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My friend Geof wrote a good post yesterday about really taking time to digest and consider a book before publishing a review. He appreciates his friend Adam for taking 6 months before responding to Rachel Held Evans’ book. (I’m curious whether Adam’s really been chewing on it for a while or whether he just took a while to get to the book in the first place, but that’s only tangential to Geof’s point.)

When it comes to any book review, I simply question context: who is the reviewer, and does it seem that they’ve taken the time to read it well? Often the former is easily deduced—this is the Internet—but one never really knows if a book has been carefully considered or read simply to be discarded….

…I think you need to spend time thinking about a book if you are going to lend/demand authority to your response to the reading. I think that too many high-profile theology types rush through book reviews purely knowing that their authority rests in their brand. I think that’s a dangerous mistake.

Geof has a good point here, and I wonder how my own review of Rachel’s book would change if I read it again now that I’ve had time to think and interact with others about it.

Geof omitted, though, another critical aspect of why the big-name theo-review-bloggers rush through their reads and get their reviews out early: control. These theo-review-bloggers want to direct their readers’ purchases in ways that they think are “safe”. If a critical review will keep a “dangerous” book out of hundreds of hands, let’s get it published ASAP. Waiting for six months to publish a review might allow time for those folks to buy the book, read it, and *gasp* think about it for themselves.

Don’t get me wrong - I appreciate good book recommendations, and I appreciate folks telling me when a book might be a waste of my time. But Geof is right - there’s far more authority to be had when you’ve ruminated on a book over time before reviewing than when your release-day review is ***DO NOT WANT OMG HERESY STAY AWAY***.

Sorry for turning this into a book review blog of sorts. One of these days I’m going to get to some more serious posting. For now, though, I’m going to get the books reviewed that I need to. Bear with me.

The subtitle of Rhett Smith’s book The Anxious Christian is either a very silly rhetorical question or designed to feed the anxieties of the target audience. “Can God use your anxiety for good?” Well, of course He can. God’s ability in that regard has never really been in question. If you’re one of Smith’s anxious Christians, though, maybe your anxiety about God’s ability will drive you to buy the book.

Smith uses the early chapters of the book to recount his own struggle with anxiety as a young man. The loss of his mother and several other close relatives at an early age drove him to compulsive behaviors in an attempt to bring some control to his anxious, insecure life. Smith then explores the lessons he has learned from seeing God’s work in his life.

Christians who don’t wrestle with anxiety on a regular basis may immediately point to Phillippians 4 where Paul instructs us to “be anxious for nothing”. Smith addresses this directly in the first chapter, saying that while the instruction is “powerful” and is often counseled by those who “mean well”, we can inadvertently communicate the wrong message.

When we discourage others from safely expressing their anxiety, then we are essentially saying to them that anxiety is a bad emotion, and that it is something to be done away with. It communicates to them that perhaps something is wrong with their Christian faith…

Kierkegaard referred to anxiety as our “best teacher” because of its ability to keep us in a struggle that strives for a solution, rather than opting to forfeit the struggle and slide into a possible depression.

There, in a nutshell, is what Smith is going to come back to in nearly every chapter of the book: to recognize that God is continuously at work in us, and that our anxiety can be useful if it drives us forward to continued struggle and action. He says that God “uses [your anxiety] to awaken you and help turn you toward Him.” In chapter four he goes further to say that “God wants you to pay attention to it [anxiety]. He wants you to listen to it. For in your anxiety God is speaking to you and He is encouraging you to not stay content with where you are.”

In the last few chapters, Smith puts his experience as a marriage and family therapist to good use as he provides some practical suggestions for working in areas that often cause anxiety; he discusses setting good personal boundaries, refining personal relationships, and asking for help.

With a topic like this, an author runs the risk of playing the victim card, but Smith handles it deftly. As one who has struggled with anxiety at various times in my adult life, I appreciated the reminder that God is at work in my life. While I know it to be true, Smith’s book was a welcome kick-in-the-pants reminder.

Note: Moody Press provided me a free copy of this book asking only that I give it a fair review.

I’ve read a lot of books the past few years. As my Goodreads account will attest, I’ve averaged a book every 5 - 6 days for the past four years, and to date in 2011 I’m still on that pace. The book pile next to my bed waxes and wanes with library visits and Amazon shipments. I’ve always been a quick reader. This can be a beneficial thing at times, but it also means that sometimes I’m still picking up detail on my second and third times through a book. I’m coming to the conclusion now, though, that I need to slow down.

I’ve read a number of books over the last few years that have, at the time, stuck out to me as being particularly insightful and helpful to me thinking. (Wright’s Surprised by Hope, Capon’s Between Noon and Three, and McHugh’s Introverts in the Church quickly come to mind in this category.) But with the exception of Surprised by Hope (which I read through multiple times, underlined extensively, and attempted to blog), the other books I read quickly, went “wow, that’s good stuff”, and then put them down.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to me, but it holds more impact when written down in black and white: the value I get from reading the book is in direct proportion to the amount of time I’m willing to devote to digging in to it.

So, I want to slow down. I want to cut down on the number of frivolous novels I read, and focus in on the valuable stuff. I want to take books a chapter or two at a time, chew on the thoughts, and fill up a Moleskine making notes on them afterwards. I want to use this blog as a place to wrestle with and promote the good stuff I find in those books. I want this exercise to sharpen my thinking, hone my writing, and draw me closer to Christ. By His grace may it be so.

I’ll keep you posted on what I’m doing.

My reading queue has been backed up for a while now, and I’ll admit that I only make things worse by buying books and regularly hitting the library. I’ve been entertaining myself with some light popular spy thrillers lately, but it’s time to put those down and work through some better stuff. Here are a few that are in my pile:

Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions: Engaging the Mystery of Friendship Between Men and Women by Dan Brennan.

I had this one on my Amazon wishlist for a while after John Armstrong wrote about it. Becky bought it for me for Valentine’s Day and it’s been sitting in the pile ever since. The author’s premise is that there is a meaningful place in the Christian life for close friendships between members of the opposite sex who are not married to each other. Typically this has been something that Christians have advised against, usually on the basis of wanting to protect marriage… but I’m interested in what the author has to say.

Between Noon and Three: Romance, Law, and the Outrage of Grace by Robert Farrar Capon

I got this one for Christmas and have already read it once, but it really merits a re-read and perhaps a blog post or two or three. This is a fascinating little book on grace, and there were two or three particular places in it that caught me square on and have gripped my thinking ever since. Definitely time for a re-read.

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi.

I don’t even remember what blog I was reading that recommended this sci-fi novel, but the review was good, and the summary looked good, and the library had it… so it’s in my queue. I do love me some sci-fi.

Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture by Adam McHugh.

This goes into the re-read category as well. I read things too quickly sometimes, and this was one that I buzzed through on the way to some other book. It deserves a more thoughtful re-read; there’s a lot in it that could be very helpful to me and other introverts out there.

Well, enough for now. Any recommendations on other books I should add to the queue?