Curated literary articles

The Weekly Wrap: May 4-10

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The Weekly Wrap: May 4-10

Thanks, Mom!

My mother passed away nearly fifteen years ago. But I can never forget her or all the ways she shaped my life. She was intelligent and loved learning. If I remember rightly, she won a statewide chemistry contest in high school. But she also had so much practical sense, managing our house when dad was away, and coaching me how to handle bullies at school. And I spent a lot of time sick in my first years of school and she nursed me through repeated bouts of the croup and other childhood illnesses.

I mentioned my mom was intelligent. She was a reader and because of that, we had a house full of books, mostly hers. Some were stored in the back of my bedroom closet and it was an adventure to crawl in there and explore! I don’t recall any books being off limit.

My mom liked to read over lunch. And so did I. Then we would talk about what we were reading. It didn’t matter that hers was historical fiction and mine was a baseball biography. Maybe that is where this love of talking about books came from.

I don’t recall my mom either reading to me or teaching me to read. She just loved reading and left her books all over the house. And I think that is why I became a reader, which has immeasurably enriched my life. And so, on this Mother’s Day weekend, I say once again, “Thanks, Mom!”

Five Articles Worth Reading

So many of us who read love words. We look up unfamiliar ones. We relish the sound and rhythms of well-crafted poetry or sentences. Bennett Kleinman compiled “The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language, According to Linguists.” Fittingly “mother” was one of these. But my favorite, “evanescent,” was not included.

While we are thinking of mothers, no two mother-child relationships are the same. To understand our mothers is one aspect of understanding ourselves. In “What to Read to Understand Your Mom,” Sophia Stewart recommends seven books on different kinds of moms.

But for some of us, the need is more immediate, and our thought is what to buy mom for Mother’s Day. And of course, as readers, our thoughts turn to books. Well, I’ve got you covered! “Our Favorite Books for Every Type of Mom” is a great list of book recommendations. Whether she loves thrillers, historical fiction, is a foodie, or even a baseball fan, you’ll find something on this list!

If it weren’t for Johannes Gutenberg, books would hardly be so commonplace. I wonder if we would even have bookstores. But what do we know of the man? In “Start the Presses!,” Joseph Hone reviews a new biography by Eric Marshall White, Johannes Gutenberg: A Biography in Books.

Finally, in the latest salvo of our current U.S. president’s culture war, we learned yesterday of the firing of Dr. Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress since 2016, the first woman and first Black to hold this post. No reason for the firing was given. The Library of Congress not only serves as a library and research service for Congress. It is also our national library, the People’s Library. It administers copyright in the U.S. and provides services to other libraries and to researchers. I have used its digital resources. Publishers Weekly discusses Dr. Hayden, and the reactions to and implications of her firing in “Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden Fired by White House.”

Quote of the Week

Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard was born May 5, 1813. He observed:

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”

I am a staunch defender of free speech but would also be the first to admit that it is often exercised without forethought, in ways that exacerbate conflict rather than contributing to more harmonious relations and the pursuit of the common good.

Miscellaneous Musings

Reading Jakob Hutter: His Life and Letters, I was sobered by how this Anabaptist forebear, and many who were with him, suffered with courage for their faith. In this country, we tend to wear crosses rather than bear them. The latter is actually truer to the faith, that either suffers or deeply identifies with the suffering.

Incidentally, that’s a theme of A Prophet in the Darkness on the art of Georges Rouault. Rouault often juxtaposed, especially in his Miserere series, images of the poor, the marginalized, and the suffering Christ.

It is common to complain about the postal service. But I think I owe our mail carrier big time! On one day this week, we received five different book packages, including one from overseas. Even our oversize mailbox couldn’t contain everything and so she placed them neatly on our stoop. Note to self: I need to figure out how to let our local postmaster know how much we appreciate her service.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Graham Greene, The Lawless Roads

Tuesday: James W. Barker, Writing and Rewriting the Gospels

Wednesday: Curt Parton, Until the Last One’s Found

Thursday: William Kent Krueger, Northwest Angle

Friday: Emmy Barth Maendel and Jonathan Seiling, Jakob Hutter: His Life and Letters

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for May 4-10, 2025!

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The Weekly Wrap: April 27-May 3

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The Weekly Wrap: April 27-May 3

Children’s Book Week

May 5-11 is Children’s Book Week. Yesterday, Publisher’s Weekly posted “2025 Children’s Book Week Presents Full Roster of Event Ideas.” This caught my attention because because I’ve been thinking of children’s books of late. Our church has a playground that we have a grant to upgrade. It is quite popular with the children of our food pantry patrons. One of our upgrades is to install a Little Free Library and I’ve been asked to help with getting books for it.

And I realized I know little of what is popular, or even better what is good literature for children aside from the “classics” we read to our son over thirty years ago. While I read a number of books these days, few are children’s books, or the popular books among adult readers. So for this, I will be relying on a mom who does know something about this, and maybe whatever I can learn from our local librarian or other Little Free Library curators.

Maybe this is forcing me to put my money where my mouth is. I believe passionately in encouraging children to read and in efforts to cultivate the joy of reading among children. I was a child reader and I guess the habit stuck!

This article in The Guardian surprised me: “Most parents don’t enjoy reading to their children, survey suggests.” The surprise came in the light of how much I enjoyed family reading times. It was both great stories and family closeness that made these times special. I miss them, quite honestly. It seems many parents now view reading as a skill to acquire rather than an experience to be shared. What concerns me is that without the joy, I suspect few children will become avid readers.

So I applaud Children’s Book Week. And maybe it’s time to stop applauding and roll up my sleeves.

Five Articles Worth Reading

The name Logan Pearsall Smith probably doesn’t mean much to most of us. He was an essayist and critic, born in America and Harvard-trained before going on to Oxford, living out his life in London. In “Logan Pearsall Smith,” Aaron James observes, “To the extent that his writings are about anything at all, they are about the art of writing itself: the technique of crafting beautiful prose, the painstaking process of developing a beautiful style, ‘the indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable Perfection.’ “

Part of the challenge of “crafting beautiful prose” in English is the character of the language, which one learns if you are a conversation partner with a foreign national learning the language. Dennis Duncan reviews two books on “The Centuries-Long Struggle to Make English Words Behave.”

What do we do when a classic work, one well-written, is also racist? Such is the case with Mark Twain’s Huck Finn. Many of us were gratified by the recognition Percival Everett’s James received as a kind of “reply” to Huck Finn. But do we then discard Twain’s work? Naomi Kanakia grapples with this question in “Is Huck Finn still a classic?”

There seems to be an endless fascination with books on anything related to the sinking of the Titanic. If your appetite for these has not been sated, Atlas Obscura has a reading list of books I’ve not seen before in “Titanic’s Legacy: Our Favorite Reads.”

Finally, one of the delights of warmer weather in the northern hemisphere is the chance to take our books outside. In “Six Books You’ll Want to Read Outdoors” Bekah Waalkes defends outdoor reading and offers six recommendations. She includes Mary Oliver’s Devotions which I heartily recommend!

Quote of the Week

Having retired in the last year, I thoroughly embrace this sentiment of Annie Dillard:

“I worked so hard all my life, and all I want to do now is read.”

On April 30, Annie Dillard turned 80. I’d say she has earned some reading time.

Miscellaneous Musings

Sometimes, book titles intrigue me. How to Love a Forest by Ethan Tapper (Broadleaf) arrived in my mailbox this week. He contends we love forests, not by doing nothing, but by tending them, including cutting some trees.

I just finished reading a book on Markus Barth. He was the son of theologian Karl Barth. However the book convinced me he is deserving more of my attention as a biblical scholar. Years ago, I shelved a copy of his Justification but don’t believe I ever read it. Maybe its time.

I love the Maigret novels of Georges Simenon. It is great news to hear Picador is reissuing over 100 of them. I also love Michael Innes’ Appleby stories. Time for a reissue?

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Luci Shaw, An Incremental Life

Tuesday: Luke Timothy Johnson, Imitating Christ

Wednesday: Mark R. Lindsay, Markus Barth

Thursday: David A. deSilva, Judea under Greek and Roman Rule

Friday: Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for April 27 – May 3, 2025!

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

The Weekly Wrap: April 20-26

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Indie Bookstore Day 2025

Today is Indie Bookstore Day in the United States. This is the twelfth year for Indie booksellers who are part of the American Booksellers Association to band together to host special events at over 1600 bookstores in all fifty states. It seems to me a wonderful way to celebrate the vibrant and growing presence of Indie booksellers.

I think of the bookseller I interviewed recently at the Birch Tree Bookery in Marion, Ohio. Marion is one of the small to medium size county seats in Ohio. This husband and wife bookselling team launched the store a couple years back in a bookstore desert. The nearest store was at least 20 miles away. They are now in their third location, each larger than the last as they’ve built a reading community. No Barnes & Noble is going to move here. And this is what Indies are doing across the country.

The long and the short of it is that today is a very good day to visit your nearest Indie (the Indie Bookstore Day site will help you find one). Not only will you find fun, bookish activities. You may also find your next great read.

Can’t make it in person? Most are set up to take orders. I placed an order at my favorite Indie since I won’t be able to support them in person. If you can’t figure out how to order from the store, you can also order through Bookshop.org which has raised nearly $38 million for local bookstores.

Our Indie bookstores are a crucial ingredient to making our towns places livable, interesting, unique places. They are gathering places in a world lacking good third places. And they are far better than algorithms when it comes to matching people with books they will love.

Five Articles Worth Reading

It’s National Poetry Month. And who would have thought of Iowa City as a poetry mecca? ” ‘Poetry City: Iowa City, Iowa” tells the story of a college town, the home of a famed writing program and how they’ve kept it “weird”–a center for poetry where one might never expect it.

Tomie dePaola’s Strega Nona is turning 50. Elisabeth Egan has a unique take, which she offers in “I’ve Read ‘Strega Nona’ 100 Times. Now I Feel Sorry for Her Sidekick.” She thinks Big Anthony has not gotten the credit he is due.

Did you know that Isaac Asimov wrote some of his books under the pen name Paul French? And did you know that a reviewer who hated Asimov’s writing loved that of Paul French, amusing Asimov to no end. You can read all about it in “When Isaac Asimov Decided to Secretly Write Under the Name Paul French.”

I’ve seen pictures of the J.P. Morgan Library, in New York City. It is an amazing personal library. “Ambition, Discipline, Nerve” is a fascinating article about the librarian Morgan hired to build that library.

You would think people of faith would die well. In “Fragments for the End of Life” Justin Hawkins reviews Burdened Agency: Christian Theology and End-of-Life Ethics by Travis Pickell, a book that explains why this is so.

Quote of the Week

Charlotte Brontë was born April 21, 1816. She makes an observation we desperately need in our culture of grievance:

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs.”

Miscellaneous Musings

As we get older, it becomes harder to find people further along than we. Luci Shaw is in her late 90’s and just published another poetry book, An Incremental Life. If I can grow older half as well as she, that will be a good thing.

He spent much of his work as a book editor, work he did well. In my last job, part of my work involved editing, work for which I had no experience. He gave me a crash course. As a fellow “retiree,” one of the things Andy LePeau does is review books. I love seeing how he does it, particularly when we’ve read the same book. I commend his blog, Andy Unedited.

This week marked the passing of Pope Francis. He died on Easter Monday and on the day before Earth Day. He lived the Easter hope and taught us to care for our common home. If you have not read it, LAUDATO SI’, an encyclical letter, is a marvelous and sweeping statement of a vision for caring for our common home, inspired by his namesake, Francis of Assisi. Requiescat in pace.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: James Crossley and Chris Keith, eds., The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus

Tuesday: Michael Innes, The Open House

Wednesday: Ida Friederike Gorres, John Henry Newman: A Life Sacrificed

Thursday: The Month in Reviews: April 2025

Friday: William F. Buckley, Jr., Tucker’s Last Stand

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for April 20-26, 2025!

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

The Weekly Wrap: April 13-19

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Moving Sale

A few weeks back, we stopped by our local Barnes & Noble store to discover everything in the store was 25 percent off. Add my member discount and that made for some cool savings. A couple of the books I will be reviewing in the next week came from that trip. But such a sale was unusual, and to either quell or confirm my fears, I spoke to a bookseller.

What a relief! I learned they are moving into a bigger space across the street, in a building once occupied by Bed, Bath, and Beyond–a casualty of the retail wars. Instead of going there to fit out my son’s college dorm, as we once did, we can feast our eyes and empty our wallets on books!

But the news gets better! This week, I learned that the discount was up to 40 percent. The rationale is that it is easier to sell off the inventory than move it. And they still had books of interest. I came home with three–a collection of Jorge Luis Borges essays, a Haruki Murakami novel, and o book on the working homeless in America I’d seen reviewed recently. My TBR ever groweth!

But not all bookstores do it this way. The Guardian ran a story recently of a small-town bookstore that mobilized a human chain to move 9,100 books to a new location, passed from hand to hand. Three hundred people came out to help. That’s bookstore love! I suspect that wouldn’t work in our case because of a heavily travelled road between the two locations.

Part of me is wistful. I have memories of sitting at the cafe with my wife, sharing our book finds, or “retreat” days that included a stop at the Panera that shared the building, for lunch, then a quick browse and some coffee while I journaled. The Panera moved out a couple years ago, and soon, the building will be empty. I’ll guess we’ll have to make new memories.

Five Articles Worth Reading

“Doing Nothing Is Everything” reviews Aflame: Learning from Silence by Pico Iyer. The author describes himself as areligious but represents a growing trend of areligious people seeking out monasteries for silence.

Miles Terlunen makes a confession that amounts to an apology from literary scholars to the wider reading public. He admits that “Scholars Have Lost the Plot!,” as they follow strategies of slow reading to ferret out other aspects of literary works.

“‘Why would he take such a risk?’ How a famous Chinese author befriended his censor” is a fascinating account by a critic of the Communist Party of his relationship with a censor on Weibo, China’s equivalent of X. Makes me wonder what could happen (or is happening) here.

Emily Henry is described in this article from The New York Times as “a new standard-bearer of the romance genre.” I’m not a romance reader and had never heard of this fellow Ohioan, but for those interest in the genre, this is a deep dive into her work.

Camino Real by Tennessee Williams is set in a mental institution. In “Faulkner and Plath Go to a Play,” we learn of the profound impact the play had on each of them, due to their own histories of institutionalization.

Quote of the Week

Thornton Wilder, born April 11 1897, offered this advice, that could be a personal watchword:

“Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I’m thoroughly enjoying The Bookshop by Evan Friss. It’s a history of the American bookstore, from Ben Franklin on, concluding with Parnassus, Ann Patchett’s bookstore. It impresses me with the unique personality of every bookstore, one thing that makes visiting them so much fun.

I’m reading a rather thick book on “the next quest for the historical Jesus.” It is a collection of essays that seems to be an effort to lay the groundwork for this “quest.” But it is curious in admitting on one hand that we cannot get behind the accounts of Jesus, yet also explores many of the background factors from class and clothing to the military presence in Judea. One thing that I do appreciate is the easing up on the criteria of “authenticity” which would reject as an authentic saying of Jesus anything anyone else had said.

One of the books coming out this spring is a new biography of Mark Twain by Ron Chernow, who has written a number of significant biographies, including biographies of Alexander Hamilton and George Washington. It’s at the top of my wishlist.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

Tuesday: Agatha Christie, Three Act Tragedy

Wednesday: Camden Morgante, Recovering From Purity Culture

Thursday: C.S. Lewis, The Reading Life

Friday: Evan Friss, The Bookshop

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for April 13-19, 2025!

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

The Weekly Wrap: April 6-12

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True Readers

I’ve just begun reading a new collection of C. S. Lewis’s pieces on reading titled The Reading Life. One of the first pieces in the book is “How to Know if You are a True Reader.” Since you are all waiting to know Lewis’s answer, here it is:

1. Loves to re-read books
2. Highly values reading as an activity (versus as a last resort)
3. Lists the reading of particular books as a life-changing experience
4. Continuously reflects and recalls what one has read

By these criteria, I’m a true reader, although I have more trouble with #1 since I’ve begun reviewing books. But there are many old friends I love to revisit, including those of several of the Inklings.

I was astounded to learn Lewis spent an average of eight hours a day reading. He clearly valued reading as an activity. I do as well, but at probably less than half that amount of time.

Books have changed me, from J. I. Packer’s Knowing God and Calvin’s Institutes to the Port William stories of Wendell Berry, Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country, and the poetry of Mary Oliver, George Herbert, and Gerard Manley Hopkins.

And reflecting and recalling? That’s what I do all the time when reviewing. I’m thinking not only of the book under review but others as well. I don’t have Lewis’s eidetic memory. Students could read one line of a book on Lewis’s shelves and he’d complete the page, often verbatim.

I don’t think there is a switch one flips to become a true reader. Rather, I feel I’ve been becoming a true reader all my life. I think as readers, we are all works in progress.

Five Articles Worth Reading

However, being a true reader by Lewis’s criteria doesn’t make me all knowledgeable, even in the history of books. I only answered two out of five questions in this short quiz on “How Much Do You Know About the History of Books?” I’d love to hear how you did in the comments, especially if you go five for five!

Stuart Whatley asserts that “[O]ur nihilistic politics are a product of the crushing ennui and spiritual vacancy of modern life” in “The West is bored to death.”

I always look forward to The Millions previews to tick off books I want to check out. “The Great Spring 2025 Book Preview” went up this week.

I learned recently that there are 153 data centers ringing my city, and this is true in many parts of the country, driven by the rise of AI. Until a few years ago, Intel chips were synonymous with computers. But the rise of AI has been paralleled by the rise of Nvidia. “The New King of Tech” profiles Jensen Huang and reviews a new book, The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip by Stephen Witt.

Finally, I began this post talking about true readers. Open Road ran an article with video on “Why the Romans Stopped Reading Books.” I’d be curious if you think there are any modern parallels.

Quote of the Week

April is National Poetry Month. And April 9, 1821 was the birthdate of Charles Pierre Baudelaire. I love this simple challenge he offers:

“Always be a poet, even in prose.”

It makers me wonder how it might shape our public discourse if we heeded this!

Miscellaneous Musings

I’m just coming to the conclusion of American Prometheus, on the life of Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atom bomb. It is sobering to see how a powerful figure who disliked Oppenheimer orchestrated a star chamber to strip him of his security clearance because he opposed expansion of our nuclear arsenal to include hydrogen bombs. But Oppenheimer received vindication late in his life, offering hope that dissent cannot be suppressed forever.

It’s always nice to get around to older books one missed the first time around. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity by Mark Noll. His summary of the European transition from Christendom to secularity is a tour de force.

I met one of my goals in selling books to our local Half Price Books. I walked out with cash in my pocket, even after our purchases! Yes, my retirement portfolio may have decreased by $80K in value over the last months, but I’m running to the good at at least one bookstore!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: John Eliot and Jim Guinn, How to Get Along with Anyone

Tuesday: Leah Reesor-Keller, Tending Tomorrow

Wednesday: Aaron Scott, Bring Back Your People

Thursday: Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus

Friday: Mark Noll, Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for April 6-12, 2025!

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

The Weekly Wrap: March 30-April 5

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Destination Bookstores

Last Saturday, my son and I made the pilgrimage to John K. King’s Used and Rare Books near downtown Detroit. A banner outside the building boasts of it being “Named #2 Book Store in the World” in 2014 by Business Insider. Having wandered through the aisles of books packed into four floors of this former glove factory, I can believe it.

It is a destination bookstore, one of those unusual and incredible places booklovers put on their bucket list. The closest thing to it in my home town is The Book Loft, boasting 32 rooms of books. But whereas the books in the Book Loft are new, everything at John King’s was used. It had the feel of being the place where books from estate sales go to live. There were lots of old hardbacks without dustcovers, the titles barely readable on the spines, books that were the “thing to read” back in the Seventies, and lots of old paperbacks.

Three of my finds were among the paperbacks. I love the mystery novels of Michael Innes, that I just noted are back in print. I like to find the old Penguin paperbacks and I found three I’ve not read in great condition. Score! I never see these at my local Half Price. I picked up a few others as well.

In one sense, any bookstore is a “destination” bookstore. I rarely go looking for a particular book and delight when a book finds me! But if I could travel, I’d love to visit some of the great ones like Powell’s, The Strand, Book People, Parnassus Books (Anne Patchett’s bookstore), and many others.

Of course, part of the fun was the traveling company. I don’t often get to spend a whole day with my son, solving the world’s problems, enjoying good Lebanese food along the way, and comparing our finds. This is a day I will treasure, and not just because of the great bookstore we visited.

Five Articles Worth Reading

I still remember the first time I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Now, T. Bone Burnett, in “Beatlemania: A Penetrating New Book Celebrates Lennon and McCartney” offers a marvelous review of the new book, John & Paul, chronicling their genius and relationship.

Jordan Kisner asks “Who Needs Intimacy?,” exploring the trend in modern novels (perhaps paralleling modern life) where women are foregoing intimacy and child-bearing.

Another challenge of modern life, at least in the States, is the cost of housing. “Invisible Crisis” explores the “hidden phenomenon of working homelessness,” a review of There Is No Place for Us. The article notes “[i]n no state today can a minimum-wage worker afford a two-bedroom apartment.”

On a very different note, Open Culture features “The Only Illustrated Manuscript of Homer’s Iliad from Antiquity“. In addition to text and images, the article includes a video on the Ambrosian Iliad.

Finally, Matt Dinan’s “Saul Bellow’s Ravelstein” discusses the novel, twenty-five years after publication. This is a Saul Bellow I’ve not read but Dinan’s conclusion intrigued me:

“Ravelstein seems to speak to a problem that its author could not have known would be so acute a quarter century later. Reading a novel can’t solve the problem of the loss of the world to abstraction and distraction, but insofar as the problem is intellectual, an intellectual response is required.“

Quote of the Week

Sadly, one of the symptoms of the “loss of the world” described above is the erasing of the history of peoples and events that don’t fit the ideal of a national story. George MacDonald Fraser, born one hundred years ago April 2 observed:

“I think little of people who will deny their history because it doesn’t present the picture they would like.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I noted above the re-publication of the mysteries of Michael Innes as a welcome event. Publisher’s Weekly announced that another of my favorite author’s works are being reissued: Picador to Reissue More than 100 Novels by Georges Simenon. Both men were marvelous writers, first introduced to us on those green-spined Penguins!

One cannot help but write from the perspective of one’s time. But I’ve wondered if several books I’ve read recently would have been written differently after January 20 of this year.

The one pleasant surprise of yesterday was three new books I ordered from Barnes & Noble, arrived five days earlier than promised. I also used up a generous gift card, a retirement gift I finally redeemed. That was fun.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Wesley Hill, Easter

Tuesday: Christine Marie Eberle, Finding God Along the Way

Wednesday: William Kent Krueger, Vermilion Drift

Thursday: James F. McGrath, John of History, Baptist of Faith

Friday, David T. Koyzis, Citizenship Without Illusions

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for March 30-April 5, 2025!

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