The Month in Reviews: September 2016

October 3, 2016October 2, 2016 / rtrube54 / Leave a comment

hillbilly-elegy

September’s reading list was certainly a diverse and wide-ranging one that reflects the quirky range of my reading interests. There were two baseball books, as we come to the close of another season of America’s Pastime. There were two Inklings books, both exploring the impact of the Inklings war experiences on their writing. I featured Ohio author J. D. Vance’s best-selling Hillbilly Elegy, and a book on the use of social media in public shaming. I reviewed a couple of science texts, including Rachel Carson’s classic The Sea Around Us, and a new book on science and faith. There were books on social issues from micro-finance to domestic violence. And I read the usual assortment of theological texts on subjects ranging from evangelicalism’s social justice heritage to dispensational eschatology as well as a fine new book on the transition to post-college life. In all there are thirteen reviews in this list. Enjoy!

After College, Erica Young Reitz. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2016. A faith-oriented guide to navigating the transition from college to early adulthood, exploring issues of faith, relationships, community, work, calling and finances. Review

Banker to the Poor, Muhammad Yunus. New York: Public Affairs, 2003. Yunus’ personal account of developing micro-lending and the Grameen Bank to help lift the rural poor out of poverty by providing the small loans they needed to develop their own small businesses. Review

No Place for Abuse (2nd ed.), Catherine Clark Kroeger & Nancy Nason-Clark. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2010. Written for Christian communities, this work chronicles the extent of domestic violence and abuse, the presence and factors that contribute to domestic violence in households in our churches, relevant biblical texts that address domestic violence, and steps church leaders can take to address domestic violence in their midst. Review

Bottom of the Ninth, Michael Shapiro. New York: Times Books, 2009. The story of how two legendary figures, Branch Rickey and Casey Stengel, attempted but failed in schemes to transform the game of baseball. Review

The Sea Around Us, Rachel Carson. New York: Open Road Media, 2011 (first published 1951). A survey of what is known about the oceans– including their beginnings, the dynamics of currents, tides and waves, the topography of the oceans, the life within, and our own relationship with this dominant feature of our planet. Review

Eschatology, D. Jeffrey Bingham and Glenn R. Kreider (eds.). Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2016. A compendium of essays on the future hope of Christians reflecting a dispensational premillenialist perspective. Review

So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, Jon Ronson. London: Picador, 2015. Explores the use of social media for public shaming of individuals, the dark side of ourselves this reveals, and the ways those shamed deal with this experience. Review

A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War, Joseph Loconte. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2015. A study of why Lewis and Tolkien, contrary to a disillusioned post-war generation, went deeper into their faith and allowed both war experience and that faith to shape their greatest works. Review

Bedeviled, Colin Duriez. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2015. An exploration of the conflict of good and evil in the works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, and how two World Wars influenced their thinking. Review

Hillbilly Elegy, J. D. Vance. New York: Harper, 2016. A memoir of growing up in a troubled family from the hill country of Kentucky in Middletown, Ohio, exploring why so many in the working class are struggling, and what made the difference for the author. Review

Rediscovering an Evangelical Heritage, 2nd edition, Donald W. Dayton with Douglas M. Strong. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2014. An updated edition of a study of the pre-Civil War nineteenth century roots of evangelicalism in the United States and the combination of piety, preaching, and social reform characteristic of this movement in this period. Review

The Truth About Science and Religion, Fraser Fleming, foreword by Gary B. Ferngren. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2016. A historical, scientific, and theological survey of the interaction of science and religion around the big questions of purpose, beginnings, the rise of life, the rise of human beings, the nature of mind and consciousness. Review

The Natural, Bernard Malamud. London: Vintage Classics, 2002 (originally published in 1952). The story of Roy Hobbs, whose promising career in baseball is nearly ended by a strange woman with a silver bullet and his attempt at 35 for one more season of greatness. Review

Best of the Month: I’m going to go with J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy. It may not be the best writing represented on the list (I’ll give that nod to Rachel Carson), but I found this a compelling exploration the struggles and realities of life today among many working class Americans, a “forgotten America” whose presence has re-asserted itself in the current presidential campaign.

Quote of the Month: Rachel Carson’s nature writing is among the best there is. Here was one passage that captured my imagination, describing the process of sedimentation on the ocean floors:

“For the sediments are the materials of the most stupendous ‘snowfall’ the earth has ever seen. It began when the first rains fell on the barren rocks and set in motion the forces of erosion. It was accelerated when living creatures developed in the surface waters and the discarded little shells of lime or silica that had encased them in life began to drift downward to the bottom. Silently, endlessly, with the deliberation of earth processes that can afford to be slow because they have so much time for completion, the accumulation of the sediments has proceeded. So little in a year, or in a human lifetime, but so enormous an amount in the life of earth and sea.”

Coming soon: In the next few days I’ll be posting reviews of a Dorothy L. Sayers mystery classic and the late Kenneth Bailey’s The Good Shepherd. I’m currently finishing up a book on the possibility of moral knowledge. I’m also reading a book by Reformed philosopher Cornelius Van Til on common grace and a fascinating new book with the title of How to Survive the Apocalypse, exploring the current fascination with everything from zombies to dystopian fiction. Later in October, I will be reviewing Shusako Endo’s Silence, hopefully in time for the debut of Martin Scorsese’s film version of this Japanese novelist’s work.

Happy reading!

Review: The Sea Around Us

September 13, 2016September 12, 2016 / rtrube54 / 3 Comments

The Sea Around Us, Rachel Carson. New York: Open Road Media, 2011 (first published 1951).

Summary: A survey of what is known about the oceans– including their beginnings, the dynamics of currents, tides and waves, the topography of the oceans, the life within, and our own relationship with this dominant feature of our planet.

Rachel Carson is probably best known for her book Silent Spring (reviewed here) on the environmental impacts of pesticides, notably DDT, that led to its eventual banning. However, it was The Sea Around Us, published eleven years earlier that brought Carson to national attention as a science writer. It sold over a million copies, won a National Book Award and was a New York Times bestseller.

Oceans cover 71 percent of the earth’s surface and account for 97 percent of the water on the planet. At points, oceans covered much of North America between the Appalachians and the Rockies and have left their traces to this day. Carson tells the story of oceans, mixing the latest scientific data available to her with a lyrical account of this most salient feature of our planet. Consider this passage about sedimentation:

“When I think of the floor of the deep sea, the single, overwhelming fact that possesses my imagination is the accumulation of sediments. I see the steady, unremitting, downward drift of materials from above, flake upon flake, layer upon layer–a drift that has continued for hundreds of millions of years, that will go on as long as there are seas and continents.

“For the sediments are the materials of the most stupendous ‘snowfall’ the earth has ever seen. It began when the first rains fell on the barren rocks and set in motion the forces of erosion. It was accelerated when living creatures developed in the surface waters and the discarded little shells of lime or silica that had encased them in life began to drift downward to the bottom. Silently, endlessly, with the deliberation of earth processes that can afford to be slow because they have so much time for completion, the accumulation of the sediments has proceeded. So little in a year, or in a human lifetime, but so enormous an amount in the life of earth and sea.”

With her writing, what sounds like a dull subject, sedimentation, takes on wonder as it is likened to an unremitting snowfall. It is a skill we see over and over in her work as she takes facts and explains them in a way that captures the imagination.

The Sea Around Us introduces us to oceanography from its account of the beginnings of the oceans on a cooling planet to the inhabitants of the seas on the ocean surface and in the dark depths (I found her discussion of squid, and their ubiquity especially fascinating). She explores the seasonal cycles of life, the topography of the ocean floor, the formation of volcanic islands (and their disappearances), and the evidence of historic rises and falls of the oceans, which in the past, and likely in the future, will inundate much of North America, as well as other coastal and low areas around the world. Even when she wrote, oceans were rising and glacial melts were in process, but in her time this was still seen as merely a cyclical occurrence, unrelated to human causes. Whatever you think about these things, one thing she makes clear–significant areas where humans make a home will be under water some day. The only questions are “how soon?” and “how will we prepare for that day?”

She explores the movements of the oceans, from wave actions to tidal patterns to the vast sea currents that circulate around the globe. The final part of her work considers the impacts of the oceans on our lives, from providing us life-giving salt to functioning as the earth’s thermostat (she emphasizes the incredible heat storage capacities of the ocean and how significant a one degree rise in ocean temperature can be), and finally our human quest to sail, circumnavigate, and explore the depths of the sea.

Those who associate Carson with environmental activism will be surprised at the lack of advocacy in this book. What one encounters instead is description that captures the imagination and awakens us to the wonder that surrounds us. And perhaps this is as vital as any advocacy, because we must first love and deeply care for that for which we advocate. Carson opens our eyes to the wonder of what we might sometimes take for granted and deepens the love many of us have for the sight and sound of waves, the smell of sea air, the delight we take in the creatures of the deep and the awe we have of the power of “the sea around us.”

Review: Silent Spring

June 10, 2015June 9, 2015 / rtrube54 / 8 Comments

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (50th Anniversary edition). New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1962, 2002.

Summary: This classic of environmental writing made the case that pesticides were rendering harm to just about everything in the American landscape, including human beings, except for the pests targeted by these chemical poisons.

I grew up in the era when pesticide use was far more common than at present. I probably carry DDT and a host of other chemicals in my fatty tissue, though far less than would otherwise have been the case because of Rachel Carson’s landmark 1962 work. Carson was a trained marine biologist who became a science writer winning a National Book award for her 1951 best seller The Sea Around Us. In high school, we celebrated the first Earth Day and read an excerpt of her work. But I never read the work in its entirety until now.

The book is a case against pesticide use and ultimately resulted in the banning of DDT and limitations on the use of other pesticides. Carson tells a tale of how pesticides sprayed from planes or by other means end up in rivers and ground water, often killing fish, wildlife and domestic animals, and sometimes human beings. Her meticulous research covers things like the effects of these pesticides on soil, which is a living thing, not just dirt, until pesticides wipe out much of the life in the soil. The title comes from the effects of pesticides on birds. She describes spraying operations that wipe out whole bird populations and others that essentially sterilize the birds, meaning no young hatch from the few eggs they are able to lay. And she tells the human toll, in terms of various health effects including rising incidence of cancer.

Rachel Carson

But she doesn’t stop there. She goes on to show that insects, the primary target of these pesticides quickly develop natural resistance, primarily because they breed much faster than humans or other animals. Therefore, these poisons are quickly rendered ineffective. She argues that biological controls and natural enemies are a far better way of dealing with these pests. Her account is a salutary tale of the use of chemical and technological solutions that are far worse than the problem they are intended to solve.

The book combines a beauty of style with meticulous research and numerous citations of scientific papers to support every example cited. She expected a firestorm of opposition from the chemical companies, which she indeed encountered but her clear and beautiful prose won the day in the court of public opinion, a victory she was not around to witness, losing her life to breast cancer in 1964. The Fiftieth Anniversary edition includes an Afterword by biologist E. O. Wilson paying tribute to Carson’s work.

Finishing her book left me wondering whether someone could write a similar book today about our coming water problems, or the climate changes that will drastically alter life, if not for us, then for our children. Then, as now, powerful interests stand against any decisive action to address these issues. Yet one woman, already dying, wrote with style and care making a case that awoke the American people and gave birth to the environmental movement. Because of her, bald eagles have rebounded, chemicals are at least less-pervasive than they once were and organic growing is bringing us safer foods. Will such a book be written to address the ills facing our children and grand-children? Let us hope so.