Mark's #1 - Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer

Socrates thought the unexamined life was not worth living.  How much more so the unremembered life?

One of my life goals is to memorize the New Testament book of Romans.  Last Fall, a buddy of mine said to me, "so let's start doing it today!" To which I responded, "well... it's really just a life goal... you know, something out there to go after one day in the future."   After calling my bluff, the mnemonological  pursuit was on... and after a couple chapters I stumbled and drifted away like an unnoticed 'man overboard' watching that ship sail away. Then I saw this book, and thought to myself this will be a perfect book to get me back on board and also kick off this year's 52 books.

Journalist, turned author, Joshua Foer (think of a man 'joshing' with you broken up into four pieces) stumbled upon the world of professional memorizers known as mental athletes (MA) who compete internationally each year in the world memory championship.

It was at both the United States National Championships and subsequent World Champions where  Josh witnessed the MAs perform amazing mental feats such as memorizing entire decks of shuffled cards in two minutes, or reciting 100 lines of previously unpublished poetry from memory after studying it for five minutes, or recalling hundreds and even thousands of random binary digits, and more.   Josh was impressed by this apparent group of geniuses, and later perplexed as he interviewed several of the world's best who all insisted that they were not special or particularly intelligent.  A couple of them even challenged Josh by saying, "with an hour of training a day, you could compete and win next year's United States competition" (U.S. MAs are not among the world's elite). Thus, Joshua Foer accepted the challenge and began training as a MA.

During the course of his training, as a journalist, Josh researched many aspects of human memory.  He looked to the past where he found, unsurprisingly, that people used to be very good at memorizing many things.  As technology advances, our memories are increasingly stored via these external devices such as books, computers, smartphones, post it notes, and most notably Google and Wikipedia.  But all these 'advances' are not necessarily good advances as many books of late have pointed out (see my review of Hamlet's Blackberry and The Next Story).  In addition to the past, Josh examines other aspects of memory such as those who by brain damage have no memory, or those who are affected by autism who seem to remember otherwise trivial items in great detail.

This book is not a memory self-help book.  Rather it is an overview of memory and a story of the author's own pursuits to improve his memory and compete in a memory championship.   This does not mean, however, that there isn't much to be gained personally from reading this book.  I was encouraged to learn about the Memory Palaces that almost all memory experts since the days of Simonides used in 300 B.C.  In one chapter, as we follow the author's experience, the reader also learns some great tips for memorizing your a lengthy to-do list, or the names of people you meet for the first time (this has already helped me out).

Unfortunately, the chapter titled "How to Memorize a Poem" (which I figured would be most personally beneficial for me in my pursuit to memorize Romans), did little to help encourage or equip me to memorize Scripture.  As it turns out, almost all of the MA loathe this type of memorization because, well, it's really really hard.   Here's the best tip from that section:

The anonymous author of the Ad Herrenium suggests that the best method for remembering poetry ad verbum (word for word) is to repeat a line two or three times before trying to see it as a series of images.

In sum, this was a very engaging and enjoyable read.  I'm glad to be off to a good start on my reading for 2012... If you're wondering just how well Josh did at the United States Memory Championship, you'll need to read the book, I think you'll enjoy it!

Last memory Tip:

The general idea with most memory techniques is to change whatever boring thing is being inputted into your memory into something that is so colorful, so exciting, and so different from anything you've seen before that you can't possibly forget it (pg. 91)

Ally's #1: Emma by Jane Austen

 

After an epic failure of posting (despite successful reading) last year, I thought I'd get back on the horse in hopes that the relative tranquility I foresee in 2012 will provide a more motivating environment for blogging.

My first pick of the year was consumed during a lengthy drive across several states that have little to offer visually: Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa. My book, on the other hand, was quite entertaining. For 400+ pages, I followed the romantic interests and schemes of the residents of Highbury, where a young (not to mention single) Emma Woodhouse was without equal in beauty and social standing. It was a long, drawn out tale of which girl would win the heart of which guy; the book could have been accurately re-named Four Weddings and A Funeral. In the midst of all the match-making, Austen did a great job of adding twists and turns to the story that felt quite natural and supported an ongoing theme that love can't be manufactured or imposed.

While the characters were neither vindictive nor ill-meaning, Austen was successful at making Miss Bates (the town chatter-box) and Mrs. Elton (the hot vicar's wife) thoroughly annoying. She has a knack for fleshing out the character's personalities to the extent that you can almost hear their voices--especially the irritating ones. My favorite character was Mr. Knightley, a stoic gentleman with the patience and compassion to not just deal with the idiosyncrasies of the elderly Mr. Woodhouse, but to show him deference and genuine concern. Of all the men in the book, Mr. Knightley is the one who kept me wondering until the very end--I wasn't sure he'd ever settle down.

As I finished the book, this verse from Ecclesiastes came to mind: "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun." Underneath the elegance of Austen's language we find that the behavior and experiences of the characters are not vastly different from what we see depicted in modern love stories and soap operas: secret engagements, manipulation, broken-hearts, self-centeredness, flaunting one's status, trampling the desires of others to get one's way, etc, etc. Yes, there is nothing new, but at least it sounds prettier.

Beginning Your 2012 Bible Reading Plan

As you consider ways to reading through the Bible in 2012, consider these plans. I want to encourage you to pick a specific plan to help to keep you accountable on track. Any plan will help with your goal. I'm attaching the plan that I did before, and I will start again this weekend. It's the Book at a Time. I prefer reading through one book at a time rather than reading one chapter from three different books.

Here are several others:

Discipleship Journal by Navigators http://www.navpress.com/dj/content.aspx?id=138 This had both the Book at a Time and the 5x5x5 plan which reads through the NT

A blog entry with an overview of plans http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2009/12/30/bible-reading-plans-2/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+between2worlds+%28Between+Two+Worlds%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

ESV Plans (including links to daily podcasts of the selections) http://www.esv.org/biblereadingplans

Listening Through the Bible in 75 hours http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2009/12/30/esv-reading-plans-as-podcasts-2/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+between2worlds+%28Between+Two+Worlds%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

I hope this helps with whichever goal you set.

JRF's #52 - William Carey by S. Pearce Carey

Once every few years I read a book that makes a profound imprint on my life, perhaps even changing it.  This is such a book.

I love missionary biographies but more often than not books of that genre are weak in one or more of these categories:  Theological depth and accuracy, writing quality, or biographical honesty.

This book has none of those weaknesses.  In fact, out of all the books I read this year, this book was near the top in all of those areas.

William Carey is known as the man who was used by God to shake the Protestant world out of its apathetic and hyper-calvinist stance towards the 'heathen' unreached of the world and became known as the 'father of modern missions'.   In this 400+ page book S. Pearce Carey, William's great-grandson, skillfully recounts the journey of this humble shoemaker to India and eventually the most well known and perhaps most effective missionary since the apostle Paul.  His achievements are too many to list here but suffice it to say that his is the sort of story that you could only believe if you knew and loved the God that Carey joyfully gave up everything to serve.

Many times during reading this I cried like a baby with joy at the power of God at work in and around this man.  Other times I wept at the loss this man suffered.  Still other times I found myself shaking with excitement at what our God has, is, and will continue to do with those who lay their lives at His feet for the sake of His glory and the good of those who have yet to hear His name.

William Carey has risen to the foremost of my hero pantheon.  He is my hero not because he in himself was great, but because he knew the God who is Great, and he tenaciously clung to his great God through the painful adventure of bringing the Good News of Christ to the lost that they both loved so dearly.

If we Christians loved men as merchants love money, no fierceness of peoples would keep us from their midst." - from Carey's pamphlet An Enquiry into the Obligation of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen

The last days of William Carey were his best.  His sun went down in all the splendour of a glowing faith and a burning self-sacrifice.  Not in the poverty of Hackleton and Moulton, not in the hardships of Calcutta and the Sundarbans, not in the fevers of the Dinajpur swamps, not in the sorrow of all - the sixteen years' persecution by English brethren after Fuller's death - had the father of modern missions been so tried as in the years 1830-1833.  Blow succeeded blow, but only that the fine gold of his trust, his humility, and his love might be seen to be the purer." - Dr. George Smith

The map of the world hung in Carey's work-room: but it only hung on his wall, because it already hung in his heart." - F.W. Boreham

A wretched, poor and helpless worm, 

on Thy kind arms I fall

- the only words Carey requested to be put on his tombstone

JRF's #51 - Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky

One of my goals in reading this year was to force myself to read a business/organization/leadership type book. Having a B.A. in history and an M.Div means among other things that I have absolutely no business administration acumen.  This is definitely an area where I need to grow, especially if I want to be a tent-making missionary in the future.

The author, Scott Belsky, is the founder of Behance, a company that seeks to find and foster creative ideas and transform them into real completed projects.  He writes in a style accessible to people like me that hate books like this but need to read them.

The basic premise is that making ideas happen doesn't require genious.  It requires hard work and determination.  Did I already know that?  Yes.  Where Belsky helps is by giving some bit-sized, realistic ways in which to keep that hard work on track and efficient while not suffocating creativity.  I have already tried some of these suggestions in my work place as well as with my own personal projects and with some tweaking have been greatly helped.

I recommend this book to you if you are seeking to improve your organizational skills, business management, or have just been sitting on that great idea for years but don't know how to get the ball rolling.

JRF's #50 - Radical by David Platt

Since this book has already been reviewed multiple times on this site, I originally had wanted to attempt to respond to some of the criticisms the book has received.  Well it's Dec 31st and I have yet to do so.  Perhaps next year.

For the time being, suffice it to say that I believe that most of the critcism comes from one of two reasons: they don't like what Platt has to say and try to cover up their conviction with complex theological goobly-gook... or have read it and are knee-jerk reacting not to what Platt actually says but to what they think he says.  Much of the criticism of Radical makes it sound as if Platt is promoting some kind of social gospel or salvation by good works.  Perhaps an undiscerning (and/or intoxicated) reader could come away with this conclusion, but what Platt actually says is the exact opposite.  Radical calls Christians back to the Biblical truth that God not only saves us from the wages of our sin but saves us for God, glorifying good works (Matt 5:16;Eph 2:10;...etc).

My own criticism is brief: I hate the title.  I think the word Radical gets people thinking that this a Shane Claiborne type book from the get go and out come the jerking knees.  But the real reason I don't like the title is because what David Platt writes about here is not radical Christianity - its' normative, Biblical Christianity.  True, when compared to normative American christianity it will look radical but I think that just shows that what passes for christianity in much of the US (and any nominal christian subculture) is in fact not Christianity at all.

This is a must read if you can read, have $20 and love Jesus.