The Return

Review: The Heart’s Invisible Furies John Boyne Hogarth 2017 All the fabulous reviews already out there combined with the endorsements on the back cover had my hopes set really high for this book.   I picked it up and began reading.   Only problem it wasn’t long before I realized this book was not for me.   The characters didn’t interest me, and in fact I found them boring.   A clueless kid in an odd adoptive home meets a precocious seven-year-old kid and they compare their anatomical attributes.   OK, kids do that.   I’ll read on and sure enough as time goes on the book became more saturated with other exploits of equal interest.   Still I give it one more try and now everyone, everywhere converses only and ever in terms of sexual practices.   I’m done with the book at that point.   One last look and I read the last few pages.   A shame the rest of the book wasn’t written as well as those few pages.   I could...

Review: Picturing Heaven: 40 Hope-filled Devotions with Coloring Pages Randy Alcorn, Illustrated by Lizzie Preston Tyndale House Publishers 2017 Alcorn writes in the introduction that the value of this book is perhaps that “Coloring the imagery---the trees, lakes, animals, and people enjoying a redeemed creation---will help you develop a vital view of the magnificent New Earth God is preparing for us!   As you ponder these pictures and participate in the art, you’ll more fully appreciate Christ’s promise---not of a ghostly existence, but of resurrected bodies and minds in a fantastically beautiful resurrected universe ruled by Jesus, the King of Kings, our Savior and Lord.” (9)   Indeed, the time spent thinking on all that will not be a wasted time.    Short devotional readings drawn from several of Alcorn’s previous works are accompanied on the facing page by the illustrations by Lizzie Preston.   They are printed on a good qualit...