2009 Book #6: The Gift of Psalms

I have received and finished The Gift of Psalms from Thomas Nelson to review. This book includes fifty Psalms with devotional thoughts for each one. Three CD’s are included to provide an audio version of 30 of the Psalms and devotions.

The book is beautiful in appearance and layout. The 50 Psalms are well-chosen and the devotional thoughts stir the heart and encourage the reader.

There were several things about this book that I did not like though that would prevent me from buying it myself. First, the CD’s only include 30 of the Psalms. At first I thought every other Psalm from the book would be on the audio but this wasn’t the case. Second, only a portion of the Psalm is printed while the audio included a reading of the Psalm in its entirety. This was confusing to me as well to be following along with the book and have some of the verses left out. Another distraction to me was how the readers changed for each Psalm. Some of the readers were better readers than others. I would have preferred one voice for the reading of the Psalm and one for the reading of the devotional thought. Finally, I heard some repetitions of sentences on the audio as well as some typographical errors in the book.

The Psalm’s on praise blessed me and reminded me to always praise the Lord. Another Psalm that was encouraging was Psalm 96, which talks about singing a new song to the Lord. Many of these Psalms were great reminders to me of God’s love and faithfulness.