Fascinating Biography of George Carver

God gives his children all sorts of miraculous gifts and talents, some more unusual than others. In George Washington Carver's case, God gave him the gift of botanical insight. John Perry brings us "George Washington Carver," a small but well-written biography publicised under the recent Christian Encounters series.

Carver began his life as a slave and eventually, through his patience, desire to learn and love of nature, found himself in Iowa State University as one of the favorite students of his professors. Later joining Booker T. Washington at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, Carver further developed his unique skill of cultivating different uses for various vegetation and plant life. Relatively unknown outside of Alabama till later in his life, Carver eventually found over 250 uses the peanut, and hundreds of uses for other vegetables including the sweet potato and pecan.

John Perry does well to elucidate the life of Carver, showing us his struggles, his failures, and his victories. Throughout his life, Carver struggled with a desire to be accepted and praised by others, but all the while overcome with a greater desire to please the Lord with his gifts and excite others to see what God had made.

Many thanks to Thomas Nelson for this complimentary review copy of this excellent biography.

Marvelous little Knox Bio

“The Life of John Knox,” written by an unknown author (I couldn’t find his name anywhere in the publication) is a fantastic little volume. In this work there are several scenes in Knox’s life that are unavailable in other biographies, most notably his encounters with Mary, Queen of Scots.

Myself being on a bit of a Knox bent lately, when I heard about Attic Books’ republication of a long forgotten work, I was interested right away. Of course the book can be somewhat difficult to read at times, but not nearly enough to have no idea what the author is trying to convey. At times, the specificity is quite helpful, and the thoughtfulness of his writings is much appreciated.

The book does hammer away at the Roman Catholicism of Knox’s day (and for good reason), so do not be shocked at some of the author’s bold statements in this regard; intertwined with this are the leaders of that day, political and otherwise, who were generally evil people in search of power and affluence. This power and affluence could in many ways be granted by the corrupt Roman church, which in many ways helped to give rise to the Reformation.

Knox’s encounters with Mary, Queen of Scots are marvelously portrayed in the book. Also, her character is unveiled as a duplicitous and unworthy Queen, oftentimes herself lying and going back on her word to the detriment of the people under her leadership. If you are interested in a small Knox biography, this perhaps may not be the first to read (for that I would recommend Wilson’s “For Kirk and Covenant”), but it is great for looking into those points of Knox’s life that you are left hanging in the other biographies. Highly recommended.

I would like to thank New Leaf Publishers and Attic Books for the complimentary review copy of this wonderful book.