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The Weekly Wrap: June 9-15

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Thanks to everyone who stopped by to read the first Weekly Wrap and were so encouraging in your comments. I think we’ll try this for another week!

I have been absorbed this week in Kristin Hannah’s The Women, an account of the experience of combat nurses in Vietnam. I have a former colleague who did this. She never spoke about her experience. Reading Hannah’s book helps me understand as she describes the horrific things that happened to soldiers, the terrible reception anyone who served in Vietnam received when they came home, the lack of recognition combat nurses received until many years later, of their services and of the skills they acquired. Like other of Hannah’s books, I carry this one around in my head even when I’m not reading it.

Don’t you just love writers who write with such skill and power?

Five Articles Worth Reading

If you follow this blog, you know I review a number of books. I don’t get paid, other than in free books, for doing it. I do it for the sheer love of reading and the fun of connecting books and people who want to read them. There was so much I resonated with in Christine Smallwood’s A Reviewer’s Life, and I’m glad I have a day job, as her comments on the pay freelance reviewers receive portrays a challenging way to make a living.

For those who enjoy audiobooks, Audible has published its list of Top Audiobooks of 2024 So Far, which Bookriot picked up. I’m not an audiobook listener, but this list tempts me…. The Bookriot article also offers links to other “Best of” lists and recent articles.

I went through a season of reading a number of the works of Ursula K. Le Guin, one of the most creative science fiction/fantasy writers of her time. She passed away in 2018. This week, her family announced (AP News Story) that her Portland home, built on plans from a Sears catalog with a view of Mt. St. Helen’s, will become the Ursula K. Le Guin Writers Residency. Aspiring writers will have the opportunity to write where she wrote some of her most famous books.

I would love to see this in every city. Publisher’s Weekly ran a story this week, “Free Children’s Bookstore Opens in Pittsburgh.” Children may select up to three books they may take home and read.

I’ve been struck that we are witnessing the emergence of an incredible array of talented women writers. One of these, Rachel Cusk, has just published a new novel, Parade. I found this Guardian article, “Where to Start With: Rachel Cusk” a good introduction to her work.

Quote of the Week

Dorothy L. Sayers, mystery writer, playwright, essayist, and translator of Dante was born June 13, 1893. I like this quote from her, apropos of our time.

“The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I’ve been reading a book that explores the reading and writing practices in ancient times, which spurred me to think of all the ways we “read” in our day. I wrote about it on Friday at the blog, “The Ways We Read.”

I’ve loved the stories of George MacDonald since I was a college student. But I’ve never come across someone who wrote in ways reminiscent of him until a young Australian writer, Peter Kostoglou, reached out to me asking me to review a little collection of seven short stories, Sillies, Fancies, & Trifles. I found them exquisite, and wrote about them on Thursday.

I thought with Peter Jackson’s productions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, we had seen the definitive film works. I learned that Jackson is at it again with “The Hunt for Gollum” and that an animated production of “The War of the Rohirrim” is also in production. Of course, Christopher Tolkien has carried on his father’s legacy, mining his notes for other stories. I’m reading Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-Earth which delves (a dwarfish word!) into the background of things alluded to in Tolkien’s most familiar work. What amazes me is how J.R.R. Tolkien didn’t just write a long story, but conceived a whole history behind it, as well as numerous languages. No wonder Tolkien has been a source for so much creative rendering of his work. There is actually far more to tell than we’ve seen thus far. The only thing I would ask for is a few less Orc battles!

Well, that’s a wrap!

The Weekly Wrap: June 2-8, 2024

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person wrapping a book
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

Welcome to the first edition of The Weekly Wrap, a new feature at the Bob on Books blog. As I follow book news, review books, post articles at my Facebook page, it struck me that it might be fun for me and useful to you to share some of my personal gleanings from the past week. Hopefully, what I share here will enrich your own reading life without needing to go hunting all over the internet.

I expect this feature to evolve in the coming weeks. I’d like to hear what you think and what you’d enjoy seeing in a weekly digest like this. To begin:

Five Articles Worth Reading

One of the foremost theologians of the last century, Jürgen Moltmann died this past week at the age of 98. Coming to faith while housed in a British prisoner of war camp during World War II, his The Crucified God and Theology of Hope were landmark works. Died: Jürgen Moltmann, Theologian of Hope is Christianity Today’s obituary, offering a summary of the life and work of the man who taught that “God weeps with us so that we may someday laugh with him.”

I was studying at our local library in 1986, a part-time graduate student. I came home for lunch when my wife greeted me with the news of the Challenger disaster. It left me wordless to watch the footage of the explosion, realizing I was watching the death of seven astronauts, including Christa McAuliffe, a schoolteacher. The Atlantic ran an review (“What the Challenger Disaster Proved“) this week of Adam Higgenbotham’s Challenger–A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space.

Fans of The Hunger Games will be excited to learn that Suzanne Collins will be publishing a new installment in 2025. Bookriot announced the new book this week in the article “Surprise! A New HUNGER GAMES Book Is Coming.”

“Kafkaesque” has become part of our vocabulary to describe anything “extremely unpleasant, frightening, and confusing” (Cambridge Dictionary). Claire Armitstead explore why Kafka has such a hold over our culture a century after he died in “Can’t get you out of my head: why pop culture is still under Kafka’s spell“

Have you kept a book for many years that had a profound influence in your life. Often, we see more than we did the first time, find depths we hadn’t discovered. But not always. Margaret Renkl explores the experience of re-reading and how the changes in our lives change our readings in “I Reread a Book That Changed My Life, but I’d Changed, Too.”

Quote of the Week

Children’s author Cynthia Rylant turned 70 on June 6. I loved this quote by her:

“It is when we are most lost that we sometimes find our truest friends.”

Miscellaneous Musings

Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation is a gripping and provocative read. He lays the blame squarely on the combination of the arrival of smartphone and the social media apps tailored to it and the decline of opportunities to engage in embodied play.

Over at my Facebook page, I’ve been running a #menreading series of images each evening until Father’s Day. Images of women reading probably outnumber those of men at least ten to one. This seemed a great practical application of my recent article “Real Men Read.” I care about this not only because I believe reading can enrich men’s lives but also that they can have a powerful influence with children, especially young boys.

I haven’t read many books in bed that keep me awake. William Kent Krueger’s Boundary Waters did. Krueger proves you can both write well and get people to turn the page. This is the fourth of Krueger’s works that I have read and none have disappointed, and I’m excited that there are so many more Cork O’Connors to read!

I’m going to leave it there. I’d love to know what you think. That’s a wrap.

Review: The Summer Game

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The Summer Game, Roger Angell. New York: Open Road Media, 2013 (originally published in 1972).

Summary: A collection of Angell’s essays covering the ten seasons of Major League Baseball from 1962 to 1971.

This year we lost Roger Angell, the long time writer for The New Yorker, at the ripe old age of 101. He was a shaping force at the magazine as well as being considered by some, “The Poet Laureate of baseball.” I knew of Angell’s writing, but it was not until now that I discovered why he was so esteemed. Quite simply, he gave words to what any of us who love the game feel about its attraction. The final essay of this book, “The Interior Stadium” gets as close as anything I’ve read to describing the game’s mystique:

“Form is the imposition of a regular pattern upon varying and unpredictable circumstances, but the patterns of baseball, for all the game’s tautness and neatness, are never regular. Who can predict the winner and shape of today’s game? Will it be a brisk, neat two-hour shutout? A languid, error-filled 13-2 laugher, A riveting three hour, fourteen-inning deadlock? What other sport produces these manic swings?”

The Summer Game collects articles Angell wrote for The New Yorker from 1962 to 1971, which is quite wonderful because this was the time when I most avidly followed the name, reading The Sporting News and watching every World Series game I could (when I was not in school). He begins with spring training at the camp of the New York Mets, who were destined to become New York’s lovable losers until late in the decade, when they became champions. He describes games at the old Polo Grounds before Shea Stadium was built and the “Go” shouters.

He traces the championship teams of the sixties and especially the World Series matchups between them: the Yankees and the Dodgers, the Giants, the Cardinals, the Red Sox, the Twins, the Mets, the Reds, the Orioles, and the Pirates. There are all the stars I grew up with–Mays, Maris, and Mantle, Koufax and Gibson and the generation that followed, Yastrzemski, Rose and Perez, Clemente and Stargell.

As the players changed, so did the stadiums. Angell describes the demise of the old box-like stadiums with seats close to the game for the bigger stadiums in the round, used for multiple sports in many cases but with fans much more distant. It is ironic that most of these stadiums that were “new” when Angell wrote have since been demolished in favor of parks much more like the old fields with modern amenities. Even the shiny new Astrodome, although still preserved, no longer serves as a baseball venue.

The heart of the book is Angell’s accounts of the World Series games of each year. He brings back memories of the dominating performances of Koufax and Drysdale, and of Bob Gibson, who broke the hearts of Boston fans in his showdown with Jim Lonborg. Gibson, pitching his third game of the series was dead tired but hung on to win 7-2. Likewise, he reminds me of the hopes fulfilled when the Pirates in nearby Pittsburgh overcame the dominating Orioles of Earl Weaver to win the 1971 World Series. Some have criticized his inning by inning, sometimes play-by-play approach, but for me, it was a walk back in time, a reminder of great baseball of the past. He fills in the detail and drama of those games long tucked away in the recesses of memory.

He describes a game in transition as leagues expanded, playoffs were introduced and old stars faded as new names like Vida Blue, Catfish Hunter, and Reggie Jackson came on the scene, as TV revenues grew and with them, salaries, and new stadiums. And yet, it is the same summer game, played on a diamond, between baselines, nine players in the lineup on each side, fans in the seats behind first or third, filling out scorecards, rooting for the home team, vicariously sharing in the glory of the game.

Thank you Roger Angell! One can only hope there will be baseball in heaven so that Roger Angell can write about it.

Review: Between History and Spirit

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Between History and Spirit, Craig S. Keener. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2020.

Summary: A collection of the author’s journal articles on the book of Acts

Craig S. Keener is a prolific biblical scholar. One of his most magisterial works is a four volume commentary on the book of Acts. Writing such a work involved him deeply in studies of context, exegetical matters, and other questions surrounding the book of Acts resulting in numerous shorter articles. This work brings a number of these works together in a single volume. It displays both his erudite scholarship (34 pages of abbreviations of ancient and modern sources referenced) and his missional passion.

The collection is divided into three sections and I will highlight a few from each part to offer a taste of the rich fare the reader interested in such matters will find within.

A Question of History

“Luke-Acts and the Historical Jesus” examines what kind of writing is Luke-Acts and the accuracy of his sources. He concludes this is a form of first century historiography with biographic and rhetorical interests and that Luke draws upon reliable first generation accounts. We wonder if the writer of Acts was actually an eyewitness and participant in some of the events narrated because of the “we” language. Keener explores possible explanations and concludes that the “we” language with the omission of the author’s name reflects the practice of other ancient historians who participate in the events they narrate. “Paul and Sedition” considered the purpose for including so much material defending Paul against charges of sedition and the importance of the defense for the early church. Other essays consider the growth reports of the church in Acts, the novel official of Acts 8:27, whether troops were really stationed in Caesarea during Agrippa’s reign and the character of Paul’s ministry in Athens.

A Question of Context

Interethnic marriage has been considered problematic in many cultural settings including that of the New Testament. Given this, in “Interpreting Marriage in Acts 7:29 and 16:1-3, Keener argues that the only problematic instance of marriage in the New Testament is for believers to marry non-believers and that interethnic marriage of believers is not problematic “within the church. He offers a wonderful study on “Turning from Idols in Acts: 14:15-17 in honor of our shared mentor Ben Witherington III. He offers a careful study of Acts 16:8-10 and the crucial transition from Asian to European ministry by Paul and his team. There is also a wonderful short article proposing Acts 21 and the temple controversy as a backdrop for Ephesians 2:11-22 with it tearing down of dividing walls. A couple essays deal with language and rhetoric focused on Paul’s rhetorical techniques. He considers the charge of insanity in Acts 26:24-25. He also offers a fascinating article on fever and illnesses in Acts and ancient medicine.

A Question of Spirit

Keener has done extensive research on miracles, making the case for the plausibility of miracles in the biblical accounts. His article on “Miracles and History in Acts and the Jesus Tradition” is a great summary of this research. Keener’s work is especially worthy of reading if you are skeptical about miracles but open to argument and evidence. Several of his essays consider the work of the Spirit in empowerment for mission in Act. His study of spirit possession in Acts 16:16-18 and 19:12-16 comparing these accounts to modern anthropological accounts is remarkable for its even-handed discussion of Christian and other perceptions of spirit possession and the anthropological evidence for the universality of this phenomena. He recognizes the beginnings of ancient African Christianity in Luke’s encounter with the Ethiopian and expands of the early development of east African Christianity. His reviews of other works that conclude the section reveals a scholar gracious with those he differs and capable of learning from them.

Anyone who has studied or is studying Acts will find in this collection a treasure trove of insights. It is good for whetting one’s appetite for Keener’s commentary on Acts (at least it was for me if I could fit it into my budget and bookshelves!). It models well the fusion of evangelical conviction and scholarly rigor and careful textual and contextual study. I also find in his writing jargon-free clarity that makes this work useful beyond the scholarly guild. Finally, I value the fine balance between historical and contextual questions, and the unavoidable presence of the Holy Spirit in Acts that both accounts for much of the history in Acts and the empowerment of the missional momentum of that history.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.