Asperger’s is a syndrome I know well. I have seen its social awkwardness, its lack of eye contact, its strange brilliance. In The Best Kind of Different Shonda Schilling, wife of pitching great Curt Schilling, shares how it has impacted their family through their son Grant. She lets the reader into the journey as they discover that their son suffers from it and as they seek to deal with its sometimes-harsh realities.

Let me be honest and say that in most ways The Best Kind of Different is a rather unremarkable book. It does not have the human interest of Born on a Blue Day, the story of an autistic savant; it does not have the personal flavor of Look Me in the Eye. Where the other two books tell of Asperger’s from the perspective of one who has it (and, interestingly, people with the Syndrome typically express themselves far better in writing than in speech), this one tells of it from the perspective of the mother of one who suffers from it.

And so I suppose the real value in this book will be for those whose families are adapting to a child with Asperger’s. I am sure that many mothers and fathers will be able to identify with the exasperation of the Schillings as they try to put an end to the poor behavior of their child and the sorrow they feel when they realize that the behavior was often caused by factors outside of their son’s control.

This book reinforces the lesson that I have learned repeatedly through this 10MillionWords project. Time and time again I’ve seen how a distinctly Christian worldview makes all the difference, that seeing things through a biblical lens changes everything. And as I read The Best Kind of Different I longed for Schilling to share something truly meaningful about the spiritual realities of disability. She learns to embrace her son’s disability and learns to see some of its manifestations as a blessing rather than a curse. And yet still she does not have that truly Christian perspective that would help her understand what disability is, why it exists, and how it will some day come to an end. At times she comes close, but she doesn’t ever actually get there. And in the end this leaves the book as incomplete as the author’s understanding of disability.

As I read this book I asked myself, “Would this ever have been published if it did not describe the family of a celebrity?” It is a fair question, I think, when it comes from the pen of a celebrity (or a celebrity’s wife as the case may be). I suppose it might have, but I think it is safe to say that it would not have made its way to the list of bestsellers. It isn’t a bad book by any stretch, but neither is it a particularly good one. Still, it does do a good job of describing Asperger’s and introducing the reader to an increasingly common condition. And for that I am grateful.

Verdict: Read it if you want to better understand Asperger’s Syndrome and those who suffer from it.

After making barrels full of money through the sale of his company SnapTrack (which he sold to Qualcomm for a cool billion after inventing a way of cramming a GPS unit into a cell phone) Poizner was looking for a new kind of challenge. He had conquered the business world, proving his mettle there, and had served a year at the White House, doing his bit for the nation during a tumultuous time. Having succeeded at everything else, he decided to try his hand at teaching. If he had been so successful in the business world, couldn’t he transfer that success to the classroom?

He approached a list of schools, providing his credentials and expressing his enthusiasm. Only one school replied to him–Mount Pleasant High School in San Jose. Not quite the stereotypical inner-city high school of so many popular movies, neither is it the posh and chic kind of school he would send his own child to. Eventually he was given the opportunity to teach a class for a year–a class on American government. And now he has written a book about it.

Mount Pleasant is not much of a book. I suppose at this point, after he has announced his candidacy as governor, it is easy to question Poizner’s motives. Did he really take on this challenge for the sake of the kids? Or did he have a book contract and the governor’s mansion in mind already? Perhaps those are not fair questions. I suspect I would be less likely to ask them if the book had been better or at least more interesting–if it served a purpose beyond being an advertisement for Poizner. The book even has a strangely awful cover, especially for one that lands on the list of bestsellers. Couldn’t they have tried to be at least a little bit creative? Seriously. It’s a head shot stuck beside a random picture of a random desk. The proportions are wrong, the font is cliche, the colors are boring. Maybe he had one of his students design it.

The book passes like, well, like a twelfth-grade course on American government. It has its high points but mostly it just plods along and conveys the pertinent points. This is no Dangerous Minds. It’s just the story of a guy trying to teach a mostly-unremarkable group of students. I admire him for what he did and for his attempts to teach them well. But he didn’t do anything much more than countless thousands of teachers do every day. And they don’t get book contracts for doing it. Though if they did, I hope the covers would be better.

Anyway, Mount Pleasant is not too bad, but it’s not too good either. It’s mostly just unremarkable. It’s like going to Ben & Jerry’s and walking out with vanilla. There’s nothing wrong with vanilla, but why would you choose that over the Cherry Garcia or Chunky Monkey? I guess I just can’t think of too many reasons I’d want to recommend this one.

Verdict: Read it as a tribute to the GPS in your iPhone.

In the end, though, it was not filth that offended me as much as just sheer stupidity. The first chapter of this book is ugly–not as much graphic as just plain inappropriate, like when you try to tell a joke and it just goes bad. You realize that what you thought was funny, was actually not funny at all. After that opening chapter the book is far more childish and just plain stupid than lascivious as she looks at life and love and daughterhood and dog ownership. Chelsea Handler, whom I had known only from seeing her name on book covers, is clearly desperately immature and willing to do just about anything to gain attention. Her sense of humor, such that it is, is puerile, akin to the kind of nonsense that was so popular on that show Jackass. She likes to mock people through pranks, she likes to laugh about farting, she likes to torment and mock and belittle. It’s terribly unsophisticated and, frankly, immediately tiresome. She makes herself so obnoxious that there is very little she could do, I think, to make herself or what she says in any way desirable or lascivious.

Of all the books I’ve read this year, and I’ve read plenty, this one is easily the worst. Frankly, I can’t think of a single reason I would ever, under any circumstances, recommend it. I can’t even understand why anyone, anywhere would buy it. It’s not sexual enough to titillate, it’s not clever enough to amuse, it’s not sophisticated enough to cause reflection. It’s an utter waste of time, money, effort and atoms. It is very clearly a cash grab, Handler’s attempt to make a few more bucks before her 15 minutes of fame comes screeching to a halt. And I say that this can’t happen soon enough.

If you look at the pictures of Handler on the book cover and compare to, say, images of her being interviewed, you’ll see that the cover photos are so heavily airbrushed that Handler is very nearly unrecognizable. You can see just the barest hint of her through all the Photoshopping. And it strikes me that this offers a parallel to the book itself. Here Handler gives a very one-dimensional and obviously fake version of herself. It’s as fake as her skin in that cover shot. She has constructed a fabricated version of herself that, for one reason or another, seems to appeal to readers. Perhaps her last two books, both of which sold very well, were clever or original or offered something (anything!) to commend them. Not so with Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang. Books don’t get a whole lot worse than this one. They just plain can’t.

Verdict: Read it never, ever, ever.

In 2007 Chapman released his memoir, You Can Run But You Can’t Hide, a book that shot straight onto the New York Times list of bestsellers and sent him on a nationwide book tour. And here, just two years later, is Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given, a second memoir. That seems odd unless you know what has been going on in Dog’s world.

In 2006 Dog was arrested by U.S. Marshalls and very nearly deported to Mexico to face some old kidnapping charges. Near the end of 2007, just as that situation was being resolved in his favor, his son released to the National Enquirer a tape in which Chapman repeatedly used the word “nigger.” The outcry was deafening and resulted in the immediate suspension of production of Dog the Bounty Hunter. Chapman made all of the right apologies and even went on a kind of Apology Tour. After it all, when his penance was complete, the show resumed production and continues in production today. Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given is based around these two episodes. It covers each of them in some detail with occasional intermissions to discuss hunting down a particularly noteworthy criminal. It is, then, an update to the last book and one that gives an adoring audience a further glimpse into the life of their hero.

If you’ve ever seen Dog the Bounty Hunter you’ve undoubtedly noticed that Dog considers himself a Christian, always pausing to pray before a big hunt and often rebuking criminals with words from the Bible. That faith factors significantly in this book. It is full of phrases like this, supposed explanations from Scripture that come with not a shred of understanding of the text’s true meaning: “In the Bible, there’s a verse in Hebrews that says ‘God will give you the shaking that comes on your spirit when things are not right internally.’” Of course in that case I can’t even imagine what text he is referring to. I’ve read and studied Hebrews and I’m quite confident stating that such a verse does not exist, especially when this is the way it manifests itself in a life: “For the first time in years, I was able to catch my breath because I felt I no longer had to worry about my lawyers. In finally felt that I had three lawyers working for me, and that was a good feeling–really good.” In aftermath of the “n-word” controversy Dog says this: “The Bible says ‘the unsaved watch us all the time.’ They’re judging everything we say, do, and whether or not we will live up to the standards they’ve set for us. I have tried to live by my convictions, my morals and values. If you are willing to sacrifice yourself for what you believe in, God will be there, and so I finally had my answer and knew what I had to do.”

This strange brand of mysticism mixed with Christianity pervades the book. He claims to often hear from God, directly and verbally, receiving instructions on what to do, what to say, how to act and react. When he is not quoting (or misquoting) the Bible, Chapman is quoting his hero Tony Robbins. Somehow he misses the contradictory messages of Robbins’ New Age, self-help mysticism and the Bible’s message of faith alone. In this way Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given stands as an example of the kind of spirituality that so often passes for Christianity. It is a buffet line kind of faith, one that takes a little bit of this, adds a dash of that, and combines them all into a strangely muddled whole that may seem satisfying but which has no internal cohesion. It is ultimately a religion that places self in the center and moves God to the periphery. How could it be otherwise when we ourselves stand as the arbiters of what is true and what is not? There is no external standard to look to, no outside authority. Dog has tried to live by his convictions, his morals and his values. But how are we to know whether these are also God’s convictions, morals and values?

One quick aside. When Chapman discusses the fallout from his use of the “n-word” he talks about the role of the smarmy Hollywood spin doctors. There he reveals an interesting fact: that as soon as the news broke, he was told to head to rehab. Never mind that he needed no rehab (exactly what kind of rehab would help in this situation?). When a celebrity makes a major gaffe or is caught in a particularly egregious sin (think Tiger Woods, Mel Gibson, etc) the first thing they do is head to rehab. Chapman reveals that this is usually not because they seriously believe they need any rehab but, rather, because the public is then quick to forgive them. As soon as we see that there is a therapeutic answer to their problem we assume that there is also a therapeutic reason for it. And then we are quick to forgive and forget and that celebrity can exit rehab and move on with his life. After all, it’s not really his fault. It’s all a big scam. I think we already know this, but it is interesting to hear it from the mouth of just that kind of celebrity (and, to his credit, one who refused to play that particular game).

Dog is fantastically entertaining; there is no doubt about that. There is something comical about watching him bash down doors with nothing but a can of mace in his hand; something funny about him treasuring his bounty hunter badge as if it is a sign of any true authority; something bizarre about the whole nature of his business in which he bails people out and then makes himself rich and famous by capturing them again. As we Canadians are so fond of saying, “Only in America…”

Verdict: Read it if you just can’t get enough of the Dog. But if that’s the case, honestly, you may need to find a hobby or get out more often or something!

Lift

Written as a letter from a mother to her two children, Lift clearly coasts onto the bestseller list on the success of author Kelly Corrigan’s previous title The Middle Places. Lift is not a bad book; rather, it’s just mostly unremarkable. Sure there is a certain sweetness to it as an adoring mother writes to her little girls. But if it is meant to be tender and sweet, then why does she at one point indulge in a streak of ugly, harsh profanity? And if it is written to be pro-family, then why does she include a lengthy section defending homosexual marriage? And if she really wants her daughters to love their parents, why does she subtly belittle her husband so often?

So truly it’s not that Lift is an objectively bad book. It’s more that I just don’t quite understand the point of it. I can see that her daughters will someday treasure it; and I can see that it will make a nice family heirloom. But I don’t quite understand why the rest of us have been invited to read it with them.

The book has poignant moments; moments that any parent can identify with. But those are their moments, not ours. I think they would have been better off if left that way.

Verdict: Read it if you loved The Middle Places

Not Without Hope is Nick Schuyler’s description of the incident. It is a survival story, the kind of tale we’d expect to find in condensed form in Reader’s Digest in a year or two. He describes the circumstances surrounding the fishing trip and describes in agonizing detail the deaths of his three friends including his best friend, Will Bleakley.

Let me say off the top that the book is not particularly well written. Actually, it’s downright poor at times. Here’s a sampling of the prose:

I caught my first fish and I was like, oh my God, forget this. I was so confused. Why would anybody like this? It took me almost fifteen minutes to get the damn fish up. A big amberjack. As soon as I made a little leeway, it yanked out everything I had reeled in. It fought like a shark. My back and shoulders were burning. I kind of wedged the pole between my legs and told Marquis, “I’m taking a little break.” I couldn’t imagine anyone pulling up a giant marlin or something.

Or, a short time later:

He played in thirty-four games during his career, starting eight times at tight end and catching ten passes. I think he made honorable mention at All-Big East Conference his senior year. He was clever at chop blocking. His parents, Bob and Betty, were at the games, always.

It’s not the worst prose I’ve read–not by a long shot–but it’s still pretty bad. Certainly it’s about the worst I’ve encountered on the bestseller’s list. But I suppose it may be fitting for the person who wrote the book, a self-proclaimed jock more than an intellectual, a guy who, when rescued, looked in the mirror, noticed that his body fat had obviously fallen and thought, “not bad.”

Like you, I’ve often heard it said that there are no atheists in a foxhole. The same must be true when floating helplessly in the ocean. Though the men who set out that day were varyingly religious, it seems that none of them were particularly devout. And yet no sooner had the boat flipped and the storm winds risen than the men were crying out to God individually and communally, even reciting the Lord’s Prayer together. Schuyler, who makes it clear that he had no relationship with God whatsoever, was soon begging for his life saying, “Please, God, I’ll start going to church every Sunday.” He and his friends called out to God for deliverance. Only Nick survived. And in the aftermath he writes, “I’ve gotten so many e-mails and calls and text messages saying, ‘God has a plan for you, stay strong, you may not see it now.’ I kind of see it both ways. I hope so, but why didn’t God have a plan for these guys as good as they were? Why did He choose me out of the four?” Though he pledged allegiance to God during the hours of terror, it seems that he soon forgot his promises and has moved on. Though he cried out to God for rescue while he was helpless, now he regards that same God as culpable for the accident.

Reading this book I wonder why it is that we are so drawn to stories of survival. And honestly, there a few good reasons to read this book; it has little to commend it beyond the tale of disaster and survival. It’s poorly written and contains a cast of mostly unremarkable characters. And yet it has sold well enough that it has made its mark on the list of bestsellers. Somehow this tale of terror, this “drama in real life” (to borrow a phrase from Reader’s Digest) electrifies readers and draws them in. I’m not sure why we are so drawn to such tales. Perhaps we have imagined ourselves in such situations and are interested to see how others respond in their most difficult moments. Or maybe we want to imagine that we would do so much better–that if we had been there, we would have had the strength or ingenuity to rescue ourselves or to save the lives of our friends. There is something about such stories that we find almost irresistible.

Yet as stories of survival go, this one is just okay. It’s certainly no better than average and I see little reason to recommend it.

Verdict: Read it if you just have to read a survival story.

From his earliest days, Mosab Hasson Yousef had a view of the inner workings of Hamas. The son of one its founders, from childhood he was immersed in the shadowy world of Middle Eastern terror and politics. Arrested time and again by the Shin Bet, the Israeli internal intelligence service, he eventually made the decision to become a double agent, working for Israel instead of against her. For ten years, from 1997 to 2007, he lived like this, deeply embedded within Hamas, suspected by no one, yet passing vast amounts of information to Israel. In this way he prevented assassinations, stopped suicide attacks and provided information leading to the arrests or killings of many terrorists. He was Shin Bet’s most valuable source of information about Hamas.

In 1999 he had a chance encounter with a British visitor who invited Yousef to learn about the Christian faith. Curious and intelligent, Yousef took this opportunity and was immediately struck by the difference between Jesus Christ and Mohammed, between the Christian faith and the Islam he had inherited from his fathers. In the months that followed he made a slow conversion to Christianity and was quietly baptized.

Eventually Yousef grew tired of his double life and convinced the Israelis to release him from his position with them. With some reluctence they agreed and allowed him to move to the United States where he continues to live today. Son of Hamas is the story of his life, “A gripping account of terror, betrayal, political intrigue, and unthinkable choices,” according to the rather verbose subtitle.

And it’s a good story that is told well. Yousef offers a uniquely interesting perspective on Hamas and on the political background and context in that area of the world. His story involves just enough action and intrigue to keep it interesting. At times it is almost (but not quite) unbelievable.

One thing I found interesting is that Youself reveals the Israelis not as the good guys but as the less-bad guys. He develops some level of respect for them when he sees that they are fighting for their lives against a host of nations bent on their destruction. But still he shows how they are every bit as willing as the surrounding nations to torture and kill to further their own ends. Their respect for life is not much greater than that of their enemies. So the Israelis really are not the good guys in this story.

And of course I enjoyed reading not just of Yousef’s conversion to Christianity but also the long process and the inner turmoil that got him there. It was only through much soul-searching that he was able to see Jesus Christ not just as a prophet but as the Son of God who died for the sin of the world. So often I read books like this and am disappointed to see that the author finds joy in everything but Christ. But here Yousef finds rest and joy and peace only when he submits his life to Christ.

Yousef does not want to be a hero to Christians. At the end of the book he admits his own unsuitability for that task. He is a new Christian and one who is unskilled–still a novice. And yet he is one who has now written a book about his conversion that has landed on the New York Times list of bestsellers. His testimony is powerful and I both hope and expect that God will use it to show others the light that can be theirs if they turn to Christ.

This one is well worth reading. Buy a copy and marvel at God’s grace. Marvel at how God will go to great lengths to draw his people to himself.

Verdict: Buy it and rejoice in the grace of God.

Willie Mays is, of course, a man who needs little introduction. His contribution to the game of baseball is widely known and his status as a hero of the game is forever cemented in the record books. Though his reputation has been tarnished a little bit by remaining in the game too long and by eventually being loosely linked to performance enhancing drug scandals (such as they were in the 60′s), he remains a uniquely respected player.

The book is set in roughly the same timeframe as The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a book I reviewed just last week. The stories of those two lives could hardly be more different. Mays was wildly popular in his lifetime while Lacks was utterly unknown; Mays was fantastically rich while Lacks lived in abject poverty; Mays lived a long life while Lacks died at just thirty years of age. And yet there are a few important similarities. Both dealt with the systemic racism that plagued the United States not too long ago. It is amazing to read of a bus taking the Giants from the ballpark to their hotel but taking a detour into a poor part of town, a negro district, to drop off Mays and the other African American players. Though they may have been able to share an outfield with their teammates, they were not allowed to share a hotel.

Mays was not, as some wished of him, a racial activist. He was often labelled an Uncle Tom and looked down upon for not doing more to fight for equality. And yet in his own way, he did just that. Once America’s national sport was integrated, it would not be long before the nation followed suit. After all, how could America cheer year after year for negro players and then, at the end of it all, still see them as nothing but negros? The tale is told of the son of a Klansman running onto the baseball diamond yelling, “I’m Willie Mays!” The walls were crumbling and would inevitably fall. Mays may not have marched, he may not have had the anger and passion of a Jackie Robinson, but he still played the role that was his.

One of the most notable aspects of Mays’ life was his desire to give of himself to his fans. Endearingly childlike in many ways, Mays would (quite literally) give the shirt off his back to someone in need. He was eager to please those who looked up to him. And yet through his life he was torn by the knowledge that many of these people loved him only for what he did, not for who he was. Included in this number, it seems, was his first wife with whom he had a short, turbulent and costly marriage. He wanted to trust people but learned quickly that he could not. Later in life people would ask, “Why doesn’t Willie Mays trust people? The answer is: for good reason.” As Mays said, “‘You have to assume that everyone wants something from me because of who I am.’ It is why there are only three groups that he trusts: baseball players, children, and household pets. None will ever betray him.” Even today he does not and cannot trust others; for so much of his life he was used and betrayed by his “friends.”

Mays was a strange combination of a willing and an unwilling celebrity. He enjoyed the perks of celebrity–the free cars, the acclaim, the money, the easy entrance into private places; yet he hated the loss of privacy, the demands and the criticism. He insists that he only ever wanted to play the game and, certainly, he had a passion for baseball that few others have matched. And yet he wanted more than just the game; he wanted the money and the adulation. Like most celebrities, he had to take the bad with the good. Reflecting on his life he says, rightly, that when you achieve his level of fame, “The world owns you.” He got what he wanted, but not without the world demanding its pound of flesh for all it had given him.

It is perhaps ironic that for a man who wanted to be known for who he was rather than what he did, this biography focuses predominantly on what Mays did. Though there is plenty of focus on the man himself, the book ends when his career ends. The decades after his retirement are consigned together to a single Epilogue of thirty pages.

Though by no means a truly brilliant biography (it’s not quite in David McCullough territory, for example), this one is still plenty good and has a lot to commend it. It tells the story–the definitive story, I suspect–of an important and an interesting life and does so with class. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Verdict: Read it if you’re a fan of baseball or a fan of good biography.

In this book, which is really not a traditional memoir, he attempts “to define why I believe what I believe by telling you how those convictions grew directly out of my life experience. This tactic is designed to keep you, the reader, entertained and amused, as you and I probably have much in common, at least in the upbringing department.” The purpose of the book, then, is to show the events from his childhood and early adulthood that shaped him into the man he is today. He seeks to show how his early years set the scene for what he believes today and why he acts as he does to defend what he believes.

Though O’Reilly reveals a fair bit of detail about his Roman Catholic background, he says much less about what he has come to believe an adult. Still, he does offer a useful summary. “My core belief…is that life is a constant struggle between good and evil. That each person has free will and must choose a side. Refusing to choose puts one in the evil category by default, because bad things will then go unchallenged.” This is quite an interesting way of looking at the world. He sees things in firm categories of black and white, right and wrong. It seems he has borrowed this dualistic world from his Catholic background. And yet he does not have a consistently Christian outlook, for the Christian faith does not demand that we choose a side. Rather, the Christian faith demands that we choose a Savior. Refusing to choose does not put one in the evil category but keeps one there, for we are all in that evil category by default.

Though I am grateful to see his use of the categories of good and evil, rare ones in a postmodern society, such categories will only be as useful as their definitions. Here is how O’Reilly defines evil: “if you knowingly hurt another human being without significant cause, like self-defense, you are committing an evil act. And if you do this as a matter of course, you are evil.” Evil, then, is something that happens only in reference to fellow human beings. It is not, as the Bible demands, first and foremost an offense against God, but an offense against another person. So while he does demand the use of the term, he tears it from its biblical moorings. We are left, of course, wondering how we determine what hurts another human being and what constitutes significant cause. At times both will be apparent; at others, the lines will be hazy. According to O’Reilly’s definition, and without referring to an extrinsic source of morality and authority, the individual must be the one who ultimately decides what constitutes evil behavior. Without reference to God, good and evil are not far removed from one another, for both are mere variants of normal human behavior.

These beliefs about good and evil shaped O’Reilly’s decision to create The O’Reilly Factor. He now uses the show as a means of defending good by exposing evil. I do not watch the show but I do wonder how successful he can be, trapped within the weakness of his own definitions.

Verdict: Read it if you’re a big fan of O’Reilly.

If there is a theme in the book, a theme behind all the words, it is Sanford’s attempts to understand what went wrong. She seems to be constantly wondering, constantly asking, where did I lose him? Where did things go wrong? Should I have seen this coming? Those are inevitable questions, I think, that any woman will ask herself when she has been scorned and rejected, traded in for a newer, younger model. And as always, it is easy for the reader to look from the outside in and to see how things began to crumble and to wonder how it was that she could have been so blind for so long. But from real life we know that it is far more difficult in the moment, with all of the complexities of life.

Despite such reflections, Jenny often comes across as just a little bit less than genuine. While she uses a lot of ink to describe her husband’s faults and foibles (which, truly, are legion) she says very little about how she may have contributed to the meltdown of the marriage. This is not to defend her husband in his sin but just to say that she seems very willing to play the victim card. She portrays herself as a good and noble and pious woman who gave her life to her husband, her children, her country, only to be betrayed. And yet that is so rarely the way it really is. It is rarely so straightforward. Even acknowledging just a few of her own faults would have made her so much more human, so much more genuine. It would have given us so much more to learn about how a marriage really comes unglued from the outside in.

Whenever I read a book dealing with something as important as marriage, I am struck anew by the difference between a Christian worldview and a non-Christian worldview. Sanford often writes about her faith, but gives little evidence that she has a truly biblical worldview, a truly Bible-centered way of understanding the world. Raised Roman Catholic, she has held to the faith of her childhood but seems to have added elements of evangelicalism along with elements of the New Age. Her Christian thinking is at times Christianesque, but rarely distinctly Christian. And it shows as she talks about family, about marriage, about faith.

The book calls me to find joy in what God has given me and to keep my eyes focused on him, through all joy and pain, all success and failure. It calls me to be particularly cautious when it comes to success. It seems that Mark Sanford fell into the age-old trap of believing his own press. So many people told him of his own importance, that he began to believe it all. As his wife writes, “But now, the media, the hated media, was lavishing positive attention on him, and he found it irresistible. He was the man of the moment, the stalwart hero who was standing on principle and refusing to accept money from the federal government. In all ways, he was a man who stood apart from the quotidian world. He was lauded, celebrated for his constant seeking of new ideas, new horizons, and, unbeknownst to me, new sensations. Was it so much of a stretch then for him to think that if he worked hard enough at it, he might beat this aging thing too?” And so the story goes, time and time again. Mark Sanford loved to be loved and soon felt it was his right to pursue happiness in any way he saw fit. As any honest celebrity will tell you, success can very quickly beget entitlement. And entitlement, in turn, begets all kind of sin.

A sad story, as it must be when telling of the destruction of a marriage that ought to have been “til death do us part,” Staying True is sad also because of the lack of resolution, the lack of good answers. How I wish the author had been able to come to true, gospel-centered resolution where, even if she could not save her marriage, she could have taken comfort in the cross of Christ. She could have cast herself upon the one who will always stay true to her. Instead it seems that her primary concern has become staying true to herself. That may provide comfort for a time, but it can never fully satisfy.

Verdict: Read it if you’re ever tempted to vote for Mark Sanford