The Hermit of Eyton Forest (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #14), Ellis Peters. Mysterious Press/Open Road (ASIN: B00LUZNWNG), 2014 (originally published in 1987).
Summary: A hermit’s arrival brings death and mayhem in a quarrel over a boy’s fate, damage to Eyton Forest, and a search for a fugitive villein.
Richard Ludel is a spirited ten year old boy being educated at Shrewbury Abbey. Richard’s father, severely wounded in the war between Stephen and Maud, entrusted him to the care of Abbot Radulfus. Brother Paul sits Richard down in the fall of 1142 to tell him his father has died. He is now the lord of Eaton Manor. Because Richard is a minor, Sheriff Beringar oversees the manor and steward John of Longwood ably care for it. But they have not reckoned with another interested party, Richard’s grandmother, Dame Dionesia.
She comes to the funeral with her newly acquired hermit, Cuthred and his assistant, a young man named Hyacinth. He lives in a hermitage in Eyton Forest, between the manor and the abbey. She demands that Richard return with her. Richard knows it is part of her design to marry him off to the much older daughter of an adjacent landowner. Having accepted the charge by Richard’s father to educate him until his majority, Abbot Radulfus refuses the request.
Suddenly, Eyton Forest, on which the abbey depends, turns hostile. Hyacinth brings a message that it is due to the boy being withheld from his grandmother that all this is occurring. Then a tree falls on Eilmund, forester of the abbey. Hyacinth rescues him and fetches Brother Cadfael to attend him. Hyacinth meets Annet, Eilmund’s daughter. Immediately they are smitten with each other.
With the arrival of Drogo Bosiet, Peters introduces a new plot element. Drogo seeks his fugitive villein, a talented young man, Brand. Brother Jerome tells Bosiet that a man fitting the description is Cuthred’s assistant. Young Richard overhears the conversation. Previously, Hyacinth had treated Richard with kindness. Now Richard returns the favor and sets off to warn Hyacinth. Meanwhile, Drogo also goes after Hyacinth. Neither returns to the abbey.
The next day, Cadfael goes to the forest to check on Eilmund. He finds Bosiet’s riderless horse on the path to the hermitage. Soon, he finds Bosiet as well–stabbed in the back. Meanwhile, back at the abbey, the brothers discover Richard’s absence. Hugh and his men scour the countryside, both to find Richard, and Hyacinth, the leading suspect in the murder.
Once again, Cadfael and Hugh engage in a delicate dance of “don’t ask; don’t tell.” Cadfael knows where Hyacinth is hiding and that he couldn’t be the murderer. Both know that to capture Hyacinth means turning him over to Bosiet’s son. And Bosiet’s son is as vicious as the father. And when Cuthred is murdered, both Hugh and Cadfael walk a line that distinguishes justice from law.
This one finishes delightfully. The abbot gets the last laugh while Dame Dionesia gets her comeuppance. And don’t forget that there is a love story. Peters loves to throw these into her plots. In this story, she expertly weaves three subplots together. And for once, she tells a story that turns more on what Cadfael does not do.
I recently finished Louise Penny’s The Madness of Crowds, the seventeenth in her Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series, and the most recently published. [Updated 12/13/2022: Number 18 in the series, A World of Curiosities has been published and a review for the book has now been added.] For the moment, there are no more Gamache novels to read, unless I go back and re-read the series. This has quite simply been one of the best series I’ve read. While Penny’s books are often favored by women readers, I’ve found myself drawn by the strong male characters, especially Armand and Jean Guy. Particularly, I want to grow up to be like Armand! Equally, I find myself deeply appreciating the strong and diverse female characters–Reine Marie, Clara, Myrna, Isabelle Lacoste, and of course, Ruth (and Rosa!). Like so many readers, I want to live in Three Pines, or foster the kind of Three Pines community where I live (perhaps one of Penny’s hopes). I also have been provoked to thought, and not a little self-examination, by Penny’s insight that a murder often begins many years before with a nursed grievance allowed to fester. Finally, there are Gamache’s four sentences that lead to wisdom:
I don’t know.
I need help.
I’m sorry.
I was wrong.
The older I get, the more I find myself saying these things and I find myself looking back at my younger self and wish I’d learned this wisdom sooner.
I thought it would be fun to create a page with all my Gamache reviews. While I try to avoid spoilers in the reviews, those of subsequent books may give away plot details you’d rather discover for yourself if you haven’t read the previous ones. But if you are like me and want to go back and remember, this might prove helpful. I’ve just included publication info, a brief summary, and a link to the full review.
Still Life (Chief Inspector Gamache #1), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2005.
Summary: The suspicious death of Jane Neal a day after her painting is accepted into an art show brings Gamache and his team to Three Pines, and to the grim conclusion that someone in this small community is a murderer.Review
A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Gamache #2), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur, 2006.
Summary: An unliked but aspiring author comes to Three Pines and is murdered in front of a crowd at a curling match yet no one sees how it happened.Review
The Cruelest Month (Chief Inspector Gamache #3), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2007.
Summary: Gamache returns to Three Pines to solve a murder during a seance at the old Hadley House while forces within the Surete’ (and on his team) plot his downfall to avenge the Arnot case.Review
A Rule Against Murder (Chief Inspector Gamache #4), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2008.
Summary: The Gamache’s getaway to a peaceful lodge is interrupted, first by an unloving family reunion, and then by the death of one of the family, crushed under a statue. Meanwhile, the naming of a child forces Gamache to face his own family history.Review
The Brutal Telling (Chief Inspector Gamache #5), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2009.
Summary: The body of an unknown man is found in the bistro of Gabri and Olivier, and Olivier is the chief suspect!Review
Bury Your Dead (Chief Inspector Gamache #6), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2010.
Summary: Gamache and Beauvoir are on leave after an attempt to rescue an agent goes terribly wrong. As each faces their own traumas they get caught up in murder investigations in Quebec City and Three Pines.Review
A Trick of the Light(Chief Inspector Gamache #7), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur, 2012.
Summary: The vernissage for Clara’s art show is a stunning success with glowing reviews only to be spoiled when the body of her estranged childhood friend is found in her flowerbed.Review
The Beautiful Mystery(Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #8), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2013.
Summary: While solving a case involving the murder of a prior in a remote monastery, Gamache must confront his arch-nemesis Chief Superintendent Sylvain Françoeur.Review
How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Gamache #9), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Press, 2013.
Summary: The murder of the last Ouelletquintuplet, a former client and friend of Myrna’s brings Gamache back to Three Pines which serves as a hidden base of operations as Sylvain Francoeur’s efforts to destroy Gamachecomes to a head.Review
The Long Way Home(Chief Inspector Gamache #10), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur, 2015.
Summary: Gamache’s peaceful retirement is interrupted when Peter Morrow fails to return as agreed a year after his separation from Clara and they embark on a search taking them to a desolate corner of Quebec.Review
The Nature of the Beast(Chief Inspector Gamache #11), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2016.
Summary: A young boy from Three Pines, prone to fantastic tales, reports seeing a big gun with a strange symbol, and then is found dead, setting off a search for a murderer, and an effort to thwart a global threat.Review, Second Review
A Great Reckoning(Chief Inspector Gamache #12), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2016.
Summary: Gamache returns to the Sûreté as Commander of its Academy, and finds himself at the center of a murder investigation of one of its corrupt professors.Review
Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Gamache #13), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2017.
Summary: A mysterious figure robed in black, the murder of a woman found in those robes, a confession, and a trial, during which Gamache has made choices of conscience that could cost lives and save many.Review
Kingdom of the Blind(Chief Inspector Gamache #14), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2018.
Summary: Gamache, Myrna, and Benedict, a young building maintenance worker who hopes to be a builder are named as liquidators of the estate of a cleaning woman while Amelia Choquet, caught with drugs, is expelled from the Academy to the streets as a powerful and lethal drug is about to hit. Review
A Better Man(Chief Inspector Gamache #15), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2019.
Summary: Gamache, Beauvoir, and Lacosteare together again, searching for a missing girl amid rising floods and a flood of social media attacks against Gamache and the art of Clara Morrow.Review
All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Gamache #16), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2020.
Summary: A family visit of the Gamaches to children in Paris suddenly becomes an investigation into the attempted murder of Stephen Horowitz, Armand’s godfather, and the murder of a close associate, and will put the Gamaches in great peril.Review
The Madness of Crowds (Chief Inspector Gamache #17), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2021.
Summary: A Christmas assignment to provide security for a professor proposing mercy killing leads to a murder investigation in Three Pines.Review
Summary: The arrival in Three Pines of a sister and brother involved in a murder case that brought Armand and Jean Guy and the opening of a sealed room and the strange painting found within confront Gamache with two of his greatest fears.
The most recent novel in this series envisions what it is like to emerge from the pandemic. One thing I would say is that this series has been one of the things that got me through the pandemic. My review of the first volume was posted on April 2, 2020, less than a month after the world locked down. The most recent posted June 13, 2022, a bit over two years later. Pandemic has morphed into endemic and the new normal is a scarier world of war in Ukraine, inflation, gun violence, and political discord stretching from Sri Lanka to the United States. Amid all the murders (both in the real world and the books), the Gamache series reminds me of the goodness that remains, a goodness worth fighting and resisting for as well as celebrating in our daily lives. And there is one more goodness, at least…Louise Penny is still writing and book 18, A World of Curiosities, is expected in late 2022. When I get the chance to read it, and any subsequent numbers, it and they will be added to the list!
[Updated 12/13/2022: The review of book 18, A World of Curiosities is now included in this list.]
I count it a privilege to review so many good books. And there were a lot of them this month. I finally discovered Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma and his thoughtful writing about how our food comes to our table. Breaking Ground is a stunning set of essays for anyone thinking about how we come out of the pandemic and deal with the divided state of so many of our nations. Bridget Eileen Rivera’s book, Heavy Burdens, is a must read for anyone who cares about inclusion of LGBTQ persons in the church, no matter your theology. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. offers a wonderful overview in The Black Church of its history and importance in sustaining America’s Black community. I found Samantha Power’s memoir, The Education of an Idealist a riveting and inspiring account of her life so far and, in this Irish immigrant, a reminder of what immigrants have added to American life. If you are tempted to surrender hope that we can do anything meaningful about climate change, Katharine Hayhoe’s Saving Us is a breath of fresh and enlivening air. There’s so much more I can say, but much of it is in the reviews, so I’ll let you get at them!
The Doctrine of Scripture, Brad East (Foreword by Katherine Sonderegger). Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021. A concise exploration of the doctrine of scripture focusing on the church’s joyful and thankful confession, “this is the word of the Lord.” Review
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollen. New York: Penguin, 2007. An examination of the American way of eating, considering our industrial food chain and how it has affected our diet by contrast with organic and hunter-gatherer food chains. Review
Cradling Abundance, Monique Misenga Ngoie Mukuna with Elsie Tshimunyi McKee. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021. An autobiography of a lay leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo, describing her work with women addressing their education, helping them develop usable skills, and addressing the gender violence and health issues they face. Review
Having and Being Had, Eula Biss. New York: Riverhead Books, 2021. A collection of essays on the occasion of the author and her husband buying their first house, considering the nature of capitalism, consumption, work, and class. Review
Breaking Ground, Anne Snyder and Susannah Black. Walden, NY: Plough Publishing 2021. A collection of essays written through four seasons beginning in the summer of 2020 on what it might take to restore common ground for the common good in a society deeply divided by the pandemic, race, economic, and political divisions. Review
Faithful Antiracism, Christina Barland Edmondson and Chad Brennan, foreword by Korie Little Edwards and Michael O. Emerson. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022. Drawing upon the Race, Religion, and Justice Project, offers biblical and practical recommendations to engage racism personally and with one’s faith community. Review
Welcome, Holy Spirit, Gordon T. Smith. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021. Beginning with the metaphors for the Holy Spirit, articulates a theology of the Holy Spirit that spans theological traditions and invites readers to be receptive to a deeper experience of the Spirit’s work. Review
Heavy Burdens: Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience Harm in the Church, Bridget Eileen Rivera. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2021. Rather than an argument about what the Bible says about LGBTQ persons, a discussion of the ways LGBTQ Christians, regardless of their beliefs, have suffered under heavy, and the author would argue, needless burdens. Review
Ready Player One, Ernest Cline. New York: Broadway Press, 2012. A virtual world quest created as the last act of a gaming programmer in which a real prize of $240 billion is at stake pits Wade Watts and a rag tag group of “gunters” against a ruthless corporation. Review
A Grave Mistake (Roderick Alleyn #30), Ngaio Marsh. New York, Felony & Mayhem Press, 2016 (originally published in 1978). A wealthy widow in a small English village dies of an apparent suicide at an exclusive spa, but clues point to murder with a circle of suspects with motives. Review
The Manifold Beauty of Genesis One, Gregg Davidson & Kenneth J. Turner. Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2021. A layered approach to the meaning of Genesis 1, focusing on what this reveals about God and God’s intentions for the flourishing of his creation and the human beings created in God’s image. Review
The Black Church, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Penguin Press, 2021. A companion to the PBS series on the Black church, surveying the history of the Black church in America focusing on why the church has been central to the life of the Black community. Review
American Diplomacy, Expanded Edition, George Kennan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. (Link is to in-print 60th anniversary edition, 2012). A compilation of Kennan’s six Charles R. Walgreen lectures, two articles on US-Soviet relations originally from Foreign Affairs, and two Grinnell lectures. Review
The Journey Toward Wholeness, Suzanne Stabile. Downers Grove: IVP/Formatio, 2021. Draws on the wisdom of the Enneagram to help focus on our responses to stress, both as they reflect our dominant and repressed centers of intelligence intelligence. Review
Piercing Leviathan(New Studies in Biblical Theology), Eric Ortlund. Downers Grove and London: IVP Academic and Apollos, 2021. (Link for UK publisher). A study of the book of Job that focuses on the second of the Lord’s speeches to Job, focused on describing Behemoth and Leviathan. Review
The Education of an Idealist, Samantha Power. New York: Dey Street Books, 2021. A memoir on immigrant-American, war correspondent, human rights activist, and diplomat Samantha Power. Review
Centering Prayer, Brian D. Russell. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2021. An introduction to the practice of centering prayer with practical helps and theological basis, by a practitioner who found the practice transformative. Review
Kingdom of the Blind (Chief Inspector Gamache #14), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2018. Gamache, Myrna, and Benedict, a young building maintenance worker who hopes to be a builder are named as liquidators of the estate of a cleaning woman while Amelia Choquet, caught with drugs, is expelled from the Academy to the streets as a powerful and lethal drug is about to hit. Review
Saving Us, Katharine Hayhoe. New York: Atria/One Signal Publishers, 2021. A discussion of both the urgent challenge of climate change, and the difference we can make in both action and conversations. Review
Five Things Biblical Scholars Wish Theologians Knew, Scot McKnight, Foreword Hans Boersma. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021. In an effort to foster understanding between the two disciplines, a biblical scholar outlines five areas for theologians to understand about biblical studies. Review
Best Book of the Month: I loved Brad East’s The Doctrine of Scripture. Reading his theology reminded me why I love the Bible, what we mean when we speak of it as “the word of the Lord” in our worship. He speaks of scripture’s source, nature, attributes, ends, interpretation, and authority. I wrote, “This was not a book of same old, same old verities but a thoughtful framing of the doctrine of scripture that avoids the de-supernaturalizing tendencies of modern scholarship and the extremes of bibliolatry while at the same time upholding the wondrous reality of hearing the Word of the Lord together as the people of God.”
Best Quote of the Month: Henry Louis Gates, Jr., I thought, summed up well the meaning of the Black Church in this statement:
“It’s that cultural space in which we can bathe freely in the comfort of our cultural heritage, and where everyone knows their part, and where everyone can judge everyone else’s performance of their part, often out loud with amens, with laughter, with clapping, or with silence. It’s the space that we created to find rest in the gathering storm. It’s the place where we made a way out of no way. It’s the place to which, after a long and wearisome journey, we can return and find rest before we cross the river. It’s the place we call, simply, the Black Church” (p. 219).
What I’m Reading: I’m ready to review Frédéric Gros’ A Philosophy of Walking, a series of reflection on this basic human activity that includes profiles of a number of walking philosophers! I’ve been delighting in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass and am persuaded that our Native Peoples have more than a few things to teach us about tending the garden and how we may both give to and receive from the other creatures of the earth. To Build a Better World, by Condoleeza Rice and Philip D. Zelikow, looks back to 1989-1990 and the seeming end of Communism and the new order that emerged. I’m curious if it will explain the origins of our current disorders. Lead Like it Matters to God is written by the head of World Vision, the largest Christian aid agency, and explores value driven leadership. I just began reading Jeff Kennon’s The Cross-Shaped Life, one of my Lent books. Drawing on Michael Gorman, he argues for and outlines what a cruciform life looks like, one shaped by Jesus and what he has done. Finally, I’m just starting out another Ngaio Marsh book, Death and the Dancing Footman. Love the title, hope the book is as good! And I hope you find some good books to read in March, whether from this list or not. I’d love to hear about them!
Kingdom of the Blind (Chief Inspector Gamache #14), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2018.
Summary: Gamache, Myrna, and Benedict, a young building maintenance worker who hopes to be a builder are named as liquidators of the estate of a cleaning woman while Amelia Choquet, caught with drugs, is expelled from the Academy to the streets as a powerful and lethal drug is about to hit.
[Spoiler alert: Because this is a review of a book in a series, some details in this review may be “spoilers” if you have not read previous numbers in the series.]
Armand Gamache is on suspension for his highly irregular (and ultimately effective) operation described in the last novel. It meant looking the other way on a drug shipment, some of which is about to hit the streets of Montreal. The drug is the highly lethal carfentanyl. He has admitted to it all, but the hope is that he’ll be restored to his position of Chief Superintendent. Interrogations of his son-in-law, Guy de Beauvoir, who is now Chief Inspector of Homicide, suggests they are preparing to scapegoat Gamache, and Beauvoir has to decide whether he is going to save his own job or remain at the side of his father-in-law. Meanwhile, Gamache is determined to recover the drugs.
All this is in the background of the two plot lines in this novel. The first comes when Gamache learns he has been named as a liquidator (a kind of executor) of the will of Bertha Baumgartner, a cleaning woman who had lived nearby and worked for some of the family in Three Pines and called herself “The Baronness.” Myrna Landers, the bookstore owner, is also a liquidator. The third is a quirky but seemingly pleasant young man, Benedict, a handyman in his apartment building in Montreal, who hopes to work as a contractor. None knows why they have been named. They meet the notary at Bertha’s derelict home amid a snow storm. They are not the heirs, who are The Baronness’s three children: Anthony, Caroline, and Hugo. It turns out she has left each a huge fortune and properties in Europe, although all this seems fanciful.
Things take an interesting turn when Benedict returns to the snow-laden house. He had been staying with the Gamaches while his truck was towed to get decent snow tires, which Gamache offered to pay for. Alarmed, because of the condition of the house, Gamache goes after him as does Myrna. They find the house collapsed, apparently from the weight of the snow. They find and, after a harrowing further collapse, manage to rescue Benedict, but not before they discover that someone else had been there, dead in the rubble. It turns out to be Anthony Baumgartner. The nature of his wounds, a crushed skull, point to him being dead before the collapse–murdered. As Beauvoir, Lacoste, who is recovering from a severe wound, and a forensic accountant investigate the death, Gamache digs into the will, which leads to the discovery of a long-unresolved family dispute in Austria. The will of Bertha Baumgartner might not be all that fanciful.
Amelia Choquet has been found in possession of drugs. The director of the academy consults with Gamache, who declines to give her another chance. In her third year, she is expelled, though not criminally charged. She returns to her old apartment and the streets of Montreal with a vengeance, fueled by anger at Gamache. She is determined to find the carfentanyl and gain control of its distribution, calling it “Gamache” out of spite and using her knowledge of the streets and academy training to build a network of junky dealers. But first she has to find who has it. As she looks, she awakes from having passed out with a strange Sharpie inscription on her arm, “David 1/4.” She’s not the only one with this inscription, some of whom are found dead. She relentlessly searches for “David,” thinking he must have the carfentanyl. Unbeknownst to her, Gamache has agents secretly tailing her. And looking for a little girl in a red tuque who keeps showing up and may be in danger.
There are some funny sidelights, such as Honore’s first word, a fascinating bond between an elderly financial adviser and friend of the Gamache’s and Ruth, and a new relationship for Myrna. Beauvoir’s dilemma creates, at least for him, a new round of wondering how far he can trust Gamache and if Gamache has told him all that is going on. And we learn that Gamache, as well as other characters in the story, have hidden things. Once again, Gamache pursues methods that are “out of the moral box” with the justification of a greater good.
I find myself wondering if this will catch him up, if these choices will destroy the decency, integrity, and kindness of this man. He has been up against people who don’t think the moral rules of the rest of society apply to them. Could he become one of them? I certainly hope not, but Penny’s development of Gamache in this way opens both intriguing and frightening possibilities. And she leaves me wondering, what will happen to Choquet?
If it isn’t obvious by now, I love reading a wide variety of books. Science fiction, mysteries, history, literary fiction, regional authors, biblical, historical, and practical theology, sociology, business and economics. My work and my interests touch on all of these and all of these are here. Mayday reminded me of an international crisis of my childhood when we were sheltering under our school desks and school basement in fear of nuclear attack. Octavia Butler’s imaginative scenarios of what happens when different species meet. I’ve mused about why men treat women so badly across cultures. David Buss’s answers weren’t satisfying to me but provoked my thinking. I had good fun revisiting The Scarlet Pimpernel, a great story! I won’t go through all the books here so that you can get on and skim the reviews!
Imago(Xenogenesis #3), Octavia E. Butler. New York: Popular Library, 1989 (Link is to a current, in-print edition). The concluding volume of this trilogy explores what happens when human-Oankali breeding results in a construct child that is not supposed to occur. Review
The Problem of the Old Testament: Hermeneutical, Schematic & Theological Approaches, Duane A. Garrett. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2020. An exploration of how and whether Christians ought read the Old Testament, contending that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament and that its material still has authority and edifying value for the Christian. Review
Final Curtain (Inspector Alleyn #14), Ngaio Marsh. New York, Felony & Mayhem Press, 2014 (originally published in 1947. While Inspector Alleyn is returning from wartime service in New Zealand, Troy Alleyn, his artist wife is commissioned on short notice to paint a portrait of Sir Henry Ancred, a noteworthy stage actor, meeting his dramatic family, encountering a number of practical jokes including one that infuriates Sir Henry at his birthday dinner, after which he is found dead the next morning. Inspector Alleyn arrives home to investigate a possible murder in which his wife is an interested party. Review
A War Like No Other, Victor Davis Hanson. New York: Random House, 2006. An account of the Peloponnesian War tracing the history, the politics, the strategies, key figures, battles, and how the war was fought. Review
An Impossible Marriage, Laurie Krieg and Matt Krieg. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2020. Matt and Laurie Krieg are in a mixed orientation marriage and narrate both the challenges they have faced and what they have learned about God and love as they remained together. Review
Who Created Christianity?, Craig A. Evans and Aaron W. White, editors. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2020. A festschrift in honor of David Wenham focused around the centerpiece of Wenham’s theology, the relationship between Jesus and Paul and Wenham’s insistence that Paul was not the founder of Christianity but a disciple of Jesus. Review
Mayday: Eisenhower, Krushchev, and the U-2 Affair, Michael Beschloss. New York: Open Road Media, 2016 (originally published in 1986). A detailed accounting of the shoot-down of a U-2 CIA reconnaissance flight over the USSR and the consequences that increased Cold War tensions between Eisenhower and Kruschchev and their respective countries.Review
Science and the Doctrine of Creation, Edited by Geoffrey H. Fulkerson and Joel Thomas Chopp, afterword by Alister E. McGrath. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021. A study of ten modern theologians and how each engagedscience in light of the doctrine of creation. Review
The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy. New York: Puffin Books, 1997 (originally published in 1905). An adventure set in Revolutionary France as a secret league led by the Scarlet Pimpernel rescues prisoners headed to the guillotine as a French agent ruthlessly seeks to track him down. Review
40 Patchtown, Damian Dressick. Huron, Ohio: Bottom Dog Press, 2020. Set during a coal strike in Windber, Pennsylvania in 1922, captures the hardship striking miners faced in their resistance to mine owners, their efforts to form unions and gain better wages for dangerous work. Review
The End of the Affair, Graham Greene. New York: Open Road Media, 2018 (originally published in 1951). A writer struggles to understand why the woman he has had an affair with broke it off, discovering who ultimately came between them. Review
The 30-Minute Bible, Craig G. Bartholomew and Paige P. Vanosky, with illustrations by Br. Martin Erspamer. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2021. An overview of the big story of the Bible, broken into 30 readings of roughly 30 minutes in length, accompanied by charts, diagrams, and illustrations. Review
When Men Behave Badly, David M. Buss. New York: Little, Brown Spark, 2021. A discussion of sexual violence, deception, harassment and abuse, largely on the part of men, grounded in evolutionary sexual conflict theory that helps explain why so many relationships between men and women go bad. Review
Pillars, Rachel Pieh Jones, Foreword by Abdi Nor Iftin. Walden, NY: Plough Publishing, 2021. An account about how the author’s attitudes both toward Islam and her Christian faith changed as she and her husband lived among Muslims in Somalia and Djibouti. Review
Post-Capitalist Society, Peter F. Drucker. New York: Harper Collins, 1993. Describes the transformation of a society based on capital to one based on knowledge whose key structure is the responsibility-based organization. Review
Best Book of the Month. This is often a tough one to answer, and no less this month. It is rare that I give the nod to a collection of essays around a theme but Science and the Doctrine of Creation was one of the best. Ten outstanding theologians summarized the thinking of ten of the leading theologians of the last two centuries on the doctrine of creation and how they related that doctrine to science.
Best Quote of the Month: I’ve worked with Muslim students in collegiate ministry and in Pillars, Rachel Pieh Jones put into words what an incarnational ministry among Muslims is like. Here, she talks about the shift that took place in her life:
“I had a lot to learn about how to love my neighbors and practice my faith cross-culturally. I don’t identify with the label ‘missionary,’ with its attendant cultural, theological, and historical baggage, though I understand this is how many view me. I do love to talk about spirituality–and what fascinates me is that the more I discuss faith with Muslims, the more we both return to our roots and dig deeper. As we explore our ownfaith, in relationship with someone who thinks differently, each of us comes to experience God in richer, more intimate ways. In this manner, Muslims have helped me become a better Christian, though things didn’t start out that way” (p. 49).
What I’m Reading: Louise Penny just keeps getting better. I just finished the ninth in the Chief Inspector Gamache series, How The Light Gets In. Look for my review tomorrow. I’ve also been savoring a Ray Bradbury classic, Something Wicked This Way Comes, a dark exploration of the nothingness of evil and our power to say no to it. Conspicuous in His Absence explores the significance of the two books in the Bible in which God is not mentioned, Song of Songs and Esther.Recovering the Lost Art of Reading is a book about just that–how we might read well and discriminately. I love books about books and reading. Hand in Glove is another Roderick Alleyn mystery by the great Ngaio Marsh. I just had the chance to interview Roger Wiens, one of the NASA scientists involved in the Mars Rover Perseverance mission and have been reading his Red Rover to glimpse the inside story of his work. And in a similar vein, Test Gods is an account of the test pilots who have been involved in Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic’s space company.
We have one more full month of summer (in the northern hemisphere). I hope you have some days in a hammock or lounge chair with a cold drink and a good book. One of the joys of reading are the good things that go along with our good books!
