I’ve been wanting to type up the final draft of the Best Books of the Year Part Two that I promised, but just can’t find time. Soon and very soon. I hope…thanks for your patience.
So, I hope you don’t view this as a delaying tactic. I really do want to tell you that I will be appearing on the radio on Pittsburgh’s WORD-FM this Wednesday around 4-5 PM (EST) with the best talk show hosts I know, John & Kathy. All this week they are doing a good series on Christian engagement with popular culture and will have rock music critics, film makers, novelists like Anne Rice, me….uh, did I say me? Yep, right up their with Pittsburgh Steeler Daniel Sepulveda, and other great folks who live out their interests “in but not of” the world around us. I talk books, publishing, classics, the shift to electronic reading, reading for study, reading for pleasure, and mumbling a few cheap words about buckling down and making time for what matters most, including reading. Like I have that figured out. I hope you enjoy listening in if you are able. I think it might be on their website eventually, too. The whole week’s series is going to be great!
(You can be friends with them on Facebook, too, here.) Scroll back through and see who they’ve interviewed—-and then feel free to order the books from us, if you’d like.
I rattled off a list of great classics with which we should at least be familiar. I also admitted that I appreciate handbooks to such stuff, guidebooks and suggestions, to help us along, such as the wonderful Invitation to the Classics: A Guide to the Books You Always Wanted to Read edited by Louise Cowan and Os Guinness (Baker; $26.95) It is encyclopedic, full color, interesting, and with some suggestions as to why people of faith might find these master books to be of use. From early church fathers to the key figures in Western thought and literature and theology, this is the best book of its kind. This is a beautifully produced book with many solid contributors, helping us learn about the best of Western literature, explained well from within a thoughtful, appreciative, Christian worldview.
Tell us if you listened to this interview (if you really did, of course) and we’ll sell Invitation to the Classics to you at half off. That’s 50% off. Kind of a payback after the radio initiation rite. Fair enough?
We’re now out of town selling books with some UCC clergy friends for a few days (with guest speaker, old pal Graham Standish, author of Becoming a Blessed Church and Humble Leadership, both published by the Alban Institute) so we pre-recorded the interview. Hosts J&K seemed pleased, and we hope you will be too–Wednesday, January 27th at 4:00-5:00 EST.
While I’m presuming to invite you to listen in to the sound of my voice—catching, perhaps,
some of my enthusiasm and joy for the printed page and our high calling of bookselling that you may not get if you are a BookNotes reader or friend of the store on Facebook—you might recall that my friend Jory Fisher, who has an internet radio show on life coaching, calling, and purpose, had us on her show last fall. It was a very special time as she invited us to not only tell our story, but to tell of books that will help others find their passion and purpose and how all of us, as we discern our vocations and callings, can impact the world around us, to God’s greater glory
The interview with me can be found at the archives of Heart & Soul With Jory Fisher here and we’d love for you to hear our little song and dance. While you are there, check out the other good stories she has uncovered–she found some good folks to share some remarkable testimonials about how they make a difference in their corner of the world. I was especially impressed with the good interview with Gordon Smith, a wonderful author who nicely brings together a serious sense of vocation and calling, and attends to the inner journey of spiritual formation along the way. It is very helpful to hear him, as a conservative Protestant, to draw so nicely on the Ignatian method of spiritual honesty and discernment. See, for instance, his book Courage and Calling: Embracing Your God-given Potential (IVP; $15.00) It is particularly wise and mature study of this vital topic that Jory explores so nicely in her interview with him.
Anyway, thought you might like to hear my interview with her, and learn a bit about us, our bookstore, and why we so appreciate our mail order friends alongside our local customers.
Tell us if you listened to this interview (if you really did, of course) and we’ll send you a book any book on vocation, calling or purpose that I mentioned, at half off. That’s 50% off any one mentioned. Good deal, huh?
Thanks for caring about books, for keeping indie shops alive, for your interest in our writing, reviewing and ruminations about our Kingdom living in God’s good world. I hope these audio interviews might remind you, as it does us when we get to speak it, what we are all about.
Hi Byron! I so enjoyed the talk yesterday on word fm. I live here in Pgh., and listen in the car on my way home. Their program is so insightful and it helps to reveal to ourselves who we are truly, by the response that we have to the topic being discussed.And, they aren’t afraid to talk about most anything!
I, too, am a lover of all books. My mom is a reader and encouraged us kids,at a young age, to read. I have a stack, that I have high hopes of getting through, on a range of subjects, on the table 🙂
I particularly enjoyed your insights on the fact that we DO live in a good world made by a good God and are to enjoy all that is good while we are here in it.And, it is for His good pleasure that we do just that. I hadn’t thought about it to the degree that you shared yesterday. For instance, recipe books and the classics and other things that aren’t scripture based but just good stuff. Thank you for that. I read John Pipers book ‘ The Pleasures of God’, twice and it transformed me, yet again, on who He is and His pleasure for us/me. And so, to look again at all things good and embrace them, especially with books, is giving me cause to smile. I love books, the way that they smell, feel in my hands, turning pages, the old ones with their tooled covers and faded pages. I have a small collection of old books of which I love. A very old copy of Paul Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrims Progress’ with its fabulous prints and gorgeous cover!Old favorites that are dog eared with my reading over and over.
So, Byron, thank you for your infectious, passionate voice for the love of books.
I hope to make it to your store some day and take home a treasure or to and ,of course, to meet you.
Blessings to you,
Marnie
This just made our day. Thanks for your delightful comment, for taking the time to write. Books, like anything in God’s world, can be confused and confusing, but we need not fear. God has sent us into His good world, has promised to “renew our minds” and it is our duty to take delight in it all. Learning, enjoying, and savoring the printed page is a fabulous way to show our “abundant life” (John 10:10) in Christ. I’m glad you not only like to read, but enjoy holding well made books. You can really thank you mom for that good example!
Be sure to continue to support the good folks at WORD FM. I’m sure not everybody appreciates such fine and interesting conversation! J & K are great folks.
Let us know if we can ever serve you…in these fast-paced, electronic days, we book lovers have to stick together! 😉
Hi Byron,
Just listened to your interview with Jory Fisher and would love to get a copy of The Echo Within for 50% off.
After listening to the interview, I also just want to thank you for your passion for books and promoting a reformational worldview. I have only discovered reformational philosophy in the last year and it has created a monumental shift in my life, the way I see the world, and my role as a participant in God’s grand redemptive story…I could go on and on. The three best books I read last year: the classics, Transforming Vision and Creation Regained, as well as Naugle’s amazing new book, I discovered from your site.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that your passion is helping to spur others to think more deeply about their role in the world.
Shalom!
Jason