What I've Read: The Search for God and Guinness

My sister, bless her heart, keeps trying to get me books that she thinks I'll like. Now, to her credit, she got this one half-right. Looking at the title, the Guinness part is right up my alley. In the beer world, no pint gets me close to sheer happiness than Sir Arthur Guinness' finest. It's the God part ... notsomuch.

She's tried getting me books before, and we saw how unfortunate that turned out. And with this one, I'm worried there is a creepy trend. Both her attempts at literary gold struck out because they both ventured into some heavy religious territory that I want no part of.

There are red flags all over the place warning her that this may not be the best choice. For one, it say God above Guinness in the title, which should be a pretty clear indicator of the focus. Second, the author is a well-known evangelist, so that also was a sign. And third, it said God before Guinness in the title.

I'll take a moment away from my sister's selection capabilities and turn to the book itself. It's split between the history of the famous beer brand and the history of the family that created it and their religious bent. The beer parts were cool, I suppose. I learned a bit more than I did on the brewery tour in Dublin. The family history part was nice, in the sense that this was a rich family who spent a considerable fortune on the poor and needy around Ireland and Britain, so their faith helped turn their riches into good works for those in need.

What sucks most is that Mansfield does less research on this book than I did on my high school book reports (and half those books I never even read). Too many of his statements are questionable at best, starting with, "We can assume ..." or "He probably thought …" and he makes making massive presumptions of a person's thought process or actions without a lick of fact to back it up. When that's not happening, he takes a lot of liberties with quoting constantly from all sorts of letters and crap that don't exactly add much depth but sure do pad out the page count. Further, if there are 30 photos in the book, 27 of them are pictures taken within the last three years on the brewery tour, and maybe 3 of historical note. Dan, Luke and I took better pics of Guinness on our iPhones. It just all comes across as rather lazy. All of this is to say that there this would be fine if this were a book of fiction, not a piece of historical nonfiction that it actually is.

Hey, it's fine, not every book you read is going to be a winner. I'm just not sure I can trust something from my sister unless she starts being more clear about her intentions, or at the very least taking the time to read the dust jacket and deciphering what the hell she's getting me. But I love her for trying. I think that'll save this post from her scorn. Yeah, that'll do it.