Looking through this month’s reviews, I’m struck by how different these books are from one another. A children’s story for Christmas and graphic non-fiction of George Takei’s experiences as a child internee during World War 2. Dark crime fiction, classic mystery, and cozy mystery. A book on “biblical womanhood” and narratives of “power women.” Short stories set in fictional Port William, Kentucky and essays from the streets of New York city. Chicago features in a couple books, one from the 1893 Columbian Exposition and the other inspired by the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago. One looks at America’s role in the world while another focuses in on a homeless ministry in the small college town of Athens, Ohio, nestled in the foothills of Appalachia. One considers evangelism through American history, another religion departments in colleges turned universities, and a third on a missional theologian. And to top it off, I traveled the Lincoln Highway with four young men both pursued and pursuing their dreams.

After the Apocalypse, Andrew Bacevich. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2021. An argument that 2020 represented the final unraveling of the United States’ post-Cold War superpower status and that U.S. policy must change, reflecting its changed status in the world and changing priorities at home. Review

Good Works: Hospitality and Faithful Discipleship, Keith Wasserman, Christine D. Pohl. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2021. A profile of the key themes that have shaped the hospitable community of Good Works, Inc., a ministry providing shelter and support to people in rural southeastern Ohio. Review

The Making of Biblical Womanhood, Beth Allison Barr. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2021. A study of women in church history and the construction of the idea of “biblical womanhood which underwent a series of developments from the Reformation to the present. Review

The End of College, Robert Wilson-Black. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2021. A history of the creation and development of religion departments between 1930 and 1960 as a shift occurred from church affiliated colleges to research universities on the German model, with different aims serving a wider constituency. Review

The Nature of the Beast (Chief Inspector Gamache #11), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2016. 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

T. F. Torrance as Missional Theologian (New Explorations in Theology), Joseph H. Sherrard, Foreword by Alan Torrance. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021. An examination of the contribution Thomas Torrance’s theological work makes to the church’s understanding of missiology, particularly centered around his understanding of the Godhead, the person of Christ, and Christ’s threefold offices and the church’s participation in them. Review

Power Women, Edited by Nancy Wang Yuen and Deshonna Collier-Goubil, Foreword by Shirley Hoogstra. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021. Fourteen women who are both mothers and academics write about how they navigate these callings as women of faith. Review

They Called Us Enemy, George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott. Illustrator: Harmony Becker. Marietta, GA: Top Shelf Productions, 2019. A graphic non-fiction account of the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War 2, through the experience of George Takei and his family. Review

The Devil’s Star (Harry Hole #5), Jo Nesbø. New York: Harper, 2017 (originally published 2003). Detective Harry Hole, still in turmoil over the unsolved death of his partner, is spiraling downward to termination, until asked to work on the case of a serial killer. Review

God in the Modern Wing (Studies in Theology and the Arts), Edited by Cameron J. Anderson and G. Walter Hansen. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021. Ten Christian artists offer reflections on different pieces of modern art found in the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, considering both the faith of the artists and what one might see in their art through the eyes of faith. Review

Watch With Me: And Six Other Stories of the Yet–Remembered Ptolemy Proudfoot and His Wife, Miss Minnie, Née Quinch, Wendell Berry. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2018 (originally published 1994). Six short stories and the title novella centered around the Port William resident, Tol Proudfoot and his wife, Miss Minnie and their life on a rural farm, part of the membership of a rural community. Review

In the Shadow of King Saul, Jerome Charyn. New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2018. A collection of eleven essays spanning nearly thirty years of Charyn’s literary career, on the New York in which he grew up, his family, other authors and celebrities. Review

The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles. New York: Viking, 2021. A westward trip of two bereaved brothers to start a new life is interrupted when two prison friends of the older brother turn up and hi-jack their plans. Review

A History of Evangelism in North America, Thomas P. Johnston, editor. Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2021. An account of the history of evangelism in North America through a compilation of articles on key figures, movements, and organizations from the colonial period to the present. Review

Died in the Wool (Roderick Alleyn #13), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2014 (originally published in 1945). New Zealand member of Parliament Flossie Rubrick is found dead, concealed in a bale of wool from her farm, and Alleyn, working in counter-espionage during the war, comes to investigate because of secret research on the farm. Review

Saint Nicholas the Giftgiver, Retold and Illustrated by Ned Bustard. Downers Grove: IVP Kids, 2021. A retelling in verse of the story of the life of the real Saint Nicholas and why he is associated with the bearer of gifts that arrive under our trees on Christmas Day. Review

Thirsting For Living Water, Michael J. Mantel (Foreword by Richard Stearns). Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2021. How a young executive left a promising position to pursue the adventure in faith of providing both clean drinking water and the living water of Jesus throughout the world. Review

The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson. New York: Vintage Books, 2004. The story of the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago juxtaposed with that of a psychopathic murderer, H. H. Holmes, pursuing his sinister seduction of young women within blocks of the fair. Review

Best Book of the Month. Amor Towles The Lincoln Highway was a delight. The relationships, especially of the two Watson brothers and the aspirations of all of the main characters in the story. As different as they were, I came to like them (in contrast to a few less likable characters). In this case, switching from character to character in the narrative just worked, as did the sub-plot of Ulysses. As I commented in the post, sometimes you have to go to New York to get to California!

Quote of the Month. I loved Ned Bustard’s new Saint Nicholas the Giftgiver, retelling the story of Saint Nicholas and how he became associated with the gift giver of Christmas eve:

Nick cared for the church,
serving as their bishop:
he shared with God's people
both the Word and the Cup
And in thanks for grace
from God Almighty,
he gave gifts to the weak,
the sick, and the needy.

This is a wonderful story for Christmas eve and I could see the reading of it becoming a family tradition. I loved Bustard’s woodcut artwork as well.

What I’m Reading. I’ve just finished reading T.S. Eliot’s The Idea of a Christian Society. In briefer form, it strikes me as a societal version of John Henry Newmans The Idea of a University. I’m also looking forward to Edith Humphrey’s Beyond the White Fence, a Chronicles of Narnia type story in which a group of children are transported to meet the saints for whom they are named. From Pentecost to Patmos is a New Testament Introduction to the books of Acts through Revelation. This is a BIG book but full of insight as well as the latest biblical scholarship. The Parables is a study of all of Jesus’ parables, grounded in careful exegesis and yet written plainly and applicatively. A Great Reckoning is Book 12 in the Gamache series. We knew Armand would not remain retired. Now we find out what he decided to do next. Rounding out my current reading is Rick Atkinson’s The British are Coming, on the early years of the War for Independence from 1775 to 1777. I hope the holidays ahead bring both rich times with family and quiet times for reading and reflection–and some new books!

Look for posts this month with my choices of Best Books of the Year as well as my 2022 Reading Challenge.

The Month in Reviews is my monthly review summary going back to 2014!

There were so many kinds of books I delight in reading in this month’s selection, and at least one wonderful find, Patricia Hanlon’s Swimming to the Top of the Tide, is right up there with the best of nature writing. I read a couple of Ngaio Marsh mysteries, always a great diversion and two literary fiction works that have been getting some attention, The Magician and Cloud Cuckoo Land. I enjoyed a marvelous little devotional on my Enneagram type as well as one designed to take one through the Psalms with writings of Christians through history. John M.G. Barclay’s Paul & The Power of Grace is a significant contribution to Pauline studies. Racism and patriarchy are two sins both in the culture and the church explored in three of this month’s books. Book Row was just fun, making me wish I could have visited this mecca for booklovers in its heyday.

The Magician, Colm Tóibín. New York: Scribner, 2021. A fictionalized biography of German writer Thomas Mann, his bourgeois beginnings, his lifelong homoeroticism, his rise as a writer, flight from Germany, ambivalence about denouncing Nazism, and alienation from his children. Review

Identity in Action, Perry L. Glanzer. Abilene, TX: Abilene Christian University Press, 2021. Addresses the various different identities college students must negotiate and proposes a model of Christian excellence in these various identities. Review

A Man Lay Dead, (Roderick Alleyn #1), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2011 (originally published in 1934). Sir Hubert Handesley hosts one of his famous weekend parties and Nigel Bathgate, a young reporter is invited to join his cousin Charles Rankin for the weekend’s entertainment, the Murder Game, which becomes serious when Rankin turns up the corpse–for real! Review

Swimming to the Top of The Tide, Patricia Hanlon. New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2021. A memoir of spending a year swimming the creeks and waters of the tidal estuary near her West Gloucester home, a portion of the Great Salt Marsh, and the critical role played in the Earth’s ecosystem by these places where land and water meet. Review

Forty Days on Being a Five, Morgan Harper Nichols (Suzanne Stabile series editor). Downers Grove: Formatio, 2021. Forty short reflections with prayers and questions for those who are Enneagram Type Fives. Review

Praying the Psalms with Augustine and Friends (Sacred Roots Spiritual Classics #1), Carmen Joy Imes. Wichita, KS: TUMI Press, 2021. A collection of readings for all the Psalms drawn from the writings of Augustine and other classic spiritual writers from Origen to Calvin. Review

Every Leaf, Line, and Letter, Edited by Timothy Larsen, Introduction by Thomas S. Kidd. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021. A collection of articles in honor of historian of evangelicalism, David Bebbington, exploring expressions of the “biblicism,” in Bebbington’s definition of evangelicalism, known as the “Bebbington Quadrilateral.” Review

The Coming Race Wars, William Pannell. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2021. A new edition of a book first released in 1993 following riots in Lost Angeles, calling the evangelical church to address the issues of racial justice in the country. The new edition shows the prescience of Pannell’s observations and the even greater urgency of coming to grips with our racial transgressions. Review

Getting to the Promised Land , Kevin W. Cosby, Foreword by Cornel West. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2021. An argument for the use of the Nehemiah narratives rather than Exodus to ground the appeal by American Descendents of Slaves (ADOS) for restitution for the centuries of abuse they and their ancestors suffered. Review

Book Row, Marvin Mondlin and Roy Meador. New York: Skyhorse, 2019 (originally published in 2003). A history of Book Row, a collection of used and antiquarian bookstores along and around Fourth Avenue in New York City. Review

Paul & the Power of Grace, John M. G. Barclay. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2020. Looks at the theology of Paul through the lens of grace, an unconditioned and incongruous gift for Jew and Gentile alike, personally and socially transformative. Review

Cloud Cuckoo Land, Anthony Doerr. New York: Scribner, 2021. A story of five characters living in three time periods, whose lives are tied together by the story of Aethon the shepherd written by Antonius Diogenes. Review

Aging Faithfully, Alice Fryling. Colorado Springs, NavPress, 2021. An exploration of the questions that come with the changes of growing older and the invitations of God in those changes. Review

Worshiping with the Reformers, Karin Maag. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021. A survey of the various worship practices of Reformed church bodies, revealing the diversity of practices and the reasons for those differences. Review

Killer Dolphin (Inspector Alleyn #24), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2015 (originally published in 1966). Through an accident, a playwright realizes his dream of a renovated Dolphin Theatre, with packed houses for one of his plays, until a murder occurs and a boy actor is badly injured in a botched theft. Review

Women Rising, Meghan Tschanz, Foreword by Carolyn Custis James. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2021. A global mission trip awakens the author both to the injustices women face throughout the world and the patterns of subjection she learned in childhood that held her back and which she learned to name and use her voice to speak against. Review

Best Book of the Month: I found Alice Fryling’s Aging Faithfully to be an honest, spiritually perceptive and practical book that was right on target in exploring the questions I ask as a sixty-something about what Christian faithfulness looks like in the later seasons of life.

Best Quote of the Month: I loved Swimming to the Top of the Tide by Patricia Hanlon. I wrote to introduce a quote from the book:

“The writing at times gave this reader a sense of floating along with them, carried by the tide, taking in the meeting of sea, land, and sky.

‘We were floating barely forward, watching the flecks of marsh grass and air bubbles on the water’s surface slow down and finally pause. All but the top foot or so of the marsh grass was flooded. The stillness pulsed with life sounds normally too faint to hear; the beating of birds’ wings, the drowsy hum of a jet, the slight tinnitus that has been with me as long as I can remember, a mind event that skates the edge between real and unreal‘ (p. 43).”

What I’m reading. Waiting for review: Andrew Bacevich’s After the Apocalypse, arguing for an end to American exceptionalism, and Good Works, a narrative about a hospitality ministry in nearby Athens, Ohio that I’ve admired for many years. Beth Allison Barr’s The Making of Biblical Womanhood looks at the history of women in the church and the cultural forces that have shaped conservative complementarianism in the last century. The End of College explores the rise of Religious Studies programs in the transitional period from church-related colleges to large secular universities. I’m re-reading Louise Penny’s The Nature of the Beast, number eleven in the series, that I had read out of order. It’s much richer knowing the backstory. In the Shadow of King Saul is an essay collection by the writer of a book on J.D. Salinger earlier this year, Jerome Charyn. T.F. Torrance as a Missional Theologian is a deep dive into Torrance’s theology, influenced by his mentor, Karl Barth, and its contribution to thinking about the mission of God and the church. And if you’ve read my book previews of recent weeks, you can see there are lots more to keep me engaged on the cold winter nights ahead. Happy reading, friends!

The last full month of summer was full of good books. I roved the Red planet, went to space with Virgin Galactic, revisited Malabar Farm, remembered the life of one of my spiritual mentors, and witnessed a most wicked carnival! I remembered the past year of the pandemic, learned the rules of civility and retraced the history of the religious order that built the University of Notre Dame. I read about God’s agency, the two books in the Bible where God is not named, seven books at the end of the Bible that ought be read together, the theme of the servant that runs through the whole of scripture, and the emotional life of the ultimate Servant. Of course, I threw in a few mysteries as I continue to read through the Gamache series which just keeps getting better and another Ngaio Marsh mystery. I read about artful reading and hope I engaged in it. I’ll let you be the judge as you read the reviews!

How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Gamache #9), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Press, 2013. The murder of the last Ouellet quintuplet, 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 Gamache comes to a head. Review

Conspicuous in His Absence, Chloe T. Sun. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021. Adopting the approach of theological interpretation, explores through various lenses the significance of the absence of mentions of the name of God in Song of Songs and Esther. Review

Red Rover, Roger Wiens. New York: Basic Books, 2013. An insider account of over two decades of space exploration culminating in the Mars Rover Curiosity mission. Review

Recovering the Lost Art of Reading, Leland Ryken and Glenda Faye Mathes. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021. An invitation to artful reading, considering its decline, different kinds of literature and how we read them, and the art of reading well to discover goodness, truth, and beauty. Review

Hand in Glove (Roderick Alleyn #22), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2015 (originally published in 1962). An April Fool’s scavenger hunt organized by Lady Bantling ends badly when a body is found under a drainage pipe in a ditch. Review

A Burning in My Bones, Winn Collier. New York: WaterBrook, 2021. The authorized biography of pastor-theologian and Bible translator Eugene Peterson. Review

Something Wicked This Way Comes (Green Town #2), Ray Bradbury. New York: Bantam Books, 1963 (Link is to a currently in print edition). A carnival comes to Green Town out of season and two boys, Jim and Will fight to escape the clutches of the sinister carnival master Mr. Dark. Review

Test Gods, Nicholas Schmidle. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2021. An account of Virgin Galactic’s effort to become a space tourism company focusing on the intersection of Richard Branson’s vision and the work of test pilots and engineers to make it work. Review

Perhaps, Joshua M. McNall. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021. Advances the idea of “perhapsing” that allows for the exploration of the space between doubt and dogmatism through close reading of scripture, asking hard questions, exercising imagination, and the practice of holy speculation. Review

Love in the Time of Coronavirus, Angela Alaimo O’Donnell. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2021. A collection of poems written over the first year of the pandemic exploring the pilgrimage of those confined to their homes, exploring the ways we come to terms with endless days, the small gifts of love, and moment of hope amid the horror. Review

The Servant of the Lord and His Servant People (New Studies in Biblical Theology #54), Matthew S. Harmon. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021. A study of the application of the term “servant” to a number of key figures in scripture culminating in Jesus, and the way these were used by God to form a servant people. Review

Rules of Civility, Amor Towles. New York: Penguin Books, 2012. The year that changed the life of a young woman in New York, remembered when photographs trigger a flashback twenty-eight years later. Review

Letters for the Church: Reading James, 1-2 Peter,1-3 John, and Jude as Canon, Darian R. Lockett. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021. A study of the catholic epistles, arguing that they ought be read together and exploring their shared themes and particular emphases. Review

The History of the Congregation of Holy Cross, James T. Connelly, C.S.C. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2020. A history of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, describing its beginnings, its focus on education and missions, its approval in Rome, the succession of Superiors General, and the growth of the Congregation until Vatican II and decline in more recent years. Review

Passions of the Christ, F. Scott Spencer. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021. A study of the emotional life of Jesus in the gospels, drawing upon both classical thought and emotions theory. Review

The Planter of Modern Life: Louis Bromfield and the Seeds of a Food Revolution, Stephen Heyman. New York: W.W. Norton, 2020. A biography of novelist, screenwriter, and sustainable farming pioneer Louis Bromfield. Review

Leadership, God’s Agency, & Disruptions, Mark Lau Branson and Alan J. Roxburgh. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021. Argues that “modernity’s wager” has shaped the leadership practices of church leadership, leading to a reliance on technique-driven strategies rather than responding to God’s agency. Review

Best Book of the Month: Winn Collier’s biography of Eugene Peterson, A Burning in My Bones captures the character and congruency of Peterson’s life, thought, and ministry. He was not a perfect man, and perhaps his growing awareness that he was but a man called to follow in the “long obedience” that made it possible to speak to so many of us.

Best Quote of the Month: Joshua McNall proposes that a stance of “perhaps” is an approach cultivating the imagination of faith that lives between doubt and dogmatism. He cites Luther as an example when he ascended the steps of Santa Scala, to pray for his father in purgatory, troubled by doubts about the steps, the power of relics, and even the reality of purgatory. He observes:

“Luther’s attitude is one of obedience. The question does not lead him to depart for a weeklong bender in the Roman brothels. Nor does it correspond directly to a repudiation of church tradition. This shift would come later through his outrage at indulgences, and by reading Paul. At the moment, Luther simply walks down the stairs. He descends Santa Scala–because a willingness to walk and wait and pray is the best response to doubt” (p. 126).

What I’m reading. Once again I’m thoroughly engaged in a Louise Penny novel, The Long Way Home. Gamache is retired from the Surete’ and living in Three Pines. But his sleuthing days are far from ended. I just finished Raft of Stars by Ohio author Andrew Graff. An edge of the seat story with a satisfying ending. I’m also working my way through a really long book, really six books combined into a single volume, Majority World Theology. It is a delightful dialogue of theologians from throughout the world on the major themes of Christian theology. I’ve just begun Robert Tracy McKenzie’s We The Fallen People. He proposes the thesis that our nation was founded on the premise of human fallenness, but a shift to a belief in the inherent goodness of people actually imperils democracy. I will be interviewing him later in September and look forward to seeing how he develops this thesis. After a long hiatus, I’ve returned to Upton Sinclair’s Lanny Budd series, reading #3 in the series, Dragon‘s Teeth. Not sure where this one is going yet or why it won a Pulitzer. Finally, I’ve at last dipped into a collection of Seamus Heaney’s poetry that has been on my shelves for some time.

I hope you will stay safe as the pandemic rears its ugly head once more. In most parts of the northern hemisphere, there is still time to enjoy a good book outdoors, or an outdoor gathering with some friends, maybe with conversation about the good books we hope to curl up with as the weather cools toward winter. If you check out one of the books here, I’d love to hear what you think, and tell me about the good books you’ve enjoyed. Blessings!

Go to “The Month in Reviews” on my blog to skim all my reviews going back to 2014 or use the “Search” box to see if I’ve reviewed something you are interested in.