Just learned this book with a quirky title is free today on Kindle. It chronicles a Christian-Atheist dialogue that is substantive and real-to-life. Brought to you by my friends at InterVarsity Press.
InterVarsity Press
Books Out, Books In
So we really are trying to clear out some books. Sold a box load at our local bookstore last weekend. Gave away another box load this weekend at a grad student retreat. So what is awaiting me when I get home? You guessed it–two box loads of books from my good friends at InterVarsity Press! Right back where I started.
Here are 10 that caught my attention:
1. Troubled Minds: Mental Illness and the Church’s Mission by Amy Simpson. I have several friends dealing with loved ones facing mental illness.
2. On a related theme is Restoring the Shattered Self: A Christian Counselor’s Guide to Complex Trauma by Heather Davediuk Gingrich. Once again, because I know people who have survived such traumas and carry the wounds of these.
3. The next two address our digital world. The first is Ministry in the Digital Age, by David T Bourgeois. The cover mentions that we are in a “post-website” world. Sigh!
4. The second is a bit more profound. Shaping a Digital World by Derek C Schuurman focuses on how the big narrative of creation, fall, and redemption might shape our use and development of digital technologies.
5. The next book moves from shaping the digital world to shaping our brains. The God-Shaped Brain by Timothy R Jennings, M.D. explores how our beliefs about God change our brains. I have some neuroscience friends who might find that intriguing!
6. While we are on the shaping theme, my good friend Robbie F Castleman has recently published a new book: Story Shaped Worship. What she explores is how the narrative of scripture shaped a pattern of worship for Israel and the early church and what it means to have our worship today shaped by this timeless story.
7. The Global Diffusion of Evangelicalism: The Age of Billy Graham and John Stott by Brian Stanley is the latest volume in IVP’s History of Evangelicalism series. Every one of these has been outstanding and I look forward to this installment centered around two of my heroes.
8. This one should be a great resource for our Dead Theologians group: Reading the Christian Spiritual Classics by Jamin Goggin and Kyle Strobel.
9. The new atheists love to fix on the idea of holy war in the Old Testament as an argument for rejecting God. Holy War in the Bible, a collection of articles edited by Heath A Thomas, Jeremy Evans, and Paul Copan (who wrote Is God a Moral Monster–here is my review) promises to be an excellent resource in responding to this argument.
10. Bonhoeffer, Christ, and Culture is another collection of articles edited by Keith L Johnson and Timothy Larsen. Bonhoeffer’s life and work has captured much attention of late.
I haven’t read any of these yet and probably won’t get to all of them. Local friends, let me know if there is something you are interested in. But I’m sure, Lord willing, that you will see some of these reviewed down the road.
OK, now for some shut-eye!
Reading Choices
Now that I’ve posted a number of reviews, you may be wondering about my reading choices. I suspect that like most of you, the books I read are shaped by a mix of deliberate choices and impulse. Let me share with you as best as I can figure out why I choose the books I do.
1. I work in a collegiate ministry working with graduate students and faculty. Most of the people I work with are probably far brighter than I. My role is to help them with connecting faith and their chosen discipline with its questions and challenges. For this, I read books to feed my soul, to go deeper in my own theological grasp of the faith, and also to understand their world. Most of the people I work with know a great deal about a little. I read to know a little about a great deal–not so that I can impress any of them in a conversation about their work, but simply to know something about what they are doing. So I will range widely reading about science, technology, law, the humanities and social sciences. Right now, I’m looking for some good recommendations on neuroscience.
2. I work for an organization that has a publishing house, InterVarsity Press, that sends me most of its publication at greatly reduced prices that are considered business expense. That is a nice employee benefit, and so I feel obliged to read a number of their books, which are quite useful in advancing my first aim. Many are quite well written but I won’t give a glowing review just because our organization published the book. If I have problems with the ideas or the writing, I will say so. They haven’t fired me yet!
3. Some college history professors nurtured my love for history. I read history because I believe life is understood backward. The present only makes sense in light of the past. I think that’s true personally and I also think that it is true with the wider human story. I tend to enjoy U.S. and European history but also seek to read the histories of other cultures in the world, past and present.
4. Related to history, I enjoy biographies. I have always been intrigued with the practice of leadership and love to read of those who have led well, and sometimes badly. Favorite figures of mine are Churchill, Lincoln, any of the founders of our country (I even read a biography of Aaron Burr a while back!).
5. I read all sorts of fiction. I have this crazy thing for 19th century British authors–Dickens, Disraeli, Trollope, Collins, Hardy among them. I read contemporary authors–Ann Patchett was a recent discovery. I enjoy a good mystery novel and was saddened by the recent demise of Elizabeth Peters, who wrote the delightful Amelia Peabody stories. And after many year of reading more “realistic” books, I’ve dipped my toe more into science fiction of late, reading some Orson Scott Card, Philip K Dick, and Stanislaw Lem. Fiction captures the imagination for me and is an intriguing way to explore alternate perspectives and realities.
6. It is a summer ritual every year to read a baseball book. I’ve always loved the game of baseball, whether playing it as a kid, watching a sandlot game, or spending a summer evening watching our minor league Columbus Clippers. This year I read Summer of ’49 by David Halberstam.
7. A small category that cross the line between fiction and non-fiction would be books on “place”. Wallace Stegner, Wendell Berry, John Steinbeck, and other authors appeal to me as writers on place. I believe who we are is in part shaped by where we are.
8. Finally, sometimes I read “assigned” books. These could be for book groups I’m in or for conferences or task forces. Great by Choice was one of those books. I’m currently reading John Henry Newman’s The Idea of a University for our Dead Theologians Society reading group. I’m also reading a manuscript of a forthcoming book to provide an anonymous review–that is a new experience–and while I can’t comment of the book, I might comment on the process some time. That’s what I’ll be reading this weekend!
What are your book interests? And what will you be reading this weekend?
“So Where Do You Get All These Books?”
That’s a question my friends ask when they visit our home–and perhaps they are trying to tell us something. Truth is, we probably have enough books around the house to take care of our reading needs for the rest of our life! I found some comfort from Winston Churchill, who said something to the effect of “don’t feel bad about the books on your shelves you haven’t read, just fondle them!” Part of what he meant was that it doesn’t hurt to just page through some of our unread books to be familiar with what is in them–you never know when that might become relevant.
A major source of the books around our home is InterVarsity Press. I work as a staff director with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, their parent organization and so I am the recipient of some complimentary books and other highly discounted new releases. InterVarsity Press publishes books that relate closely to our work in the university world, addressing issues of the day and matters of spiritual formation from a thoughtful and biblical perspective. You will see reviews of a number of their books because, professionally they relate closely to my work in collegiate ministry, and personally, I’ve appreciated the thoughtful writing and the willingness to tackle hard issues. That doesn’t mean that all my reviews will be glowing, however!
Another source of books around our home are the numerous used book stores around Columbus. Of these, Half Price Books has probably made the most significant contribution. They have five locations around our city (and we’ve visited them all!) preferring the Carriage Place and Lane Avenue locations. I love to explore the $2 section, where there is lots of trash, but often a few “treasures”. Another store we periodically frequent is The Village Bookshop in northwest Columbus. Located in an old church building, they have childrens books, lots of used and remaindered books and an old book room upstairs (be sure you go upstairs). A new find for us is Acorn Bookshop in Grandview Heights, just west of Ohio State. The proprietors love talking with customers about books and I suspect a few more items from their store will eventually find their way to our home!
Some of the other miscellaneous sources of books over the years are our local Friends of the Library book sales–dangerous because you can acquire so much so cheaply, booktables at conferences–I have a “buy only one book” rule these days, and the used bookshops in other cities. I’ve enjoyed some great ones in or near State Street in Madison, a now closed store off the beaten path between Ashland and Wooster, and a now closed store in my home town of Youngstown known as Twice-Loved Books.
Since my son gave me a Kindle a couple years back, I now get more of my books as e-books. There are a number available for free and many titles are periodically discounted to under $3. I’ve found the Englewood Review of Books one good source for information about thoughtful Christian works available at good discounts. Amazon is also my “go to” place (other than my local library) when there is a book I need for something I’m working on.
In a future post, I will talk about my increasing need to purge my shelves and how I’m thinking about that as I grow older. For now, I’d love to hear from others about their favorite sources of books, and also their ideas of “downsizing” their collections.