Curated literary articles

The Weekly Wrap: December 29-January 4

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Reading Goals

I’ve observed there are two kinds of bibliophiles. Obviously, both types love to read. And usually, both read lots of books. But one type enjoys setting goals for themselves from pages and books read, to reading particular types of books. Meanwhile, the other type just likes to read, going where their whims take them. Personally, I don’t think there is anything wrong with being either type. After all, we’re reading when much of the world isn’t!

I tend toward the goal setters, not only in books but in other things. Goals stretch me and help me grow and I’ve lived long enough to be realistic. And they are my goals–not someone else’s.

I sign up for the Goodreads Reading Challenge every year. I set it below what I read the past year, but a little more than last year’s goal. Over time, my goals exceed what I once read, but are well within reach for me–so I don’t stress.

But the goals that matter are what make me a better reader. Probably a big one for me this year is to read with greater attention–probably to compensate for my diminishing brain cells. Probably the two things I want to work on is to not mix reading and phones. The other is to get enough sleep so that I am not reading tired.

I’d like to take at least minimal notes on more challenging books–perhaps outlining an argument for example. I might start with one or a few books. I usually don’t take written notes, just mentally reviewing as I go along.

Another thing I want to do is re-read at one book that has been significant to me in the past. The occupational hazard of reviewing is having so many new books to read. Perhaps I’ll even try for a fiction work and a non-fiction work.

Finally, I’ve been reading more poetry. I have collections of poetry of Donne, Dickinson, Sandburg, Eliot, and Langston Hughes among others. I want to read slowly through at least one of these.

Every year, I post a “reading challenge.” This year’s will go up on Monday. No doubt, some of this will be there and some others. And I’d love to hear about your reading goals!

Five Articles Worth Reading

We lost Jimmy Carter this past week, our longest-lived president, at 100. Numerous tributes have appeared about his humanitarian efforts. He was also a prolific author, publishing 32 books. “Jimmy Carter: Poet, Novelist, Memoirist, Philosopher” celebrates his literary legacy.

In 1988, Kurt Vonnegut, wrote a letter for people in 2088. Benedict Cumberbatch gives us an early preview in “Benedict Cumberbatch Reads Kurt Vonnegut’s Letter of Advice to People Living in the Year 2088.” It’s a profound letter and well-read.

Speaking of letters, Cynthia Ozick, in “Voices from the Dead Letter Office” reflects on what we’ve lost with the end of letter-writing.

Ever since my freshman year, when I read one of the coillections of Flannery O’;Connor’s short stories, I’ve been both perplexed and fascinated by her writing. I totally missed Wildcat, a film exploring her life through the lens of the period when she learned that she, like her father, was suffering from lupus, a disease that would claim both of their lives. In “The Peacock’s Tail,” Jeff Reimer reflects on the movie and the connection between O’Connor’s suffering and creativity.

Several years ago, it seemed everywhere I looked, I encountered articles about the New Atheists. Now, increasingly, I’m reading of intellectuals who are coming to faith, like historian Niall Ferguson, who recently converted from atheism to Anglican Christianity. In “How Intellectuals Found God” Peter Savodnik chronicles this trend. The professions of some may surprise you and I think for any of us, the test is “by their fruit you will know them.” But it’s a fascinating account.

Quote of the Week

J.R.R. Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892. We would do well, I think, to follow this advice from him:

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

Miscellaneous Musings

Jimmy Carter was not only a prolific author, but like many of our presidents, a prodigious reader. I enjoyed “In His Reading Life, Jimmy Carter Favored ‘Anything but Politics’” in this week’s New York Times. It’s hard to make excuses about finding time to read when we read of people like him!

I’m reading Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. I’ve admired her writing but not always the endings of her books. I thought The Dutch House got it right. Hoping for two in a row. Watch for my review!

Goodreads has tweaked its Reading Challenge this year to include integration with Kindles and monthly reading challenges, cumulative challenges, and community challenges. The monthly challenge is a pretty low bar–finish one book each month–but 12 books is more than many Americans read.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Bob on Books 2025 Reading Challenge

Tuesday: David W. Swanson, Plundered: The Tangled Roots of Racial and Environmental Injustice

Wednesday: Amy Tan, The Backyard Bird Chronicles

Thursday: Ellis Peters, Brother Cadfael’s Penance

Friday: Rachel B. Griffis, Julie Ooms, and Rachel M. De Smith Roberts, Deep Reading

Well, that’s The Weekly Wrap for December 29, 2024-January 4, 2025!

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

The Weekly Wrap: December 22-28

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Culture-Keeping

It’s a popular pastime. There is no shortage of those who will tell us what is wrong with our culture. And some who do this want to rid us of the things they think wrong. It might be an academic program, a book, a public health measure, or simply investment in the arts.

I want to think about culture-keeping. What is the good, the true, and the beautiful that we want to preserve and extend? It seems to me that if we don’t answer this question there are many good and precious things we will sacrifice to a banal mass culture whose main object is simply to keep us happy and well-fed.

If you were to ask me the mission of this blog over the past eleven-plus years, it comes down to culture-keeping. Books are one of the means by which we may purvey the good, the true, and the beautiful. Books that lift our eyes to heaven. Texts that instruct us in the intricacies of our world. Books that rouse us to action for the common good. Stories that capture our imagination and inspire us to live with courage, integrity, and compassion.

I’ve written and conversed with you about all of these. It’s the small contribution I feel I can make to the culture-keeping work that needs many hands. In the world of books, I think there are several important culture-keeping priorities. One is to protect our speech freedoms, which give people the right to say things we don’t agree with. Another is to protect our libraries. Access to books and other information sources for all people, especially those with limited resources is an important act of culture-keeping. Finally, we need to protect intellectual property in an AI age where it is free for the scraping.

I recognize there is much more I could write about culture-keeping. What I really hope, however, is to enlist us all in this important work.

Five Articles Worth Reading

One of my regrets in life is that I never learned Latin. In “LatinGate: A Teacher’s Lament,” J.S. Ubhi asserts, “Latin teaches an acuity of language unparalleled anywhere else in the secondary-school curriculum; institutions that offer it do so at a time when the brain’s neuroplasticity is highest.” His lament is that the new government in the UK has cut funding for Latin programs and that this is a great loss.

One of my Christmas traditions is to listen to one of my recordings of Handel’s Messiah, sometimes with musical score in hand. In “The Glorious History of Handel’s Messiah,” Jonathan Kandell recounts the history of this famous composition, a part of Christmas for so many of us.

Forgiveness is hard, yet necessary, if, as Jesus says, we are to live in God’s forgiveness. “On Literary Forgiveness” explores the difficult work of forgiveness in literature.

One of the delicious things of long, cold winter nights is to curl up in our favorite chair with a warm drink and a good books. We may not have a fireplace, but we can still enjoy the “Six Books to Read by the Fire” recommended by Amanda Parrish Morgan.

But if those recommendations don’t excite you, you might look over “The Most Popular Books in US Public Libraries 2024.”

Quote of the Week

My quote of the week is from fellow Ohioan, Louis Bromfield, a popular novelist in the first half of the twentieth century. He was also a pioneer in sustainable agriculture, ahead of his time, as reflected in this comment:

“As soils are depleted, human health, vitality and intelligence go with them.”

Bromfield was born December 27, 1896.

Miscellaneous Musings

We recently visited Wild Birds Unlimited’s store near us for gifts for a bird-loving friend. I’ve been reading Amy Tan’s Backyard Bird Chronicles and it is a walking endorsement for the store. I can’t believe how much this woman spends on feeding the birds in her backyard. But it has resulted in an exquisite birding journal of observations written and drawn over several years.

Earlier, I mentioned stories of courage, integrity, and compassion. Katherine Rundell’s Impossible Creatures was an utter delight to read for this reason. It is written for middle grade readers but this much older reader thoroughly enjoyed it.

I’m coming to the end of The Chronicles of Brother Cadfael after a year and a half of discovering this wonderful series from the 1980’s. In this, we consider Father Cadfael, an the extraordinary offer he makes to give his life for that of the son he had unknowingly fathered before he entered the Benedictines. Peters offers a powerful exploration of the dynamic of the relations of fathers and sons, and of other loyalties, not of blood.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Caroline Fausel, A Simply Healthy Life

Tuesday: Katherine Rundell, Impossible creatures

Wednesday: The Month in Reviews: December 2024

Thursday: Mary Stockwell, Unlikely General: “Mad” Anthony Wayne and the Battle for America

Friday: Sister Prudence Allen, RSM, The Concept of Woman

Well, that’s The Weekly Wrap for December 22-28, 2024!

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

The Weekly Wrap: December 15-21

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The Buzz

I call it “the buzz” for lack of a better term. It’s when I hear about an author I’m unfamiliar with, not once, but two or more times, sometimes in the same day. That happened today with an author named John Mark Comer, who writes on spiritual formation with a current book called Practicing the Way and a ministry organization by the same name.

Actually, I thought Comer was new to me until I read about him and discovered I had reviewed one of his earlier books, Garden City. What makes it more embarrassing is that i reviewed the book last year! In my defense, I review a lot of books!

But I digress. The buzz is a tip-off to pay attention to an author. That doesn’t mean rushing out to get his or her latest book. But when I hear about someone from very disparate sources, I start asking why this person’s writing is influential. I look at book descriptions and reviews. And if that piques my interest and I think they are offering a fresh perspective on something, I may bite.

I suppose the buzz may be chalked up to coincidence. Sometimes, though, I take it as a prompting to pick up a book by the author. This happened when I heard about Tom Holland’s Dominion from about a dozen people. But it’s thick, and I think I need a book buddy to join me in reading it. Anyone interested?

Five Articles Worth Reading

I think one of the attractions of reading children’s books as an adult is the lessons that speak to us perhaps even more powerfully than to children. In “10 Life Lessons for Grown-Ups From Children’s Classics,” Pamela Paul reminds us of some of these lessons.

Russell Harper is one of the revisors of The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS), the bible of writers. in “What Can a Book from 1749 Teach Us About Chicago Style?” he considers Henry Field’s Tom Jones in its originally published form and how it conforms to and departs from The Chicago Manual of Style. It wasw fascinating to see the conventions that have endured.

Zabihollah Mansouri. Not a household name for us, but most Iranians have read something he translated. “In Search of Zabihollah Mansouri” is a fascinating profile of a translator who often “improved” on authors’ works when he thought them too dull for readers.

If you’ve never discovered the delight of reading a novel by Anthony Trollope, “The Way We Don’t Live Now” is a good introduction to why this reader, at least finds Trollope worth reading.

As you may have noticed, I’ve been reading more poetry. This one brought back memories of my grandmother, who passed in 1965: Fossil Record for My Grandmother: A poem for Sunday, by Dara Yen Elerath. One difference between me and the poet. My grandmother’s Bible is a treasured possession.

Quote of the Week

Hortense Calisher was an American novelist and second female president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She was born December 20, 1911. She observed:

“It took most people a lifetime to join the human race.”

I’m still thinking about that!

Miscellaneous Musings

One of the things that hasn’t gotten old after over a decade of reviewing is when I write to a publisher for the first time and request a review copy of a book and they say “yes.”

I’ve been losing myself this week in Katherine Rundell’s Impossible Creatures. It’s written for children in the middle grade but I’ve been thoroughly engrossed. There is a hidden world within our world that a young boy enters, a girl with a destiny she has to decide whether to embrace, and a threat to life in the hidden world and our wider world. A wonderful story of love and heroism–things good, true, and beautiful.

For three years, I lived a block from Anthony Wayne Trail in Toledo, Ohio. I’m reading a biography about the Revolutionary War General often known as “Mad” Anthony Wayne. He was the general responsible for defeating an alliance of indigenous tribes in 1795, supported by the British, who lived in the Ohio country, who were unwilling to give up land previously allocated under treaty. The European settlement of every city I’ve lived in in Ohio was made possible by that defeat and the Treaty of Greenville of 1795 when the indigenous tribal confederacy ceded the Ohio lands. Ohio became a state in 1803. But reminders of that indigenous presence are still all around me in the names of rivers, towns, and counties: Mahoning, Maumee, Scioto, Cuyahoga, Olentangy, Sandusky, and Delaware just to name a few.

Next Week’s Reviews

Here’s the lineup for next week:

Monday: Jill Hicks-Keeton, Good Book

Tuesday: Georges Simenon, Maigret and the Wine Merchant

Wednesday: Richard Panek, Pillars of Creation

Thursday: Matthew Levering, Why I am Roman Catholic

Friday: Benjamin T. Quinn & Dennis T. Greeson, The Way of Christ in Culture

Well, that’s The Weekly Wrap for December 15-21, 2024!

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

The Weekly Wrap: December 1-7

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On Giving Books as Gifts

Giving books to a bibliophile can be a fraught enterprise. Ask my family! We have such particular tastes and we read so much! The book gifter runs the risk of buying something we’ve read, or buying something that is not of interest.

The latter is not as much of a danger. Many of us like to stretch and get out of our ruts. My son often seems to find books like this. But this takes knowing your reader and maybe researching what they’ve read. Fortunately apps like Goodreads make this easier. Some create Amazon wish lists. If you want to buy me a book, search my blog to see if I’ve read it. Along the way, you will learn a lot about the kinds of books I’ve read and liked.

Take heart. In every genre, there are so many good choices. Again, my son is good at this. He knows I like baseball books and try to read at least one a year. This year, he found a great book on the World Champion 1948 Indians team. As one who suffered through many years of losing seasons and dashed hopes, it was a delight to read about the year it all came together. He knows I like crime fiction, and he introduced me to the works of Giles Blunt–a real find.

So the pro tip is to do your homework. If you are going to dash out at the last minute, a gift card to your bibliophile friend’s favorite store might be a better choice. And it is always fun to go book shopping when you are spending someone else’s money. With that, I’ll leave you to your holiday shopping!

Five Articles Worth Reading

The New York Times ‘By The Book” interviews are often fascinating glimpses into author’s lives, including what they are reading. I devoured Braiding Sweetgrass and so was delighted to come across an interview with Robin Wall Kimmerer, “Robin Wall Kimmerer Is Learning From ‘Rest as Resistance’“. She made this comment about her new book, The Serviceberry, that put it on my buy list: “It’s an invitation to question the values that underpin our current exploitative relation to the living world. Why do we tolerate an economy that actively destroys what we love?”

Speaking of writers talking about the books they are reading, The Millions runs a compilation of contributions by writers and others that posted this week: A Year in Reading: 2024. This is one I always look forward to.

In “Shakespeare the Suicide?” Larry Lockridge considers the evidence that Shakespeare might have taken his own life. Suicide figures in many of works. Perhaps he decided “not to be.”

Simone Weil was a philosopher, activist, and person of deep faith whose writing and life pose demanding questions of those who read her. In “Whose Weil?,” Jack Hanson discusses the ways modern commentators try to make her more “palatable.”

Finally, Phil Christman, a professor at the University of Michigan, poses the question. “Does Teaching Literature and Writing Have a Future?” Particularly, he considers the closure of English programs and the rise of AI and raises important questions about what a university is for.

Quote of the Week

Joan Didion, born on December 5, 1934, made this trenchant observation:

“You have to pick the places you don’t walk away from.”

I think she is right. These watershed moments define who we are.

Miscellaneous Musings

While reading Quentin J. Schultze’s You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!, in which he draws life lessons from the movie A Christmas Story, I re-watched this classic, filmed in Cleveland while we lived there. There’s a lot of wisdom in that movie and it reminded me of Christmases of my youth (and a few schoolyard bullies).

And while I’m on the subject of Cleveland, one of the great bookstores on Cleveland’s East Side is Loganberry Books. They are celebrating their thirtieth anniversary TODAY! I’m thrilled that this indie has survived and thrived by serving the bookloving community of Cleveland. Congratulations and Happy Anniversary!

This week also brought news of a new bookstore in Columbus, Clintonville Books, located in the neighborhood of the same name. If you know Columbus, you know that Clintonville is a bookstore kind of place. Can’t wait to visit! I doubt I’ll be around to celebrate their thirtieth anniversary, but I hope they enjoy a good long run in Clintonville.

Next Week’s Reviews

Here’s what I expect to be reviewing next week. I may also do a special post on my “Best of the Year” books.

Monday: Stuart Murray, The New Anabaptists

Tuesday: Stuart M. Kaminsky, Lieberman’s Day

Wednesday: Matthew Desmond, Poverty, By America

Thursday: Quentin J. Schultze, You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!

Friday: Jason Landsel, Richard Mommsen, and Sankha Banerjee, By Fire: The Jakob Hutter Story

Well, that’s The Weekly Wrap for December 1-7, 2024!

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

The Weekly Wrap: November 24-30

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The Silent Book Club Boom

Back in 2016, I posted an article about Silent Reading Parties. No thanks to me, I’m sure, this idea has caught on in a big way. Healthline, as part of a feature on the social and cognitive benefits of reading, highlighted Silent Book Club, an organization that now has 1400 chapters and counting worldwide.

The idea is simple and genius. Get a group of friends together, everyone bring your own book in whatever format you wish (with headphones for audiobooks). Here’s how many break down the time:

  • 30 minutes–people arrive, order drinks/food, share what they’re reading
  • 60 minutes–quiet reading
  • 30 minutes–optional socializing, or just keep reading

Groups can adjust the times to fit their needs. Most meet monthly.

It looks like a number of these are hosted by bookstores, often offering discounts on books people buy during these gatherings. Makes sense.

What also makes sense is the idea of reading in companionable silence without having your reading choices determined by a club. And its always fun to talk books with other bookworms. For those who don’t like book clubs but like to talk about books with others, this might be something to try. The Silent Book Club website includes a map to help you find a group near you as well as help starting a group of your own.

Five Articles Worth Reading

You don’t have to tell most readers the benefits of reading. But if you want to encourage others to take up the habit, “How Reading Can Help Reduce Stress and Anxiety” discusses the mental health benefits of reading.

Poetry and prayer have a connection going back to Israel’s Psalms and other Ancient Near East Literature. Ed Simon explores the close connection of prayer and poetry throughout literature in “Prayer is Poetry.”

Friends who have seen the Book of Kells describe it as one of the most beautiful books in the world. Plus, it is housed in the incredible Trinity College Library in Dublin. Open Culture offers a great introduction to this illuminated manuscript, including a six-plus minute video at “An Introduction to the Astonishing Book of Kells, the Iconic Illuminated Manuscript.”

From ancient manuscripts to this year’s books. NPR just posted its “Books We Love” feature for 2024 with 350 picks from their staff. In addition, you can access their choices going back to 2013!

Whether you like Taylor Swift or not, she has revolutionized the music industry, including re-recording much of her work, enhanced the fan base of the Kansas City Chiefs, and recently concluded her Eras tour, breaking concert attendance, gross income, and other records. Now, in publishing her own book on the tour, she’s changing the way some celebrities relate to publishers. The Atlantic has the story in “Taylor Swift Is a Perfect Example of How Publishing Is Changing.”

Quote of the Week

“Variety’s the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavor.”

This is one of those axioms that is part of our collective store of wisdom. But who said it? English poet and hymn writer William Cowper, who was born November 25, 1731.

Miscellaneous Musings

I was thrilled to learn today that a recording by two of my favorite artists is coming out this weekend. Phil Keaggy is an incredible guitarist from my hometown of Youngstown. Malcolm Guite is a contemporary poet, priest, and scholar with a marvelous English accent. They have combined talents with Guite reciting poetry and Keaggy providing guitar accompaniment in “Strings and Sonnets.” I wish I could recite poetry like Guite does!

Speaking of poetry, I’ve been reading Dana Gioia’s Meet Me At the Lighthouse. “Tinsel, Frankincense, and Fir” reminds me of the “ghosts” behind some of the ornaments we hang. I have to admit to finding things I like about Gioia’s work and ways I connect every time I read him!

Just finished Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, this year’s Booker Prize winner. While I think I’ve read better fiction in 2024, Harvey does capture something I’ve heard about before–seeing our planet from space is transformative–both its beauty and precarity. There is NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) footage online that gives some sense of what the fictional International Space Station astronauts and cosmonauts experience in Harvey’s work.

Next Week’s Reviews

Here’s what I expect to be reviewing next week:

Monday will be my monthly “Month in Reviews” post recapping my November reviews.

Tuesday: Agatha Christie’s One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

Wednesday: Samantha Harvey’s Orbital

Thursday: Dana Gioia, Meet Me At the Lighthouse

Friday: Mike Cosper, The Church in Dark Times

Well, that’s The Weekly Wrap for November 17-23, 2024!

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

The Weekly Wrap: November 17-23

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Listening to Versus Believing the Science

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve geeked out on science. I used to hang out at my local newsstand when the new issue of Popular Science came out. As a psych major in college, one of my favorite classes was the physiological psych class. I spent hours fascinated with the chemistry of nerve synapses and the structures of the brain. I never found this in conflict with my faith but rather delighted that God gave us minds and means to understand his world and the cosmos beyond so that we could take better care of it and ourselves.,

There is quite a conflict these days between science skeptics and those who “believe the science.” As in so many of the binaries created in our divisive discourse, I find myself in neither camp. The very act of writing this piece depends heavily on numerous scientific breakthroughs and the applied technologies that result. On the other hand, “I believe in science” is not part of the creed I profess. I have encountered reductionistic scientism that makes science the be-all and end-all, sometimes as rigidly dogmatic as the most rigid fundamentalist.

My own posture is one of listening to science. Particularly, I am listening to see if the conclusions of scientists are the best explanation of their data. And if it is, I consider the implications of what they propound–for my health and for the welfare of my fellow creatures. My listening leads to prayers for discerning wisdom in the application of scientific findings–which can help or harm.

So I will continue to read, review, and recommend science writing. Contrary to the portrayals of some, I know too many dedicated scientists who have devoted their lives and energies to understand creation, and to turn that knowledge to benefit the common good. They have earned a hearing, at least from me. So I will listen and learn to better understand the real world in which we live.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Speaking of science, I’ve mentioned Nature’s Andrew Robinson who reviews the latest science writing. “DNA need not apply: Books in brief” is his latest installment and offered some interesting recommendations, including a book on AI.

Haruki Murakami’s long-awaited new novel is out. Junot Diaz thinks that dedicated readers of Murakami may have a sense of deja vu, which he elaborates in his review: “Haruki Murakami’s New Novel Doesn’t Feel All That New.”

It has become increasingly common for people who were raised Christian to look beyond the bounds of their traditional religion to find spiritual life. “In Search of a Faith Beyond Religion,” a review of a new book, helped me understand some of the reasons people turn away from institutional Christianity.

Open Culture posted a fascinating clip, “The Final Days of Leo Tolstoy Captured in Rare Footage from 1910.”

Vanity Fair broke a story this week (behind a paywall) that during his forties, Cormac McCarthy engaged in an intimate relationship (statutory rape) with a seventeen year old who served as something of a muse in several of his works. O. Alan Noble, an English professor who uses McCarthy’s work, discusses “When Your Literary Heroes (Inevitably) Fail You” and how he is thinking about McCarthy’s moral failures and using McCarthy in his classes.

Quote of the Week

South African novelist Nadine Gordimer was born on November 20, 1923. This statement defined for me the difference between formal, positional power and moral authority:

“There is no moral authority like that of sacrifice.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I’ve started a new feature at my Bob on Books Facebook page, a weekly “reel”, Bob on Poetry. This past week, I recited William Butler Yeats “The Second Coming.” The poem seems quite prescient for our current day. You may listen here and read the text of the poem here. By the way, if you haven’t discovered it, Poetry Foundation is a wonderful online poetry resource.

I’ve been reading Adam Higgenbotham’s Challenger and came today to the part where Challenger blows up. It was hard to relive that day and the images from 1986. I kept hoping that, this time, the story would be different. What was more sobering was to imagine the engineers who argued vigorously against the launch only to be overridden by senior executives, watching the launch.

It was fun to receive the mail Tuesday and Wednesday. Between those two days, nine books arrived, kind of like Christmas coming early. Among them was Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, Hanif Abdurraqib’s latest, and a graphic biography of the life of Jakob Hutter, an early Anabaptist.

Next Week’s Reviews

Here’s what I expect to be reviewing next week:

Challenger, Adam Higgenbotham

The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion

The Integration Journey: A Student’s Guide to Faith, Culture, and Psychology, by William B. Whitney and Carissa Dwiwardani

Remarriage in Early Christianity, A. Andrew Das

Well, that’s The Weekly Wrap for November 17-23, 2024!

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