting the reviewer’s phone number and e-mail address, encouraging her fans to respond to the review. I can think of worse things she could have done, but the word for this is vengeance . She later apologized . I’m sure most of us have looked at something someone said or did that we didn’t like and thought, “I’m going to make him pay. He’ll regret he ever did that.” If I were to guess, that is what I believe must have been going through Alice Hof...

T he Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher follows the path of a real estate agent who is struggling until he realizes the power of marketing himself as a Christian. One thing leads to another and he begins attending church, because that’s what Christians do. But it doesn’t stop there. The real money isn’t in selling real estate as a Christian, but in pastoring a church. It isn’t long before Ryan Fisher goes off and starts his own church, a church that doesn’t offer salvation for free, a church modeled after his own heart, because you see, Ryan Fisher isn’t saved. I was somewhat disappointed when I began reading this book. The Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher has been billed as satire, so I cracked the spine expecting a good satire. The purpose of satire is to point out what is wrong with what people do. It typically shows these actions at an extreme, so that while the story may seem unbelievable, there is no mistaking the real life reference. Rob Stennett does not give us this. In fact, ...

The Race: From Pit Row to Victory Lane by Rick Lemons is about how we can achieve victory in this spiritual race that every Christian is in. Throughout the book, Rick uses analogies from NASCAR races to illustrate his points. If you are a NASCAR enthusiast, you will recognize some of the names and races he mentions, but don’t let that scare you away if you aren’t. He writes in a very approachable manner and spends much more time on, shall we say, the important stuff than the NASCAR analogies. To give some examples, Rick compares the Word of God to the fuel a car needs for a race. Without it, we aren’t going anywhere. He compares an accountability partner to a driver’s spotter. Sure, we could race without one, but we’ll have some trouble with the blind spots. He compares prayer to talking to the Crew Chief. In each chapter, he shows us why these things are important by going to the Word of God and telling us what God has to say about it. In the past few years, I have spent time with au...

A good review is always nice, it gives me a chance to brag a little. (I promise I won’t brag too much.) For the Love of a Devil received what I would call high praise in review published in the December 3, 2008 edition of the Baptist Trumpet . The editor, Diane Spriggs, wrote “Although it has been compared to Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers (which I have read), For the Love of a Devil , by Timothy Fish, is written in a modern setting that I could more readily understand and takes a decidedly different approach to this Old Testament love story. I enjoyed both books.” Mrs. Spriggs continues her review by writing about how she felt as she began reading the book, saying that she felt “a little uncomfortable” at first, but it made her think of her personal relationship with God. As she ends her review she states that “more than anything, when I finished the book I felt loved and pursued—not because of who I am, but because of who He is!” I am grateful to Mrs. Spriggs for publishing this...

Robert Liparulo’s House of Dark Shadows is the story of a family that moves from L.A. to a small town. They move into a house that just isn’t right. Sounds don’t always come from the right places. People enter one room and come out another. The linen closet connects to locker 119 at school. Doorways in a hidden hallway lead to exciting adventures in far-off places in different time periods. The target reading level for this book appears to be fifth or sixth grade. Let’s start with the good stuff. The premise is great, obviously, and provides an example of what Christian Fantasy should be aiming for. What kid wouldn’t want to live in a house where the linen closest transports him to school, and then to have the ability to travel through time? Excellent! The theme for the book is something along the lines of tell the truth or face the consequences . We see this in that the father lies to his family to get them to move to the strange house and the boys are secretive about exploring the h...

Field of Blood is a Christian Fantasy novel written by Eric Wilson and published by Thomas Nelson. I received a free copy through their Book Review Blogger program and quite frankly that is the reason I finished it instead of dropping it on the floor and finding something more productive to do. As a whole, it is a readable book. By that I mean that at no point did I dread turning to the next page and it didn’t put me to sleep. I can also say that at about page 375 of 400 the story picks up pace and it becomes a page turner. Though it comes from a Christian publishing company, Field of Blood is based more on Jewish mysticism than on biblical teaching. It pays homage to Christian beliefs, but at the same time has several weaknesses. For example, the primary good guy in the book is a female with immortality. The Bible tells that the wages of sin is death and yet this woman is immortal even though she practices fornication and doesn’t know Jesus. I have had some trouble trying to classif...

Just the other day, Cara Putnam asked a question about reviewing books that weren’t right for her (a euphemism used by the publishing industry to describe poorly written books). I don’t advocate writing reviews that sound like every book is the greatest thing that has ever come off the press, but I did say that I am moving in the direction of writing fewer scathing reviews and writing more complimentary reviews. I have chosen to use this blog post to explain why One thing I have noticed since I have begun to write novels is that I am much more critical of the work of others. Jesus said, “For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” If I write a scathing review then I am opening myself up for the author or fans of that author to do the same with one of my books. Now, some books deserve a scathing ...

Some books you read to learn something. Some books you read for enjoyment. Some books you read because you think you should. For me, Desire and Deceit fell into that last category and after reading it, I think it should for everyone. It is not a fun book to read and I knew it wouldn't be when I bought it, but Albert Mohler does an excellent job of covering a very sobering subject, the subject of how the change in how people view sex is causing problems that will not be easy to solve. In Chapter 14, he brought out something that I had never really considered. I had never considered that lesbians might hold such contempt for men that a lesbian couple would be ostrisized for raising a son or that the mother of the child might fear her female sexual partner would move out because the house was no longer female only . Ironically, it is statistically more likely that a lesbian will have a son. As I said, it is not an easy topic, but Albert Mohler address the topic well. He bri...