With the cold weather we had for a couple weeks in January, I ended up reading twenty books this month. Admittedly one was an illustrated children’s book by Ned Bustard on St. Valentine and another was a chapbook of poetry by Vermont writer Amy Allen. That balanced Abraham Verghese’s eloquent but lengthy The Covenant of Water and some longish theology books on the Wesleyan doctrine of holiness and a book on reading the prophets in the light of Christ’s work. I enjoyed Richard Middleton’s Abraham’s Silence on the sacrifice of Isaac, although I differed at points with the author. He saw my review and was kind enough to send written responses that addressed my differences. I love that. And the book made me think more than many.
I would highlight three other books. One was Ann Patchett’s These Precious Days, a collection of essays–the title essay of which is a powerful true story. The other was a biography of Paul Laurence Dunbar, an early Black poet and Ohioan. At the encouragement of another reviewer I follow, I really must get over to his house in Dayton, a historical landmark. The third is a history of Christian missions originating in the West from the late Andrew Walls. There are several other books here on Christian theology and spirituality, my latest reviews from two mystery series I’m reading, an early Graham Greene and a George Simenon and a few other delightful books I’ll let you discover.
Holiness: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Theology, Matt Ayars, Christopher T. Bounds, and Caleb T. Friedeman. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023. A biblical, historical, and theological argument within the Wesleyan tradition for holiness understood as “entire sanctification” or Christian perfection, able not to sin and to wholeheartedly love God and neighbor. Review
The Devil’s Novice (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #8), Ellis Peters. New York: Mysterious Press/Open Road Media, 2014 (Originally published in 1983). Meriet Aspley is called the “Devil’s Novice” for his nightmares, his awkwardness among the brothers, and an attack leaving him consigned to Brother Mark, where he finds the body of a man he later confesses to have murdered. Review
The Prophets and the Apostolic Witness, Edited by Andrew T. Abernethy, William R. Osborne, and Paul D. Wegner. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023. An exploration of how Christians should read Old Testament prophets in light of the work of Christ and of how the apostolic witnesses read them. Review
Abraham’s Silence, J. Richard Middleton. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021. Challenges the traditional reading of the binding of Isaac that valorizes Abraham’s silence as unquestioning obedience and faith, contending that God wanted more than silent obedience. Review
The Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese. New York: The Grove Press, 2023. The story of three generations of the family of Big Ammachi of Parambil, the ever present reality of “the Condition” resulting in a drowning in every generation, a story both of love and the hope in advances in medicine. Review
These Precious Days, Ann Patchett. New York: Harper Collins, 2022. Essays on family, friendships, the life of writing and bookselling, and mortality. Review
The Yellow Dog (Inspector Maigret #6), Georges Simenon. New York: Penguin Books, 2014 (Originally published in 1931). Maigret is called in when a distinguished wine merchant is shot, followed by a murder, a disappearance and another shooting in which a common element in several instances is a yellow dog. Review
A Non-Anxious Life, Alan Fadling. Downers Grove: IVP Formatio, 2024. Proposes, as an alternative to an anxiety-driven life of hurry, restlessness, worry, and performance, a life under the non-anxious presence of Jesus of stillness, rest, peace, and fruitful love. Review
After Dispensationalism, Brian P. Irwin with Tim Perry. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2023. A study of the history, key beliefs, and teachers of dispensationalism with an assessment of the movement’s strengths and weaknesses along with a treatment discussing reading prophetic and apocalyptic books within their context. Review
Pray This Way To Connect With God, Hal Green. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023. A book on learning to pray, focusing on God’s initiative toward us to teach us to pray and prayer as focused on deepening our relationship with God. Review
Sweet Danger (Albert Campion #5), Margery Allingham. New York: Open Road Media, 2023 (Originally published 1931). Campion and friends seek to prove a rural family to be the rightful heirs of Averna, an oil-rich seaside village on the Adriatic while pursued by an unscrupulous financier. Review
Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Life and Times of a Caged Bird, Gene Andrew Jarrett. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2022. Perhaps the definitive biography of Paul Laurence Dunbar, one of the first African writers to achieve fame for his poetry and other writings. Review
Creation Care Discipleship: Why Earthkeeping Is an Essential Christian Practice, Steven Bouma-Prediger. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2023. A discussion of why and how earthkeeping is integral to following Christ, drawing upon scripture, Christian theology and Christian thinkers throughout the breadth of the church. Review
The Missionary Movement from the West (Studies in the History of Christian Missions), Andrew F. Walls, edited by Brian Stanley, foreword by Gillian Mary Bediako. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2023. A history of the last five hundred years of Christian mission efforts from the Europe and North America. Review
A Gun for Sale, Graham Greene. New York: Open Road Media, 2018 (originally published in 1936). A paid assassin murders a foreign minister of war, creating an international crisis that could lead to war but is betrayed by the middleman who paid him, who he pursues even as the police pursue him. Review
Renaissance, Susan Fish. Brewster, MA: Raven | Paraclete Press, 2023. Approaching fifty, Elizabeth Fane suddenly leaves work she loves as an executive director of a non-profit and a family that has been her life, to work in the gardens of a convent in Florence, Italy. Review
The Spiritual Art of Business, Barry L. Rowan. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2023. An exploration of how God can work both in us and in our world through our work. Review
Saint Valentine the Kindhearted, Ned Bustard (text and illustrations). Downers Grove: IVP Kids, 2024. A retelling in verse and woodcut illustrations of the story of Saint Valentine, centered on not only his kindheartedness, but that there is more to love than romance. Review
Mountain Offerings, Amy Allen. Montpelier, VT: Rootstock Publishing, 2024. A chapbook of narrative verse capturing memories of childhood, summer vacations in the mountains, growing love, parenting, and loss. Review
The Spacious Path, Tamara Hill Murphy. Harrisonburg, VA: Herald Press, 2023. In our fragmented world, discusses how the idea of a rule of life, not as an ill-fitting structure but an intimate walk of listening and love with Jesus, may bring wholeness into our lives. Review
Book of the Month. Hands down, my choice has to be The Covenant of Water. The story features extraordinary characters like Big Ammachi and her namesake granddaughter Mariamma, who makes a crucial medical discovery of the cause of a medical malady that has afflicted the family. The narrative spans three generations, set in the Mar Thoma Christian community of South India in a time of national upheaval and transformation. It’s a big book but the skilled writing and flowing prose of Verghese, a medical doctor, drew me along.
Quote of the Month. I’ll leave you with a page of verse from Ned Bustard’s Saint Valentine the Kindhearted, published just in time for Valentine’s Day:
Roses are red, violets are blue,
sugar is sweet, and so are you.
This is the poem many share
to show how much they love and care.
Flowers and candy sent our way
ev’ry year on Valentine’s Day.
But why the cards that say, “Be mine”?
That’s all from dear Saint Valentine!
–Ned Bustard
What I’m Reading. I’ve recently finished several books that you’ll see reviews of in the next days. One is the ninth in the Brother Cadfael series. Another both makes the case for God’s personal leadership in our lives and how we experience. The third is a memoir by a bookseller with a compound of small bookshops in the southernmost reaches of New Zealand, appropriately titled The Bookseller at the End of the World.
I’m a bit over 200 pages into Bob Spitz’s massive biography, The Beatles. All of what I’ve read so far is the arduous process undergone by this group, under several names and different personnel, before they became the Fab Four. Matt Mikalatos and Kathy Khang team up on Loving Disagreement, a far more spacious conception than mere civility for how Christians may differ, shaped by the fruit of the Spirit. Hope for God’s Creation is an effort by a Baptist theologian to articulate the theological framework that ought ground our care for creation. Persuasive Apologetics makes the case for persuasion and the use of an “eclectic” apologetic in Christian witness. Finally, I’ve just begun Paul Lynch’s Booker Prize-winning Prophet Song. Set in Ireland, it envisions a turn to an authoritarian state that suspends rights like habeas corpus and “disappears” opposition, claiming emergency powers and using Orwellian tactics turning language inside out. Chilling to any of us who think “it can’t happen here.”
I hope these twenty books suggest a few reading possibilities for you. And, as always, do return the favor and tell me what you are reading!
The Month in Reviews is my monthly review summary going back to 2014! It’s a great way to browse what I’ve reviewed. The search box on this blog also works well if you are looking for a review of a particular book.