The Lucado Inspirational Reader: Hope and Encouragement for Your Everyday Life by Max Lucado

For more than 25 years, Max Lucado has walked with us through life’s journey. With wisdom, grace, and compassion, he’s covered topics like salvation and victory. Comfort and the cross. God’s love and ultimate grace.

“The Lucado Inspirational Reader” gathers the most memorable one-liners, paragraphs, stories, and teachings from a lifetime of inspiring bestsellers into one volume. These are the words that you’ll want to turn to time and again for hope and encouragement.

It’s filled with illustrations, anecdotes, and quotes for those times when you’re looking for just the right words and indexed for easy reference. Spend a few minutes or a few hours being refreshed and encouraged by messages straight from Max’s heart to yours.

Personal Thoughts:

It’s been awhile since I posted a review for inspirational book on this blog. And to be honest I haven’t read much inspirational books since I started focusing on reviewing fictions. Other than my bitten copy of daily inspirational book which is a decade old, I haven’t read much books from this genre for quiet awhile. Though I still got few titles on my shelf that are waiting to be crack. Hopefully I got the chance to read those books soon.

The Lucado Inspirational Reader is a collection of stories, quotations and bible passages compiled from the previous works of this best-selling author. It is divided into different categories such as comfort, encouragement, faith, forgiveness, hope, passion, purpose and so on. You can read this by chapter or by part and it doesn’t require a much amount of time to enjoy and experience the inspiring messages and thought-provoking ideas that the author is trying to convey.

Max Lucado is one of those authors from this genre that I know I wouldn’t get wrong. The last book I read written by him was a modern parable entitled God’s Mirror which I bought from a book sale with an audio book cd included. I don’t have the book with me anymore since I pass it to a friend few days after I read it but that book is a short inspiring read.

When I was still in highschool I used to collect inspiring stories. Stories that I got from newspaper articles, magazines and emails. I organized them creatively and bind them like a book. I don’t have that collection anymore with me, I lend it to someone and never got it back. This book reminds me of that collection. The stories in here are also inspiring and uplifting. But this book is a lot better because it is more organized and easier to carry. My collection is bigger since the stories are printed in a letter size paper. And the pasted articles makes it more bulkier to look.

The Lucado Inspirational Reader is a comforting, inspiring and soul-lifting book. And like what I always do with books that inspire me, I’ll be passing this one too. Even I want to keep this for myself knowing there will come a time that I’ll be wanting to read this book again, I still preferred sharing this to someone I know who will love and appreciate the book like I do. Someone who needs an inspiration, hope or a simple cheer to remind her that life is beautiful. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll get another copy when I need to read it again.

If you have never read any books of Max Lucado or if you are a fan, this book is an awesome collection that you should not miss. An inspiring and uplifting read for everyone.

This review is based on a copy I received courtesy of the publisher, Thomas Nelson via BookSneeze.com in exchange of honest review.

Kokology 2 by Isamu Saito & Tadahiko Nagao

I bought this book few years ago, then a friend of mine borrowed it and lend it to her friends until I lost track where it is. Finally I got it back few days ago.

Kokology is based from the popular Japanese pop-psych quiz game with the same title. The term kokology means study of kokoro (“mind” or “spirit” in Japanese). The book contains series of psychological games designed to uncover emotional and behavioral traits of the players. It reveals the players’ hidden attitudes about family, friendship, love, finance, work and more. It can be played alone but it is suggested to played it with friends for more fun experience and the chance to discover their personalities as well.

Each game starts with a subject header or the title question followed by scenarios or imagined situations. You as a player should imagined yourself in these situations and react from it. It may also required you to draw or write something in a piece of paper. After each scenarios, are set of defined answers where you should choose one. Then the definition of each answers is revealed at the end of each game. The answers are interpreted from a psychological perspective which tells the way your mind works. It share what type of person you are and helps you discover yourself. The explanation of the answers may matches what you believe in or what you want to believe with your self while at times it’s totally not what you ought to be or the other way around. It may also be hilarious for some but definitely fun to discover.

Kokology is one of the book I usually grab on shelf when I am bored or I simply want to read something light. This book is more than just a psychological test book, it’s a lot more fun. If Rorschach test uses inkblots this book uses words which make it more simple. It puts a spin on traditional psychological tests by transforming them into a series of entertaining and approachable quizzes.

Here is a sample game from the book. Enjoy playing!

… Imagine that you are a comfortable pair of shoes. If you could pick any person to wear you, who would that person be?

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make sure you have your answer before continue reading…
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When you imagine yourself as another person’s shoes, you mentally place yourself in the position where they literally step and walk on you. This image is associated with feelings of self-negation, surrender, and subjection to the will of another.
The person you named as your wearer is someone you can easily imagine yourself utterly enslaved by or would be happy to devote yourself to, body and soul.
Did your response surprise you? Don’t be alarmed; there’s no shame in wanting to be totally dominated. Well, maybe just a little shame, but that’s part of the thrill, isn’t it?