In my reading this month I learned both about those who dig in the ground in Bible lands, and those, including six women, who soared into space. I read two more books in Ngaio Marsh’s Alleyn series, which I’m close to polishing off, read the second Cadfael book, and the fourth Redwall book. I love a good series. Speaking of series, I read another book in the Essential Studies in Biblical Theology series, on the arc from creation to new creation. Then there are new editions. I had the chance to finally review a standard introduction to theology that I’d been tempted to buy for many years. I couldn’t agree in all the particulars, but I loved the elegance and clarity of the work. Then there was a variety of special works from a presidential biography (of an Ohio president!), a history of the international collegiate ministry of which the college ministry I work with is a part, a fine monograph on Artemis of Ephesus (!), and best of all, a history and celebration of a Youngstown tradition — the cookie table! And that doesn’t cover it all!
Behold and Become, Jeremy M. Kimble. Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2023. A classic yet contemporary evangelical account of the doctrine of scripture and how God works transformation through scripture in salvation and Christian growth and what this means for one’s engagement with scripture and its use in the life and leadership of the church. Review
President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier, C. W. Goodyear. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2023. A full-length biography of the twentieth president tracing his evolution from a Radical Republican to one who sought to unify his party and a country still riven by the Civil War. Review
The Cookie Table: A Steel Valley Tradition, Alice Crosetto. Charleston, SC: American Palate, 2023. The story of this northeast Ohio/western Pennsylvania wedding tradition, its beginnings and a description of the ins and outs of cookie-baking, table set-up, types of cookies, and etiquette, and some of the uses of cookie tables beyond weddings. Review
American Idolatry, Andrew L. Whitehead. Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2023. Drawing on sociological research showing the association of racism and xenophobia with Christian nationalism, argues of the dangers of the idolatries of power, fear and violence to the American church. Review
Your Body is a Revolution, Tara Teng. Minneapolis: Broadleaf Books, 2023. Written by an embodiment coach and somatic practitioner, this book advocates for re-connecting with our bodies and names the different ways we have been estranged from our bodies through beliefs about the body, shaming, traumatic abuses, and political oppression and how we can learn to listen to and reconnect with our bodies. Review
The Beginning and End of All Things (Essential Studies in Biblical Theology), Edward W. Klink III. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023. Proposes that creation is not confined to beginnings but unfolds throughout the biblical story, concluding in the new creation. Review
Night at the Vulcan, (Roderick Alleyn #16), Ngaio Marsh. New York Felony & Mayhem, 2014, originally published in 1951. An actor is found dead in the actor’s dressing room at the end of a play. It appears to be suicide by gas asphyxiation, but Alleyn finds clues pointing to murder by someone in the company. Review
Nourishing Narratives, Jennifer L. Holberg. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023. Making sense of our lives and our faith through the stories that shape us. Review
Mariel of Redwall (Redwall #4), Brian Jacques. New York: Avon Books, 1991. Mariel the warrior mousemaid seeks revenge against Gabool, the pirate king, with a company from Redwall, while Redwall fends off a group of pirate fugitives led by rebel Captain Greypatch. Review
One Corpse Too Many (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #2), Ellis Peters. New York: Mysterious Press/Open Road, 2014 (Originally published in 1979). Burying 94 defenders of Shrewsbury loyal to Empress Maud, executed by King Stephen, Cadfael finds 95 bodies, one of which had been murdered. Could the killer be the young man seeking a daughter of a supporter of Empress Maud, hiding in the abbey under Cadfael’s protection? Review
The Priesthood of All Students, Timothée Joset. Carlisle, Cumbria, UK: Langham Global Library, 2023 (Also available in French and Spanish editions). Contends from historical, ecclesiological, theological, and missiological perspectives that the idea of the priesthood of all believers has been essential to the student-led, non-clerical character of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, and helps account for it global spread to 180 countries. Review
Good Catastrophe, Benjamin Windle. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2023. Drawing upon the Book of Job and Tolkien’s idea of “eucastrophe,” proposes that when we face pain and adversity, we are at the place where great good can occur. Review
The Last of the Fathers, Thomas Merton. New York: HarperOne, 1981 (originally published in 1954). A brief life of Bernard of Clairvaux, published following the encyclical, Doctor Mellifluous, celebrating the eighth centenary of the death of Bernard, on August 20, 1153. Review
Catching Fire, Becoming Flame (Revised and Expanded Tenth Anniversary Edition), Albert Haase, OFM. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2023. If God is the fire and spark who sets our lives aflame, how do we prepare the kindling for the transforming and empowering work of God? Review
The Six: The Untold Story of America’s First Women Astronauts, Loren Grush. New York: Scribner, 2023. Traces the story of the first six American women astronauts from their selection, through their training and missions, along with the special media attention they received. Review
Nobody’s Mother: Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament, Sandra L. Glahn. IVP Academic, 2023. Through a study of literature, epigraphic, art, and architectural evidence, proposes that Artemis, far from being a fertility goddess, was a virgin, who aided women in childbirth, and considers the implications for our reading of 1 Timothy 2:11-15. Review
A Continuous Harmony, Wendell Berry. Berkeley: Counterpoint Press, 2012. A collection of essays representing a cross-section on Berry’s critique of America’s consumptive culture as well as his ideas on good agriculture. Review
Faith Seeking Understanding, Fourth Edition, Daniel L. Migliore. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2023. An introduction to theology, covering all the major topics of systematic theology. Review
Excavating the Land of Jesus, James Riley Strange, Foreword by Luke Timothy Johnson. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2023. A description of the real work of archaelogists excavating sites in the biblical world from the time of Jesus, particularly the problems they seek to solve as they try +to understand how people lived in that time. Review
Last Ditch (Roderick Alleyn #29), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2016 (originally published in 1976). Alleyn and Troy’s son Ricky finds himself in the middle of a murder of a young horsewoman and gets mixed up with a group of drug runners when all he wants to do is get away on a Channel island and write. Review
Best of the Month: My choice for this month is C.W. Goodyear’s President Garfield. Garfield is a fellow product of Ohio’s Western Reserve and Goodyear traces a life full of accomplishment tragically cut short. He was an educator, a Civil War hero, an abolitionist, a politician who brought people together. One wonders what he might have accomplished if he had served eight years instead of five months as president. Goodyear captures all these facets of his life, one not without failings, but certainly one fully lived.
Quote of the Month. A book I haven’t mentioned yet is Albert Haase’s Catching Fire Becoming Flame, on how we might prepare the kindling of our lives to be set aflame by the Spirit of God. It’s a rich book to be read repeatedly and taken on retreat. I liked this quote:
“Catching fire and becoming flame require more than the spark of the Spirit and our well-chosen kindling. They also demand an ongoing perseverance and a long-term patience forged from the awareness that God fervently desires to see us blaze with godly enthusiasm. That enthusiasm flares up as we willingly surrender to the communal process of being transformed by the Spirit of God sent to lovingly respond to the unmet need or required duty of the present moment.”
What I’m reading. I began the third Brother Cadfael today, Monk’s Hood. I love this monk who combines manliness and holiness! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Demon Copperhead. Kingsolver creates in this character a compelling voice who narrates the hard life of growing up in the rural foster system and the burgeoning opioid crisis, and the vulnerabilities of an attractive young man who thinks of himself as trash because that is how he’s been treated most of his life. I’m also enjoying my baseball book of the summer, K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches. The ten pitches are everything from the fastball to the spitter. The author discusses who were the consummate pitchers of a particular pitch and famous moments when it was their “out” pitch. This is “inside baseball” at its best. Danielle Treweek’s The Meaning of Singleness explores singleness, not as a problematic state, but one of present significance in light of the eschaton. Finally, I’m taking a deep dive into the philosophy of personalism in More Than Things on the meaning and significance of all humans. I’m interviewing the author, Paul Louis Metzger later this month!
Because I’m in the middle of several longer books, you’ll see some other posts on some days. Meanwhile, take the time to catch up on the twenty reviews here, and maybe even read one or two! Happy 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.