Musings

The Weekly Wrap: April 6-12

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True Readers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five Articles Worth Reading

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

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

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

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

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

Quote of the Week

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

“Always be a poet, even in prose.”

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

Miscellaneous Musings

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

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

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

Next Week’s Reviews

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

Tuesday: Leah Reesor-Keller, Tending Tomorrow

Wednesday: Aaron Scott, Bring Back Your People

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

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

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

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

The Weekly Wrap: March 30-April 5

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Destination Bookstores

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

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

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

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

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

Five Articles Worth Reading

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote of the Week

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

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

Miscellaneous Musings

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

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

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

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Wesley Hill, Easter

Tuesday: Christine Marie Eberle, Finding God Along the Way

Wednesday: William Kent Krueger, Vermilion Drift

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

Friday, David T. Koyzis, Citizenship Without Illusions

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

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

The Weekly Wrap: March 23-29

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Becoming Real

An image of some tattered old books brought to mind this quote from The Velveteen Rabbit: on how one becomes Real:

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

We often take what it means for stuffed animals to become Real and apply it to people. Hair, eyes, joints, shabbiness–by those tokens I’m becoming more real all the time! Much of this for stuffed animals comes down to being beloved companions. And I suspect that whatever “Realness” there is in me could not be apart from my wife and other loving companions.

But I mentioned books. Certainly they are already real, tangible objects. However there are books with many words on many pages that sit on my shelves that are little more than that. Then again, other books have become “Real” to me. I’ve come to live in Middle-earth, the ancient biblical world, “The Road Not Taken.” Most of the works of C.S. Lewis are “Real.” The pages are yellowed and marked up, the cover worn and curled.

The richness of reading consists at least in part of those books that become Real for us. One reading is not enough. But during first readings, we hear the book’s invitation. And something inside us answers, “I want to know you better.” You know a book has become real when it filters into your conversation. You describe a particularly hospitable home as like Rivendell. Or you refer to those times of encountering the Transcendent that changed you as “burning bushes.”

Do you have books that have become real? If not, are there books that resonated deeply whose invitation to know them better you’ve yet to heed. In answering that call, not only will some books become Real. You will as well.

Five Articles Worth Reading

One of the most “Real” writers I’ve encountered is Flannery O’Connor. This week marked the centennial of her birth. “The Immanent Grace of Flannery O’Connor” offers a glimpse into her insights into both our humanness and the grace we need.

This year also marks the hundredth anniversary of the publication of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitgerald. A.O. Scott, in a visual piece, “It’s Gatsby’s World, We Just Live in It“,” portrays how Gatsby turns up everywhere from Seinfeld to Peanuts.

It’s only been forty years since Neil Postman published a somewhat academic book title Amusing Ourselves to Death. It became Real for me because of its explanatory power. “Still Amusing Ourselves” explores why this book continues to have “legs.”

The idea of citizenship has come up quite a bit in our recent political discourse. “Eight Books About the Complicated History of U.S. Citizenship” offers a crash course on its often contended history.

By the way, Citizen by Claudia Rankine was ranked number one in the Atlantic’s “The Best American Poetry of the 21st Century (So Far).” Looking for contemporary poetry to read? This is a list of twenty-five collections you might look for.

Quote of the Week

As I noted above, March 25 marked the centennial of Flannery O’Connor’s birth in 1925. Here’s a quote in which she “keeps it real”:

“I don’t deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.”

Miscellaneous Musings

Robin Wall Kimmerer’s little book, The Serviceberry is a ray of sunshine amid trade wars and sinking stocks. She writes of a different economy–one of generosity, abundance, and reciprocity–in short, a gift economy. One of the reasons I’ve never tried to monetize this blog or any other platform is that I receive so much from books (and the publishers who send them) that it just makes sense to pass along the gifts.

I wonder if a seed of much of our discontent is that we have not learned the meaning of “enough.” We want more and more (which we then have to figure out how to get rid of), we build economies around never having enough, and of late, in the U.S. have taken to thinking that this great land we call our national home is not enough. I think this will end very badly, and we will never be content so long as we live this way.

But I continue to be grateful for the fine writing of William Kent Krueger. I just began Vermilion Drift. Not only does he portray a middle-aged man dealing with loss as children move away (among other losses) as well as the fate of aging mining towns. It doesn’t hurt that his stories are page-turners as well.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Han Kang, We Do Not Part

Tuesday: The Month in Reviews: March 2025

Wednesday: Todd C. Ream et al, Habits of Hope

Thursday: Michael F. Bird, Religious Freedom in a Secular Age

Friday: Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for March 23-29, 2025!

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

The Weekly Wrap: March 16-22

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Library Love

“Feel good” stories seem increasingly scarce. This one involved a woman walking into her local library to renew her library card. What is unusual is that Lily Walter is 104 and received her first library card 100 years ago in Latvia. An immigrant to the United States in 1949, she describes her passion for reading in this way: “You learn things by reading, I think. Or you should.” In her eighties and nineties, she worked as a volunteer at the Hubbard Public Library, near my home town of Youngstown.

Lily’s story is one of the reasons I am a passionate believer in the importance of our libraries. It’s why I spent part of Monday this week calling my House and Senate representatives to protest proposed cuts to the Institute of Museum and Library Services. While such cuts are only a small part of most libraries’ total budget, they usually fund targeted programs like veterans outreach or summer reading programs at libraries. This means libraries are faced with diverting funds, raising local levies, or cutting programs.

Lily began reading at four years old. I was a childhood reader as well and a visit to the library was as much fun for me as a visit to the candy store. My family had modest means. The library gave me access to resources wealthier children had at home, enabling me to be valedictorian of my high school class and win an academic scholarship to college. Libraries were a part of my “success story.” That’s what I told my representatives–that, and that I wanted others in my shoes to have the same opportunities.

If you want to know more about the President’s executive order and sign a petition opposing the cuts, visit the EveryLibrary site. And if you want your heart warmed, here is an interview with Lily Walter:

Five Articles Worth Reading

Speaking of reading for life, Ted Gioia, in “My Lifetime Reading Plan” shares how he, though a college grad, largely educated himself through his own reading. He describes the reading practices that helped him. One interesting insight: he read old books when he was young and young books as he grew older.

Have you ever picked up a book you thought was new to you, started reading it, only to realize that you’d read and forgotten it? I have. Turns out we’re in good company, as we learn in “The Patron Saint of Forgetting” on Michel Montaigne’s famed forgetfulness of things he’d read.

We hear of people who have changed their minds and celebrate this as a mark of intellectual honesty. In “It’s Hard to Change Your Mind. A New Book Asks If You Should Even Try,” Kieran Setiya reviews a new work by novelist Julian Barnes that raises questions about the possibility of changing our minds.

I’m a lover of crime fiction of all sorts. One sub-genre is the Private Eye Detective story. This week, The New York Times released “Classic Private-Eye Detective Novels: A Starter Pack” which includes some classics I’ve not yet read.

Can you imagine earning six figures for writing one article? Bryan Burrough describes how much he earned for one article in “Vanity Fair’s Heyday” under editor Graydon Carter, who was at the helm of the publication from 1992 to 2017.

Quote of the Week

Children’s writer and poet Phyllis McGinley was born on March 21, 1905. She observed:

“Words can sting like anything, but silence breaks the heart.”

Any of us who have had a friend “ghost” us without explanation know the truth of this.

Miscellaneous Musings

The book sounded intriguing, exploring Paul’s use of narrative, something we don’t usually associate with Paul’s letters. The writer amply made his case, going for a far deeper drive into grammar (in Greek!) than I had expected. I’m neither a grammar nor Greek geek, so this one was really a stretch!

I’m curious about a lot of things but it can get the better of me at times, especially when I try to write a review of a book plainly out of my “wheelhouse.” A recent read on monetary policy was a case in point. I hope the aficionados on the subject will be as gracious as the author, who re-posted the review. It was publicity, and I hope I accomplished what I always try to do, which is to give people enough to decide if they want to buy the book.

I wasn’t looking for another reason not to like Meta and then I learned how they used LibGen, a file sharing site for print articles and books, to train its generative language AI. LibGen itself is under accusations of copyright violations as is Meta. One thing that is clear is that authors neither gave permission for their works to be used in this way nor received any payment for their intellectual property. This Atlantic article describes the allegations against Meta and includes a feature where you can search authors to see what they’ve used. For example, a search of J.R.R. Tolkien turns up just about everything he has written.

Next Week’s Reviews:

Monday: Ronni Kurtz, Light Unapproachable

Tuesday: Simone Weil, Waiting for God

Wednesday: Stanley Hauerwas, Jesus Changes Everything

Thursday: Agatha Christie, The Hollow

Friday: Christoph Heilig, Paul: The Storyteller

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for March 16-22, 2025!

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

The Weekly Wrap: March 2-8

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American Writers

American jingoism has never been well received around the world, and certainly not in this particular moment. Thus it might be a foolhardy exercise to write about American authors in this time. But I will out of the belief that every nation produces writers of quality who are voices in their time for their country. I love reading authors from around the world as well as the U.S. But I am grateful for the writers from my own country, from Mark Twain to Percival Everett, from Emily Dickinson to Dana Gioia, and Harriet Beecher Stowe to James Baldwin. One of my all-time favorite novels is John Steinbeck’s East of Eden.

I’m thinking of this because I’ve just begun reading Wallace Stegner’s Remembering Laughter. It reminds me in a way of a Willa Cather story. It was his first published work, from 1937, one I had not been previously aware of. I think Stegner is under-appreciated, although he won the Pulitzer in 1972 for Angle of Repose and the National Book Award in 1977 for The Painted Bird. Crossing to Safety is a personal favorite for its exploration of friendship over decades, ended only in death.

Stegner also wrote non-fiction about the American West, ranging from John Wesley Powell to the Mormons. His book on Powell made me think about the arid climate of the American West, and what it means to live in those conditions.

Finally, after teaching stints at University of Wisconsin-Madison and Harvard, he went to Stanford to found the creative writing program. Among his students were Wendell Berry, Edward Abbey, Ken Kesey, Ernest Gaines, and Larry McMurtry. Sandra Day O’Connor also studied for a time under him. That’s quite a literary progeny!

For me, he is one of many American writers who has explored the human condition, and how this place we call home has shaped us.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton is the latest in “animal encounter” books. In this one, Dalton comes across a brown hare or leveret she found one cold morning during the pandemic. She cares for it without turning it into a pet. “The Tiny Brown Hare Who Taught One Woman to Slow Down” convinced me to give this one a look.

I’ve been seeing all sorts of articles about Chimamanda Adichie’s new novel. “Chimamanda Adichie’s Fiction Has Shed Its Optimism” offers an extended review, exploring its theme of the fraught relations between men and women.

Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel by Edwin Frank discusses what Frank sees as the decline of the literary novel during the twentieth century. Joseph Epstein reviews the book in “Done in by Time.”

I had not been aware of the work of Jeffrey Kripal, a religion scholar whose most recent book is How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else. “Has Jeffrey Kripal Gone Mad, or Normal?” explores his ideas, which seem to me to reflect the epistemic crisis of our time.

University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter elaborates the idea of the eclipse of adulthood in our culture in a Hedgehog Review article from 2009 titled “Wither Adulthood?“

Quote of the Week

I’ve written quite a bit about goodness, truth, and beauty on this blog. Novelist Frank Norris, born March 5, 1870, made a statement I loved:

“Truth is a thing immortal and perpetual, and it gives to us a beauty that fades not away in time.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I’ve just begun reading Simone Weil’s Waiting for God. Weil went through a powerful conversion to faith but was never baptized. She saw herself speaking as a Christian but outside the church. As I read about this, I wonder if we may see some in our own time who write and speak from a similar position.

I’ve had the privilege to personally be acquainted with both Dr. Francis Collins, the recently retired Director of the National Institutes of Health, and David French, an op-ed columnist with The New York Times. Both are people of deep Christian faith and great personal integrity. They have been the objects of vitriol and slander in our highly politicized moment. I’ve watched both invest their lives in pursuit of the common good. I believe someday they will be vindicated. But I grieve a culture that attacks good men and celebrates felons.

I found an old copy of The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It was one of her books I haven’t read. I love her writing and look forward to this one!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Sherene Nicholas Khouri, Triune Relationality

Tuesday: Joseph W. Handley, Jr. et al, Leading Well in Times of Disruption

Wednesday: Emily Dickinson, Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

Thursday: Carola Binder, Shock Values: Prices and Inflation in American Democracy

Friday: Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for March 2-8, 2025!

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

The Weekly Wrap: February 23-March 1

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To Tell the Truth

“But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken” (Matthew 12:36, NIV)

I consider writing a dangerous occupation. The saying of Jesus quoted above is a kind of guiding mental watchword. I write as one who believes he will give an account for his words. And over the twelve years of blogging, I’ve written millions of words. And this doesn’t count what I post on social media. I’ve a lot to account for.

Jesus mentions “empty” words. The image it calls to mind is a grain of wheat. Full words include the kernel. They nourish. And enrich. They are what they appear to be. They are true. Empty words are the husk without the grain. They deceive, leading us to believe they offer substance when there is nothing. They are trivial and mean. Trite. They lie.

What saddens me about so much of our discourse is the tolerance of known lies. I see “good Christian” people doing this as if political gamesmanship is more important than truth. I’ve contended that when we do this, we jeopardize the truth claims of the Christian message. Why would people believe I am telling the truth when I say Jesus rose from the dead if I tell them baldface lies to their face?

This is one of the reasons I love good literature, fiction or non-fiction. There is a “ring of truth” in good literature, an effort to be true to character, true to life, and in non-fiction, true to facts, insofar as it is in the writer’s capacity to do so. It protects me from becoming inured to lies. And it renews in me the hope that goodness, truth, and beauty will prevail in the end. It is what I hope to do with my own words. I write coram Deo, before God, and want to give a good account when the day comes.

Five Articles Worth Reading

For an example of one careful with words, consider Robert Caro. Over his typewriter (!) are the words “The only thing that matters is on this page” “Rifling Through the Archives With Legendary Historian Robert Caro” recounts the work of this fine writer, who is racing against his own mortality to complete the final volume of his work on Lyndon Johnson. I’m rooting for him, since I’ve reveled in the others.

Bibliophiles love to learn about upcoming books, especially from their favorite authors or on timely topics. The Millions has become know as the “go to” preview. “How THE MILLIONS’ Seasonal Previews Get Made with Sophia Stewart” offers an inside look at the process behind the preview.

The New Yorker is one hundred years old. “The New Yorker and the American Voice” offers an appraisal of the magazine’s contribution to American letters and tries to describe its distinctive voice.

You’ve seen the pictures of libraries with shelves extending beyond the reach of the tallest, accessed by a special ladder. Maybe some of us have dreamed of having such a library in our homes. “The Ascendance of the Book Ladder” gives us a history of this piece of hardware about which many of us have fantasized.

Every year I read a baseball book. I think I’ve found one for this year from this review of a biography of “The Banty, Blustering Genius of Earl Weaver.” I only wish he had managed in Cleveland!

Quote of the Week

Educator and author Mary Ellen Chase was born February 24, 1887. She made this statement to which I would personally attest:

“There is no substitute for books in the life of a child.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I just began reading Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club and love the premise of four sharp seniors in a retirement community who get together every Thursday to sift through the evidence of unsolved murders. Looks like there is great fun ahead, not only in this volume but those to follow (according to my daughter-in-law).

I hate throwing out old books (except in the case of mildew). I even find someone to give ARCs to. But I met my match when I discovered old software manuals from the 1990’s in the back of a cupboard. I couldn’t even foist them on my son who loves old computer operating systems and games. Alas, to the recycling bin they went!

Editing is behind the scenes work. Good editors take a “diamond in the rough” and polish it so that the writer shines through. I did a bit of that in my last job. I have a friend who does this work at a publishing house from which I often review books. I see his name in the acknowledgements of a number of worthwhile books. I hope we never outsource this work to AI. I can see his personal touch over and over in the authors he’s worked with. And from other books, I gather this is so with many editors.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: The Month in Reviews: February 2025

Tuesday: Paul Barnett, The Trials of Jesus

Wednesday: R. F. Kuang, Yellowface

Thursday: Michael A. Wilkinson, Crowned with Glory and Honor: A Chalcedonian Anthropology

Friday: William Kent Krueger, Heaven’s Keep

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for February 23-March 1, 2025!

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

The Weekly Wrap: February 9-15

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Remembering a Martyred Saint

I write this on the evening of St. Valentines Day. While we celebrate it as the holiday of romantic love, the day actually marks the martyrdom of the original Saint Valentine in 269 AD. Valentine was kind and he was courageous in testifying to his faith, even in the face of a death sentence. We know little more than that about him.

While imprisoned awaiting death, Valentine wrote notes to encourage his friends, tying them with twine, signing them “from your valentine.” So that’s where the practice of all those “valentines” I had to take and exchange each year at school came from! Seriously, it is an amazing act of selfless kindness for one about to die.

As the story goes, the “valentine” he sent on the day of his death went to a formerly blind girl. A judge in one of his cases gave him a challenge. If his God was so powerful, then ask that God to heal the judge’s blind daughter. Valentine prayed and God healed the girl through him. She lived to see while he died.

Reading fiction is supposed to develop empathy. But empathy is only a feeling if it is not converted to acts of kindness. Of late, our cultural life consists more in threats and harsh words than in kindness. Perhaps it is up to us readers to be the modern Valentines, speaking and acting with kindness in an increasingly coarse world. We may never know those we heal by our kindness. And it could cost us dearly. But if that’s the cost to be kind in a cruel world, I’d choose that in a heartbeat over cold cruelty.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Many of us thought Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead one of the best novels we read, chronicling the deadly opioid epidemic in Appalachia. Kingsolver is an example of turning empathy into action. In “‘Demon Copperhead’ Explored Addiction. Its Profits Built a Recovery House,” we learn Kingsolver has used her royalties from the book to start a center for Appalachian women in recovery.

The empathy evoked from literature often comes from its exploration of suffering. In “Beyond the Cage and Fog,” Mary Grace Mangano explores the contrasting ways Gerard Manley Hopkins and Sylvia Plath addressed mental suffering.

Tove Jansson is best known for the Moomins cartoons. Lauren LeBlanc, in “The Outsider Who Captured American Loneliness” reviews a new book by Jansson, Sun City. The setting of the book is a senior community in St. Petersburg, Florida. It explores the loneliness of many who are elderly in America.

Then there is Ross Douthat. Often, the most interesting reads in The New York Times are the op-eds, and Douthat’s are among those. I appreciate his voice as a person of faith, Now, he has a new book out titled Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious. “Accidental Pilgrim” adapts content from the book to describe Douthat’s own faith journey.

Finally, it is National Library Lovers Month! Of course, isn’t that the case every month for booklovers. Sadly, not all share our library love. Katie McLain Horner offers practical tips for ways we can support our libraries in “How to Stand Up for Your Local Library by Getting Involved.”

Quote of the Week

I’m a fan of the mysteries of Georges Simenon. It just so happens he was born February 13, 1903. Consider this pithy observation, with which most of us will identify:

“I adore life but I don’t fear death. I just prefer to die as late as possible.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I’ve learned of so many good books through other readers. There is one who not only introduced me to the writing of William Kent Krueger but also to a book I am reading right now. It is And There Was Light, an interesting title for a memoir by a blind French resistance hero, Jacques Lusseyrand.

A Cargo of Eagles is the last of the Albert Campion books by Margery Allingham. I just began it. Whereas I loved the Brother Cadfael series and was sad to come to the last of the books, I honestly feel more relieved to finish Allingham. Convoluted plots, lots of people to keep track of, and an enigmatic sleuth make her books a challenge. Of the Queens of Crime, I rank Sayers, Christie, and Marsh ahead of her, in that order.

I’ve long wanted to read through my grandmother’s Bible. She was a woman of faith who had a profound influence in my life for the few years I knew her. I now have outlived her but I’m curious what her Bible will tell me about her. It is an old Scofield study Bible in the King James Version with tissue thin pages. I began reading it this week.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Jeremy Lundgren, The Pursuit of Safety

Tuesday: Phoebe Farag Mikhail, Hunger for Righteousness

Wednesday: Jill Lepore, The Story of America

Thursday: Archibald A. Alexander, The Log Coillege

Friday: Megan Henning, Nils Neumann, eds., Vivid Rhetoric and Visual Persuasion: Ekphrasis in Early Christian Literature

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for February 9-15, 2025!

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

The Weekly Wrap: February 2-8

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Black History

I began reading David Greenberg’s John Lewis: A Life this week. It’s my main Black History month read. You might ask why a White guy is reading Black history. To answer that, I will talk about why I wrote on my local home town for ten years. First of all, it helped me understand so much about my background of which I was not aware growing up. I also became aware of how rich the culture of my home town was. And I discovered a number of people I greatly admired who helped build the city. Finally, I learned lessons from that history, such as the folly of a town building its economy around one industry.

It’s like that with Black history. Although I’m not Black, Black history is a fundamental part of my national history. My understanding of where we’ve come from is immeasurably poorer without that history. Likewise, it is such a rich history of spirituality, music art, food, accomplishments, resilience, and the effort to call us to our collective best. There are people (including Lewis) whose lives have inspired me. And, just as Germans aware of the Holocaust remember that history with a resolve to say “never again,” there are sad lessons to learn from Black history to which I want to say “never again.”

None of this is about White guilt or fostering racial divisions. Rather it is learning all I can to foster the “beloved community” Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned. I’m not sure why some want to suppress this history. It seems to me that when you try to suppress or erase the history of someone, it is the first step toward suppressing or erasing them. That is how it would come across to me if someone wanted to erase my family history or the history of my home town.

So, I will keep reading about John Lewis and review the book. And I’ll recommend other books about Blacks, other people of color, women and other marginalized groups. It’s not about politics for me. It’s about being human. And it’s about believing the children’s song I learned in Sunday school: “Jesus loves the little children/All the children of the world/Red and yellow; black and white/Jesus loves the little children/All the children of the world.”

Five Articles Worth Reading

Speaking of Black History Month, JSTOR posted a cornucopia of articles on Black history under the heading, “Celebrating Black History Month.” It was like a crash course in Black history, much of it new to me.

Feel like you have too many choices? You are not alone. The New York Times posted a review this week of Sophia Rosenfeld’s The Age of Choice, asking “Does Having Options Really Make Us Free?“

Cartoonist Jules Feiffer died on January 17. Paul Morton remembers him in “‘This Will Be Fun.’ On the Life and Times of a Comics Master, Jules Feiffer.“

It’s hard to imagine how those of us who love books might come to fear them. “In Search of the Book That Would Save Her Life” reviews Bibliophobia by Sarah Chihaya, a memoir of how a mental health crisis precipitated a fear of books in a woman whose life was reading.

“Local bookstores, dealt another blow by L.A. fires, become ‘community touchstones’” Bookstores have often been used as examples of “third places.” It appears that this is especially true after the L.A. fires.

Quote of the Week

“There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.“

Charles Dickens, born on February 7, 1812, made this observation. It seems so important in this time of fake news and the normalization of lying that we refuse to accept deception and keep telling the truth ourselves.

Miscellaneous Musings

When I finished Haruki Murakami’s The City and Its Uncertain Wall I discovered that Murakami has been trying to finish this story for a long time in his postscript to the novel. I have to admit that the story feels like one in search of a resolution. Still pondering whether Murakami landed it.

I’ve found Jill Lepore’s The Story of America a delight. The book is a collection of essays on historiography, following the chronology of American history. Her essay on Noah Webster was absolutely fascinating, and a tribute in a way to this pioneer in creating a dictionary of American English.

Went to my optometrist this week. All in all, the eyes are doing OK. I do have cataract surgery in my future, explaining why I need more light than ever. There is a tendency toward macular degeneration in my family and I’ve pondered what I would do if I could not, or read easily. I guess I’ve read enough that I can savor them in memory…and as long as the hearing holds up, there are audiobooks!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: N.T. Wright, The Challenge of Acts

Tuesday: Agatha Christie, Towards Zero

Wednesday: M.D. Hayden, Opening the Parables

Thursday: Haruki Murakami, The city and Its Uncertain Walls

Friday: Rhyne R. Putnam, Conceived by the Holy Spirit

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for February 2-8, 2025!

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

The Weekly Wrap: January 26-February 1

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Book Groups

Many of us who enjoy reading love to discuss what we are reading with others. I’ve been a part of one book group or another for nearly thirty years. And I have to say that the books I’ve discussed in groups have been the ones that have stayed with me.

I’m thinking of this because the book group of which I’m a part just finished our latest book. Now, the idea of getting together to talk about books seems inherently nerdy. Our group probably takes that to another level. We dig into theological texts, usually a chapter at a time, a week at a time, working through a book. Our latest was N.T. Wright’s The Challenge of Acts. And if that sounds nerdy, our next book is Judea under Greek and Roman Rule by David deSilva, which looks at critical background behind the Gospels and Acts.

What makes it work is we are reading what we want to read. And while our choices might seem strange, I think the principle is important, whether the group is into romantasy, historical or literary fiction, or non-fiction. We also talked about something else important. We look for books that don’t just inform us but give us something to discuss or even disagree with. They engage us, stretch our horizons, make us think and re-think.

I’d enjoy hearing from others who have been part of book groups that you thought were good. What made them work?

Five Articles Worth Reading

Her latest book, Onyx Storm, broke first week sales records, selling 2.7 million copies. In “Rebecca Yarros’s ‘Onyx Storm’ Is the Fastest-Selling Adult Novel in 20 Years,” Alexandra Alter explores her phenomenal emergence as the leading romantasy author.

There is a renewed fascination with analog–vinyl records, VHS and audio cassettes, film, hand-drawn game maps, letters–you name it. In “The Stranger Things Effect Comes for the Novel,” Mark Athitakis explores this phenomenon as it manifests in recent fiction.

Agnes Callard considers the shift she has seen in children’s literature to characters that are “weird” in some way in “Where the Wild Things Aren’t.” She explores why this is important to children and what this signifies.

Have you wondered why we refer to characters in a text as uppercase or lower text? Mental Floss answers this question in “The Surprisingly Literal Reason We Call Letters ‘Uppercase’ and ‘Lowercase’.”

Finally, I probably don’t have to do much to convince this crowd of what a good thing libraries are. But we may need to advocate for that in some communities that don’t see the value. James Folta summarizes a new study by the New York Public Library that confirms “It’s official: Research has found that libraries make everything better.“

Quote of the Week

“To read is to surrender oneself to an endless displacement of curiosity and desire from one sentence to another”

David Lodge, who was born January 28, 1935 was an English author, critic, and professor. This statement caught me up short, making me reflect on what may be one of the reasons for my undying love of reading. David Lodge died on January 1, 2025.

Miscellaneous Musings

I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about the announcement by the publisher of Simon and Schuster that they will no longer require authors to solicit “blurbs” for their books. Sometimes the practice seems excessive, when I have to wade through page after page of these endorsements. But I also have to admit, that with an unfamiliar author, who endorses them tells me about their audience and serves as a clue as to whether I’ll like it. What do you think?

I’m about 200 pages into Haruki Murakami’s The City and Its Uncertain Walls and it feels a bit like walking through a labyrinth, with a surprise around each corner, and no clue what lies at the center. It plays on questions of what is real, what is substance and shadow. I’ll let you know what I thgink of it when I figure that out! But I’m enthralled.

I’ve loved the idea of Bookshop.org as an online platform that supports indie bookstores. To date, they have generated nearly $36 million for over 1900 stores. This week, they expanded their capacity by offering a way to purchase e-books and support your favorite local indie. you can read more about it here.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: The Month in Reviews: January 2025 (21 reviews)

Tuesday: Samuel Parkison, To Gaze Upon God

Wednesday: Stuart M. Kaminsky, Lieberman’s Choice

Thursday: Timothy P. Carney, Family Unfriendly

Friday: Amy Peeler, Hebrews

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for January 26-February 1, 2025!

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

The Weekly Wrap: January 19-25

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Baby, It’s Cold Outside!

Both in central Ohio, where I live, and in many parts of the U.S. we’ve seen some of the coldest weather we’ve had in recent years. From some observations, I’m convinced that humans, and especially bibliophiles, have a hibernation instinct when it gets cold.

Last Saturday, ahead of the cold stretch, we stopped into our local Barnes & Noble while waiting for a take out order from the restaurant next door. The place was packed, with a long line at the cash register! I did not see any special promotion going on. Instead, I concluded that people were loading up on books to read when they were hunkered down in sub-zero cold.

It probably was a good idea. We had several days of school cancellations because of the cold. I go for daily walks, and usually generate my own heat. But that was barely the case this past week even with extra layers.

How inviting, then, to sit down in my favorite chair with a hot cup of coffee and just savor some good theology in the morning and lose myself in a mystery in the evening. While reading is an all-weather activity, I do think there is something especially comforting about a thick book, a warm comforter, and a hot drink beside my favorite chair on those cold days and colder nights! Although I can’t explain it, I can’t help but wonder if storing up that TBR pile beside our reading chair is the form that hibernation takes for booklovers!

Five Articles Worth Reading

Unfortunately, it’s not been cold everywhere. Los Angeles is burning, resulting in displacement and ruin for thousands, including some friends. One of the most referenced articles in discussions about the fires is one written in 1995 by Mike Davis, “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn,” reprinted in this 2018 Longreads post. He explores the clash between the native ecology and the decision to build in a firebelt.

Francesca Wade reviews Randall Fuller’s BRIGHT CIRCLE: Five Remarkable Women in the Age of Transcendentalism, in “You Know Emerson and Thoreau. Why Not Their Female Counterparts?” We’ve heard of the men. The book and review introduce us to the women in that circle.

At age 50, Leo Tolstoy struggled with the question, “What will come from my whole life?” He was strongly tempted to commit suicide. In a review of Open Socrates by Agnes Callard, Tim Clare explores how Socrates found a way through “:the Tolstoy problem.”

In “Laugh a Little: Why We All Should Be Telling More Jokes,” Allison Wood Brooks explains why we all could use more humor in our lives. The article is an excerpt from her book, Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves.

Finally, in an age of digital streaming, there is a resurgence of vinyl. I can attest to this. I participate in a Facebook group of over 20,000 enthusiasts of classical music on vinyl. In “A Phenomenology of Spotify and Vinyl,” Dolan Clay thinks Heidegger can help us understand what is going on.

Quote of the Week

Edith Wharton was born on January 23, 1862. I think there is a lot of wisdom in this observation:

“If only we’d stop trying to be happy we’d have a pretty good time.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I got my hat trick of championship ball caps for Ohio State (see below). There is a story for the good sports writer in this team’s season. Seniors chose not to go pro. A transfer quarterback bonded with the team. After a devastating loss to arch-rival Michigan that had people crying for the coach’s firing, the team pulled itself together to beat four top ten ranked teams. I love a good sports read. I hope someone writes it.

My Buckeye Champions ball caps from 2002, 2014, and 2024. “©Bob Trube, 2025.

Timothy P. Carney’s Family Unfriendly is a thought-provoking read. He explores why the birth-rates in the U.S. and other Western countries have tanked. He argues that we have created a “family unfriendly” culture. Carney looks at communities of large families and explores the relation of faith, being around other large families. And he considers allowing, not forcing women (or men) to choose stay at home parenting, and even how we configure our neighborhoods.

We all have blind spots. I’m reading a book on the theme of love in the parables, the subtext of which is a rather uncharitable polemic against Christian orthodoxy through most of history across the major branches of the church. I wonder if the author is aware of this contradiction. But I also wonder about my own blind spots–the places where I try to remove a speck from someone else’s eye, unaware of the log in my own.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Ed Uszynski, Untangling Critical Race Theory.

Tuesday: Jacques Maritain, An Essay on Christian Philosophy.

Wednesday: William Kent Krueger, Red Knife.

Thursday: Michael Licona, Jesus, Contradicted.

Friday: Ellis Peters, A Rare Benedictine.

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for January 19-25, 2025!

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