The new book from youth leader Jonathan McKee of The Source for Youth Ministry is now available: Do They Run When They See You Coming?: Reaching Out to Unchurched Teenagers
McKee presents practical ideas for youth workers to start conversations and connect with teens. Greg Stier of Dare 2 Share Ministries interviewed McKee about his new book and working with teens.
So go check it out. Oh yeah, Monkey Outta Nowhere helped edit the book.
Every other web site is reporting it, so it seems entirely redundant, but the sixth installment of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will be released on July 16, 2005. Unconfirmed early reports indicate that it will be slightly shorter than the mammoth 870 pages of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Booksellers are eagerly anticipating the release after another year of slow sales.
As recently as December 10 the prospect of a new book wasn’t looking good as author J.K. Rowling posted a message on her web site saying she had nothing “noteworthy to report, because I have been spending nearly all my time sitting in front of my computer writing, rewriting and taking the occasional break to bang my head off the desk in frustration or else rub my hands together in fiendish glee (I think the latter has happened once).”
Yet another brilliant-sounding book, one I probably won’t get around to reading for several months: The Last Generation by Steffan Postaer. The basic idea? It’s not the end of the world, just the end of us. Humanity encounters EFS (embryo fatality syndrome), where fetuses suddenly and inexplicably turn to Jell-O. Humanity is no longer able to reproduce, and the question becomes now what do we do, which I can only assume will be tackled in a majority of the novel.
It’s one of those quirky sci-fi ideas that makes you think. I only hope the story can stand up to the weight of the idea. You can read an excerpt online, where you can also find out that author Postaer is the ad man behind the Altoid “curiously strong mint” ads. Ironically, he has three kids.
One of my favorite things to do when I have some spare time is to wander through Barnes & Noble and look for fun books. I love book cover graphic design, and I love checking out funky books.
Tonight I stumbled across The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters, which looks absurdly goofy and hilarious. The back cover included quotes from people who liked the novel, and those who didn’t (“Retro kitsch. Thoroughly sophomoric.” –Entertainment Weekly. As much as negative reviews must sting, I think I’d be perfectly happy to have Entertainment Weekly say anything about something I’ve written, especially something using the words “retro,” “kitsch,” and “sophomoric.” It could have been worse. Which is probably why those words made it to the back cover.).
At any rate I didn’t read more than a page, but I am intrigued. The book design itself was curious, with all kinds of text running off the page. The artistic design itself made me want to buy the book. Maybe next time. If it shows up in the used section.
The Star Trib did an interesting piece on children’s author and illustrator Wanda G
The Lord of the Rings fun continues as Sean Astin, who played Samwise Gamgee, releases his new book, There and Back Again: An Actor’s Tale. You can read the first chapter on theonering.net, which includes the story of Peter Jackson mentioning the b-movie Icebreaker, which starred Sean Astin.
The excerpt centers a lot on Astin’s journey as an actor, which gives you an inside glimpse at the not-so glamorous world of Hollywood. But a quick glance at the reviews on Amazon isn’t very encouraging.
The New York Times on the rise of Christian chick-lit, predictably a few years behind the mainstream.
But apparently it’s not the author’s fault: one writer penned a church-friendly chick-lit novel four years ago but her agent couldn’t sell it. Now with chick-lit a mainstream phenomenon, the book was an easy sell.
DC Comics is messing with the formula, killing off a superhero’s wife in the new seven-part series, “Identity Crisis.” The plotline has some fans up in arms, but DC defends the move, citing the need to explore further depth in otherwise stoic characters.
The story involves the murder and rape of the Elongated Man’s wife, and the fallout among the superheroes as some are indirectly involved and others unjustly punish the wrong suspect. It’s a tragedy that deals in guilt and redemption rather than traded blows and one-liners.
I stumbled across another quality book worth reading while curled up in a chair at Barnes & Noble. This time it’s actor Wil Wheaton’s latest book, Just a Geek. For those of you who don’t know, Wheaton played the teenage Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and has spent the last 15 years trying to get past that distinction.
The book (at least the 60 pages or so I read today) is his honest struggle with moving beyond Star Trek. Though he’s not afraid of profanity or fantasizing about Hooters’ waitresses, he’s pretty funny. The whole things started when Wheaton put together his own web site and started blogging. Yep, in a nutshell it’s another blogger with a book deal. But you have to admit that title is enticing.
Minneapolis has been declared the most literate city in the U.S. in a study examining the country’s largest 79 cities. St. Paul came in at a respectable 16th.