BOOK REVIEW: Night Driving

When growing up Christian was just what you did, attending Christian conferences and singing Christian songs and reading Christian books and hanging out with Christian friends, life was easy. Those around you shaped your walk with Jesus and almost scripted how it would go with Christianese words to describe the pitfalls and peaks along the way. But once you reach early adulthood and nothing is scripted anymore, what do you do when suddenly you're at a loss for the God you thought you knew? Is something wrong with you when you no longer feel Him?

Addie Zierman, in her new book, "Night Driving," takes us along an honest, transparent, literal road trip that symbolizes the spiritual road trip her life is taking with or without her. A follow up to "When We Were on Fire" (here's my review), the book details her winter minivan trip with her two young sons from Minnesota to Florida in search of sun and that old "fire." Like most events to which we attach expectations, the trip falls short in some ways...but in the most important ways, she finds just what she needed.

I appreciate Zierman's honesty and am thankful for her willingness to lay her heart bare for those going through similar seasons with God. She reminds me that the answers to faith issues are not always scripted. Not only do I need to know that for my own life, but I need to remember it for others'.

I received this book free of charge from "Blogging for Books" in exchange for an impartial review. For more information on Addie Zierman, go here.

BOOK REVIEW: Five Days at Memorial

What a superb work of investigative journalism!

"Five Days at Memorial," by Sheri Fink, takes an excruciatingly honest look inside New Orleans' Memorial Hospital in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Beset by flooding, power failures, extreme heat, and a plethora of miscommunications with rescue personnel from a variety of organizations, doctors had to make unheard of decisions regarding patient care. Unfortunately, some of those decisions were truly horrific.

More than just a recounting of facts, Fink delves deeper into the issues of medical ethics during catastrophic failures of infrastructure. With limited resources, how exactly are doctors to determine which of their patients should be rescued first? Should it be the able-bodied with the best outlook for survival? Or the most fragile, even if transporting them in such condition could put them at greater risk? Without clear policies and procedures, some of the medical staff at Memorial made decisions that would later put them before a grand jury to face charges of manslaughter.

You will not be able to read this book without making a judgment call as to what you believe to be the way to best honor the lives most vulnerable in a natural disaster. As for me, I found myself horrified at the audacity of Dr Anna Pou, who led the lethal injections of patients she deemed too difficult to evacuate--even as helicopters arrived outside.

Sheri Fink has done an outstanding job with this book, and I believe she has honored everyone who was a patient of Memorial Hospital for those five days with a transparent and thorough account of the chaos.

I received a copy of this book free of charge from Waterbrook Multnomah Publishers in exchange for a fair review.