Your Turn to Contribute
Update: This Friday’s Winner Announced (12/18). See comments for details.
We launched the new Rabbit Room Store a few weeks ago and despite a few hiccups here and there, the transition has been a smooth one. One of the new features that we’re excited about is the option for you Rabbit Roomers out there to provide your own reviews. Each item in the store has its own review section and we need your help to fill them up. It’s your turn to let others know what you think.
To encourage everyone to get started, each Friday between now and Christmas we will be giving away a free download of our choice to one lucky reviewer. We promise that no preference will be given to overtly glowing critiques (as if we expect anything less) but some extra consideration may be given to comments on products previously un-reviewed.
Ready? Set? Go! (click here to get started)
A.S. Peterson has crafted a work of compelling historical fiction which begs the question, “Can this really be a debut novel?” With dogged fidelity, Peterson captures the spirit, manners, and social conditions present during the American Revolutionary War. We meet colorful, credible characters who navigate the high seas of life and love, dependence and independence, war and peace, truth and consequence, and despite forays into dark places, The Fiddler’s Gun is beautiful, lyrical, and redemptive.
Walt Wangerin, Jr. strikes again.
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Sara Groves irritates me just a little bit. With each album she makes, she moves from strength to strength and is always raising the bar with the quality, depth, and lyrical ambition of her work. And as a fellow artist, that’s just a little irritating since it means the rest of us are going to have to work harder if we hope to keep up.
I am outside on my front porch. The yellowed leaves are methodically falling from the black walnut in the yard, my breath is chalky visible in the recent cold snap, and lately I have been exploring the unpleasant nuances of the dark night of a soul - my own, to be exact. It is a strange passion we live out on this over-glorified orb of rock hurtling through space at some rate that I’m sure would astound me were I to know what it was. It is an odd series of days, I am realizing, when you question your own faith more than you question your own doubt. And, indeed, it is these nagging questions which have prompted me to share my thoughts on Andrew Peterson’s 2003 album, Love and Thunder.
11-year old Reuben Land, a character in the 2001 book Peace Like a River, provides narration that is clear-eyed and insightful, yet retains the magic, wonder, and innocence of youth. I found it easy to entrust my imagination to the author’s clever method of telling the story through the sensibilities of a pre-teen boy. An author with lesser skill would have either made the boy too smart-alecky for his own good or impossibly cute.
I just finished a book that upon closing it, I felt like it finished me in a sense. A quiet meditative book that reached down and stirred the deep waters in me. It’s Marilynne Robinson’s 2005 Pulitzer prize winner Gilead, given to me by my friend Andrew Peterson.
Eric Peters’s body of work addresses a diverse range of topics, but hope is a recurring theme that gently percolates in the midst of it all. And yet, somewhere between the 2001 masterpiece Land of the Living, and Scarce, the flavor of hope that Peters’s work emits has evolved closer to a tone that is more resolute than what came before. And though the complexion of hope has a broad range, the lyrics from Scarce–while intermittently contrite and timorous as in previous efforts, are now strengthened and bolstered by roots that have grown deeper, radiating an underlying grit and security.
Having read The Great Divorce many times over the years, I’ve found this classic from the great C.S. Lewis to be full of startling clarity and depth on the differences between Heaven and Hell. The only thing both have in common is that both begin in the human will; we can either let Heaven enter us and rule in us to blossom into love and goodness, or allow Hell to infect and reign in our hearts by the daily refusal to submit to Heaven.
Even if you haven’t heard Room to Breathe, its still likely you’ve heard Andy Gullahorn. He’s what I’d call a heavy lifter by trade. He writes lyrics, plays guitar, arranges vocals and adds production help to the work of artists like Jill Phillips and Andrew Peterson.
Allow me to preface this by telling you that I am a great despiser of gushing reviews. I’d much rather write (or read) a scathing dismemberment of the latest Brett Ratner film or Terry Goodkind book than suffer through four hundred words of overblown hyperbole about even the best of things. But when asked to write some thoughts on Frederick Buechner’s Godric, no amount of distaste for high praise was able to intervene. I hope you’ll take what I say with the understanding that I do not say it readily or lightly.
Thanks to all the folks that have contributed their own reviews. Keep them coming.
As promised, we’re choosing one reviewer to receive a free download each Friday until Christmas and in honor of all the leftover pie in the refrigerator, this week’s download goes to Eric McLaughlin for his review of “Life of Pi”.
Enjoy your download of the 2-disc 10th Anniversary edition of Behold the Lamb of God and Merry Christmas.
Thanks much, Pete. A pleasure to share, and glad for the opportunity to contribute.
You guys wrote some great reviews this week. Thank you! In honor of the release of Andy Gullahorn’s The Law of Gravity, this week’s winner is PaulH. Great play-by-play review, Paul. We appreciate your participation in our community.
Enjoy your download of Andrew Peterson’s Appendix C and have a great Christmas.
Thank You and it is much appreciated!
We got some more great reviews this week. Keep them coming.
This week’s free download goes out to Chinwe E for a great review of Marilynne Robinson’s new novel, Home. Here’s the review:
“For those who read and loved Gilead, Robinson is back with the other side of the story. Home takes place in the same Iowa town as Gilead, and at the same time! That’s right: instead of seeing the world through Rev. Ames’ eyes, this time we get to live in the Boughton house and experience it all with Glory.
Jack is home and this reverberates through the lives of those he left behind, including Old Boughton, the father who loves him, some might say too much.
Robinson perfectly captures the dynamic of a family with so much to say to each other, a family struggling with the balance between love and responsibility.
Home does not have the same “religious musings” as Gilead had, but it is an excellent study of relationships and coming home after one has been away for so long.”
Enjoy your free download of Appendix A!
Yay!! Thanks for the chance to contribute to this wonderful site. I’ve enjoyed being part of this community, even if it’s been mostly silent
Another Friday, another winner!
This week the lucky reviewer is MiraMiraOnTheWall for her review of Eric Peters’s Chrome (one of the best albums of the year).
Here’s her review:
“Chrome: I’m gonna be honest here and say I decided to buy this cd after I listened to the Rabbit Room podcast about it and hearing the song about his career, I felt bad and decided to buy it. So yeah, I was basically guilted into buying it. With that being said, I love the cd, a LOT, it’s a gem. The songwriting is honest and heartfelt and it pulls you in. I especially love the song “I Had To Tell You”, it puts into words something a lot of us think at some point but rarely come out and say out loud. This cd is a gift to anyone who gets the pleasure of hearing it. Eric Peters is one of my favorites now, I definitely won’t be buying the next cd out of guilt. ”
Enjoy your free download of Andrew Peterson and The Captains Courageous Appedix C. Merry Christmas.
Thanks so much for the free download! It’s a really lovely, unexpected Christmas present and it’s very much appreciated.