Curated literary articles

The Weekly Wrap: July 19-25

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The Weekly Wrap: July 19-25

Goodness in Literature

I finished and reviewed Theo of Golden this week and I understand what makes this such an exceptional book. It is more than just a “feel good” novel. Rather, it is a novel that quietly invites us to explore whether it is possible to live in our heartless and heartbreaking time without becoming self-protective or cynical. Theo opens himself to others to notice and name the exemplary qualities in their lives. He is genuinely kind, self-effacing, and generous. He knows deep sadness, yet lives joyfully and in the hope of heaven.

Literature often explores the darkness of the human heart. And this is not absent in Allen Levi’s book. But most writers find it easier to write about us at our worst than the possibilities of a different kind of life. That’s what Levi does. Not only that, he challenges us to ask whether our current fraught cultural story is the only one in which to live.

The Bruderhof use a motto or tagline of “another life is possible.” That’s what Levi show us. Or rather, he invites us to find ourselves in a different story. It’s rare that books do this in such a powerful way in my experience. I think it is what makes the Lord of the Rings compelling for so many of us. We not merely want to go to Middle Earth, but to bring something of its goodness here.

For me, the biblical story is one of those compelling stories of a God who wants to display his glory and love through his people, as wayward as they are. He even enters the story as one of us, exchanges his goodness for our evil, and through resurrection makes new life and a renewed creation possible. I’ve spent my life living in and into that story. Sadly, many who call themselves God’s people choose to live in our fraught cultural story, instead.

We need such stories, I believe. What stories have been compelling to you in their goodness?

Five Articles Worth Reading

Walking into my bookstore can be overwhelming. Sure, I like to browse for those serendipitous finds. But sometimes it helps to have an idea of what others think worthwhile of the many new books. published. And that’s what The New York Times has done in “The Best Books of the Year (So Far).” I like it because it is not overwhelming.

About ten years ago Amitav Ghosh argued that climate change required a new kind of novel. In “The Crisis That Novelists Can’t Handle,” Robert Rubsam reviews Ghosh’s Ghost Eye and assesses whether Ghosh lived up to his own critique.

Using Percival Everett’s James, Geoffrey Mak explores in “Misreading the Past to Chart the Future” the genre of “remake literature” and what is involved in literary remakes.

This month’s Atlantic’s cover story is “The End of Reading Is Here.” In Trevor Aleo’s “Three Theses On the Literacy Crisis” he offers a rejoinder to Rose Horowitch’s article.

Lastly, birthright citizenship has been much in the news in recent years, particularly with the Supreme Court’s decision upholding it. Richard A. Greenwald, in “Birthright and Belonging,” digs deeper into the political economy that has led to challenges to the traditional American creed.

Quote of the Week

Emma Lazarus was born on July 22, 1849. Her poem “The New Colossus” was written in 1887 to raise money for the Statue of Liberty and is inscribed on its pedestal. I thought it worthy as an example of our American creed to reproduce it here in full:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Miscellaneous Musings

Believe it or not, my mail has include a couple of Advent books already. Advent in July! I will be featuring them on my social media and reviewing them well before Advent. I appreciate that lead time from publishers.

In writing this post I discovered that The New York Times has joined The Atlantic in allowing subscribers to share unlimited articles from behind their paywall. Previously they allowed ten a month. I’ve made the case that this is both a great benefit to subscribers and very cheap advertising for their product. I hope you will enjoy the articles as well as subscribe if you like them and as finances permit.

I don’t review many books for middle school/high school readers but I’ve been enjoying Don Everts Oscar and the Mystery of the Glowing Orbs which talks about the challenges of moving to a new city during school as well as dealing with a disability.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Richard Hughes Gibson, The Way of Dante

Tuesday: Richard B. Hayes, The Moral Vision of the New Testament

Wednesday: Laurel Richardson, Falling Into a Good Life

Thursday: John Green, Everything is Tuberculosis

Friday: Ellis Peters, A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for July 19-25.

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

The Weekly Wrap: July 12-18

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The Weekly Wrap: July 12-18

Smoke Days

As a reader, one of my delights has always been in snow days, when blizzards and cold make staying inside and reading. In our brave new climate world, snow days are increasingly infrequent. But this week delivered the new climatological replacement: the Smoke Day. In our part of the United States, if Canada is having a wildfire season and the winds are out of the northwest, the smoke, smelling like burning plastic, fills our skies. Yesterday morning, our Air Quality Index reached over 400, the worst reading our city has ever recorded. Some cities to our north reached readings of over 700, hazardous for all mammals.

Now I don’t think this is a good thing. Firstly, it is just plain dangerous. Sunlight turns the smoke into deadly things like benzene, formaldehyde, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and ozone, some of which are carcinogenic and others which just make breathing difficult. In addition PM 2.5 particulates penetrate deep into our lungs. Then there is all that carbon dioxide, added to what we humans generate. We never used to have days like this. Changing climate conditions turn Canadian forests into tinderboxes. And many Canadians are dealing with far more dire conditions than we are.

The one consolation is that like the Snow Day, about all one can do is stay indoors (hopefully in an air-conditioned spot that filters and recycles the air) and enjoy a good book. But I manage to do that most days anyway. At least I have a good excuse to not do yard work! I would rather not have the excuse of Smoke Days. But I fear it is a new normal. Stay safe friends!

Five Articles Worth Reading

Everyone’s abuzz about Christopher Nolan’s new cinematic rendering of The Odyssey. In “We’ll Help You Find Your Next Great Book. (Spoiler: It’s the ‘Odyssey.’),” A.O. Scott suggests that no matter your taste in literature, there is something in The Odyssey for you. And he uses that to introduce us to several translations of Homer’s classic.

Colson Whitehead’s Cool Machine concludes his Harlem Trilogy. David Hadju reviews it in “The Unapologetic Crime Fiction of Colson Whitehead.”

Batsheva Labowe-Stoll maintains the quest to develop artificial intelligence has often been religious in nature in “The Deep Spiritual History of AI.” For those familiar with Genesis, the efforts to develop AI have often seemed to me another Tower of Babel story.

Derek Thompson asks, “Why is the news media so interested in telling you how much the world sucks all the time? Why are so many of us obsessed with distraction and managing our attention? Why is it so hard to stop comparing ourselves to others? And why does everything in art and design seem the same these days?” In conversation with philosopher Agnes Callard, Thompson discovers one idea that links these questions, the “uni-context.” Read “A Philosopher’s One-Word Theory to Explain Why the World Feels So Weird” for the full interview.

Finally, I’ve often reflected on what an amazing intellectual Christian community the Inklings represented. Comment explores similar communities through history and around the world in “Seedbeds of Christian Humanism: A Gallery” The article links to articles devoted to 31 different communities.

Quote of the Week

This one was thought provoking. Is the search for truth a waking up from our dreams? So suggests Iris Murdoch, born July 15, 1919:

“We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.”

Miscellaneous Musings

An example of the community the Inklings and Dorothy L. Sayers enjoyed is described in a new book, The Way of Dante by Richard Hughes Gibson. It’s a marvelous study of the interactions between C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Dorothy L. Sayers around a shared love of Dante. Not only did they challenge each other’s thinking but the encouragement of Williams and Lewis gave Sayers the courage to embark on a new translation of the Divine Comedy.

As seems usual with Jane Austen, I’m on tenterhooks to see if Anne Eliot and Captain Wentworth rekindle the romance Anne ended at the persuasion of Lady Russell, who judged the Captain unworthy of the family in Persuasion. Don’t tell me. I want to see if I’ve guessed it. This is number four of the Austen novels I’ve read this year.

He’s a MacArthur Fellow, has won numerous national awards, I love his writing, and he is from the city where i live. And now, Hanif Abdurraqib adds to all this the honor of being named the 2026 ABA Indie Bookstore Ambassador! Well done!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Kathy Tuan-Maclean and Tara Edelschick, Moms on the Way

Tuesday: Donnie Berry, The Earth Will Be Filled

Wednesday: Ken Waters, Words That Shape Us

Thursday: Allen Levi, Theo of Golden

Friday: Jane Austen, Persuasion

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for July 12-18.

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

The Weekly Wrap: July 5-11

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The Weekly Wrap: July 5-11

My Reading Bubble

I am becoming ever more aware that I exist within a reading bubble. I interact with a lot of readers both in person and online. And yet it turns out that only 20 percent of people in this country account for 80 percent of all book sales. And while those sales are up, as is library usage, it doesn’t appear that this is from an explosion of new readers. Rather, it might be that many of us old readers are upping our game. For retirees like me that may be literally true.

This week at The Atlantic, Rose Horowitch announced “The End of Reading Is Here” (article below). What struck me is that she was describing a sharp cultural divide between a literate and post-literate culture. Surprisingly, it is not for the absence of reading, which comes in bits and bytes constantly in our online lives. But this is very different from longform reading involving the comprehension of extended arguments or plotlines.

Consequently, we maintain different forms of discourse, from a shift from text to audio-visual and from extended discourse and discussion to competing memes and graphics. I could go in all sorts of directions with this, but I would pose the question of which corresponds more truly to life as it really is? Is it longform, or the soundbite? The fact that I keep reading gives you my answer.

Five Articles Worth Reading

We discussed how we would downsize our books by half if we had to over at my Facebook page. For some, that was to think the unthinkable. Mendel Uminer faced this challenge when his landlord said 10,000 books in a 600 square foot flat was just “Too Many Books.”

From too many books we go to the above mentioned “The End of Reading Is Here.” One of the ideas in the article is that eras of literacy are moments in history and that ours may be coming to an end. Read the article and tell me what you think.

In “Who Wants to Be a Professor?,” Mary Townsend explores the process of graduate education that inculcates a certain “persona” that is associated with the idea of a professor. Through experiences of disillusionment, she comes to this conclusion: “For let me tell you the truth, this is the only thing that is real: a lifetime of books read for pleasure, just because. It reminded of a conversation with a grad student absorbed in literary criticism, when I had the temerity to ask, When was the last time you enjoyed a book?” The look!

I’ve often maintained that the life of faith is dynamic, not static. It’s not just flipping a switch from non-belief to belief. In “Bosom Buddies” an older poet and theologian talk about how what it means to believe has changed over time as they’ve wrestled with the vicissitudes of life.

I’ve always love The Millions previews, offering thoughtful synopses of what they think are some of the more significant books of the season. Well, they have done it again in “The Millions’ Great Summer 2026 Book Preview.”

Quote of the Week

Marcel Proust was born on July 10, 1871. Given the environmental impact of most forms of travel, we might consider this:

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I loved working through Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael books. I’ve been reading one of her Felse Investigations. While set in modern times, I find this equally engaging. I think I’ve found a new (or not so new) series.

Maybe I’m too dogmatic, but I’ve pretty well concluded there is no place for using AI in the composition of books. Writing is hard work when done by humans but has brought us great and truly original works. Using AI to generate text just seems like cheating. And its also not always a very reliable researcher.

One would think getting to read lots of books is one of the perks of reviewing–and it is. But one of the most surprising satisfactions has been to work with authors, publicists, and readers and to engage with them as people. I think the reviewer who doesn’t like people misses out on a great deal and reviewing just becomes a grind. But that could just be me.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday, Lisa Gray, LFMT, Thriving in a Relationship When You Have Chronic Illness

Tuesday: Jonathan P. Walton, Beauty and Resistance

Wednesday: Roy McDaniel, Enacting Atonement

Thursday: Jill LePore, We The People

Friday: Ellis Peters, The Knocker on Death’s Door

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for July 5-11.

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

The Weekly Wrap: June 21-27

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The Weekly Wrap: June 21-27

Reading the Classics

In recent years, humanities programs in many universities excoriated “the Western Canon,” the classic works that had provided a common vocabulary for generations of educated persons. More recently, there has been a resurgence of the classics among home schoolers, and private schools. Recently, states like Texas have prescribed curricula incorporating a number of classic works. While many of these lean conservative, there are other exponents of reading the classics. Ted Gioia has created a 52-week classics reading program. Classical philosopher Zena Hitz, a tutor at St. John’s College has launched a program called the Catherine Project.

A few of my thoughts about this:

Firstly, I have a broad definition of classics including the ancient Greek and Latin writers, great works of philosophy and theology, and great works of literature spanning the gamut from Homer, to Dante, to Austen, Melville, Steinbeck, and Morrison and many more. Classics are works that have endured and are part of our ongoing civilizational conversation.

Secondly, I won’t say one ought to read the classics. Rather, the question is, how important to you is that civilizational conversation. I’ve come to appreciate reading the stories and ideas that form our cultural fabric.

Thirdly, I recognize these are human works that range from our noblest ideals to baser ones. We do need to read critically. Often that occurs in the conversation.

Fourthly, I also want to read diversely. Given our global village, I don’t just want to understand the western enclave, even though that is where I live. And I wouldn’t want to miss the explorations of human nature in mysteries, and of the future in science fiction.

Finally, I’ve discovered that there were some “great books” I read too soon. More life has brought deeper engagement with many of the ideas and stories of which I was oblivious in high school.

I say read these works not because you must but because you may. So many free or inexpensive editions exist. As for lists, I won’t prescribe any–I’m too profligate a reader for that!

Five Articles Worth Reading

Speaking of lists. A number of book critics were asked about the essential works of American literature in our first 250 years. Publishers Weekly published the results in “15 Essential Works of American Literature.”

“Diversity” is a bad word in some quarters. But in “How Babel Thrives,” David Sugarman reviews a book that studies one of the world’s most diverse communities, Queens, New York. It argues that by allowing diverse communities to live side by side without erasing differences, they’ve managed to forge a robust pluralism.

At one time, figures like Reinhold Niebuhr and Billy Graham appeared on the covers of Time. But no longer, as Ed Simon notes in “Where Have All the Protestants Gone?“

Helen Lewis, in “Paradise Revisited” re-traces Charles Darwin’s journey in the Galapagos. The essay is punctuated with gorgeous photographs and videos. In addition, Lewis gives the lie to Darwin’s brief journey being the time when he figured out natural selection, which came only on subsequent reflection.

Finally, it is actually possible to acquire a library of 20,000 volumes just studying the Greek and Latin classics. You can tour David Butterfield’s library in “The Largest Bookshelf Tour Ever Filmed: Inside a Classicist’s 20,000-Volume Library.”

Quote of the Week

Pearl S. Buck, who was born June 26, 1892, pithily summarizes the case for studying the past:

“If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I featured Theo of Golden by Allen Levi on my Facebook page. I have never had so many positive reactions to a book, especially from friends I respect for their reading judgment. That only whets my appetite to read it.

I’m starting Jill Lepore’s We The People as my America’s 250th reading. However, I don’t think I’ll finish it by July 4. The book is a history of our Constitution, an imperfect but amazing document, as crucial as ever to our national life.

Daniel Silliman’s Reading Evangelicals is an interesting study of the fiction Christians were reading over about a twenty-five year period from the mid-1980’s to the late 2000’s. I’m interested to see how he thinks those books, only one of which I read, shaped evangelical identity.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Michael D. Clark, Woven Tales of Greek Mythology

Tuesday: Gerald Hiestand & Joel Lawrence, Power and the Pulpit

Wednesday: William Kent Krueger, Desolation Mountain

Thursday: Hannah King Miller, Feasting on Hope

Friday: Daniel Silliman, Reading Evangelicals

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap  for June 21-27.

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

The Weekly Wrap: June 14-20

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The Weekly Wrap: June 14-20

Fathers, Read with Your Children

On Fathers Day, we honor fathers. But fathers may use the day to think about the kind of fathers they have been. We could go all sorts of places with that but on this page, I focus on the “reading place.”

I loved all sorts of things as a father–camping with Scouts, tossing a ball or shooting hoops in the driveway, geeking out together on computers.

I think for men to read with their children is one of the best way to foster children who read. Especially men reading with boys models to boys that reading is something men do.

But mostly, it was just a wonderful memory:

  • Snuggling up on the sofa where we would read stories.
  • Savoring a really good story together, like the first time we read Jane Yolen’s Owl Moon.
  • As our son learned to read, listening to him read.
  • Working our way through long adventures, like The Lord of the Rings
  • Creating different voices for the various creatures in the Winnie The Pooh stories.
  • Going to the bookstore or library and picking out books.

I’m convinced that children who have had enjoyable experiences reading with a parent often become readers.

And fathers, if you want bonus points, let your children see you reading for your own enjoyment and enrichment. It doesn’t need to be heavy reading, but if you are holding a book or magazine at least some of the time, rather than engaging in screen time, that will carry more credibility than limits on kids screen time.

A special Happy Fathers Day to all the reading dads out there!

Five Articles Worth Reading

Most bibliophiles include books in their vacation packing. But for some, bookish destinations are shaping their vacation plans. Read about it in “Call It a ‘Book-cation’ or a ‘Readaway,’ Literary Travel Is Having a Moment.”

Perhaps as part of reading up on our history as America approaches its 250th is to read up on our religious history. Jon Butler reviews Brook Wilensky-Lanford’s A God-Shaped Nation: Five Hundred Years of Religion in America in “Religion, American Style.” This might be a summer-long read, coming in at 672 pages!

Speaking of history, yesterday was Juneteenth, the holiday in which we celebrate the arrival of Union troops in Galveston, TX, announcing Emancipation on June 19, 1865. This is an old article, arguing “Juneteenth Should Be a National Holiday: Readings in Black History and Joy.” It now is, since 2021, but the collection of readings helps us understand the significance of the day for African-Americans and celebrate with them.

Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis and a fierce advocate for freedom died last week at 56. Hillary Chute chronicles her persevering pursuit of human rights in “The Defiance of Marjane Satrapi.”

Finally, as I was assembling this post, news of the U.S. 2-0 victory over Australia in the World Cup came across my feed. I’m not a big soccer (football in the rest of the world) fan even though I live in a city with an MLS team. But I’ve seen some of the changes, good and not so good, chronicled in “Can Soccer Be Normal in America?“.

Quote of the Week

I’ve long advocated that there is no freedom to not be offended and that people do not offend us. Rather, we choose to be offended (but there are other options). Salman Rushdie, born on June 19, 1947, expresses this well:


“What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.“

Miscellaneous Musings

I am among those who have grieved the lack of a genuinely non-partisan celebration of our nation’s 250th birthday. It was not strictly non-partisan, but I was heartened to see both political parties represented at the opening of the Obama Presidential Center. In the democratic values expressed and the joyous celebration, I wonder if it is the closest we will get to a 250th celebration that transcends our political divides.

One of the things I also love about the Obama Presidential Center is the inclusion of a new Chicago Public Library branch on the grounds, an expression of the couple’s longtime commitment to literacy, especially literacy efforts with children.

My Fathers Day weekend reading includes William Kent Krueger’s Desolation Mountain. Apropos, I love seeing how Cork O’Connor continues to grow as a father with his children as they become adults.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Edward Donnelly, Heaven and Hell

Tuesday: Julie J. Park, Race, Class, and Affirmative Action

Wednesday: Amy Peeler, Ordinary Time

Thursday: Polly Giantonio, Remember the Sweetness

Friday: Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for June 14-20.

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

The Weekly Wrap: June 7-13

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The Weekly Wrap: June 7-13

Reading Until the Lights Go Out

In one of the articles I selected for this week, the writer recounts noted historian Gordon Wood speaking of recently accomplishing, in his nineties, the goal of reading Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. Sadly, the life of this bibliophile was interrupted this week when at 92, he was struck by a car.

But the article captures one of my personal aspirations. I want to keep reading, and reading challenging works, until the lights go out, in one way or another.

I recently picked up an edition of the works of Aristotle that runs to 1500 pages. His thought profoundly shaped our civilization, including Christian theology. In reading a work about his influence, I realized that I had never read him.

Then there are several systematic theologies, all long tomes, sitting on my shelves. As one who believes that our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy God forever, this is certainly one way to get a head start on that project!

This year, I have a goal of reading the six major novels of Jane Austen. I’ve finished three. I also have a couple thick books by historian Paul Horgan, highly recommended by David McCullough that I’d love to dig into. And I think I would like to read The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia once more.

Then, as for Proust? I actually have Remembrance of Things Past on my Kindle. I understand it is a challenging read and I’ve not yet seen a compelling reason why I should. Maybe for now, I’ll settle for reading the Thomas Pynchon on my TBR pile.

Of course, none of us knows how long we have, or how long our minds will comprehend the words. All I know is that I want to be like Gordon Wood.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Some of us wonder how far American democracy will make it past our 250th birthday. However, Gordon Wood had reasons to be hopeful. Johann N. Neem discusses these in “What I Learned from Gordon Wood.”

Then there is the article I mentioned, Nic Rowan’s “Gordon Wood’s Proust.” Wood was in conversation with George Will who asked him what book in American history he was reading. His reply? “I’m not reading American history right now,” Wood laughed. “I just finished Proust! I said I would do it before I die, and well . . .” He did.

Susannah Crockford argues in “Against Climate Grief” that Christian-influenced societies often approach climate change in apocalyptic, millenarian terms, leading to unproductive inaction and grief. She argues that this is helpful and hope remains our strongest resource. But the article left me wondering “whence hope?” as well as whether Christian belief might offer in its future hope greater substance for faithful action that anticipates creation’s renewal.

I am a music lover. Though never formally trained, I’ve sung in choirs and enjoy a diversity of music. So “What to Read to Really Understand Music” caught my attention!

Finally, in This Dark Night, Deborah Lutz explores the enigmatic life of Emily Brontë, who like Emily Dickenson, led a secluded life. In “Who Was Emily Brontë? We’ll Never Know” Sadie Stein reviews the book.

Quote of the Week

Charles Kingsley was a novelist, poet, and clergyman, born June 12, 1819, who made this perceptive comment about freedom:

“There are two freedoms – the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought.“

Miscellaneous Musings

We also lost Jane Yolen on June 11 at age 87. She wrote over 400 children’s books. We will always be grateful for one in particular, Owl Moon, describing the special bond and wonder of a father and son who go out “owling” on a cold winter’s night. It was one of our favorite read aloud books when our son was young, I think, because it evoked something of the same bond and wonder in us.

A friend of mine has often sung the praises of Maestro John Demain, the long-time director of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, in Wisconsin. The other day, that friend offered to send me a memoir co-written by him and Greg Hettmansberger titled Working with My Heroes. I was thrilled. Demain grew up in my hometown of Youngstown. I did an online interview with him in 2024 for a blog post I wrote about him and it was an utterly delightful hour.

I’ve spent the past week enthralled with Leif Enger’s I Cheerfully Refuse. It is one of those novels set in a dystopian, climate-changed world. It is the story of a wife, Lark, who runs a used bookstore in a world where no new books are published, and the sailing journey Rainy, her husband takes fleeing Lark’s killers, joined by an abused but resourceful nine-year old, Sol.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Robert Letham, The Eternal Son

Tuesday: Louis Bromfield, Early Autumn

Wednesday: G.G. Renee Hill, Story Work

Thursday: Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

Friday: Kyle Strobel and John Coe, When God Seems Distant

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for June 7-13.

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

The Weekly Wrap: May 31-June 6

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The Weekly Wrap: May 31-June 6

Why I Still Read

I see many stories about the eclipse of reading. I’m not sure what to believe about all that. What I am sure of is that I’m going to keep reading.

First of all I’m still able. Neither the mind nor the eyes have failed. So let’s read while we can.

Also, you could argue that it is a habit. And that would be right. Reading has enriched my life for over 65 years. Why stop?

“Because I think I am making progress.” That’s what famed cellist Pablo Casals said in his eighties when asked why he still practiced for hours a day. I think that is true for me as well. I think I’m a better reader than five years ago. I carry more from what I’ve read before into what I read now.

I’m still curious. I still long to understand more of God, the world around me, human history, and even baseball. Actually, it’s humbling, because in all of these things, the more I read, the more I grasp how little I understand.

I also read to resist everything from AI to the bombardments of our visual and social media that would turn my mind to mush. Longform writing challenges me to focus, to see the connections of one idea to the next, one event to the next. None of us sees the totality of the big picture. But I don’t want to settle for memes, slogans, and nostrums.

Finally, did I mention what a pleasure this all is? Not the quick, evanescent pleasure of a snack but the slow, savoring pleasure of a multiple course dinner at a top end restaurant, where each bite is savored.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Persepolis was a ground-breaking graphic story, depicting an Iranian girl’s life during the Iran-Iraq War. Sadly, Marjane Satrapi, once that girl, died June 4 in France. “Marjane Satrapi, creator of Persepolis and acclaimed French-Iranian artist, dies aged 56” reports that death, offering a retrospective on her life and work.

We celebrated our 48th anniversary this week. Count me in as a believer in marriage. But marriage isn’t easy, nor is it the institution it once was. Stephanie Coontz has a new book title For Better and Worse, reviewed by Honor Jones in “How to Save Marriage.” The article portrays how our cultural landscape has changed and why.

The Man Who Read Everything is a literary biography of Harold Bloom through his correspondence. Barry Schwabsky introduces us to Bloom and the book in “The Critic’s Loves.”

Reaction continues to come in to Magnifica humanitas, Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical on AI. In “Should the Lion Lie Down With the Electric Lamb?” Anton Barba Kay argues the encyclical doesn’t recognize the greatest threat of AI. He writes:

“The letdown is not that Magnifica humanitas is too moderate or that we are called on to ‘embrace’ technology ‘with gratitude and realism,’ it is that the Church and the pope have not yet discovered what technology is or how it recomposes us—have not realized what it would truly mean to articulate the disagreement they have with Big Tech.”

Finally, I’ve long been a fan of Ann Patchett, both as a writer and a bookstore owner. Her latest novel was published this week and is reviewed by Helen Schulman in the article “Ann Patchett’s Latest Will Engage Your Mind and Warm Your Heart.”

Quote of the Week

Joe Hill, the son of Stephen King and an accomplished writer as well, was born June 4, 1972. He observed:

“You think you know someone. But mostly you just know what you want to know.“

Miscellaneous Musings

Did you ever feel you were reading a book the author wasn’t ready to write? That was my feeling about a book I just finished. It had some great insights, but it just didn’t feel “ripe” to me.

I agreed to review a book from an e-galley in .pdf format. It’s from a very small publisher and I understand their financial constraints. But the experience reminded me how I prefer physical books in reviewing. They allow me to easily flip back and forth. This did not even have any hyperlinks, so it meant lots of scrolling of a 400 page book.

Today the Allies landed on the Normandy beaches 82 years ago. I’ve read several histories of that day as well as watched Saving Private Ryan. One can’t but celebrate the heroism of those who fought and those who died. It also sobers me to remember that they were resisting in Nazism a tyrannous, expansionist, nationalist, and white supremacist regime.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands

Tuesday: Sharon Delgado, Love in a Time of Climate Change

Wednesday: Daniel Smith, Hard Feelings

Thursday: Mikel Del Rosario, Did Jesus Really Say He Was God?

Friday, Howard Thurman, Nothing Can Separate Us

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for May 31 – June 6.

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

The Weekly Wrap: May 24-30

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The Weekly Wrap: May 24-30

Logging Off

As a reader, I am at war with a not-so-silent intruder. My phone. Spam calls. Texts trying to sell me or scam me. Social media feeds that either fascinate or anger me. And it often takes me away from reading.

I am not one who necessarily pines to read more. Rather, I wouldn’t mind reading what I try to read each day in less time. And the biggest time waster often is my phone.

The only answer I’ve found is physical separation. I put the phone somewhere else. Then I do focused phone time. Part of my challenge is being what some call “a book influencer.” The main way to do this is online–and most of my posting and interactions are on the phone. But one practice is to take a day away from this every week.

I find myself wondering if I’m contributing to the very problem I battle. I hope not. I try to create spaces pointing people to the goodness, truth, and beauty in books with the hope that this will feed people’s reading habits. Hopefully, I provide a redemptive alternative to so much of the ugliness and distortion of truth one finds online.

But I don’t want people to live here. Too much time on screens arguably affects our ability to think. Longform reading, such as we encounter in books literally cultivates our brains. And as a senior, I need all the brain cells I can get! So, as delighted as I am that you are reading this, may I also encourage you to “log off and read a book!”

Five Articles Worth Reading

Doonesbury was one of the comics we read back in the day of newspapers for its humorous take of the politics of the day during the Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan years. Although Garry Trudeau, its creator keeps a low profile, the strip is still going as a weekly. This year, a new biography of Trudeau is being published by Joshua Kendall, a journalist. Pamela Newton sat down for a conversation with the two of them captured in “Authorized? Unauthorized? Garry Trudeau Calls a New Biography ‘Unopposed’“

What books had you read by the time you were twenty-two, when many of us graduated from college? Anna Holmes advises students to “Read These Books by the Time You Graduate.” But why these books? She chose books for those trying to find their way in life, not for advice given, but for qualities one might emulate. I’ve read (and had read by 22) two on the list, and three hadn’t been written when I passed that threshold.

This past week, Pope Leo XIV published his first encyclical, Humanitas Magnifica. Ed Simon takes the occasion to explore the impact of encyclicals in “How Many Divisions Has the Pope?“–a remark first made by Joseph Stalin.

Although there has already been extensive commentary on the encyclical, I wonder how many have read it. “Encyclical Letter Humanitas Magnifica” is available at the Vatican website and extends the social teaching of the church reaching back to Leo XIII Rerum Novarum, as it discusses the brave new world of AI.

Many of us were readers from childhood, and like C.S. Lewis grew up in homes full of books, or at least homes that encouraged reading. Bethel McGrew talks about growing up in “The House of Ten Thousand Books.”

Quote of the Week

G. K. Chesterton, who was born on May 29, 1874 had a different take on a slogan that is still popular:


‘My country, right or wrong’ is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying ‘My mother, drunk or sober.’

Miscellaneous Musings

I found what looks to be a most interesting trip on a recent bookstore outing: The Wounded Generation by David Nasaw. It talks about those who returned from World War II. My father fought in that war and was proud of his service, as are we. But he only talked about a few incidents that occurred during his deployment in Europe. This was before PTSD was recognized. I wonder how he was changed by his experiences, and look forward to reading this.

Bridge Over Troubled Waters was a powerful song that addressed all the forms of weariness we struggled with in the early 1970’s Vietnam era. What Grows in Weary Lands is like that, but of greater substance. Tish Harrison Warren writes about the weariness that often happens around mid-life and what the life of faith looks like in such times, and other wearying times.

This week, I reviewed Questioning Technology with Jacques Ellul, a collection of 31 essays on the thought of Ellul. As impressed with the Pope’s encyclical as I am, I would say this work is more far-reaching in scope. And Ellul was a prescient thinker I wish more were aware of.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: The Month in Reviews: May 2026

Tuesday: Robert H. Woods and Mark Allen Steiner, From the Outrageous to the Scandalous: Re-imagining Christian Thinking and Scholarship in an Age of Tribalism and Ideological Resentment

Wednesday: Robert Coover, The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.

Thursday: Coleman M. Ford and Shawn Wilhite, Nicaea for Today

Friday: Agatha Christi, Mrs. McGinty’s Dead

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for May 24-30.

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

The Weekly Wrap: May 10-16

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Summer Reading

Readers will tell you that any season is a good season for reading. But summers are a special time for many of us. Lighter schedules. Vacations. And, weather and insects permitting, reading al fresco, perhaps with a cool drink at one’s side. My dream is a screened porch near a lake.

It’s not a bad time to think about how to make the most of your reading opportunities. In this Weekly Wrap, I include two lists you might consider. Maybe this is the time to wade into that longer book you held off from reading. Or you might try a new genre. There’s time to shop your shelves or hit the bookstore to stock up.

Maybe you’ll try something else new. Attend a reading or event at a local bookstore. What about imitating Ellen Burstyn and memorizing a poem or two? Or maybe find some people to talk books with–whether a formal book club or just a friend or two. As one of the articles I post here asserts, joining book clubs just might be revolutionary acts!

While I believe books can enrich our lives, I’d encourage you to keep it fun. Summer is not the time to get bogged down in a book. After all, summers are a time for refreshment. Find books that do that for you; set aside the ones that don’t.

To adapt a favorite summer song, “summer time, and the reading is easy.” It’s a good time to look ahead so that will be true for you.

Five Articles Worth Reading

The Atlantic posted “The Summer Reading Guide,” consisting of 25 books in five categories. I was delighted to find one by Columbus native, Wil Haygood, whose books I’ve enjoyed.

Some of us have aspired to read some of the great books of literature, the ones others compare themselves to. The Guardian is publishing a list of 100 from authors, critics and academics around the world. How many have you read?

“Ellen Burstyn Has Been Memorizing Poetry Her Whole Life” describes the actor’s love of poetry, what she’s currently reading and how she organizes her books. If someone can memorize poems at 93, I have no excuse!

We seem to be losing to have conversations in person where we talk and even argue and walk away friends. In “The revolutionary act of reading together: Why book clubs could save the world,” Dana Vanderlugt argues for the value of book clubs in our society.

Demon Copperhead is Barbara Kingsolver’s contemporary re-telling of Charles Dicken’s David Copperfield, both great books. In “‘Institutional Poverty’ in Charles Dickens and Barbara Kingsolver,” Susan Bruxvoort Lipscomb argues the books have very different takes on the role of institutions in perpetuating poverty. She argues Kingsolver portrays corrupt institutions as responsible for perpetuating poverty, whereas Dickens focus more on unfortunate circumstances. Some institutions actually have redemptive influences.

Quote of the Week

Douglas Southall Freeman was born May 14, 1886. He wrote histories of the Civil War and biographies of George Washington and Robert E. Lee. I agree with this observation about character:

“Character is that quality of mind which makes truth-telling instinctive rather than strange.”

Miscellaneous Musings

Artificial Intelligence has been touted for its efficiency. But a new book on Jacques Ellul that I just began included an article that raised questions about how we assess efficiency. We have to consider not just the immediate task but also the huge expenditures of energy, water, land, and resources to run these centers, as well as the costs of ameliorating the consequences of their use. Also, what is the cost to communities where they are sited? AI may not be nearly as efficient as we think if these costs are included.

While we are on the topic of AI, the Authors Guild has released new guidelines that incorporate guiding principles for the use of AI by authors. The Publishers Weekly article included these guidelines that every author ought heed:

 “AI-generated text is not copyrightable, and knowingly failing to disclose AI-generated content in a copyright registration application can constitute fraud on the Copyright Office.” The Guild also warns that “many book contracts also include warranties that the manuscript is the author’s original work, meaning undisclosed inclusion of AI-generated text may put a writer in breach.”

The full guide is well worth reading for any of us who write. It may be accessed here.

I’ve started reading Thomas Pynchon’s Shadow Ticket. I’ve not read any other Pynchon before so I don’t know how to compare. It’s kind of a crazy story of a gumshoe from Milwaukee chasing a Cheese heiress while eluding a cheese mafia. It is laced with jargon that makes it a challenge to follow. Still figuring out what I think of it!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Paul Elie, The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s

Tuesday: Christopher R. Brewer, ed., Art Seeking Understanding

Wednesday: Thomas Pynchon, Shadow Ticket

Thursday: Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters

Friday: William J. Kole, In Guns We Trust

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for May 10-16.

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

The Weekly Wrap: April 26-May 2

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The Weekly Wrap: April 26-May 2

New Bookstores

“Independent Bookstore Day: Bookshop.org founder on how small retailers are taking on Amazon.” This Fast Company notes that since 2020, the number of members in the American Booksellers Association has grown from1,900 to 3,200.

I think there is something to this. Two nearby communities that have never had bookstores in my memory will have three bookstores by this summer. Escape Into Fiction opened in Powell, Ohio last fall. This summer two bookstores open just down the street from each other in downtown Worthington. Celestielle is scheduled to open May 22 and focuses on fantasy and romance. Then in July, The Whispering Page is scheduled to open, stocking new books of all genres and hosting used book swaps. Their Instagram page also advertises a cafe and bar.

Will they survive? That’s anyone’s guess. But it excites me that there are entrepreneurs who see this a good time to make a go of it. Increasingly, there is a conviction that the big online behemoth is not invincible. Bookshop.org has provided an online alternative to that behemoth that supports Indie stores, and, according to the Fast Company article, have already channeled $47 million to Indie stores.

What delights me about these stores they help to turn the town centers of these communities into more interesting places. And they are filling empty storefronts. They hark back to the time when we’d walk downtown rather than pile into a car to go to the mall. There is a movement of people are going analog and craving interaction with real people.

To me, all this seems a good thing.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Sometimes my “five articles” cluster around a theme. This week, they were just a potpourri of things that caught my attention.

Plough is one of my favorite sources of good writing. This week they posted “When Kierkegaard Got Cancelled.” It’s a fascinating study of how Kierkegaard responded to the attacks and cancelling he encountered.

I was disappointed several years when my one chance to see Bob Seger in concert was lost when he had health issues. He was one of my rock legends, representing the gritty rock of middle America. “The Lost Idealism of Heartland Rock” reviews “Won’t Back Down by Erin Osmon, which traces the progressive strain in artists like Seger, Tom Petty, and John Mellencamp.

Both the change from local businesses to big shopping centers and many of our rock songs assumed the ubiquitous presence of the automobile. “Life After Cars?” reviews a book by the same name that explores what a post-automobile landscape might be like.

His novel Lázár, has been on the German best seller lists for 29 weeks. It’s been compared to Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks. And he is 22 years old. “A Very Old-Fashioned Novel Has Made a Star Out of a Very Young Writer” features the life and work of Nelio Biedermann.

Finally, one of the most prolific American diarists of the nineteenth century was George Templeton Strong. For example, he wrote four million words between 1835 and 1875. His diaries capture what life in New York was like during the Civil War. “Inside a Four-Million-Word Diary of 1860s New York” profiles Strong as well as offers resources if you want to read more of him.

Quote of the Week

In recent years I’ve become something of an advocate for poetry, even daring to read some on my Facebook page. Yusef Komunyakaa, who was born on April 29, 1947, captures something of the essence of the work of poets:

“Poets are seen as the caretakers of language, so working with words no matter what the form is what we do.”

You can read more about his life at the Poetry Foundation.

Miscellaneous Musings

After thirteen years, I made a small tweak to the tagline on my web page, which was “Thoughts about books, reading, and life.” It now reads “Thoughts from a human on books, reading, and life.” Because it is increasingly common to get reviews from AI (which I think sometimes uses reviews I write!). I felt it time to affirm that the reviews on this page are 100 percent human written, based on the reading of whole books by a 100 percent human. Whether that’s better than AI, I’ll leave up to you.

I am an Inklings fan. But Leslie Baynes Interpretation and Imagination reveals that Lewis made scholarly mistakes like the rest of us. He trusted his memory too much when citing others and sometimes misread those he was critiquing. It seems that particularly when he engaged biblical criticism, he was prone to errors stemming from his lack of expertise and background in the field.

Reading Louis Markos’ From Aristotle to Christ challenged me that I had never read Aristotle. He recommended a basic edition, which should be arriving in a few days. Just another example of how reading one book leads to others!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, A City on Mars

Tuesday: Steven Garber, Hints of Hope

Wednesday: Betony Coons, The Unwinding Path

Thursday: Louis Markos, From Aristotle to Christ

Friday: Jane Austen, Emma

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap  for April 26-May 2.

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