Author: rtrube54

Review: The Magic of Knowing What You Want

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Cover image of "The Magic of Knowing What You Want" by Tracey Gee

The Magic of Knowing What You Want, Tracey Gee. Revell (ISBN: 9780800746223) 2025.

Summary: A guide to identifying, clarifying, and embodying your desires, turning them into action.

“What do you want?” It is a question Jesus asks of people several times in the gospels. I also remember a Babylon Five episode in which one of the characters walks about the station asking people “What do you want?” It is a powerful question. It exposes the desires, the longings of the heart we are often hesitant to ask.

Tracey Gee discovered the power of this question when she hit rock bottom. Tracey had worked in an organization for twenty years, performing with excellence in a series of roles. She decided to apply for a VP role she felt both fit and would stretch her competencies. Several friends also applying for the position spoke of moving forward in the interview process. However, she had heard nothing, until the email came informing her that she wouldn’t be moving forward in that process.

Trying to figure out how to move forward, she committed to a forty day experiment. She committed to doing one thing she wanted to do each day. For example, she took her dog for runs on the beach or cooking a favorite family dish. Over time, that led her to clarify more significant wants including the career direction she took. And through the leadership coaching she does, it gave us this book.

She begins with identifying our desires. But the answer to the question of what we want often means finding our way through a fog. So, she offers help on reaching clarity. She discusses the relationship of purpose and desire and how we get those in alignment. Then she discusses the four types of questions that get in the way of pursuing our desires. These include competency questions, pragmatic questions, capitalistic questions and permission questions. Instead of getting bogged down in these, she invites us to ask aliveness, imagination, curiosity, and agency questions.

Then, over four chapters, Gee walks us through a four stage process along the Authentic Alignment Pathway. The first stage is calibration, identifying what makes you come alive. Stage two is expansion, sparking an imagination for possibilities to help you discover what is out there. Then stage three involves experimentation, taking tangible and doable steps to turn curiosity into clarity. Finally, stage four is integration, involving agency to bring your desires to life. Each chapter includes worksheets to help turn ideas into plans.

The last part of the book begins with goal-setting. But before you grit your teeth, this is desire-based goal setting that combines high desire and high discipline. Instead of “oughts,” goals become learning tools in the implementation of desires. Then to cap it all off, Gee talks about the to-be-hoped for experience of what you want wanting you back. She cautions that the timelines are not linear and that rejections are a form of protection.

Part of the delight in reading this book (as well as full-disclosure) is that I was a colleague of Tracey’s in the organization where she experienced the VP disappointment. We were on a project team involving growth coaching and the gifts she is using so capably now, exhibited in this book, were evident then. Another part of my delight is that she asks what may be one of the most important question we need to ask ourselves: what do you really want?

But she doesn’t leave us in the fog of desire. If you are willing to work through the process in the book, often with trusted friends, the book can be life-changing. If you are facing one of those “turning points” in your career and life journey, or sense it is approaching, get this book! Tracey’s journey from disappointment through joyful discovery and into aligning her purposes and desires can be yours.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book for review from the publisher through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers Program.

Review: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with The Pearl and Sir Orfeo

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Cover image of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" translated by J.R.R. Tolkien

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with Pearl and Sir Orfeo, Anonymous, translated by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien. William Morrow (ISBN: 9780358724209) 2021 (first published 1975).

Summary: Tolkien’s translation of three 14th century poems, retaining rhyme, meter and alliterative schema.

You may not realize it, but the various stories of Middle Earth were not the only works of J.R.R. Tolkien. He also translated into modern English three fourteenth century poems, including an edition of the Arthurian poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. He initially collaborated with E.V. Gordon on an edition in 1925. Tolkien also worked on translations of Pearl and Sir Orfeo. However, these were unpublished at his death, and the first to be published with the editorial work of Christopher Tolkien. This is a new edition of that work.

Sir Gawain is probably the most familiar. A Green Knight appears before the round table issuing a challenge, which Arthur accepts but then Gawain accepts to spare his king. The challenge is to strike a blow at the knight’s neck. But Gawain must then seek out the knight, appearing the following New Year’s Day, and allow the knight to do the same. Gawain beheads the knight, who then picks up his head, walks off, holding Gawain to his pledge. Most of the poem is Gawain’s quest to find the knight. By Christmas Eve, he still hasn’t found the knight but arrives at a castle where he can attend mass and stay over Christmas, since the Green Knight lives just two miles away. Gawain’s encounter with the Knight is a kind of anti-climax, the real trial is with the lady of the castle.

Pearl represents an allegory of the loss of what is precious, a young man’s quest, which reminds one of Pilgrim’s Progress where the quest for the Pearl, personified as a maiden takes on a spiritual character of repentance and salvation.

Sir Orfeo is another quest poem in which Sir Orfeo loses his wife Heurodis to a fairy king. He seeks her for many years in the forest where she was last seen. Finally, he spots her and by disguise, finds his way to the king’s court. But to win her and then to be restored to his own throne!

One of the distinctions of Tolkien’s translations is that he retains the meter, rhyme, and alliterative scheme of the original. An appendix on verse forms explains this. I have not read any other edition of these works so I cannot assess how successful Tolkien was. However, I can say that the translation flows and never bogs down the stories of these poems.

This edition also includes the text of the “W.P. Ker Memorial Lecture on Sir Gawain.” The lecture is helpful in appreciating the tension between courtly manners and the perfection of character with which Sir Gawain struggles.

All three poems concern quests. A common theme is that the formation of the character of the questor through the decisions he makes is perhaps even more significant than the object of the quest. We may think we are shaping our life quest when in fact it is shaping us.

The three poems are all treasures I am glad to have found. The translation and editing of the Tolkiens, father and son, is a bonus!

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Thanks for visiting Bob on Books.  I appreciate that you spent time here. Feel to “look around” – see the tabs at the top of the website, and the right hand column. And use the buttons below to share this post. Blessings! [Adapted from Enough Light, a blog I follow.]

Review: Global Christianity and Islam

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Cover image of "Global Christianity and Islam" by Wafik W. Wahba

Global Christianity and Islam, Wafik W. Wahba. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9780830851959) 2025.

Summary: A study of the history, political relations, and beliefs of the two religions and how they’ve intersected.

Christianity and Islam are global religions, counting over half the world’s populations as adherents. Muslims represent growing populations in both Europe and North America, even in many of our neighborhoods. Since the beginning of Islam, the two religions have intersected politically, economically, and in efforts to proselytize one another, Sadly, turmoil and conflict have often marked those interactions down to the present. For those who care for political peace, inter-faith harmony, and mutually beneficial commerce, mutual understanding is vital. In Global Christianity and Islam, professor Wafik W. Wahba, who has lectured on Christian-Muslim relations in twenty-five countries, offers a resource toward that understanding.

The work is broken into three parts. Firstly, Wahba considers the history development of both religions. I was struck by the markedly divergent beginnings. Christianity grew despite intense persecution in a Greco-Roman context until it became the official religion under Constantine. Islam’s early expansion came through military conquest. The Islamic caliphate emerged victorious in conflict with the Crusaders and presided over scientific advances during a zenith of learning. Wahba traces the spread of Islam from North Africa to Asia while Christianity spread throughout western Europe, Russia and eventually the Americas, as well as globally through various mission movements.

Secondly, Wahba considers the relation between politics and religion in the two faiths, In theory, Christianity separates church and state but in the successive Byzantine and European expressions of Christendom, church and state were closely entangled, as continues to be the case in some contexts. Meanwhile, the Islamic ideal would consider religion and state inseparable. Yet, Wahba traces twentieth century experiment and implementing a secular state within Islamic societies as well as the resurgence of Islamic states in which Islamic principles govern every aspect of society.

Finally, the third part focuses on religious belief. Wahba compares and contrasts the two faiths. Both affirm one God but Islam emphasizes the absolute sovereignty of God while Christianity focuses more on relational aspects of God, including relations of persons within the One. Both teach about Jesus. Here, Wahba devotes a chapter each to what Islam and Christianity teach about Jesus. Additional chapters contrast teaching about human nature and salvation, and about the ummah in Islam and the church.

I would love to know what a Muslim reader of the book thinks of this presentation. I found it fair and even-handed. More than that, Wahba is neither polemical nor proselytizing. He clarifies differences and misconceptions in a non-argumentative fashion. In addition, Wahba writes in a highly readable prose. One may read the book profitably for one’s own understanding. I could also see using the book as the basis of a respectful Muslim-Christian dialogue group. Finally, where many writers write either Islamic or Christian histories where the other features as a minor player, this book portrays both histories through the lens of their intersection.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Gliff

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Cover image of "Gliff by Ali Smith

Gliff, Ali Smith. Pantheon (ISBN: 9780593701560) 2025

Summary: Two “Unverifiable” children meet up with a horse slated for rendering in a courageous attempt to find their way in a dystopian world.

Two “Unverifiable” children are in flight. They have to leave their home which has been outlined in red for destruction. There mother has been called away in an emergency. Leif, her partner, piles them and their essential belongings into his campervan…until it is also circled in red after an overnight in a parking lot. A train ride takes them to a new town. Leif finds them an abandoned house, stocks them with food and some cash and leaves for a week. They see neither Leif nor their mother again.

The two are Rose and Bri whose gender is ambiguous. Bri is the narrator. Rose and Bri’s mother has avoided smartphones and other elements of the surveillance society as much as possible, so they are used to living off the grid.

As Rose explores their surroundings, she discovers a neighboring farm with a field of used-up horses feeding. She later learns it is part of a rendering operation. These horses are as much on the margins as Rose and Bri. Rose befriends one, who she names Griff, a Scottish word meaning “transient moment, a shock, a faint glimpse.”

For a time, they shelter in an abandoned school with others who are “off the grid.” Oona, an older woman, becomes a kind of mentor and protector until the school is slated for demolition. The children flee on the horse. But eventually Bri is captured by the authorities,

Bri is subjected to processing and re-educated. During this, they are classified as a male. Bri becomes a manager of a factory in which child workers often suffer horrendous injuries. Bri enjoys a modicum of success and safety until someone from the past turns up. Someone who knows about Rose.

Ali Smith portrays an ugly, banal world in a dystopian totalitarianism. Everyone is surveilled, and all their information resides in vast servers. The accounts of Rose and Bri and Gliff represent a remnant of color, of personhood in this depersonalized world where people are reduced to production quotas and horses are fit only for rendering.

This is a brave new world (a motif in the second part of the book) where everything distinctive, beautiful, ambiguous, and colorful is reduced to bland functionality. It’s a world of prosperous oligarchs and a faceless society serving them. There are hints that people are eking out an existence in a climate-scorched world. It’s an uncomfortably possible future and faces us with the challenges of finding one’s personhood and meaning in a world trying to erase all of that.

Review: Mere Christian Hermeneutics

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Cover image of "Mere Christian Hermeneutics" by Kevin Vanhoozer

Mere Christian Hermeneutics, Kevin J. Vanhoozer. Zondervan Academic (ISBN: 9780310234388) 2024.

Summary: Amid a variety of interpretations and reading cultures, articulates essential principles for reading scripture.

One of the stinging critiques many of my friends who are skeptics make is of the plethora of biblical interpretations. They argue that it comes down to making the Bible say whatever you want it to say. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, whose life has been dedicated to the teaching and practice of biblical interpretation, is cognizant of that critique. In Mere Christian Hermeneutics, Vanhoozer attempts what C.S. Lewis attempted in Mere Christianity. That is, he seeks to articulate “those basic principles espoused by all Christians, everywhere, and at all times for reading the Bible as the church’s scripture” (p. 17).

The book is organized around the idea of ascending two mountains: Sinai (where the law was revealed to Moses) and Tabor (the mount of Transfiguration). Before beginning the ascents, Vanhoozer surveys the terrains of each ascent. Specifically, he considers the various reading cultures that have shaped biblical interpretation. For example, in the medieval period, he contrasts the scholastic and monastic approaches. Likewise, in modernity, he considers the schools of exegesis versus systematic theology. He also reflects on ways this mirrors humanistic and scientific cultures in the wider academy. He argues for an approach to interpretation that overcomes the polarization.

In the second part of the book, Vanhoozer leads us in an ascent of Mount Sinai. This concerns what we mean in speaking about the literal sense of scripture. Vanhoozer shows how this has always moved beyond the exegesis of the words to some larger sense of what the text is about. He argues for the practice of not only grammatical-historical interpretation but also grammatical eschatological interpretation. In essence, this means reading “trans-figurally.” That is, we read scripture across times and testaments in ways that link persons, events, places, and ideas.

But this form of “trans-figural” reading anticipates the ascent of Mount Tabor. Part Three focuses on the light of Christ, anticipated in the light revealed at the beginning of creation in Genesis 1:3. Then Vanhoozer engages in an extensive study of the transfiguration which he sees as a guide for our reading, in which the “matter” of scripture is transformed in the light of Christ such that scripture reveals to us the knowledge of God. Then, as we engage in this “trans-figural” reading and wrestle with the text, we ourselves are “transfigured.”

Finally, Vanhoozer makes concluding comments on how this may transfigure our reading cultures and our life of worship.

This is a very brief summary of an extended treatment. What I appreciate in this book is an approach to interpretation that focuses on Christ. He moves beyond our exegesis, even our biblical theology, to acknowledge our dependence upon Christ in the interpretive process. Christ is both the focus of scripture and the one who reveals its full meaning to his people. While Vanhoozer acknowledges the importance of careful exegesis, he reminds us of the reading cultures, the interpretive communities we all inhabit. What he offers is a way for us both to hear each other, but more importantly, to hear the one Lord over all our communities.

This won’t magically eliminate all our interpretive differences. But a common rubric of essentials may help us move toward a common mind, the mind of Christ. And that is no small thing.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

The Weekly Wrap: August 17-23

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person holding brown paper bag
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

The Weekly Wrap: August 17-23

An Alarming Decline

The American Time Use Study came out and it contributes to the evidence of a decline in reading. Between 2003 and 2023, the study indicated that the number of adults who read for leisure dropped from nearly 40 percent to 16 percent. Only 2 percent of adults read to children. The only encouraging statistics was that the time for those who do read for leisure was up from an hour and 23 minutes to an hour and 37 minutes. And those increased book sales during COVID? It turns out, this was not because of more readers but readers buying more books.

So who reads? The highest percentage of readers are found among women who identify as white, are older, more educated, have greater family wealth, live in cities and do not have a disability that would hinder reader. That maps well with the demographics I see at Bob on Books.

So what does this mean for our society? What do we lose when less of us read longer form stories and arguments? Will we become more gullible to the emotional, simplistic appeal? And is that a cultural good?

Finally, I wonder how we change such a culture. I don’t think we can shame people into reading more books. I wonder if other media could offer book tie-ins as a way to pursue something that interested a viewer or listener. But for children, I think there is no substitute for read-alouds, especially in family settings. I’m saddened that many parents are missing the delicious experience of reading together with their children. Also, children like to imitate parents, and so they will tend to read when they see mom and dad reading. Why not do that at least one night a week instead of screen time?

Five Articles Worth Reading

Beverly Gage reminds us that concerns about anti-intellectualism, especially with regard to higher education is not new in “The American University Is in Crisis. Not for the First Time.“

However, our libraries are one bulwark against intellectual decline. “How Libraries Stand the Test of Time” traces the history and continuing evolution of libraries in our digital age.

Having worked in college ministry at Ohio State, I learned of “Origins” an e-zine of historical studies. “James Baldwin and the Atlanta Child Murders” chronicles in text and images Baldwin’s conclusions of the underlying causes behind the murder that constituted his las book, The Evidence of Things not Seen.

Brian Phillips offers a spirited defense of the em dash–that punctuation mark I just used–in “Stop AI-Shaming Our Precious, Kindly Em Dashes—Please.” He argues that people have been attributing the em dash to AI-produced work when it has been a time honored punctuation mark used by writers. And he argues that it likely appears in AI works trained on the output of those writers.

Lastly, I’ve noticed the chorus of cicadas on my evening walks in recent weeks. Little did I know that those choruses inspired ancient poets to write odes to this most unusual creature. Natalie Zarrelli offers an account of this in “‘O, Shrill-Voiced Insect’: The Cicada Poems of Ancient Greece.”

Quote of the Week

While thinking about the decline of reading, I came across this quote from Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451, born August 22, 1920.

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

I’ll leave it you to decide if you think Bradbury was right.

Miscellaneous Musings

There seems to be a lot of buzz about R.F. Kuang’s book, Katabasis, just about to drop next week. I’m intrigued by a story set in a graduate program, given that I worked with graduate students for many years. Just got a note that my pre-ordered copy is shipping.

After reviewing Ron Chernow’s 1000+ page Mark Twain, I indulged in an enjoyable change of pace in reviewing a delightful 32 page illustrated children’s book, Charlie Can’t Sleep!, a wonderful book for anyone afraid to fall asleep.

Jeff Crosby’s World of Wonders, a book I’ve long-awaited arrived this week. Jeff writes about reading for spiritual growth, a passion of mine. There is more to spiritual life than reading, but the most insightful writers I’ve read on the spiritual life all have one thing in common. They read.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Kevin Vanhoozer, Mere Christian Hermeneutics

Tuesday: Ali Smith, Gliff

Wednesday: Wafik W. Wahba, Global Christianity and Islam

Thursday: J.R.R. Toilkien (translator), Christopher Tolkien (editor), Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Sir Orfeo

Friday: Tracey Gee, The Magic of Knowing What You Want

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for August 17-23!

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page

Review: Charlie Can’t Sleep!

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Cover image of "Charlie Can't Sleep!" by Rachel joy Welcher, Illustrated by Breezy Brookshire

Charlie Can’t Sleep!, Rachel Joy Welcher, illustrated by Breezy Brookshire. IVP Kids (ISBN: 9781514010013) 2025.

Summary: A child’s bedtime fears prevent him from sleeping until his mom reminds him that God never sleeps and will care for him.

Houses make strange sounds at night. Is there a robber trying to get in? A werewolf? Or is the house going to be swallowed up in a sinkhole? Charlie has all these thoughts. He’s terrified. He does all he can do to stay up with Mom and Dad–even extra chores! And when Mom and Dad get ready to leave for the night, he wails…and tells them why he can’t sleep.

Then mom reads to him from Psalm 121. She reads “he who watches over you will not slumber.” Charlie asks, “What’s slumber?” Then Dad explains slumber means sleep and Charlie figures out that God never sleeps. Therefore, God is awake and watches over Charlie when he sleeps.

But Charlie still feels alone at night. However, Mom has felt this and explains how prayer helps. And Charlie prays all his fears. Next thing we know, Charlie is sleeping with his dog at his feet.

This is a wonderful book for children (or adults!) with night fears. Mom and Dad take his fears seriously and he gets to name them all. But there is no shame. Rather, just a parent who shares what has helped her. Charlie learns to trust God’s promise from Psalm 121 and turn his fears into prayers.

Breezy Brookshire’s illustrations visualize Charlie’s fears, but in an atmosphere of warmth, tenderness, light and peace. An author note informs us that this story reflects Rachel Joy Welcher’s own childhood experience.

This is a story, as the dedication says “for anyone who has ever been afraid of the dark.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Mark Twain

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Cover image of "Mark Twain" by Ron Chernow

Mark Twain, Ron Chernow. Penguin Press (ISBN: 9780525561729) 2025.

Summary: Beyond literary greatness, the complicated, brilliant, tragic, and sometimes eccentric life of one of America’s greatest writers.

The United States has produced no one like Mark Twain. From printer’s devil to riverboat pilot to prospector. A prodigious writer, a globe-circling lecturer, and a businessman deluded by an over-estimate of his own shrewdness. A loving husband devoted to Livy in a once-idyllic household, that by degrees grew both toxic and tragic for two of his three daughters. And a colorful old man with eccentricities that most of us today would consider “creepy.” The reader who embarks on this 1000-plus page journey will find all this and more in Ron Chernow’s Mark Twain.

Chernow traces the youthful and early adult experiences of Twain, so formative both for his major works, and of his character. We learn of the poverty that Twain sought to escape by one get-rich scheme after another. The death of his brother Henry on a riverboat explosion filled him with both grief and guilt. Then there is his older brother Orion, who helped him early on but who wandered aimlessly through life, assisted by Twain even when Twain couldn’t afford it.

Then Chernow describes an idyllic period, when Twain’s writing and lecturing career begins accruing the fortune for which he hoped. Added to this, he married into wealth when he married Livy Langdon. In the years that followed three daughters followed, growing up in a spacious Hartford home that would haunt them for the rest of their lives.

They lived a lavish life at home and on the road, sustained in part by Livy’s fortune, but actually beyond their means. Twain sought to correct this in business ventures. Chernow traces a painful downward spiral, first of a publishing venture, and then the money pit of a failed typesetting machine. Twain so encumbered the family funds that it would be necessary to declare bankruptcy.

Twain would eventually work his way out of debt by writing and speaking but at a terrible cost. The family escaped to Europe for nine years to escape debtors and reduce costs. Relentless travel exacerbated the heart condition Livy suffered from. And Twain was emotionally unavailable and physically separated from his oldest daughter Susy, who was lesbian at a time this could not be spoken of. Twain, for all his “edginess” was pretty conventional when it came to matters of sexuality. Susy died while he was in Europe and he forever blamed himself.

Things could have been far worse for Twain, had he not received the help of Henry Rogers, A Standard Oil executive who helped get Twains finances on a sound footing. Chernow’s account makes him out to be both shrewd and selfless.

Livy’s worsening health combined with Twain’s youngest daughter Jean’s epilepsy left Twain a man besieged. In addition, a life of cigar smoking was beginning to take a toll on his own health. All of this opened the door for him to be taken advantage of by two assistants, Isabel Lyon and Ralph Ashcroft. Before marrying Ashcroft, it was clear Isabel had a strong emotional attachment to Twain. She worked for paltry wages, managed household and administrative tasks, and gained an unhealthy influence. She succeeded in exiling Jean to a series of asylums. Ashcroft also mishandled funds. The two were dispelled only when middle daughter Clara stepped in. Sadly, Jean was only briefly restored to the Twain household before she preceded him in an untimely death.

Chernow also offers an extensive account of Twain’s fascination with young girls, his “angelfish.” He formed a club for them with a special room in his house. He wrote endearing letters. While there is no evidence of any abuse, it was troubling strange, harking back to a youthful romance.

Finally, Chernow explores Twain’s religious views. He had little tolerance for conventional Christianity, to Livy’s dismay and the eventual erosion of Livy’s faith. Late in life, he wrote more openly about his skepticism. One wonders how much went back to his brother Henry’s death, as well as the other tragedies he experienced. This makes all the more extraordinary the long friendship with Hartford pastor Joseph Twichell. One wishes you could overhear some of their conversations.

I had mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, Twain, even at his most eccentric is a fascinating subject for a biography. But for the first time in reading a Chernow biography, I felt myself asking, ‘how much longer must this go?” This was most notable in the case of his business woes. I wanted to grab Twain and shake him and suggest that he ditch all this and write and lecture and just make rather than lose money. But one also felt this in the account of Twain’s relationship with both Susy and Jean and his entanglement with Isabel Lyon. All this was painful, but it also felt drawn out. Likewise, I found this so with Twain’s relationship with the “angelfish.”

This all needed to be there but I felt it overshadowed Twain’s writing. It’s not that Chernow didn’t chronicle that and assess Twain’s various works. But it seems that in this account, I felt the writing life just punctuated Twain’s private life and business ventures. I can imagine other readers might think differently!

All in all, this is another of Chernow’s landmark biographies. I suspect the challenge was the sheer plethora of documentary resources in Twain’s journals, letters, manuscripts, and other historical sources. Given that, it is perhaps a miracle that he was able to reduce all this to a thousand pages! Through all that, he succeeds in helping us appreciated the complicated and unique greatness of Samuel Clemens a.k.a. Mark Twain.

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Thanks for visiting Bob on Books.  I appreciate that you spent time here. Feel to “look around” – see the tabs at the top of the website, and the right hand column. And use the buttons below to share this post. Blessings! [Adapted from Enough Light, a blog I follow.]

Review: The Real Conversation Jesus Wants Us to Have

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Cover image of "The Real Conversation Jesus Wants Us to Have" by Regina V. Cates

The Real Conversation Jesus Wants Us to Have, Regina V. Cates, foreword by Paula Stone Williams. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802884107) 2025.

Summary: A pastor imagines what Jesus would want to talk about with Christians in the present moment.

Regina V. Cates invites us to imagine Jesus in conversation with his followers today. She believes he would talk about the abuses of power toward the marginalized and how the church ought love these “neighbors.” Cates thinks he would have a problem with our dogmatic judgementalism toward the “other.” Divisive and corrupt political leadership would deeply disturb him. Jesus would wade into issues we don’t talk about in polite society: sexuality, racism, abortion, toxic masculinity, and more.

Then Cates proceeds to have that conversation in a hard-hitting series of chapters addressing different topics. She pulls no punches, beginning on LGBTQIA+ issues and the church. Cates gets personal, sharing her own painful journey of realizing she was lesbian from an early age in a fundamentalist church. She was sexually assaulted by a sitter and later by a counselor her parents took her to in an effort to “change” her. She was told all such persons are going to hell. No one saw her as a person to be loved. She recounts her own experience of emotional healing in an Inipi sweat lodge. In subsequent chapters, she challenges what she sees as the dogmatism that undergirds what she understands as ancient and misinterpreted texts. She argues that to be religious and moral are two different things.

She describes her remarkable relationship with Byll, an atheist who is one of the kindest people she has met, and who showed her loving acceptance. Then she challenges the “better than arrogance of Christians, challenging us to get ego out of the way. However, all relationships are not like this. Rather, there are times when we must discern when to turn the other cheek and when to responsibly stand up.

She moves on to address other hot-button issues. For example, she argues that “men of quality respect women’s equality” and bluntly addresses sexism and patriarchy and toxic masculinity in the church. This includes male responsibility in matters of sex. She also challenges the church’s complicity in racism and all the ways we try to deny this is a problem. Nor does she mince words about political corruption and our need for leaders of integrity.

Finally, she explores what it means to be a church that embraces all members of the human family. This includes becoming places that create secure settings for the healing of trauma. Ultimately, this means becoming places where we love as Jesus loved.

While I would respectfully differ with the author in my understanding of some biblical texts concerning human sexuality, it broke my heart to read of her experiences in her fundamentalist church. No interpretation of scripture or dogma requires or justifies how the church treated her or what they taught.

Likewise, it saddens me that so many former fundamentalists and evangelicals are writing books like this. In a way, it makes the author’s point that there is a conversation Jesus wants us to have. For example, I grieve that so many men have treated women so badly. As Cates observes, true partnership in ministry does not diminish men. Rather, such men are the real superheroes.

Finally, is this the book to read about the real conversation the church needs to have? While there is much I would affirm in this book, it felt like I’d read this book before and for me, it did not break new ground. That said, this book certainly could spark needed conversations for those open and honest and secure enough with each other to have them.

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: If on a winter’s night a traveler

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Cover image of "If on a winter's night a traveler" by Italo Calvino

If on a winter’s night a traveler, Italo Calvino. Mariner Books Classics (ISBN: 9780156439619) 1982 (first published in Italian in 1979).

Summary: A reader purchases a book only to find most of it is missing and seeks the rest of the story.

Imagine you have just visited your favorite bookstore and spot an intriguing book, If on a winter’s night a traveler. You get home, curl up in your easy chair, get drawn into the story and then find the remaining pages are scramble and cannot read any more.

And so you go back to the store to exchange it for another copy. While there, you meet a fellow booklover, Ludmilla, looking for the same book. The books are replace but you find it is a different story by a different author. You and Ludmilla team up to track down the conclusion of the story and your quest takes you through lit seminars, a love affair, an encounter with a scam translator, a book fraud conspiracy, and a frustrated author. An each of the “replacements” is the beginning of a different story, written by different author in a different genre.

That’s Calvino’s novel in a nutshell. After an opening chapter on the nature of reading, something we readers rarely reflect upon, the “story” proceed by first addressing you, the reader, and the lead protagonist in the “frame story” followed by the broken-off story.

Toward the end, a character strings together the titles of the ten stories, discovering it forms a kind of a sentence:

If on a winter’s night a traveler, outside the town of Malbork, leaning from the steep slope without fear of wind or vertigo, looks down in the gathering shadow in a network of lines that enlace, in a network of lines that intersect, on the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon around an empty grave— What story down there awaits its end?—he asks, anxious to hear the story.

What to make of all this? To begin with, Calvino makes the reader the real protagonist. So often, readers are anonymous in the background. Instead, Calvino’s readers quest for stories, really the story. And might that be the case in our world? Is the real story what we make of and how we connect the various pieces of stories?

Alternatively, I wondered if Calvino simply found a way to string together ten stories he couldn’t finish! If so, it was among the most successful cases of writer’s block in history!

Perhaps Calvino meant a wake-up call to the indifferent or jaded reader, addressed in his opening;

“It’s not that you expect anything in particular from this particular book. You’re the sort of person who, on principle, no longer expects anything of anything. There are plenty, younger than you or less young, who live in the expectation of extraordinary experiences, from books, from people, from journeys, from events, from what tomorrow has in store. But not you…”

To read Calvino, at least this story is to evoke a reaction. Either you throw the book across the room with disgust. Or you become engrossed with this quirky, somewhat absurd tale around the ten stories. And perhaps that’s what Calvino wanted.

I’ll leave it for you to decide.