The Month in Reviews: May 2026
Introduction
One of my challenges in picking a Best Book of the Month is the “also rans.” Here were a few of the “also rans” from this month. Serving God Under Siege is a moving account of the war in Ukraine and the efforts of a seminary to keep training people to serve the church. Another war-focused novel is The Prodigal of Leningrad. It is good historical fiction of the siege of Leningrad, with a powerful narrative connected to Rembrandt’s Prodigal. Esther Lightcap Meek’s Loving to Know, on epistemology was one of my “best books of 2025.” Her recent The Mother’s Smile discusses how our very first experience, that of our mother’s smile, may be the most philosophically significant of our lives. Then, In Guns We Trust explores the Religious Right’s support of gun rights. The author listens to gun owners, churches, and gun manufacturers as he explores this issue.
Paul Elie’s The Last Supper explores the religious element in some of the most controversial art and artists of the 1980’s. But can art inform our understanding? That’s the question the researchers in Art Seeking Understanding explore. I’ve loved all of Steve Garber’s books. His latest, Hints of Hope is no exception, using eloquent prose to explore what it means to live with the proximate. Another writer I’ve liked is Louis Markos. From Aristotle to Christ is a great introduction to Aristotle that led me to pick up a copy of Aristotle’s works. Finally, you all know my love of baseball books. The Cup of Coffee Club tells the stories of eleven players who played just one game in the major leagues.
Of course, I review a number of other books here as well, including my third Jane Austen read and Thomas Pynchon’s latest novel.
The Reviews
A City on Mars, Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith. Penguin Books (ISBN: 9781984881748) 2023. A study of the complexities of human settlements in space, and whether this is as good an idea as some think. Review
Hints of Hope, Steven Garber, foreword by Makoto Fujimura. Paraclete Press (ISBN: 9798893480344) 2026. How we might live with hope in a beautiful but broken world where even our best efforts realize only proximately our ideals. Review
The Unwinding Path, Betany Coons, text and illustrations. IVP Kids (ISBN: 9781514013151) 2026. A bedtime book inviting children into quiet and rest as they follow the calming path of the labyrinth. Review
From Aristotle to Christ, Louis Markos. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514011324) 2025. Considers and appraises Aristotle’s influence on Christianity and how Christian thinkers appropriated his thought. Review
Emma, Jane Austen. Penguin Classics (ISBN: 9780141439587) 2003 (first published in 1815). A beautiful, rich young women with no interest in marriage makes a series of disastrous assumptions in matchmaking for her friend. Review
Silence and Speaking Freely, Sabino Chialà, Translated by John McAreavey. Liturgical Press (ISBN: 9798400803048) 2026. A translation of two talks by a monastic prior on what it means to live in an integrity of silence and speech. Review
The Prodigal of Leningrad, Daniel Taylor. Paraclete Press (ISBN: 9798893480221) 2026. During the siege of Leningrad, a docent who had betrayed his grandfather finds himself in Rembrandt’s Prodigal. Review
Between Interpretation and Imagination, Leslie Baynes. Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802874009) 2025. C.S. Lewis as Bible interpreter, vis a vis biblical criticism, the trilemma argument, and Narnia. Review
The Cup of Coffee Club, Jacob Kornhauser. Rowman & Littlefield (ISBN: 9781538175453) 2023. The stories of eleven baseball players who played just one game in the Major Leagues. Review
Why I Am Protestant (Ecumenical Dialogue Series), Beth Felker Jones. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514003008) 2025. A Protestant theologian addresses the strengths, weaknesses, and contributions of Protestantism. Review
The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s, Paul Elie. Farrar, Straus and Giroux (ISBN: 9780374272920) 2025. On controversial artists of the 1980’s, discussing the intersection of sexuality and spirituality in crypto-religious works. Review
Art Seeking Understanding, Christopher R. Brewer, editor. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802885166) 2025. A compendium of 23 research project essays studying aesthetic cognitivism funded by the Templeton Religion Trust. Review
Shadow Ticket, Thomas Pynchon. Penguin Press (ISBN: 9781594206108) 2025. Private detective Hop McTaggart hunts down a missing cheese heiress, from Milwaukee to Europe, in a series of madcap capers. Review
Wyrd Sisters (Discworld, 6) Terry Pratchett. Harper Paperbacks (ISBN: 9780063385559) 2024 (first published in 1988). Three witches living in Lancre hide the king’s heir when the king’s assassinated by Duke Felmet, and work to set things right. Review
In Guns We Trust. William J. Kole. Broadleaf Books (ISBN: 9798889835639) 2025. Why white evangelicals are among the most resistant to even reasonable restrictions on firearms and its impact. Review
The Mother’s Smile, Esther Lightcap Meek, foreword by D.C. Schindler. Cascade Books (ISBN: 9798385236473) 2025. How philosophically formative is a mother’s smile and the delighted regard of others. Review
It’s A Battlefield, Graham Greene. Open Road Integrated Media (ISBN: 9781504053976) 2018, first published 1934. The private “battles” of those connected with Jim Drover, a bus driver convicted of murder for killing a policeman. Review
Man Up, Cynthia Miller-Idriss. Princeton University Press (ISBN: 9780691257549) 2025. The relationship of misogyny to various forms of violent extremism, the strategies men use to control women, and what can be done. Review
Questioning Technology with Jacques Ellul, David W. Gill and Lisa Richmond, eds. Pickwick Publications (ISBN: 9798385244430) 2025. Essays on the technological thought of Ellul, both foundational principles and applications. Review
Serving God Under Siege, Valentyn Syniy. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing (ISBN: 9780802885692) 2025. A memoir of fleeing Kherson when Russia invaded, the challenges and lessons of displacement, and returning home. Review
Best Book of the Month
Jacques Ellul, I believe, might be called the prescient prophet of technology. In 1954, he anticipated the world of 2026. So, when 31 scholars ponder his work and its meaning and application to our time, it is noteworthy. Questioning Technology, in my opinion is some of the most thoughtful writing on technology from a Christian perspective. I would recommend reading it hand in hand with Pope Leo XIV’s Humanitas Magnifica.
Quote of the Month
In Esther Lightcap Meek’s The Mother’s Smile included this passage describing the “delighted regard” of an academic colleague and mentor:
“But I want to tell you about Bob’s face! I don’t mean any particular expression, but rather the frank, unqualified regard and particular delight that it always registered as he looked at me. I saw him seeing me. Over the years I grew to see myself as Bob sees me; I chose this visage, holding to his seeing me as more objective than my own subjective view. As a person, and also professionally, I have come to be who I am in his unwavering regard” (p. 76).
What I’m Reading
What Grows in Weary Lands is Tish Harrison Warren’s latest work on spiritual formation. Specifically, she explores the wisdom of the Desert Fathers to address how we live in faith through seasons of weariness. So substantive! Also, Nicaea Today explores the relevance of a creed from 1700 years ago to the church today. Then, going deeper in one of the declarations of Nicaea, Robert Lethan’s The Eternal Son explores the eternal generation of the Son, his deity and relation to God the Father. But not all our resources for faith come from the earliest centuries. For example, Love in a Time of Climate Change, draws on the Wesleyan quadrilateral of scripture, tradition, reason, and experience to address the church’s response to climate change.
Finally, in the area of psychology, Daniel Smith in Hard Feelings explores how the “negative” emotions are not to be suppressed but heeded for what they are trying to tell us. Lastly, I’m finally taking the plunge into the fiction of fellow Ohioan Louis Bromfield, reading Early Autumn, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1927. I’ve long admired his pioneering efforts in sustainable agriculture at Malabar Farm, which I’ve visited and even camped at with a group of Boy Scouts.
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. So, thanks for stopping by and feel free to share this with others!