JRF's #19 - The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The 5th installment of the John Carter of Mars series, The Chessmen of Mars follows John Carter and Dejah Thoris' daughter Tara into adventure, romance, and the bizarre.  Tara Carter inherited her mothers beauty and her fathers tenacity.  Yet being the sheltered daughter of the planets most powerful and famous couple has left her character unproven and her judgement lacking.  When a temper tantrum ends with her getting lost in an unknown corner of Mars and subsequently captured by subterranean humanoids with detachable heads and telekinetic powers, its up to Prince Gahan of Gathol, her rejected suitor, to find and rescue her.

Sci fi action, adventure and romance...my second favorite book in the series so far.

Mark's #32 - Penny From Heaven by Jennifer Holm (2006)

Recently, my daughter Zoe and I went on a two day daddy-daughter date to the Okuma military resort in northern Okinawa.  For the car ride there I downloaded this book for us to listen to. Set in 1953, New Jersery, Penny From Heaven is the story of 11-year-old Penny Falluci, and her large family that has been split by her fathers death several years prior. Her italian relatives from her father's side of her family make up a fun, boisterous bunch that is trying to fit into post WWII America.  Penny lives with her mother, Me-me and Pop-Pop, who are her grandparents.  Early on, it is apparent that there is much tension between the two sides of the family, as well as some mystery surrounding the circumstances of her father's death.

The author does a marvelous job of transporting the reader (or listeners in our case) to the world of 1953 New Jersey.  You get a sense for what daily life looked like then, as well as the fears and worries of the people were.  For example, Penny is not allowed to go to the movies or public pool, as her mother is constantly worried for that Penny will contract polio and end up in an iron lung.  You also get a sense for the racial and ethnic tensions of the day.  Italians are perceived as suspect, seeing as Italy was on the wrong side of the war.

As the story progresses, the reason for the rift between the two families becomes clear after Penny suffers an excruciating accident where her arm is mangled in an electric laundry ringer.   While in the hospital, as the families exchange harsh words, the truth about the death of Penny's father emerges.  Shortly after the war,  Penny's father is suspected to be a spy, since his brother Dominic bought him a fancy new shortwave radio (which apparently was not permitted for Italians in those days).  Her father was arrested and sent to an internment camp in Oklahoma, along with thousands of other suspected Italian Americans.  While there, he contracted some sort of illness and died alone.

Zoe and I enjoyed listening to this book.  I felt like, in some ways, it gave me added insight to the childhood of my own Italian mother born in 1952.  I could relate to the boisterous and loud Italian family gatherings with good food and good memories.

JRF's #18 - A Holy Ambition by John Piper

This collection of Missions themed sermons has been thoroughly and excellently reviewed by Ally already here so I won't rehash it.  My only disagreement with Ally's review is to recommend listening to these sermons rather than reading them.  Having heard most of them throughout the years before this book was published I missed hearing Piper's passionate and trembling voice as he points us to the promises of God that must compel us to forsake all lesser things for the global glory of our King.

JRF's #17 - The Pearl by John Steinbeck

The Pearl is Steinbeck's retelling of a Mexican folktale and it is beautiful, engaging, and brutal.  It follows Kino, a poor, uneducated father, fisherman, and husband in Baja Mexico.  In a desperate attempt to earn enough money to save his infant son from illness, Kino finds the "pearl of the world".  The story explores the human heart as greed, the drive for survival, love of family, power, and paranoia bleed from this pearl through Kino's home, village, and out into the desert ending in a brutally devastating climax.

Read The Pearl for its beautiful storytelling.

Read The Pearl to remind yourself of the dangers of giving into the lusts that claw for the affections of your heart.

Mark's #31 - The Jesus Story Book Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones (2007)

Having read to my daughters,  reviewed, and recommended this book in the past, I will simply paste the introduction here to give you a good sense of the focus of this great resource for parents:

Now, some people think the Bible is a book of rules, telling you what you should and shouldn't do. The Bible certainly does have some rules in it. They show you how life works best. But the Bible isn't mainly about you and what you should be doing. It's about God and what he has done.

Other people think the Bible is a book of heroes, showing you people you should copy. The Bible does have some heroes in it, but (as you'll soon find out) most of the people in the Bible aren't heroes at all. They make some big mistakes (sometimes on purpose), they get afraid and run away. At times, they're downright mean.

No, the Bible isn't a book of rules, or a book of heroes. The Bible is most of all a Story. It's an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It's a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne-everything-to rescues the ones he loves. It's like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life!

You see, the best thing about this Story is-it's true.

There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling on Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.

It takes the whole Bible to tell this Story. And at the center of the Story, there is a baby. Every story in the Bible whispers his name. He is like the missing piece in the puzzle-the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together, and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture.

Mark's #30 - Super Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (2009)

Once again, authors Levitt and Dubner tackle seemingly complex, sometimes bizarre, and occasionally risqué issues through the lens of their economics training.  How pimps add more value to a product than do realtors, and how both are adversely affected by the internet.  Or how doctors, committed and entrusted to save lives, are often the unknowing facilitators of patient deaths.  Or how throughout history, most of the world's problems are not solved with complicated and expensive technological advancements, but rather through cheap and easy solutions, and how this approach will probably be the most effective in dealing with global warming for example. Though each chapter was interesting in its own right, there didn't seem to be an overarching theme to the book - something the authors give fair warning about in their introduction.  If you were a fan of the best-selling book Freakonomics, then you'll probably enjoy this book as well.