The Weekly Wrap

The Weekly Wrap: October 18-24

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The Weekly Wrap: October 18-24

A 50 Year Subscription Ended

I turned off the auto-renew on my subscription to Christianity Today this week. This was a momentous decision. I first subscribed in 1976, about the time I began working with an evangelical collegiate ministry. I’d grown up in the Mahoning Valley, and often my perspective on the world was limited to the horizons of the valley. Christianity Today offered cogent theological articles, cultural analysis and coverage of the broader evangelical context of that time. I would read it cover to cover.

And that was true for many years. I think my disaffection began when the publication terminated the publication of Books & Culture, a marvelous review periodical that reviewed all sorts of thoughtful literature, not just Christian-authored material. It further stretched my horizons and pointed to books worth reading.

The periodical has gone through numerous editorial changes in recent years. And its subscriber base has shrunk. Many criticized the magazine for being “woke.” I’ve found it by and large lacking in the kind of substance and theological focus I once valued. A recent article on Elizabeth Elliot’s sexuality struck me as speculative. Furthermore, it was pulled from their online platform, then re-posted. To me, it just felt like Christian clickbait.

Others have noticed this as well. New York Times reporter Ruth Graham (no relation to the evangelical Graham family) wrote an investigative piece exploring “Why a Pillar of Christian Journalism is in Turmoil.” She discusses editorial changes and interference in reporting, numerous departures and the repositioning of the focus of the periodical. I was deeply disturbed to read that the interim president said, “Christianity Today needed to be less like Wheaton and more like TikTok.” No wonder the articles seem like clickbait to me!

In addition, I now subscribe to a couple other periodicals I deeply value. Plough Quarterly reflects the Third Way, Anabaptist vision of the Bruderhof. Not only are the articles well-written and deeply thoughtful, the graphics are aesthetically pleasing. Likewise, I subscribe to Comment Magazine, a Canadian publication. It describes its purpose in these ways: “Comment is one of the core publications of Cardus, a think tank devoted to renewing North American social architecture, rooted in two thousand years of Christian social thought.” Finally, I follow Mere Orthodoxy, receiving their weekly newsletters. I am considering using my CT money to become a member of Mere Orthodoxy.

So, it feels like I’ve lost a lifelong friend with Christianity Today. But it is superfluous to my interests and no longer a good use of my money.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Before AI offered us summaries on anything we search on Google, there was, and still is Wikipedia. Now, a new book on Wikipedia asks “Is Wikipedia the ‘Last Best Place on the Internet’?“

The frustrating thing about the internet is its ephemeral nature. Websites disappear. The Wayback Machine has been a boon in finding articles and other material. Now, some publishers have been challenging its existence. Brewster Kahle, the founder of its parent, the Internet Archive, argues “Why the Internet Needs a Memory.”

Most of us had no clue what PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) was until this week. It is an open source language used in web applications (including this blog). It is used on 70 percent of websites globally. Security companies, using AI, discovered a flaw that can not only crash a site but take over computers. Patches (including from WordPress) have been implemented. “What the PHP Bug Shows Us About Humanity and Machines” explores the paradox of AI being used to both find and exploit such vulnerabilities.

Since Wendell Berry’s passing, a number of articles have expressed appreciation for his work. Willis Jenkins presents a more complicated assessment in “Inheriting Wendell Berry.”

Finally, even though I don’t read romance fiction, I still enjoy a good love story. The Atlantic has compiled a list of “50 Unforgettable Love Stories” spanning over 400 years.

Quote of the Week

Poet Denise Levertov, born October 23, 1923 offers this penetrating insight:

“It’s when we face for a moment the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know the taint in our own selves, that awe cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart.”

Miscellaneous Musings

Yesterday I reviewed All Creation Waits published by Paraclete Press. Sometimes, a book stands out to me for its beauty. This one combined both thoughtful explanations of how woodland creatures survive winter, coupled with incredible illustrations.

Half Price Books sent me a survey with the chance to win a $100 giftcard. They asked me about whether I sold books to them. I do on nearly a monthly basis. One thing I didn’t tell them is that they have eliminated my need to go to bank ATMs!

We ordered some books as gifts this week. We found three boxes on our steps the other day. So, we just threw them where we are keeping our Christmas gifts. Then, we decided to open them to check their condition. I discovered that one was a shipment of three books for review from InterVarsity Press. So gifts for others and for me!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle

Tuesday: C. P. Snow, George Passant

Wednesday: Dominic Roser, David Zhang, and J. D. Bauman, All the Lives You Can Change

Thursday: Leif Enger, So Brave, Young, and Handsome

Friday: Doris Brocke, ABC Munchkins

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for October 18-24.

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

The Weekly Wrap: October 11-17

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The Weekly Wrap: October 11-17

Ohio Authors

Toni Morrison, R.L. Stine, Sherwood Anderson, James Thurber, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Mary Oliver, Zane Gray, Hanif Abdurraqib, Anthony Doerr, and Ernie Cline. These are just a few of the authors who come from Ohio.

So why do I focus on Ohio authors? Because I have lived my life in the Buckeye State. If nothing else, Ohio doesn’t get very much positive press. But it is a place with many booklovers. And we are proud of our authors.

Not only that, Ohio authors often write with a sense of their place. Many of us love our place with something of an inchoate sense. But writers from that place capture the place in words and give us words to love it. For example, Hanif Abdurraqib and Wil Haygood both capture something of the culture and history of my current home town of Columbus. Patrick Wensink, who grew up in northwest Ohio, where I lived for four years, evokes the character of that place in a book I will review next week.

Those are some of the reasons I love to review books from Ohio authors as well as books on Ohio. One of this week’s articles features a review of an author from Appalachian Ohio. So, if you are an Ohio author, I will give a request to review your book more attention than usual. And, wherever you live, I would encourage you to read the authors from that place.

Five Articles Worth Reading

This review of a new biography from the New York Times caught my attention. “When Edward Hopper Painted Lonely People, He Was Channeling America” explores how Hopper captured his time.

This review by Appalachian ohio author Madeleine ffitch (her preferred spelling) also caught my attention. “Good Villains Are Hard to Come By. This One’s Great” describes a Neo-Nazi type who gathers a growing following in the time and the efforts to resist her. The town, Avalon is likely loosely based on Athens, Ohio.

I’ve gotten the emails this article talks about. Most mention books I’ve never written and many clearly have been AI-generated. But real authors are being scammed as reported in “The Lucrative World of Literary Scams.” Yet another reason AI has no place in the world of book publishing.

Aryana Petrosky determined to apply the practices Miroslav Volf outlines in Excusion and Embrace while living at a L’Abri community. That is, she committed to (1) standing confidently, (2) opening one’s arms, and (3) patiently waiting for a complete embrace. In “Encountering the Other” she describes the challenges and fruit of pursuing these steps.

Finally, many of us were repulsed by the Secretary of War’s recent proposal to livestream an execution. But can you articulate why public executions are such a bad idea? “Alypius, Public Executions, and the Formation of Souls” discusses the harm to our souls such experiences wreak.

Quote of the Week

Eugene O’Neill was born on October 16, 1888. He observed:

“Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a lost kingdom of peace.”

His remark reminds me of what C.S. Lewis said: “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

Miscellaneous Musings

For years, I might get one or two views from China in a month, likely because of their information firewalls. Suddenly, I’ve started seeing numerous visits, sometimes almost as many as from the U.S. I suspect it’s their AI bots scraping my site. But if there are real people out there, welcome.

For some odd reason, I’ve had several bouts of cellulitis in my hands, easily cleared up each time by an antibiotic. Reading about it, I’ve learned that, untreated, it could turn into septicemia and kill me. Infections like this were once a major cause of death (and sadly still are in some places). It’s made reading The Age of Cures by Barry Werth all the more fascinating because it describes the research and the people and companies who brought us those antibiotics that have saved so many lives.

Finally, reviewing means I get and read the new Advent books early so I can publish reviews ahead of the season. The challenge is to set aside the actual season as one of preparing myself for Christ’s coming. For me, it means turning to other practices, or books acquired in past years.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Elizabeth Strout, The Things We Never Say

Tuesday: Patrick Wensick, The Great Black Swamp

Wednesday: Heidi Ann Russell, Human Flourishing in a World of Trauma and Stress

Thursday: Barry Werth, The Age of Cures

Friday: Gayle Boss, All Creation Waits

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for October 11-17.

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

The Weekly Wrap: October 4-10

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The Weekly Wrap: October 4-10

Reviewing Backlist Books

I do something atypical for a reviewer. While I read many new titles, I also read a number of backlist books–those that have been in publication anywhere from a year to several centuries or more. C.S. Lewis recommended we read one old book for every new one we read. I cannot say I do that. However, there are many older books that I want to read, as well as ones I learn of.

I am a reader first. Reviewing is something I began because others found the reviews I wrote helpful. My primary motive was just to remember the important things about the books I read and what I thought. But I discovered that at least some others valued what I wrote. And I was fortunate to persuade a number of publishers to send me books I was interested in. For free, no less!

But I will always be a reader first. That means I will keep discovering great old books as well as new ones. My hunch is that there are many others like me. They aren’t guided by the current book club books or the best-sellers. They simply pursue what they think of interest.

Perhaps it will be to read all of what an author writes. Or a book you are reading (or several) mention an influential book you’ve never read. Then there are those serendipitous finds at a library booksale or a secondhand bookstore. All those kinds of books will turn up in my reviews. Hopefully some will interest you. If nothing else, I hope it encourages you in the adventure of the reading life, discovering books new and old.

Five Articles Worth Reading

This year’s Nobel Prize in literature went to Canadian poet Anne Carson. If you are like me, you are new to Anne Carson. If so, “An Anne Carson Reader” is just the place to begin.

Carson is a classicist as well as a poet. “Anne Carson’s Seductive Strangeness” explores the intersection of those two worlds in her life and work.

In “Flowers for Frank,” Noah Swank reviews In the Realm of the Last Man, the new memoir by Francis Fukuyama. In particular, he explores why Fukuyama writes so much about his hobbies. For example: “The third chapter details Fukuyama’s lifelong experience woodworking, and the fifth gives us his thoughts on sports and music. The tenth is about art photography; the twelfth about woodworking again; the 25th about building computers.”

It seems we are endlessly fascinated with King Arthur and Arthurian legends. Angelica Frey explores “Why King Arthur Still Shapes Pop Culture.”

Finally, “Children of the Wasted Lands” explores why the stories we choose to read and heed are so important in shaping our lives.

Quote of the Week

Vaclav Havel was born on October 5, 1936. He observes the folly of thinking we can only lie once when he states,


“Lying can never save us from another lie.”

Miscellaneous Musings

The Cathedral of Theology is part of a new series published by IVP Academic, the “Pillars of Christian Dogmatics.” The metaphor of likening the framing of a theology to the building of a cathedral is arresting. I look forward to seeing if the book fulfills the promise of the title.

Elizabeth Strout continues to impress me with her depth of insight into the human condition. I’m midway through The Things We Never Say, a fascinating exploration of the secrets we keep and the lies we live to cover them.

Patrick Wensick’s The Great Black Swamp is a history/memoir of the northwest quadrant of Ohio, which was largely a swamp until drained, beginning in the late 1800’s, leaving some of the richest, and flattest farmland anywhere in the world. Wensick grew up in one of the small towns that sprang up there, Deshler. I lived for four years in Toledo, and drove all over this area, which is basically endless fields of corn and soybeans, with only a drainage ditch separating the road and the fields. Those drainage ditches and their ecological impact form a major part of this narrative.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: J. Warren Smith, Early Christian Theology

Tuesday: Agatha Christie, Sad Cypress

Wednesday: Jill Lepore, The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State

Thursday: Ericka Anderson, Freely Sober

Friday: Lynneth Miller Renberg and Adam R. Renberg, Candles in the Darkness

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for October 4-10.

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

The Weekly Wrap: September 27-October 3

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The Weekly Wrap: September 27-October 3

A Reading Paradox

I have over 4,000 books in my pocket. And the device in my pocket can access the libraries of the world. Never has it been more evident to me that there are SO many books and so little time. Yet at a time of such unprecedented access, statistics would suggest that many of us are reading less than ever.

So what is the deal? I can’t help but think that the same device offering access to so many books also serves to distract us from them. Social media apps are designed to keep us scrolling. And it trains us to read in bits and bytes. Consequently, our longform reading muscles are going flabby.

I also wonder if many of us are simply too busy and too spent when we are not busy to read a book. Watching a video or listening to a podcast are far easier. And there is a wide range of good options.

If that’s you, no problem. But for a change of pace, may I suggest that some evening you grab a mug, and spend a quiet evening with an engrossing book. The stories we watch on the screens of our minds can be far richer than on our other screens. Need a recommendation? Your local bookseller or librarian would be glad to help. There’s a world of books available.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Several years ago, I had the chance to host physician and ethicist Lydia Dugdale in a forum talking about end of life issues. In “The Literacy Cure,” she discusses childhood literacy and explores why we are failing children when we know how to teach kids reading.

“Librarians on Libraries” features a host of librarians talking about what they actually do, the challenges they face, and what libraries need.

As we get older, we pay attention to our mental processes for signs of any deterioration. But what if you were from a family suffering from a hereditary condition leading to dementia? “The Mysteries of Human Personality” reviews Robert Kolker’s The Vanishing Family. While focusing on frontotemporal dementia, the book considers broader issues of dementia care and treatment.

Philosopher Matthew Adelstein posited the provocative idea that insects matter more than people. Sounds like something a philosopher might do for a good argument. It’s caused quite an online stir. In “Do Insects Matter More than People?,” Paul Nedilisky explores what arguments can and cannot do.

October is LGBTQ+ History Month. Whatever your beliefs, I’m persuaded that it is valuable to understand other communities from the inside. JSTOR has assembled another of its fabled article collections that can help with this in “Reading for LGBTQ+ History Month.”

Quote of the Week

Poet Wallace Stevens was born October 2, 1879. He said something that sounds like me.

“It’s not always easy to tell the difference between thinking and looking out of the window.”

Miscellaneous Musings

Earler, I mentioned the plethora of books and resources at our disposal in the internet age. The folks at Mere Orthodoxy are adding to that with “The Faith Received,” an online collection of 19,597 (currently) theological texts from the early church to the early modern period. There are scans of texts, original language, and English translations. And its all free. The website offers six different tours to show how to make the most of the resources available.

Computers hit the scene a few years before I was born. Jill Lepore’s new The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State begins with chronicling a history of all the development I’ve scene in our lifetime and the warnings as early as the 1950’s of how our technology could come to shape or even control our society. It’s a conversation that has gone on for sixty years, one, by and large, that the tech industry has preferred we not have.

It’s funny how TBR piles work. I currently seem to be in a patch of long books. Just finished one on Jonathan Edwards, am in the middle of one on early Christian theology, and have awaiting me the longest of these, a landmark work on the Apostle Paul. I try to compensate with shorter and easier to read books, including some children’s books.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Ryan Lokkesmoe, Accidental Pagans

Tuesday: Richard Osman, The Last Devil to Die

Wednesday: Laurie Brink, Practicing Radical Advent

Thursday: Stuart Kaminsky, A Fatal Glass of Beer

Friday: Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for September 27-October 3.

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

The Weekly Wrap: September 20-26

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The Weekly Wrap: September 20-26

Withdrawn From Publication

There is a first time for everything. One of the things I do with each review I write is link to the publisher’s description of the book. As I was setting up one of my reviews this week, I discovered the book was nowhere to be found on the publisher’s website. Wondering if it was a glitch, I searched the author’s name. Nada. So that was perplexing. The publisher had sent me a finished copy of the book, published in June, for review.

I found the book at commercial sites, I’d already read it, so I wrote the review. Before I began, I wrote the publicist for the book, noting when the review would go “live.” I heard nothing and so scheduled the review. The review went up the next morning and generated moderate interest. Then I heard back from the publicist. It turns out the publisher withdrew the book from publication. I received a basic explanation, but not specifics. So because of the lack of specifics and because I only had the publisher’s reasons and not an author response, I won’t say more than that.

But what do I do with the review? I decided to leave it up. You can’t really delete things from the internet and a number had already viewed it. And since the book dropped in June, I assume a number have read the book. But I also decided to add this note at the top of the review:

Editor’s Note (Date): This book has been pulled from publication by the publisher. The review, posted before this became known, remains for archival purposes.

I also raised the issue with the publicist of notifying those who have received review copies of the withdrawal of the book. Had I known this prior to reading/reviewing, I would have tossed the book. For this particular book, I’d invested about six hours in reading and reviewing it that I can’t get back. Longer books take even more time.

I also made a decision that I would I would check the publication status of new books proactively. If I can’t locate publication information with the publisher, I’d hold off, pending confirmation of the book’s status.

This was a rare occurrence for the publisher. And it’s the first time in over 2000 reviews that I ran into this problem. Hopefully, it will remain rare. But I wonder with the increased use of AI and the increasing temptation to cut corners…. But I have a better handle on how I’ll handle this as a reviewer.

Five Articles Worth Reading

I’ve written on AI a number of times. I don’t believe it belongs in publishing. I’ve been concerned about the shortcuts to real thinking by humans, the elimination of large numbers of jobs, and the huge sums of money connected to the tech industry. And I continue to be concerned about the energy, water, and land use involved in data centers. What I should have thought about is idolatry. “The Deep Spiritual History of AI” explores the chilling spiritual dimension of AI. Consider this pull quote from the article:

“Transcendence, liberation, immortality, singularity, the uploading of consciousness—these are religious structures that organize how the field talks about itself.”

Since the death of Annie Dillard, I’ve seen a number of articles about her life and work. “The Enduring Mystery of Annie Dillard” asks the intriguing question of why she left so much of her personal life out of her writing. For example, did you know that when she was spending time in the Roanoke Valley, she was living with her first husband?

Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections published eleven days before 9/11. It seems he sensed what was coming when he wrote in the second sentence “You could feel it: something terrible was going to happen.” In “The Last Great American Novel” Ed Simon considers what has happened to “The Great American Novel” in the twenty-five years since 9/11.

“T. S. Eliot and the Holy Grail” made me want to go back to Eliot’s “The Wasteland” to see if I could find the Fisher King of Arthurian legend in Eliot’s poem. I don’t remember that from college lit class.

I’m an Agatha Christie fan. But I’ve read most of what she wrote. Sadie Stein has me covered in “Love Agatha Christie? Read These Books Next.”

Quote of the Week

Kristin Hannah was born on September 25, 1960. She imparted this piece of wisdom:

“We can’t live other people’s lives for them. Even if we love them.”

Wise advice for couples, parents, and those who care for any community of people.

Miscellaneous Musings

The reason I link to publishers websites is to avoid directing people to a particular bookseller, including that big online seller. I realize I could make a token amount of money if I became an “associate.” But I support local booksellers including indie sellers. This seems the best way I can allow others to make their own book buying decisions.

The Cleveland Guardians just clinched their Division title and are in the playoffs. Maybe that explains the recent traffic to my review of Our Team by Luke Epplin, an account of the 1948 World Series Champion Indians, the last time this franchise won the World Series. Who knows…this could be the year.

I think I read mysteries to balance some of the dense theology books I read. Right now, I am delighting in J. Warren Smith’s Early Christian Theology. Dense but clear and delightful history of how the early church wrestled to understand things like the Trinity and the Incarnation. Richard Osman’s The Last Devil to Die is number four in the Thursday Murder Club mysteries–great good fun!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: George M. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life

Tuesday: Marilyn McIntyre, Start with a Word

Wednesday: Fritz Leiber, The Night of the Long Knives

Thursday: The Month in Review: September 2026

Friday: John Searle, The Rediscovery of the Mind

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for September 20-26.

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

The Weekly Wrap: September 13-19

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The Weekly Wrap: September 13-19

Consenting to Read

“Say ‘Yes’ to reading!” Sounds like the slogan for a literacy campaign. But do you realize that every time you pick up a book, you are saying “yes”? You are saying “yes” to another voice speaking into your thoughts. It means opening your mind to the world they have built in a story or the argument they are making. Your “yes” doesn’t mean “I agree.” But it does mean that you have decided to listen, to pay more or less attention to what they are saying.

That’s an insight I came across in Marilyn McIntyre’s Starting with a Word, a book on writing. She is a wise writer who cares about words. For McIntyre, the work of writing and the joy of reading begins with words. She reminds me of how different reading is from watching a video. Books call upon me to actively engage with the words, to think about what is written, and to discern the intent of the writer. Books also invite me to turn on the screen of my imagination and visualize the story in my mind. We say “yes” to all these things when we read.

We also consent to give an author our time. For a long book, that can be fifteen hours or more of your life. Our “yes” means no, for at least the present, to another book. And we can decide to withdraw our consent if the book isn’t worth the precious hours of our lives. I’ve also given up on series. After the first, very long book, I gave up on The Wheel of Time. Too many very long books, and I wasn’t crazy about this world.

To what books will you say “yes” this week? Our “yes” is actually a precious gift both to ourselves and to those who write books. It is, in the words of poet Mary Oliver one of the things you will “do with your one wild and precious life.”

Five Articles Worth Reading

Dónal Gill believes Jonathan Swift anticipated the dangers of AI, particular the sacrifice of human intellect to our machines. In “Jonathan Swift v. AI” he argues for our moral responsibility of self-cultivation.

In Live Laugh Love, Kristin Kobes Du Mez turns her attention to Christian women after taking on masculinity in Jesus and John Wayne. Caroline Fraser considers her argument that women have embraced materialism as a sign of divine favor in “Like My Jesus Sweatshirt? How Christianity Went Consumerist.”

Cormac McCarthy was a struggling author when he turned 40 in 1973. He took his truck, set out on a cross-country journey. Finally, he settle in El Paso and began work on Blood Meridian. Michael O’Donnell explores this turning point in “Cormac McCarthy’s Midlife Crisis.”

When I read “Laurie Anderson’s next manuscript to be locked away for 88 years in Future Library,” I discovered that since 2014, authors have contributed a work, revealing nothing more than the title, to be opened in 2114. “Future Library opens secret archive of unseen texts in Oslo” describes the project and some of the other authors who have contributed works.

Lastly, haven’t you wished to say more with fewer words? That’s what minimalist fiction strives for. JSTOR posted “Minimalist Fiction in Six Short Stories” with stories by Raymond Carver, Amy Hempel, Frederick Barthelme, Jayne Anne Phillips, Mary Robison, and Ann Beattie.

Quote of the Week

Queen of Crime Agatha Christie was born on September 15, 1890. She made this wise observation about money:

“Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody.“

Miscellaneous Musings

“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return. ” I haven’t read much of any Dillard, never finishing Pilgrim at Tinkers’ Creek. But I’ve used this quote in several talks. We lost her this week, when she joined another recently passed pilgrim, Wendell Berry.

I’ve always enjoyed Barack Obama’s reading lists and have been baffled by readers who pan these simply because of his political associations. He’s doing it again with a six part podcast series, “A Great Book.” In “Tom Hanks, Ta-Nehisi Coates and More Join Barack Obama’s ‘A Great Book’ Podcast at Audible” you can read about the books he will be discussing and the guests who will be joining them. A great lineup all around.

I’ve always wished I could be paid for reading. The closest I’ve gotten is some free books for review. So I thought it was interesting to learn that “Singapore pays people to pick up a book in battle against doomscrolling.” But readers need to put in 50 sessions of at least 15 minutes to earn S$1 (one Singaporean dollar, currently 78 U.S. cents). Somehow, that doesn’t seem much of an incentive.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: James F. McGrath, Beyond Deconstruction

Tuesday: William Kent Krueger, Lightning Strike

Wednesday: Patricia Allen, The Strain of Other Blood

Thursday: Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

Friday: Douglas Groothuis and Lindsey Medenwaldt, What if Jesus is Right?

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for September 13-19.

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