Oper­a­tion Screw­tape con­tains words writ­ten by a demon. To be fair, it is a trans­la­tion. And, well, to be com­pletely trans­par­ent, it was all writ­ten by “expert lin­guist” Dr. Andrew Far­ley, author of The Naked Gospel (2009), God With­out Reli­gion (2011), and Heaven Is Now (2012). Oper­a­tion Screw­tape is the most recent of his books.

• Title:  Oper­a­tion Screw­tape:  The Art of Spir­i­tual War
• Author:  Andrew Farley
• Pub­lisher:  Baker Books
• Date: Jan­u­ary 15, 2013
• Length:  192 pages / 3.25 hours
• Nar­ra­tion:  David Cochran Heath

Note on the audio ver­sion:  David Cochran Heath is an excel­lent nar­ra­tor. I think he was espe­cially good in Screw­tape, because of his sin­is­ter demonic laugh­ing. Seri­ously, he punc­tu­ated the nar­ra­tion with bouts of dev­il­ish snick­er­ing. Juve­nile? Meh, maybe. Engag­ing and effec­tive? Pretty much. 

Overview

Far­ley, who spe­cial­izes in the shock fac­tor, writes the book as if it were a train­ing man­ual for demons. Like Screw­tape Let­ters, in which a senior demon instructs a younger demon on how best to tempt his sub­ject, this book fol­lows the same model. Since the tech­niques of the orig­i­nal Screw­tape Let­ters are out­dated, accord­ing to the intro­duc­tory mat­ter of Oper­a­tion Screw­tape, this is a demon’s train­ing book for a new age. The train­ing pro­vides demonic neo­phytes a way to mess up the spir­i­tual lives of those who are already Christians.

Thoughts

There is a chill­ing warmth about the book. On the one hand, it is chill­ing because you’re read­ing the cal­cu­lated, aggres­sive, and con­spir­a­to­r­ial advances of the enemy. On the other hand, it is warm and encour­ag­ing, because you are reminded of the power of the gospel as it com­bats the advances of the devil. The book con­tains plenty of the­ol­ogy, albeit com­ing from a demon. These sec­tions serve to remind us that the gospel is suf­fi­cient, that we are safe in Christ, that we are dead to sin, and that we will ulti­mately triumph.

Read­ing a book from the enemy’s per­spec­tive is fas­ci­nat­ing. It takes some get­ting used to. Most Chris­tians are accus­tomed to read­ing praise­wor­thy things about God, and not-so-praiseworthy things about the Devil. This book con­tains pre­cisely the oppo­site, and appro­pri­ately so. When read­ing the book, you begin to expe­ri­ence “aha” moments when you finally “fig­ure out” how demons are trick­ing you, and the sin­is­ter tech­niques they’re using to trip you up. But for all its fas­ci­na­tion, we’ve got to remem­ber that we’re not really read­ing a Demon’s Train­ing Man­ual. This stuff wasn’t actu­ally writ­ten by a demon.

What you’re read­ing is spec­u­la­tion, con­structed from bits of Scrip­ture, a bit of deduc­tion, and a lot of per­sonal expe­ri­ence. It’s help­ful to get a look at us — the good guys — from the per­spec­tive of the bad guys. But the book isn’t some cos­mic wik­ileaks. Every­thing is a prod­uct of some spec­u­la­tion, and there­fore dis­cern­ment is advised, just as with any book. 

Writ­ing an entire book from the per­spec­tive of a demon has another short­com­ing. When we start blam­ing every­thing on demons and dev­ils, we fail to see the depths of deprav­ity that has per­vaded our own hearts. “The devil made me do it,” is a supi­cious exon­er­a­tion of guilt. The Bible, how­ever, describes the con­di­tion of our hearts as “des­per­ately wicked” (Jere­miah 17:9), and paints a deplorable pic­ture of what we’re capa­ble of with­out the help of demons (Romans 1:18–32).

Per­haps the  most valu­able aspect of Farley’s book is that it reminds us of the pres­ence and cun­ning of the evil one. Eph­esians 6 pro­vides an appro­pri­ate impe­tus for read­ing the book:  “We…wrestle against…the cos­mic pow­ers over this present dark­ness, against the spir­i­tual forces of evi in the heav­enly places” (Eph­esians 6:12). The “schemes of the devil” are some­thing to take seri­ously, and to stand against faithfully.

Ama­zon | Audi­ble | Chris­tianau­dio

Dis­clo­sure of Mate­r­ial Con­nec­tion: I received this review copy for free as part of the Chris­tianau­dio Review­ers Pro­gram of christianaudio.com. I was not required to write a pos­i­tive review. The opin­ions I have expressed are my own. I am dis­clos­ing this in accor­dance with the Fed­eral Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Con­cern­ing the Use of Endorse­ments and Tes­ti­mo­ni­als in Advertising.”

Book Review of The Omnivore’s Dilemma

• Title:  The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Nat­ural His­tory of Four Meals
• Author:  Michael Pollan
• Pub­lisher:  Penguin
• Date:  August 28, 2007
• Length:  450 pages

The Big Idea of The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Humans are omni­vores. We must choose what we eat. And, oh, what a com­pli­cated bless­ing this is! In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pol­lan unleashes a tor­rent of research into the food we omni­vores have cho­sen, and dis­cusses the many ram­i­fi­ca­tions  — moral, eth­i­cal, phys­i­cal, emo­tional — our choices have had had. The result is a scathing reproach of the indus­tri­al­iza­tion of food, a sur­vey of some refresh­ing alter­na­tives, and a com­pelling amount of sci­ence to back it all up.

Overview of The Omnivore’s Dilemma

The sub­ti­tle of the book is “A Nat­ural His­tory of Four Meals,” but it’s really about a whole lot more. Pol­lan writes about chicken urine, zea mays domes­ti­ca­tion, herd­ing cat­tle, hip­pies, Joel Salatin, “mob stock­ing her­biv­o­rous solar con­ver­sion lig­ni­fied car­bon seques­tra­tion fer­til­iza­tion,” and a whole lot more. Yet all of these things are merely a frame­work upon which Pol­lan devel­ops fur­ther insights. He dis­cusses human moti­va­tion, the psy­chol­ogy of greed, the ethics (or lack thereof) of eat­ing ani­mals, and eco­nomic impact. He exposes where our food choices have brought us in terms of envi­ron­men­tal dam­age, fis­cal irre­spon­si­bil­ity, ever-growing waist­lines, health­care tur­moil, and, yes, even the menu at McDonald’s.

Pollan’s book is orga­nized around four meals:

1. Eats lunch at McDonalds.
2. Pre­pares chicken din­ner pur­chased at Whole Foods
3. Pre­pares another chicken din­ner, the bird cour­tesy of Joel Salatin’s Poly­face Farms.
4. Pre­pares a final din­ner from a wild Cal­i­for­nia pig and other items he per­son­ally foraged.

Pol­lan spends less time describ­ing how he pre­pared the meals, than he does explain­ing where they came from. The results are dis­turb­ing, shock­ing, and extra­or­di­nar­ily reveal­ing. The prove­nance of the McNuggets takes him to a remote Iowa farm, where he rides shot­gun on an Inter­na­tional Har­vester. Explor­ing his Whole Foods salad draws him into the refrig­er­ated cav­erns of an organic Cal­i­for­nia mega­farm. He’s belly-down and nose-deep in Vir­ginia soil when he invest­gates the ori­gins of his third meal, and he even decap­i­tates a good num­ber of chick­ens as part of the research process. The final meal has him risk­ing life and limb in a wet­suit in the San Fran­cisco bay, wan­der­ing alone in a snowy waste­land, shoot­ing at wild pigs, and pick­ing cher­ries from an urban garden.

Thoughts on The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Being a “nat­ural his­tory,” I was expect­ing plenty of sci­ence. There was. What I wasn’t expect­ing was vast pas­sages of phi­los­o­phy, ethics, and even faith. His writ­ing is full of rich and nuanced con­tem­pla­tion on the big­ger issues sur­round­ing the McNuggets or grass-fed beef. Although Pol­lan is a self-proclaimed sec­u­lar­ist, he has an exquis­ite sen­si­tiv­ity toward the loftier issues that com­ple­ment rea­son, and which affect how and what we eat.

If you read this book, you will be changed. Here’s how

1. At the very least, you will think — long and hard — about what you’re eating
2. More likely, you will prob­a­bly  begin to change the way you eat, at least to some extent. You will prob­a­bly not eat at McDonald’s any more.
3. A fur­ther step of change is pos­si­ble:  You will begin search­ing for small, beyond-organic farms in your area from which to buy your food. You may even visit Joel Salatin.
4. If you are moti­vated to the max­i­mum extent, you will wage war the indus­tri­al­ized food sys­tem, and effect mas­sive change in the way that our world gets its food.

Weigh­ing in at 450 pages, it’s not a quick read, but it’s a good one. Food is a big deal. It’s an inte­gral com­po­nent of our human­ness — some­thing of utmost impor­tance — and we’ve pretty much made a mess of it. Our world, our bod­ies, the food-as-fuel men­tal­ity, the care­less­ness, the waste, the dam­age. Obvi­ously, things need to change.

Pick­ing the “best” books of a big pile of books may be either hubris or hap­haz­ard, depend­ing on your point of view. After gaz­ing at their cov­ers (thanks, Goodreads) and rem­i­nisc­ing over some of their con­tent (thanks, fail­ing mem­ory), I have selected what I found to be the best 6% of the 153 books I read in 2012. (This is sim­i­lar to what I did in 2011.) Arranged in no par­tic­u­lar order, here are my top ten books of 2012. 

Eat That Frog, Brian Tracy

No one would call this book a lit­er­ary mas­ter­piece, but it made an impact on me. Thus, it made the top ten. It’s basi­cally a 21-chapter moti­va­tional shtick, but the moti­va­tion has stuck. Every­day — even today — I have a “frog” which I am eat­ing. Read it, and you shall understand.

Jesus Made in Amer­ica, Stephen J. Nichols

This book spawned late-night con­ver­sa­tions with Keren, exten­sive Kindle-marking, and even gift­ing it to oth­ers. It is a tour de force his­tor­i­cal sur­vey of the cor­rupt inven­tion of an Amer­i­can Jesus. Even with my mis­giv­ings about his method­ol­ogy, it’s a great book. Keren reviewed it.

Born to Run, Christo­pher McDougall

I read this book. After a few months of infor­mal cor­rob­o­ra­tive research on my part, I walked into REI and bought some Vibram Five Fin­gers. (Read Keren’s review)

Ein­stein: His Life and Uni­verse, Water Isaacson

Ein­stein is more than , and this book proves it. I was fas­ci­nated by Einstein’s dogged attempts to prove the unprov­able, and his hum­ble pur­suit of a proper polit­i­cal the­ory. Isaac­son also wrote the biog­ra­phy of another notable inven­tor, Steve Jobs.

Jesus + Noth­ing = Every­thing, Tul­lian Tchividjian

Some Chris­t­ian liv­ing books you read, and you feel ashamed and burned out. Oth­ers, you read, and you feel like you ate a gal­lon of spir­i­tual frost­ing. Still oth­ers delve into the Bible, and share riches. This book was the lat­ter. (Read my review.)

Sim­plic­ity Par­ent­ing, Kim John Payne

Of the par­ent­ing books I’ve read, this one has some of the most prac­ti­cal and help­ful advice. Although it is a sec­u­lar book, it is refresh­ingly coun­ter­cul­tural. (My review)

The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg

The title says it all, but the con­tent says a whole lot more about habit. This book is, quite lit­er­ally, habit form­ing. (Keren’s review)

Sun­down Towns, James W. Loewen

It’s hard to read an entire book with your mouth hang­ing open in shock. Metaphor­i­cally, how­ever, that’s what I did when I read this book. The book doc­u­ments the per­sis­tence of legal­ized, or quasi-legalized seg­re­ga­tion on the munic­i­pal level, and how it scarred the Amer­i­can land­scape well into the 20th cen­tury. (My review)

Start Some­thing that Mat­ters, Blake Mycoskie

I’ve never worn a pair of Toms, but I have a great appre­ci­a­tion for Blake Mycoskie, the entre­pre­neur who cre­ated the com­pany. Today, thou­sands of poverty-stricken chil­dren have shoes, thanks to a vision that exceeded the con­fines of many greedy business-builders. His is an exam­ple I want to fol­low. (Read Keren’s review.)

Quiet,  Susan Cain

Intro­verts are every­where. I am one. I live with some. This is a pow­er­ful book. It is also one of Keren’s top ten.

Top Ten Books — Run­ners Up

War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

One can­not read War and Peace and not sing its praises.

When the Rivers Run Dry, Fred Pearce

I can go days with­out think­ing about water, even though I use an aver­age of 80–100 gal­lons of it each day (if I am an “aver­age Amer­i­can”). This book alerted me to the scarcity, the value, and the incred­i­ble world-shaping force that water pos­sesses. (Read my review.)

A His­tory of the World in Six Glasses, Tom Standage

Fas­ci­nat­ing. I wish all his­tory books were this inter­est­ing. (Read Keren’s review.)

Wash­ing­ton: A Life, Ron Chernow

Speak­ing of his­tory, I appre­ci­ated this mon­u­men­tal biog­ra­phy of an amaz­ing man. That lit­tle por­trait on a one-dollar bill now holds far more mean­ing for me.

Keren, in addi­tion to being Amaz­ing, is also an avid reader and reviewer. Thus the plen­ti­ful links to her reviews. Check out her Top Ten. Since we both read a lot of the same books, we also picked some of the same Top Tenners.

Since a big part of my job involves SEO, mar­ket­ing, and online biz, I found this book, Mar­ket­ing in the Age of Google, to be helpful.

Con­tinue Reading…