By: Harry Fritzenschaft on October 11, 2018
Wow, after getting home from Hong Kong this past Saturday evening, my first week back has been slammed! It is totally (my three-year-old grandson says that) my fault; I am trying to complete my final two theology courses (no big deal, only the Trinity and Race) of my MA in Theology at Fuller Houston…
By: Tammy Dunahoo on October 11, 2018
Jet lagged and swamped with work from being out of the country for eighteen days, I attempted to read Pierre Bayard’s, How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read with as much focused attention as my foggy brain could muster. During this grueling process, I would read his statements extolling “the virtues of non-reading” and…
By: Trisha Welstad on October 11, 2018
This week I am preaching about the disciplines of silence and solitude in the Christian life. There is an irony about my preaching on this topic because the amount of silence and solitude in my life is nearly zero. I have much to occupy my time and my mind including a two-year old, a baby,…
By: Jay Forseth on October 11, 2018
Our Denomination (The Evangelical Church) has a wonderful policy for all salaried Pastors to receive a paid, three month Sabbatical every 7 years of full time ministry. Some churches support the policy, others do not. I only wish I had read this book before I went on my last Sabbatical. Cal Newport’s Deep Work: Rules for…
By: Dan Kreiss on October 11, 2018
“Superficiality is the curse of our age.”[1]So begins Richard Foster’s classic text ‘Celebration of Discipline.’ It’s laughable when one considers that he wrote that text in the mid 1970s when telephones were still attached to the wall, ‘The Waltons’ and ‘All in the Family’ were the most popular shows on television, baseball was the #1…
By: Jean Ollis on October 11, 2018
It’s such an irony to return from a whirlwind trip to Hong Kong, try to recover from jetlag, reconnect with family and friends, return to work (and all the emails, meetings, and responsibilities), return to “school” aka assignments (three in one week!) AND then read Cal Newport’s Deep Work. Newport’s research shows “This was something…
By: Greg on October 11, 2018
“Most classical shame events simply center on failing to meet a minimum standard for social acceptability.” 1 Restoration of one’s face is the desire of many in Asia. Loss of face is as old as the first stories of humanity living under sin. Cain does not receive the face he expected when God disregarded his…
By: Mary Mims on October 11, 2018
I sneered at the idea of talking about books I never read. I thought this was academically dishonest to at least not try to read all of the books assigned. I have had trouble in some graduate level courses because I believed I had to really know my sources, and know what I was talking…
By: Jake Dean-Hill on October 11, 2018
We live in such a distracted world, me being one of the most distracted…squirrel…individuals around J. After being in Hong Kong and riding the MTR multiple times, with my Octopus card of course, I noticed Americans are not the only distracted ones. In fact, even more people in Hong Kong seemed buried in their phones…
By: Harry Edwards on October 11, 2018
How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read was tough reading for me. I held off writing this to the very end to avoid the real possibility that I may have misunderstood Bayard’s project. I did not want to fall into the same category of people who misjudge books simply by its cover. One only…
By: Andrea Lathrop on October 11, 2018
As mentioned in my previous post in response to How to Read a Book, my reading and study habits are being challenged. How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read takes it to another level. I attempted to practice what I have been learning and did my best skimming yet! You would think skimming would…
By: Sean Dean on October 11, 2018
Occasionally I find myself on the outside of a conversation about The Blind Side the movie based on the better book based on the life of Michael Oher, the American football player. These conversations usually go as follows… Person A, “I love The Blind Side it’s such an amazing story!” Person B, “I hate that…
By: Mark Petersen on October 11, 2018
When I flew to Hong Kong two weeks ago, I was feeling distracted and pulled in many divergent directions as my busy autumn season had already begun in earnest. Our Advance was just another item on the to-do list and anticipating the work ahead in this program was rather daunting when paired next to my…
By: Dave Watermulder on October 11, 2018
Sitting down to do my work today, to write this very blog post, meant not only turning toward the task at hand, but also turning away from everything else that I might possibly be doing. I had to log off of Facebook, which I had been mindlessly surfing. I had to turn off my Gmail…
By: Jenn Burnett on October 11, 2018
Having recently returned from our Hong Kong advance, I was reminded of a truth that I had unearthed while living abroad: that I learn at least as much about myself when traveling cross-culturally than I do about the culture which I’m visiting. That knowledge doesn’t come without some reflective work. At first I just…
By: Digby Wilkinson on October 11, 2018
How to talk about books you haven’t read – Pierre Bayard “Long my imprisoned spirit lay Fast bound in sin and nature’s night; Thine eye diffused a quickening ray I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and read no more!” I loved this…
By: Shawn Hart on October 10, 2018
https://youtu.be/qwOdU02SE0w This is a clip by Cal Newport that gives an example of what his precursor book, “So Good They Can’t Ignore You,” was emphasizing. It is an interesting perspective. In his book “So Good They Can’t Ignore You,” Cal Newport challenged the reader to do 5 primary things: Develop rare and valuable skills Create…
By: Karen Rouggly on October 10, 2018
When I was a child, I was fascinated by the book, Jimmy and the White Lie, by Bartholomew.[1] The book is centered around Jimmy, who broke the neighbors window by sending a baseball through it. Instead of telling the truth, Jimmy decided to hide the truth, which turned into a white blob that got bigger…
By: Nancy VanderRoest on October 10, 2018
Pierre Bayard (a French professor of Literature) shares an insightful perspective in his book, How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read. Bayard’s book is an interesting read ~ or non-read, depending on how you look at it. The author opened a door (along with Garfield as he spoke to us in China) about the…
By: Mario Hood on October 10, 2018
At first, it appears ironic that a professor of literature advocates not reading but as you dig deeper into the book and understand who Pierre Bayard is, the elation of a student skipping out on reading assignments quickly wanes. As a French based professor of literature, Pierre Bayard is an acknowledged non-reader and proud of…
