Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014, 224 pp., $12.60
The Extravagant Fool: A Faith Journey that Begins Where Common Sense Ends reads like a modern-day story of Job. The narrative style is engaging, but not academic. Kevin Adams offers a vulnerable, well-written journal (quite literally, he includes entries from his personal journal) of personal of crisis and recalibration. When Adams opened the book by describing the loss of all his wealth, business, home (mansion), and began describing his new life of modest means, I had some difficulty relating because his new reality sounded very similar to my current realty! I felt little empathy…at first. He then describes his continued journey into more loss, humiliation, loss of desire to go on living, questions why and God’s silence. I began to resonate with his writing. Loss, doubt and crushed spirit are common human experiences. If you are a type-A, risk-taking kind of personality, you will find a companion in the author. His amassed wealth was the result of business acumen, gravitas and risk. When disaster hit his life (which he explains in detail), he was forced to decide what kind of fool he would be (