A Wizard of Earthsea is the first book in the Earthsea series written by Ursula K. Le Guin.  The central character is Ged, a young man who has the potential to be one of the most powerful wizards in all of Earthsea.  Ged starts as a boy who slowly discovers that he has vast talent to become a wizard.  He is soon adopted by a regional mage who promises to train him.  The boy's excitement is too much and he can't bear to follow the slow and subtle training that the mage offers.  In a foolish and impatient move Ged leaves and head to wizard school.  

I read this book once before years ago.  Back then I'm not sure I appreciated it as much as I did when I read it now.  I had forgotten how persuasive some of the simple and straight-forward arguments for classic Christian beliefs are.  McDowell does an excellent job of covering the issues in a clear and deliberate manner.  He covers everything from the deity of Christ to the reliability of the scriptures to the truth of the ressurection. A hardcore philosophical attack on the contents of this book would likely find some holes but I believe it easily covers 95% of the issues.  The other 5% is still up for grabs.

Most people have heard of Bladerunner as a movie.  A few people know that this movie was based off a book by Philip K. Dick titled Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep. After the success of the movie Dick's book was republished and retitled as Bladerunner.  I have seen the movie a couple of times (I still don't see why it is considered one of the best sci-fi movies ever) and when I ran across the book in the library I thought it would be worth a read.  It was.

Have you ever wondered how Egyptian hierglyphics were deciphered?  Or what about the Myan calendar and script? Lost Languages is a book that goes through the history of how these languages were deciphered.  It also goes through a list of several ancient languages that haven't yet been "cracked".  In some cases it's doubtful that the language will ever be discovered unless some amazing new artifacts are found. At times the book is a bit technical but for the most part it is quite readable.

The Illearth War is the second book in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.  I added my comments on the first book Lord Foul's Bane on this site a couple of weeks ago.  As I mentioned then, I first started reading this series in High School.  At that time I only read the first book and didn't really like it.  This time I found the first book interesting enough to compel me to read the second.  It is unusual for the second book in a triolgy to be better than the first but that is the case with this series.  Much better, in fact.

Sometimes I get an itch to go out looking for new bands.  By "new" I mean a band that I haven't heard of before.  Not too long ago this urge led me to find Never Go Unheard by Candlefuse.  I was most intrigued by the fact that they had a cover of the modern worship classic Hungry on the CD.  I was curious to see how a band with such an aggressive alt-rock sound would pull off that song.  The CD has not been a disappointment.

Lord Foul's Bane is one of the classic fantasy novels (series actually) from the 80's.  It was published in 1977 right on the heels of the great Tolkien revival that was sweeping across college campuses.  But Thomas Covenant is a completely different hero that the humble Baggins.  Covenant is an anti-hero.  He is more than reluctant to step in and save the world.  Instead, he actively refuses to play his role.  He tries his best to avoid getting sucked into the delusion, as he thinks of it.  Covenant is a leper who was magically transported from the real world to the magical Land.  He insists that it is all a dream designed to strip him of his sanity.