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Tim Keller's new book, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters goes on sale today. From the excepts I've read it's pretty convicting. Here's a video of Keller's explanation of why he wrote the book:

And of course Challies already has his book review up.

I was bummed they didn't publish a Kindle version. I like the speed at which I can get the book on my Kindle, instantly! Does make impulse buying much more convenient :-)

You can get the John Piper and Justin Taylor compilation, The Power of Words and the Wonder of God for free here (and only 7.99 for the Kindle edition). It's a compilation of various authors (Paul Tripp, John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Sinclair Ferguson, Daniel Taylor, Bob Kauflin) each writing a chapter examining "the life-altering power of our words and their impact in sharing the gospel."

I guess we can agree that we all could use help thinking about what we say (well, I'm sure we could whole-heartedly agree that I do :-) I think I'll add it to my early morning reading time (up at 6:00 today but will be pushing it back to 5:30 tomorrow morning -- I read John 2).

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Ralph Nader has written a novel! And it sounds pretty wacky as only a Nader utopian society could be:

Ralph Nader has written a novel. Well, he doesn't call it a novel--he calls it "a practical utopia." In it, he spins a fictional vision of what might happen if the country's super-rich got together with assorted influential people and worked to transform American culture and politics into something more to Ralph Nader's liking.

In Mr. Nader's tale, billionaire investor Warren Buffett is so dismayed by the ineffectual and chaotic government reaction to Hurricane Katrina that he hatches a plan to "redirect" American society. He summons a brace of moguls--Ted Turner, Barry Diller, Ross Perot and George Soros, among others--to a secret Maui location, along with such celebrities as Bill Cosby, Yoko Ono and Warren Beatty. As they confer together, they find that they all--surprise! --agree that Something Must Be Done.

Make sure you go read the rest of the article to get the full sense of the novel :-)

Evidently, the Amazon reviewers (all 5 of them) loved it an gave it 5 stars.

Well, it looks like Ayers had a big hand in writing Obama's book (which doesn't come as a surprise since that was the speculation last year). Ayers was sent the notes and recordings of interviews with Obama family members:

Andersen continues, "In the end, Ayers's contribution to Barack's Dreams from My Father would be significant--so much so that the book's language, oddly specific references, literary devices, and themes would bear a jarring similarity to Ayers's own writing."

This quote was taken from Christopher Andersen's new book, Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage (btw, this is not a conservative hit piece as you can tell from the title).

Here's an article listing Dan Brown's twenty worst sentences from his various publications (which include five books). Since I live in a glass house, I'm not casting any stones :-) but it was fun read.

When I was still working in the tech industry after my oldest was born, I had a conversation with my boss who thought our kids would be the first generation who would break their dependence on books and would read...

You can pre-order the Kindle edition from Amazon for $9.99. They promise to send it "while you sleep," you'll get it in the morning of the 15th. Sounded like a good deal, so I decided to pre-order it. Even though...

After his death from cancer, Michael Crichton's assistant found a completed manuscript which is to be published in November (you can preorder Pirate Latitudes: A Novel from Amazon). Spielberg will be adapting the book for film:DreamWorks Studios has acquired the...

OK, I'm just not buying that it should cost the same amount for an e-book as it does for a hardcover book. David Baldacci, the best-selling thriller author, learned what some of his fans think when "First Family," his latest...

In it he responds to his critics (Piper): Along the way Wright responds to critics, such as John Piper, who have challenged what has come to be called the New Perspective. For Wright, what Paul means by justification is nothing...

That's the title of Paul David Tripp's new book, it's 52 meditations on Psalm 27. Here's a video promoting the book which is one of the best book promotion videos I've seen. It convinced my to buy it. I should...