Musings

The Weekly Wrap: November 16-22

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The Weekly Wrap November 16-22

Bookstore Serendipity

“Serendipity” was one of Merriam-Webster’s “Word of the Day” offerings. They defined it as “luck in finding valuable or pleasant things unlooked for.” And that is why I love going to bookstores, or any book sale–even a box at a garage sale!

I asked this on my Facebook page this week: “When you visit a physical bookstore do you tend to be looking for particular books or do you prefer the “surprise me” approach?” From this poll, it appears I’m not alone. One person wrote, “it is very simple, I don’t find books, they find me.”

However, there were a number of “boths.” I’m also like that when I go to Barnes & Noble. I often have a book or two I’m looking for. But what I walk out with doesn’t always reflect that. For example, on my most recent trip, I had a book I was looking for, couldn’t find it but spotted two others that I bought. One was by a favorite author. The other was non-fiction that caught my fancy. I feel like those books found me!

But at a used bookstore or any other book sale, serendipity reigns supreme. I never know what I’m going to find. Here are examples of three of my favorite finds. First was Kenneth Latourette’s history of Christianity in one volume at an out of the way bookstore run by a former college professor. The second was Paige Smith’s two-volume biography of John Adams in a slip case. I honestly can’t remember where I found it. Finally, I found a like-new two volume set of Raymond Brown’s Death of the Messiah at our local Half Price when they used to have 50 percent off sales. Half price of half price–I think I saved $60!

But saving money is only part of it. Often, it is spotting one of those “I’ve always wanted to read that” books. And sometimes, it is just picking up something you’ve never heard of before. But it looks so intriguing. Valuable or pleasant things unlooked for–that’s one of the joys of bookstores!

Five Articles Worth Reading

Ever wonder what it was like to be the daughter of On the Road author Jack Kerouac? Jan Kerouac’s novel Baby Driver conveys much of that. It turns out he wasn’t much of a father. He didn’t even recognize her as his daughter until a paternity test made that unavoidable. This year NYRB Classics has reissued the book. “Father, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?” is Shane Devine’s review for the Hedgehog Review.

A trend in contemporary literature is the plotless novel. That is, it explores the inner life of its protagonist. If you are interested in character development but want a plot, M.L. Rio recommends “Eight Plot-Heavy Books That Will Keep You Turning Pages.”

Were you one of those like me who learned how to type at an actual typewriter? Some authors still swear by them. Somewhere we still have my wife’s college typewriter, the one on which she typed all my seminary papers, working from my hand-written text! She got a dinner out for every paper. If we were ever to break it out, I suspect it would need service. I came across this fascinating photo essay about one of the surviving repair shops that I thought you’d like: “How to Fix a Typewriter and Your Life.”

Remember the great foodies of the past? For example, Julia Child or Anthony Bourdain? “Who Was the Foodie?” explores what it means to be a food influencer in a social media age. And one of the interesting ideas is that good food is about more than preparation and taste. Rather it is about the source of that food.

Speaking of food, next Thursday is the celebration of Thanksgiving in the United States. JSTOR has put together a potpourri of “Thanksgiving Stories” with all the fixings. A veritable feast!

Quote of the Week

Feminist novelist (The Women’s Room) Nancy French was born November 21, 1929. Here’s something she said that offers much to ponder:

“Fear is a question. What are you afraid of and why? Our fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if we explore them.“

Miscellaneous Musings

Titles are meant to grab attention as well as give a hint of what a book is about. How the Rhino Lost His Horn by Jack Rathmell caught mine. It’s a narrative of the author’s travels from Appalachia to Africa. It was one of those rare books I accept for review because the author pitched the book personally. That’s always an adventure in itself!

I received another book recently titled In Guns We Trust. It is subtitled “The Unholy Trinity of White Evangelicals, Politics, and Firearms.” The cover also shows an image of Jesus holding an assault style rifle. The book compares its work to that of Tim Alberta in The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory as an effort to understand pro-firearm evangelicals from the inside. I hope it is an honest effort to understand, but the cover came across as polemical to me. But authors don’t always have a lot of control over these things. I don’t think polemics will get us to constructive measures to address the pervasiveness of guns and gun violence in American culture.

Next week I’ll be reviewing Paul Kingsnorth’s Against the Machine, a trenchant critique of techno-capitalism. One thing that struck me is how much he mentions Jacques Ellul and Lewis Mumford, who foresaw these things more than a half-century ago. And what arrived today? Questioning Technology with Jacques Ellul. It is a collection of essays co-edited by a good friend and Ellul scholar, David W. Gill. What a treat!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Catherine McNeil and Jason Hague, Mid-Faith Crisis.

Tuesday: Leyla K King, Daughters of Palestine.

Wednesday: Paul Kingsnorth, Against the Machine.

Thursday: Charlie Mackesy, Always Remember: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse and the Storm.

Friday: Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms.

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for November 16-22.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends in the United States!

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The Weekly Wrap: November 9-15

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The Weekly Wrap: November 9-15

Reading and the Senses

Yesterday I saw an ear, nose, and throat doctor. Since the summer, I’ve had a feeling of my left ear being blocked and noticed changes in my hearing. The visit included a hearing test, which confirmed that my hearing in the left ear is diminished, especially in the low ranges. That explains things sounding “tinny” in that ear. It’s caused by fluid collected in the inner ear, a condition called cochlear hydrops. My doctor has prescribed treatment. Thankfully, both ear drums are healthy.

I also learned that my hearing ability in the upper ranges is diminished, almost universal in older adults. I suspected that. When I Iisten to music, as I am while writing this, it sounds more warm than bright. All this brings up one of my fears as one who loves to read and listen to music. What happens should the senses on which visual reading or listening fail?

I watched my mom struggle with this. I probably got my love of reading from her. In her seventies, she experienced the onset of macular degeneration in both eyes. I see an eye doc regularly, try to live healthy, and watch for any signs of vision changes. Until recently, however, I hadn’t thought of hearing problems. I kind of figured that if the eyes went, there were still audiobooks.

I’m aware that there are both treatments and assistive technologies to address these losses. For now, I’m grateful that apart from reading glasses, I don’t require them. But my most recent doctor visit reminds me that I do well to prepare for changes.

Meanwhile, I’m grateful for gifts of sight and hearing that permit me to savor the Hadyn string quartets I’m listening to and a Terry Pratchett novel. After yesterday, even more grateful than ever.

Five Articles Worth Reading

The recent passing of James Watson reminds us of the extraordinary scientific breakthrough of their discovery of DNA and the double helix. Janice P. Nimura reviews a new biography of his partner, Francis Crick, in “The Building Blocks of Life Were Just the Beginning.”

This week, Meta offered me instant AI translations of the “reels” of my Bob on Poetry series. Ross Benjamin confirms my suspicions of the problems with this offer in “The Costs of Instant Translation.”

One of my “go to” online sources is The Paris Review. Poetry, book excerpts, and great author interviews, it’s all there. Peter Matthiessen was one of its founders. More recently, it has come out that the magazine made a great “cover” for his work with the CIA. Fittingly, The Paris Review has just offered an account of their founder in “What Really Happened with the CIA and The Paris Review?: A Conversation with Lance Richardson.”

We always try to make sense of the senseless tragedy of suicide. Nowhere is this more true than in the suicide death of Sylvia Plath. At the time of her death, she was at the peak of her writing powers and a mother to two children. In “Making Sense of Sylvia Plath’s Final Act,” Carl Rollyson offers his own researched account of what might have been in Plath’s mind as she ended her life.

Finally, it seems no one found more ways to kill of his characters than William Shakespeare. “74 Ways Characters Die in Shakespeare’s Plays Shown in a Handy Infographic: From Snakebites to Lack of Sleep” shows all the ways Shakespeare found for his characters “not to be.”

Quote of the Week

And while we are on the topic, here was the take of Astrid Lindgren, author of the Pippi Longstocking stories. She was born November 14, 1907.

“I don’t mind dying, I’ll gladly do that, but not right now, I need to clean the house first.”

Miscellaneous Musings

Everyone seems to be racing to get their best book awards out. I guess it doesn’t pay to publish in November or December. I suspect it all anticipates the holiday buying season.

I’ve been reading Rick Atkinson’s great series on Revolutionary War history. Fate of the Day underscores the British folly in persisting in the war, which succeeded in turning it into a global war for them. So, I wonder if Ken Burns will reach a similar conclusion in his new PBS series that starts Sunday evening.

Finally, I like to find Indie authors I can support. I can’t do it for everyone but those from Ohio have a leg up for me, A while back Michael S. Moore, from the Columbus area, reached out to me about his first book, Crumpled Paper. I gave it a chance and loved it. He just sent me his newest, Jazz Trash. If you always wanted to play in a band but didn’t play guitar, how would you respond to an ad that said “Wanted. Guitarist who does not play guitar”? It’s got me curious!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Liam de los Reyes, The Earth is the Lord’s

Tuesday: Wendell Berry, Marce Catlett

Wednesday: Sy Garte, Beyond Evolution

Thursday: Michael A. Evans, David L. McFadden, and Michael O, Emerson, Kingdom Racial Change

Friday: Harry S. Stout, The Divine Dramatist

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for November 9-15.

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The Weekly Wrap: October 26-November 1

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The Weekly Wrap: October 26-November 1

Why I’m Not a Horror Fan

I’ve made through the month of Spooktober! No twelve foot skeletons have snatched me up. Nor have I been bitten by any giant spiders. I’ve not been spirited away by any goblins hanging on trees. And I’ve not read any of the horror novels that were the subject of so many newsletter articles this month.

I’m just not into horror. That’s not a judgement on anyone else’s literary tastes. One could argue that horror makes a great escape from the scary realities of modern life. But not for me. I find that what I need is either perspective that helps me face these things or books of consolation for the precious things we are losing that I have little hope of changing.

One of the phrases that occurs over and over in my Bible is “be not afraid.” Horror functions by saying “be afraid; be very afraid.” So do conspiracy books. Every imaginary fear functions by making us believe something could be so. I’ve simply made a personal decision that I will not live by fear. That doesn’t mean I won’t reckon with danger.

Ultimately what is feared in horror is death–often in a grisly manner. I wonder whether it is good to fascinate oneself with macabre forms of death. And the beings that inhabit the beyond are usually not Caspar the Friendly Ghost. C.S. Lewis offers good guidance that we neither disbelieve in devils nor excessively focus on them. I try to follow that.

Finally, there are just so many other books I am interested in reading that what life I have left is too short a time. And in the Eternity that follows, horrors real and imagined will come to an end. Somehow, horror just doesn’t fit, for me.

Five Articles Worth Reading

But if I were to take a dip into horror, I would probably start with Stephen King. The only one of his books I have read is 11/22/63. Gilbert Cruz has written “The Essential Stephen King,” a guide to his work beginning with your interests

One of the first American masters of horror was Edgar Allen Poe. As it turns out, the most enigmatic mystery has to do with the cause of Poe’s own death. In “The Mystery of Edgar Allan Poe’s Death: 19 Theories on What Caused the Poet’s Demise,” Open Culture explores the different explanations and the evidence.

In addition to his poetry, T. S. Eliot wrote a lot of prose. Essays, printed lectures, and book reviews (lots of them). People wondered whether he really read all the books he seemed acquainted with. At very least, the reviewer of his Collected Prose, Vols. 1-4, insists that the quality of analysis confirms that he read carefully what he reviewed. “What We Can Do Is to Use Our Minds: T. S. Eliot, Collected Prose” is a fascinating glimpse into the mind of T.S. Eliot and what he gained from all that writing.

I’ve seen several reviews of Paul Kingsnorth’s Against The Machine, which contends that our modern techno-capitalism is undermining the foundations of our civilization and destroying the earth. I have the book and will be reviewing it soon. “Let ‘The West’ Die” is adapted from his book and will give you the gist of his thought.

In my early adult years, it was not uncommon to get some friends together, put on some music (usually on vinyl),” crank it up and either dance to it, or just take it in. Recently, my son brought back a vintage Tony Bennett album. Perhaps the greater gift was savoring it together. Jonathan Garrett, in “How to Make Music Popular Again,” considers what we’ve lost as music listening has become a private experience on headphones.

Quote of the Week

Novelist Evelyn Waugh was born October 28, 1903. He made this fascinating observation:

“When we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them.”

Have any limitations you want to keep?

Miscellaneous Musings

I lost a day to sickness on Wednesday. It was kind of weird–just profound tiredness accompanied by unsteadiness on my feet and a fever. I nearly fell asleep in my soup during lunch! Slept all afternoon into the evening, took some acetaminophen and started feeling better, and by Thursday, felt better other than feeling somewhat drained. When I was awake, I couldn’t read–nothing registered. I could handle an episode of The Chosen, a video series. That was all. It meant delaying my reviews by a day. I was in no state to write one on Wednesday for a Thursday posting. It reminded me of what a gift health is, and the amazing, even at 71, recuperative powers of our bodies.

Ironically, on the day when I missed my regular posting time, I had one of the best days of the year with traffic on the blog. Louise Penny’s and Charlie Mackesy’s new books had just dropped and it looked like people were looking up my reviews of their previous books. There’s a lesson for me here. By the way, I have both of the new books and hope to review them in November.

I wonder if there is a silver lining to cuts to the humanities and the arts, and to libraries and public media. If they can replace lost revenue with private support without becoming “beholden” to a particular interest, it seems that they would gain a new degree of freedom in our highly politicized atmosphere. We all can make a difference in our buying decisions and charitable contributions to help make that possible.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: The Month in Reviews: October 2025

Tuesday: Ian Mc Ewan, What We Can Know

Wednesday: Georges Simenon, Pietr the Latvian

Thursday: Crystal L. Downing, The Wages of Cinema

Friday: Jonathan Marks, Let’s Be Reasonable: A Conservative Case For Liberal Education

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for October 26-November 1.

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The Weekly Wrap: October 19-25

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The Weekly Wrap: October 19-25

Book Affordability

BookRiot ran a story this week arguing “We’re in a Book Affordability Crisis.” One of the key pieces in this affordability crisis is the phasing out of mass market paperbacks, hitting the romance segment of the market most heavily (although many mysteries, thrillers, and science fiction/fantasy have been published in this format as well). Remember when you could buy one of these for $.50 to $.95? Even in recent years, prices were under $10, many even under $7.

The next step up is the trade paperback with price points in the $16-20 range. That represents a doubling in cost. Of course, hardbacks are just out of reach for many. So what do people do? Some dedicated readers just cut back in other areas as they can. But the book trade cannot depend on that. Retail sellers will probably lean into loyalty programs and periodic sales, and pre-release discounts.

But many dedicated readers will probably move away from retail purchasing. Second hand sales, ranging from online sellers like Thriftbooks to physical stores and library sales may benefit. But their prices are rising as well, and eventually, their supply of mass market books will decrease. Others will just hit the library, which means longer waitlists. And libraries will feel the pinch of higher acquisition costs in all formats.

And like the folks at BookRiot, I don’t see more e-book buying. Digital Rights Management limits re-selling options for books you only license, not own. And often, the cost is not that different from physical books, unless you spot a discount.

Dedicated readers are resourceful, and most already have an ample stock laid up so that they can “shop their shelves.” One way or another, they will find a way to feed their habit. I’m less sure about “budding readers.” But this also poses challenges for retail sellers, especially indie booksellers, whose ability to buy at discount are less. I wonder, as does BookRiot, whether, in the end, publishers will come up with some kind of under $10 option. Maybe they will realize that the mass market is a market.

Five Articles Worth Reading

But is all this a sign we are entering a post-literate society? I first read many classics — Dietrich Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis, Dickens, and Dostoevsky — in mass market paperbacks (and still have some of them!). James Marriott believes we are on the other side of a three century reading revolution and are witnessing “The dawn of the post-literate society.” I wonder if we serious readers are becoming dinosaurs. At least I will keep doing my part to “light a candle rather than curse the darkness.”

Nevertheless, Thomas Pynchon keeps writing. Gus Mitchell reviews The Shadow Ticket in “The American Dream-Master.” The novel explores fascism in 1930’s America. Hmm.

She’s written “about animals, about orchids, about a female bullfighter in Spain, about the Los Angeles Central Library, about the life and death of a 346-year-old tree, about subjects you didn’t think you cared about but actually do.” “She” is Susan Orlean and her new memoir’s title Joyride gives us a glimpse of what it has been like. So Sarah Lyell sat down with her to talk about that life and the new book and discovered “How Writing Helped Susan Orlean Find a ‘Bigger Place in the World’“

Then another reason for not giving up on the possibility of a return to literacy is that great books continue to be written. This week, Publisher’s Weekly released its “Best books of 2025.” The list covers 150 fiction, non-fiction, teen, and youth books. But it does seem a tad early for “best book” lists. Isn’t there anything good coming out in the next two months?

As I write, baseball’s World Series is underway. College and pro football and soccer are in full swing. The hockey season just began and basketball is not far off. All that is to make the point that literacy need not preclude reading books about sports. There has been and is some great sports writing. David Halberstam, Roger Angell and George Will all wrote great baseball books. Will Leitch introduces us to some great books in “Seven Books That Will Change How You Watch Sports.”

Quote of the Week

Novelist Michael Crichton was born October 23, 1942. He made this pithy observation:

“I am certain there is too much certainty in the world.”

Nowhere does this seem more true than on social media where it seems we need a daily dose of epistemic humility!

Miscellaneous Musings

I’m reading What We Can Know by Ian McEwan. The story revolves around the quest for a lost poem in a post-apocalyptic world, a century from now. Many coastal cities have been inundated. Regional wars, some using “limited” nuclear options, paradoxically have helped cool the climate. But the title reflects the effort to reconstruct a dinner party from 2014 and a poem read in honor of the poet’s wife’s birthday. The poet was famous in his time, the poem thought to be a masterwork. However, in his scenario, the period beginning in 2030 is called “The Derangement.’ That seems plausible.

I was gratified to write the publicist at a small publisher for a review copy of a new book. She remembered my reviews of a couple of their books from several years back and was glad to send the book. That personal touch is increasingly rare. More often, you just submit a form. Who knows, maybe there is an AI bot in the future, who may seem personal. But the human connection is one of the things about reviewing that I’ve most valued.

I really need to do something for our mail carrier this Christmas. The daily USPS Informed Delivery email from the post office revealed I had four books coming from different publishers. I knew those wouldn’t fit in our mailbox so I raced to meet her when I heard the truck. But she was already on my doorstep, scanning the packages when I got there. She’s really terrific. Any ideas of a good and appropriate gift?

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Andre Trocme’, The Memoirs of Andre Trocme’

Tuesday: Agatha Christie, The Idol House of Astarte

Wednesday: Norah Whipple Caudill, Old Testament Wisdom & Poetry

Thursday: John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

Friday, Ian Mc Ewan, What We Can Know

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

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The Weekly Wrap: October 12-18

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The Weekly Wrap: October 12-18

The First Amendment and Readers

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

One of the most chilling conversations I had about twenty years ago was with a progressive law student who argued for the repeal of the First Amendment. More recently, the arguments have come from conservative voices. Just as chilling.

The First Amendment, I would argue, is one of the most extraordinary statements in the history of government, perhaps alongside and a direct descendent of the Magna Carta. It sets forth a seamless garment of freedom consisting of five strands: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom to petition the government.

Those living in the United States may believe, say, and publish what they choose with a few exceptions, gather with like-minded people, and individually and collectively appeal to the government to make right a grievance. It doesn’t mean we are free to defame another, incite to imminent lawless action, threaten violence, engage in obscenity, or commit fraud. And it doesn’t permit civil disobedience, the breaking of a law in making a protest. Those who commit civil disobedience need to understand that they may be charged and punished for their act.

Today is the day of “No Kings” demonstrations throughout the United States. Whatever you think of these gatherings, I hope we can affirm the First Amendment Rights of those who protest, so long as their words and actions do not exceed First Amendment protections. But it means living with speech we may not like, even speech to which we may take offense. That’s why the law students I was speaking with twenty years ago wanted to do away with the First Amendment. They believed in a mythical freedom to not be offended or disagreed with. And I think it is the same thing that may animate calls to repeal the First Amendment today.

Every reader, no matter your politics, should oppose any such effort. To restrict what we may say, believe, and publish is to restrict what we may read and think. But this means seeing books we disagree with. In addition, it means defending the right to publish and seek an audience for such books. However, it also means the freedom to make good arguments about what is wrong with those books. For example, it protects the freedom of book critics to “pan” a book. The remedy for free speech we don’t like or disagree with is dissenting free speech. In essence, that means not less speech but more.

Therefore, as readers, let’s keep the First Amendment first!

Five Articles Worth Reading

But can we use speech to build bridges rather than walls? “The Connector” profiles former atheist turned Catholic Leah Libresco Sargeant. She promotes discourse across divides. Likewise, her own ideas fail to fit neatly into our political boxes.

One of my favorite U2 songs is “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” “A Warning for the Modern Striver” review a biography of Peter Matthiessen, portraying his life as a relentless search for “True Nature.”

Have you ever walked into a bookstore, glimpsed the new releases and wondered what is worth perusing and perhaps buying. The Millions’ “Great Fall 2025 Book Preview” came out this week with around one hundred titles they considered worth reading. They offer brief summaries of each book.

But where do you go to buy such books? One place might be Recluse Books if you are anywhere near Fort Worth, Texas. “Recluse books” interviews one of the store owners who made this comment on the name of the store: “There’s so much focus on the reclusive writer, but reading is also a reclusive, solitary activity. It requires you to focus on something and be alone with the words if you’re really going to do it well.” Sounds like my kind of place!

Finally, developing a kinder, gentler culture begins with each of us. One thing it means is building real friendships rather than just having online “friends” and “followers.” And for parents, it means helping our children build good friendships, as well. “3 Picture Books That Capture the Essence of Friendship” might be a place to begin.

Quote of the Week

Playwright Eugene O’Neill was born October 16, 1888. He made this thought-provoking observation:

“Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I was captivated by Charlie Mackesy’s The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. So I was delighted to receive Always Remember, his new book, featuring the same characters, drawn in the same way.

Although I no longer write about Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown, I still love books with a Youngstown connection. Runs in the Family is the story of Deland McCullough, a former NFL running back and coach who grew up on Youngstown’s East side. He was adopted, and only in his forties did he learn who his parents were, giving him the surprise of his life.

I review a lot of Christian literature. So, I found myself resonating with Matthew James Smith’s article “I Don’t Like Christian Literature.” Paradoxically, he argues that the books he has liked are the ones that don’t make him feel good. I agree. Thus, I try to find those books to review (though not always succeeding).

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Mitchell Chase, Walking the Way of the Wise

Tuesday: Ethan Tapper, How to Love a Forest

Wednesday: Stephen J. Chester, Paul Through the Eyes of the Reformers

Thursday: Sarah Spain and Deland McCullough, Runs in the Family

Friday: Erin F. Moniz, Knowing and Being Known

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

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The Weekly Wrap: September 28-October 4

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The Weekly Wrap: September 28-October 4

Series Love

Thursday dashed my hopes for my beloved Cleveland Guardians making it to the World Series. But the World Championship of baseball isn’t my only series love. I am a book series lover. Why? It’s simple, when you find an author whose writing and ensemble of characters and plots you like, it is a bonus, when there are twenty or more books beside the one you are reading. It makes the choice of what to read next easier.

I’m fond of saying that Louise Penny got me through the pandemic. And her latest hits the stores soon! I want to be Gamache when I grow up. I dream of visiting Myrna Landers bookstore. I’d like to order a sampler of all the good dishes the Bistro serves. And what can I say about Ruth Zardo…

Thanks to a friend’s recommendation, I’ve been reading William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Connor stories. I just finished number fourteen. But I won’t buy the new one, Apostles Cove, and read out of order. It will likely have spoilers for books I haven’t read yet.

Some series, like this are best read in order, But others can be picked up just about anywhere. I’ve found that true of Agatha Christies Poirots. Although they are numbered, I just read them as I find them. Likewise for the Lord Peter Wimsey books, although the development of his relationship with Harriet Vane occurs over several books.

Alas, there are also the series I haven’t finished. Some, like the Patrick O’Brien Aubrey-Maturin series I can’t really say why. I even have all the books. In the case of another series, I am a couple short, but I just felt the writer was losing her touch and they weren’t as good.

My latest series project, at the behest of my son, is Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series which runs to 41 books. Not sure whether I’ll finish that one (or live long enough to do so!) but I finished #1 and will go on to #2. At least I don’t have to wonder what I read next. Thanks to my son, all 41 are loaded on my Kindle.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Since college, I’ve been hearing about Thomas Pynchon. He’s one I’ve never gotten around to reading. After a hiatus, Pynchon has a new novel out, Shadow Ticket. If you are thinking of taking him up, A.O. Scott offers a reading guide in “The Essential Thomas Pynchon.”

My mom was a Leon Uris fan. And so, I read some of his books that she had laying around the house. And if you are of my generation, you can’t forget the music theme, and perhaps the film version of Exodus. Alexander Nazaryan remembers his novels about Israel in “An Exodus from History.”

One of the more popular prints I’ve seen adorning many walls is The Great Wave off Kanagawa. If Japanese wave and ripple patterns fascinate you, Public Domain has posted three volumes of these from a 1903 work by artist Mori Yūzan. The article is: “Hamonshu: A Japanese Book of Wave and Ripple Designs (1903).”

Although my Guardians season is over my love for baseball is not. But a new development, allowing appeals to “robotic umpires” might take some of the magic away. Each umpire has his or her own strike zone. Managers, batters, and pitchers all make it their business to know and part of ‘inside baseball” are all the adjustments. Take that away for an “objective” strike zone and I think the game will lose something. So does Nick Burns, who writes about “The Disenchantment of Baseball.”

Many of us who were around in 1972 were captivated by Cat Stevens’ rendering of an old Christian hymn “Morning Has Broken.” It was number one in the US that year. Over the years, from rough beginnings, he has explored a number of faiths before landing in Islam and taking the name Yusuf Islam. Now, he has published an autobiography. The Guardian ran a review this week: “Cat on the Road to Findout by Yusuf/Cat Stevens review – fame, faith and charity.”

Quote of the Week

Miguel Cervantes was born on September 29, 1547. He wrote:

“In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.“

I wondered if this was the inspiration of the song “The Impossible Dream” from Man of La Mancha. It captured the imagination of so many of us in the 1960’s, when many of us dared dream the impossible.

Miscellaneous Musings

Amidst our immigration debates, I’ve wondered why people would leave home, family, community, take perilous journeys, and seek refuge in a country not particularly eager to have them. In The Asylum Seekers, which I’m reading at present, that question is answered. It usually amounts to a life threatened or a family member murdered. It strikes me that the qualities of character such people exhibit suggest the kind of people we’d want to welcome.

I’ve been hearing a lot about Paul Kingsnorth’s Against the Machine. He wrestles with the wave of technology overwhelming us (did any of us ask for all this AI?). He’s concerned that this threatens something essential to our humanity. Despite the flood of money flowing into this tech boom, it seems to me essential to ask these questions.

The backdrop of William Kent Krueger’s Windigo Island is the trafficking of young girls to satisfy the sexual appetites of men on lake freighters and in oil boom towns. The book underscored the moral unacceptability of this practice, even among billionaire playboys. Whatever comes of the Epstein fiasco, I hope we will determine to be a society with zero tolerance for such crime, which is what it is, and no leniency for traffickers, procurers, and perpetrators.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Kristin M. Colberg and Jos Moons, SJ, The Future of Synodality

Tuesday: Ross Douthat, Believe

Wednesday: David McCullough, History Matters

Thursday: Randy S. Woodley, Shalom and the Community of Creation

Friday: Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for September 28-October 4.

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The Weekly Wrap: September 21-27

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The Weekly Wrap: September 21-27

Pagination

A pet peeve. I recently read a book where I had to read fifty pages before getting to page 1. There was a foreword, preface, and then a biographical sketch of the author and introduction to his work. Following convention, the pages were numbered in lower case Roman numerals. I usually don’t mind these when they are just a few pages. In this case, all this front matter occupied a quarter of the book.

I do like to read this material. It helps me better understand the author and what they intended to accomplish. Yet as a reviewer, I have page goals for each book based on the numbered page count. So, it can be a dilemma. Do I skip the front matter, which I don’t tend to comment on in reviews? Do I take an extra day to read this? Or do I go extra long and read both this and up to my page goal? As I read this, I realize it may sound OCD. But I really get into what the author has written, don’t you?

On the other hand, I’ve come across other books where the first page of text might be numbered page 11. In this case, blurbs, cataloging info, title pages, and contents were counted as pages. It’s nice to be ten pages into a book before I’ve read anything. The one thing all these books have in common is that their page counts represents the Arabic numeral pages, significant when a 200 page book really has 250 pages of text.

My solution? I’d start the front matter with page 1, and eliminate the Roman numerals. Usually title pages, copyright and cataloguing info and contents pages are not numbered. This makes it easier for the reader to know what the length of the book is, and is probably easier for footnoting purposes. And if the front matter is lengthy, it gives the reader a heads up when they learn chapter 1 begins on page 53. Too many times, I’ve wondered, “when is this going to end?”

In the grand scheme of things, this is minor–even picky. But if I were to organize the world…

Five Articles Worth Reading

One of the big novels of the fall is Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know. It is a fictional lookback at our time from a Great Britain of 2119. One preview is that those from the future call our time “The Derangement.” The book is sitting on my TBR. “Ian McEwan Knows History Is an Imperfect Judge” is Sarah Lyall’s review for The New York Times.

I posted a “By the Book” interview with Patricia Lockwood last week. “Patricia Lockwood’s Mind-Opening Experience of Long COVID” is a review of her new novel, Will There Ever Be Another You. Perhaps you are like me and know more people suffering from long COVID than people who died of it. Maybe this will help us be more sympathetic.

I reviewed a book from 1954 the other day. It won a book award. But it, like many other books and other works from the mid-twentieth-century, is fading into oblivion. Or so contends Ted Gioia in “Is Mid-20th Century American Culture Getting Erased?” He asks if any of these great authors, composers, and works exist for Americans under forty.

Children of the Book by Ilana Kurshan is a memoir of the books read together in a Jewish family and how Torah was woven into those readings. In “Between the Covers” Mark Oppenheimer hosts a discussion of the book with Molly Worthen, Ross Douthat, Cyd Oppenheimer, and Stuart Halpern. All five are parents and discuss their own reading practices as families.

Finally, our local news announced that a local data center will be among the first gigawatt consuming data centers in the country. I estimated, after some research that this one data center alone could increase our region’s power consumption by nearly 40 percent! In light of that, “Toward a Just and Sustainable Energy Transition” a review of two books, caught my attention. The article notes that sustainable power generation is not replacing fossil fuels but merely helping to meet increased energy needs.

Quote of the Week

William Faulkner, one of those mid-century writers, was born September 25, 1897. He observed:

“Unless you’re ashamed of yourself now and then, you’re not honest”

Miscellaneous Musings

I’m reading David McCullough’s History Matters, a wonderful posthumous collection of speeches and articles. McCullough notes that one of the criteria he used for book subjects was whether he liked the person, since he would end up spending several years with them, ten in the case of Harry Truman who was the subject of a nearly thousand page biography. I loved reading that book back in the 1990’s and still have it. I think it was my first McCullough book. I’ve since read all the others. I’m so glad for the people he liked enough to spend several years writing about them.

Ronald Rohlheiser’s forthcoming Insane for the Light explores the spirituality of our later years. He uses a phrase to frame this I’ve not heard before–“giving away our deaths.” The book explores how we make our last years, and even our dying, a gift to others. When you notice in obituaries that most people, apart from the long-lived, are either your age or younger, or ten to fifteen years older, it’s something worth thinking about!

You all know I like baseball books. I’m hoping one will be written about this year’s Cleveland Guardians, currently tied for first place in their division. I am a long-suffering Cleveland fan. Could this be the year? Hope springs eternal. With all the setbacks this team has faced, that would be quite a story!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: John Calvin, Behold My Servant

Tuesday: Agatha Christie, Hickory Dickory Dock

Wednesday: The Month in Reviews: September 2025

Thursday: Mark S. Hansard, Star Trek and Faith, Volume 1

Friday: William Kent Krueger, Windigo Island

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

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The Weekly Wrap: September 14-20

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The Weekly Wrap: September 14-20

Reading as Resistance

In the past, I’ve been skeptical about Banned Books Weeks. At one time. relatively small numbers of books were being challenged and it almost felt like a ploy for booksellers to sell more books. I’ve always opposed book banning. It is contrary to the American spirit embodied in our first freedoms. But I’ve never opposed parents curating their own children’s book choices. However, it is wrong for a small number to prohibit the circulation of a book for everyone.

In recent years, the number of challenges and bans, and the number of books banned has shot up dramatically. And not only are we speaking of children’s books. We’re talking about books in service academy libraries, books secondary school students would read as well as adults. Many are books by people of color. They reveal the instances when our nation has failed to live up to its professed ideals. Some dissent from current political orthodoxy.

Publishers and authors, regardless of political affiliation are facing threats. Moreover, authors are thinking twice about book tours and other appearances.

Many of us observe encroachments on speech and press freedoms and wonder what we can do. Beyond engaging our elected representatives, may I suggest reading as an act of resistance. Any book can be dangerous, especially in a culture whose siren songs of streaming and digital media lure us from books But I’m particularly thinking of the books “they” don’t want us to read.

Why not find books people have opposed and read them as an act of resistance. Some in my personal library that I’ve not read include Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States, Anthony Fauci’s memoir, one of fellow Ohioan Toni Morrison’s books, and several books on climate change. And maybe it’s time to re-read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

Buying and reading the books people don’t want read communicates to publishers and authors support for their work. It asserts a freedom not often discussed, the freedom of conscience. And who knows how long we will be able to obtain these books? To even raise the possibility tells us how far things have come. So, something to keep in mind the next time you visit the bookstore.

Five Articles Worth Reading

In a similar vein, Judith Butler writes of “Kafka-land at UC Berkeley.” Specifically, 160 faculty from Berkeley learned that allegations against them have been forwarded to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. They were not informed of the nature of those allegations. The Trial is sounding less and less like fiction.

Phil Christman grew up in a fundamentalist home in Michigan. In “Hope External: Phil Christman’s Prophetic Ambivalence,” reviewer Todd Shy traces the development of Christman’s convictions as he reviews Christman’s new book, Why Christians Should Be Leftists. Whatever you think about the contention in the title, I found Christman’s wrestling with the teaching of Jesus of great interest.

I still have my Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 7th Edition from college. However, Stefan Fatsis asks of our present time: “Is This the End of the Dictionary?” Find out what’s happening to dictionaries.

Then Patricia Lockwood talks books and her longing for an easier way to eat (or be fed) while reading in “Patricia Lockwood Craves an Easier Way to Eat While Reading.” This is the latest installment in the NYT’s “By the Book” series.

Finally, imagine if John Cage set Finnegan’s Wake to music. Actually, he did set a portion to music and you can “Hear Joey Ramone Sing a Piece by John Cage Adapted from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.”

Quote of the Week

Queen of Crime Agatha Christie was born on September 15, 1890. We all would do well to follow her pithy advice about money:

“Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody.”

Miscellaneous Musings

The squirrels around our house are busy gathering acorns from my oak tree. Likewise, my TBR pile grew this week with a posthumous work by David McCullough and a new history of the Edmund Fitzgerald..

Meanwhile, our “sell back” pile is also growing to the point that it’s time for another trip to Half Price Books. Not only do we usually walk out with cash in our pockets but we go on Tuesdays, which is “Golden Buckeye” day, worth an extra 10% off what we buy. In other words–senior savvy!

Lastly, I’m reminded of the gift of good translations. Isaiah 52:13-53:12 is one of my favorite biblical texts. Robert White has recently translated seven sermons of John Calvin on this passage from the French and they read like contemporary preaching–or better.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Tony Campolo, Pilgrim: A Theological Memoir

Tuesday: C. P. Snow, The New Men

Wednesday: Robert F. Smith, Lead Boldly: Seven Principles From Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thursday: Kimberly Hope Belcher and David A. Clairmont, Accountability, Healing, and Trust

Friday: Shane J. Wood, Thinning the Veil

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

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The Weekly Wrap: September 7-13

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The Weekly Wrap: September 7-13

Reading and Attention

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”

These words of Mary Oliver are watchwords for my life. Arlo Guthrie, in the song “Prologue” touched on this same idea when he asked:

“Who’ll be awake when the master returns
Who will be lost in their dreams“

Attention, or attentiveness has increasingly impressed me as one of the most important qualities we need to possess, besides love, to live well. Whether paying attention to what one’s spouse, or another is saying to us, giving proper attention to the details that make for excellence in our work, or staying awake for the master’s return–attentiveness matters.

Reading both requires attention and can make us attentive. Exploring the inner world of a character trains us in empathy, a particular form of attentiveness. Sometimes, a character shines a light on our own moral failures, or inspires us to moral excellence. Then there are those books that open our eyes to a larger vision of the fabric of life and the grand story of which we are a part.

Finally, I think of the books that waken me to the rising temperature of the water in which I swim. Two examples for me are Shoshana’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism and Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny (of course, if I had read Hannah Arendt earlier, these books would have been superfluous!).

To be lost in dreams may be pleasant while being awake may mean facing a nightmare. But I’d rather be fully alive and trust that I’ll be given the wherewithal to meet whatever life serves up. And books will be among my companions on that journey

Five Articles Worth Reading

“Inarguably, the platform is the emerging locus of the literary world, and may swallow it completely in the next five years.” Ross Barkan makes this contention about Substack (on Substack) in “The Love Affairs of Prestige.” He argues that Substack newsletter reviews of books often get more attention than print reviews in literary magazines. I subscribe to a number of Substack writers and have posted some here. And it has me thinking about making some kind of move in this direction.

Speaking of Substack, Anne Trubek picks up the thread of discussion on the low rates of reading in “How to Read More.” She offers a number of practical tips including the fact that you can download 10 percent of an e-book for free on Amazon. That’s usually enough to tell you if it’s worth plunking down good money.

Sarah Chihaya review Susan Choi’s new Flashlight in “Illuminations.” Many of you will remember her from her 2019 Trust Exercise. Flashlight has been longlisted for a National Book Award in Fiction for 2025.

Pan by Michael Clune explores in fiction the very real experience of extreme anxiety that comes in the form of panic attacks. Scott Stossel review the book in “Panic Attacks and the Meaning of Life.”

Finally, on the 50th anniversary of Salem’s Lot, Joe Hill, the son of Stephen King, and a horror novelist as well, explains what made the novel so terrifying, and what it was like being Stephen King’s son in the wake of that book. The New York Times article, “So You Think Stephen King Has Scared You? Try Being His Son,” is paywall-free.

Quote of the Week

Novelist D.H. Lawrence, born September 11, 1885, wrote:

“I want to live my life so that my nights are not full of regrets.”

That’s a personal aspiration I embrace!

Miscellaneous Musings

When I worked in campus ministry, I loved times of open questions from students. It seems the very best of what our universities and our democracy is about, so I was grieved to learn of the murder of Charlie Kirk in the midst of such a dialogue. I grieve for his wife and children. Words, not weapons. Ballots, not bullets. I know its complicated and I have friends whose lives were threatened because of Kirk who find it more difficult to grieve. Amid my grief, and all our complicated feelings, I am more deeply convinced of the importance of free speech and a free press, including book publishing without censorship or reprisals for anyone. It is the speech of freedom.

It is book award season and my newsfeed has been flooded with longlists, shortlists, and award announcements. I’m curious how widely many of these books are read. Here are the longlists announced so far for the National Book Awards. I’d love to know how many readers have heard of and how many they’ve read.

I don’t need a book club to get me to read. But I’m part of an online group that discusses religious books each Thursday. Currently, we are reading The Message of Psalms by Walter Brueggemann. It’s rich, and our discussions are “iron sharpening iron.” I’m grateful for this group that lasted through the pandemic and beyond.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Michelle Van Loon, Downsizing

Tuesday: Dorothy L. Sayers, Hangman’s Holiday

Wednesday: R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

Thursday: J. Daniel Hays, The Ichthus Christogram and Other Early Christian Symbols

Friday: Jeff Crosby, World of Wonders

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

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The Weekly Wrap: August 31-September 6

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The Weekly Wrap: August 31-September 6

Reading and Spirituality

I see a lot of memes and quotes from bibliophiles. Sometimes I think that there is a religion of bibliophilia. Libraries are our temples and bookstores our local places of assembly. And books are a way of life. I fear I sometimes proselytize for that faith.

I’ve recently picked up Jeff Crosby’s new World of Wonders, subtitled “a spirituality of reading.” He reminds me that there is a difference between reading as one’s spirituality and how reading might be part of a more encompassing spirituality.

It’s interesting that sacred texts ground many of our major religions. We not only experience the spiritual but understood it through the reading of texts. My own faith, Christianity considers words quite important. God speaks the cosmos into existence. And One who was the Incarnate Word accomplishes our salvation.

Therefore, it is not much of a leap to see reading as something that discloses a “world of wonders.” Reading helps me make sense of the world as well as imagine what could be. Reading has helped me to probe the ineffable and challenged me with the practical implications of loving God and neighborhood. Through biographies, I’ve been mentored by people I’ve never met.

Although I could go on, I’ll just say reading is one of the practices that shapes my spiritual life. However it is not my spiritual life. Rather, reading provides signposts and trail blazes for the journey. And reading captures and holds my imagination in hope amid the world’s bleakness.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Agnes Callard has led a revival of sorts in interest in Socratic philosophy. Mary Townsend reviews Open Socrates, Callard’s latest book in “Agnes Callard’s Insistent Answers to Life’s Deepest Questions.”

But is there a hubris in our flights of philosophy, particularly when we act with abusive superiority over other creatures? William Egginton reviews Christine Webb’s The Arrogant Ape in “Think You’re at the Top of the Food Chain? Think Again.” He also pushes back on her critique of “human exceptionalism.”

Lauren Grodstein is a novelist whose fiction includes a novel set in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. In “What I Learned From the Georgia Protests” she reflects on how Georgians defense of democracy challenged her.

‘Dark academia” is a thing, I’m learning. “Dark Academia Grows Up” uses R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis to explore these questions; “What is the magic that scholars find in the academy?… What are the wrongs they’re asked to quietly endure—the things that make academia, so to speak, dark? And is the magic worth the darkness?”

Finally, Nick Burns contends “AI Isn’t Biased Enough.” While AI has biased based on the material used to train it, AI has no intellectual commitments, no personal biases. It responds sympathetically, even agreeably to whoever engages it–fascist or social progressive. Humans don’t do that, which Burns argues is a good thing.

Quote of the Week

Novelist Frank Yerby, born September 5, 1916, observed:

“Maturity is reached the day we don’t need to be lied to about anything.”

If he’s right, the quote suggests to me that some may never reach maturity!

Miscellaneous Musings

I haven’t read any Dorothy L. Sayers for several years. But recently I picked up a collection of short stories by her featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and Montague Egg. As a result, the stories remind me of both what an exquisite writer Sayers is, and how delightful Wimsey and Egg are as characters!

My son picked up the first of Martha Wells Murderbot series, and all of a sudden I am hearing how good this series is. This piques my interest!

Finally, Buckeye dropped this week and everyone seems astir about this novel set in small town Ohio. So, I picked up a copy to see how true to life it is for this native Buckeye!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: John H. Walton with J. Harvey Walton, New Explorations in the Lost World of Genesis

Tuesday: Clemency Burton-Hill, Year of Wonder

Wednesday: Janet Kellogg Ray, The God of Monkey Science

Thursday: Miroslav Volf, The Cost of Ambition

Friday: Andrew J. Bauman, Safe Church

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for August 31-September 6

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