I’m sorry that I didn’t do a BookNotes last week; we’ve been busy with an out-of-town trip, handling many appointments for Beth’s start-up of her chemo treatments next week ( yep, we covet your prayers; it’s going to be a long year) and I’ve been exhausted with a dumb, draining cold.  All five of us on the team here have reasons to be discouraged — don’t we all, these days? — but the good books cheer us up. What a gift of God’s common grace these titles are. How wonderful that authors write manuscripts, publishers refine and make them, sales reps and reviewers tell bookstores about them, and booksellers get to tell you about them, inviting you to yet one more adventure with the printed page.

As we near our 44th anniversary as a retailer here in Dallastown, we are thankful for those who support us, who have sent orders to us over the years. We are honored to be your bookseller.

I’m going to try to be brief — we’ve got an Advent list coming soon— but I just had to highlight and celebrate and try to persuade you to order a couple of these brand new releases. It’ll be good for what ails you, trust me.

As always here at our (somewhat) regular BookNotes, all books mentioned can be picked up at the shop or mailed out at our BookNotes 20% off. Use the secure order form below the column, please, being sure to clarify the shipping address and how you’d like them shipped. Of course, we’re happy to send books to others on your behalf, tucking in a little note saying who the book is from, so let us know how we can help. We gift wrap for free, too — you’ll see that at the order form page.

Take a deep breath. Here we go.

For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional Hanna Reichel (Eerdmans) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Well, speaking of hard times these days, this is a book with the old SOS signal embedded cleverly on the cover, indicating it really is “an emergency devotional.” It is written to buoy your spirits, steady your unsteady knees, and warm your heart in ways that allow you to be voices of hope in this rotten political culture. With violent (and masked) ICE agents wrongly arresting US citizens daily, kidnapping legal asylum seekers, how much can a tender heart take? With political stupidity on display every day, and evangelical leaders (who ought to know better) giving the wink to neo-Nazis and racists, we wonder, how can we keep on keeping on?

Dr. Hanna Reichel is a theology professor at Princeton and a ruling elder in the PC(USA) church. Blurbs on the back of this heartening, inspiring devotional, are from Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jemar Tisby, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, and Mariann Edgar Budde, author of How We Learn to Be Brave and the bishop of the Episopal Diocese of Washington. It is said to be a guide for “ordinary Christians seeking to live faithfully in extraordinary times.” Du Mez says it is “the book I have been waiting for.” She says it has “remarkable historical and theological depth.” We’ve been glad to send some out and am sure some of our friends will count it a blessing to have such sharp reflections day by day.

The Vision of Ephesians: The Task of the Church and the Glory of God N. T. Wright (Zondervan) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

We are nothing but thrilled to have a new N.T. Wright volume, although this third in what seems like a series (preceded by The Heart of Romans and The Challenge of Acts) is just a tiny bit hard to explain. It is not a systematic commentary, sentence by sentence, as he did, succinctly and in a lively way in the popular “For Everyone” series. Nor is it a super-scholarly work as he has done earlier in his career. (Have you read The Climax of the Covenant on Galatians!? Whew.)  These three are more thematic overviews, capturing something essential about the text, the key points, set within the full new creation project that the God of Israel is doing throughout the Bible, made real in Christ Jesus the exalted suffering King. To see that narrative explicated in a lively exploration of the vision of Ephesians, is good news, indeed.

Wesley Hill, a friend and prof at Western Theological Seminary, suggests that this is also good for any readers “who wish to survey the vista of N.T. Wright’s biblical theology.” As Lynn Cohick (of Houston Christian University) says, The Vision of Ephesians “draws on Old Testament passages and the historical milieu of the Jewish and Roman cultures of Paul’s day.” Hooray. I’m bumping this way up in my to-be-read pile.

Unwavering Faithfulness: Pivotal Moments in the Book of Isaiah Walter Brueggemann and Brent Strawn (WJK) $20.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

I’ll admit that I almost cried just reading the great forward as Brent Strawn explained how he was asked to help Walter finish this — it was, I think, Brueggemann’s last project before he died earlier this year. Strawn graciously and enthusiastically explains how the notions of pivots work often in the narratives of the Bible, the passage shifting suddenly. Brueggemann did a few other wonderfully thoughtful but accessible books in this “Pivotal Moments” series, which we’ve highlighted for you as they have been released. There is one volume on Jeremiah (Returning from the Abyss), two volumes on Exodus (Delivered Out of Empire and Delivered Into Covenant) and now, this new one, Unwavering Faithfulness: Pivotal Moments in the Book of Isaiah on one of the most beloved and vexing of prophets.

Isaiah is a sprawling, complicated work, and it is fantastic to have Brueggemann guide ordinary readers through the key moments in the unfolding drama. There are discussion questions at the end of each of the 30 short chapters, too. Don’t miss it.

Nervous Systems: Spiritual Practices to Calm Anxiety in Your Body, the Church, and Politics Sara Billups (Baker Books) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

There have been other mature and sophisticated books studying the role of trauma in the human body, and the ways in which social contexts influence our psyche, as we are bombarded by church scandals and rancorous politics. This is readable, upbeat, Biblical and a great, great resource for any of us who are struggling with aches in our hearts, in our bodies, and who care about the body politic.

Just a few years ago Billups wrote a fair and insightful guide to those who she called Orphaned Believers, lamenting the ways in which the church has driven some earnest seekers away with toxic teachings and ugly behavior. Or complicity in the same. But she also invited folks who care to try to reach out to the “orphaned” and lovingly invite them back into relationships. The subtitle of that 2023 was How a Generation of Christian Exiles Can Find the Way Home Anyway, it was a very good one — part memoir, actually, of growing up as an evangelical in the ‘80s and ‘90s — and I knew she was only going to get better, as a social critic and a writer. This new book is a fantastic example of moving “further up and farther in”, more honest, more vulnerable, more prophetic, all with prose one fellow author called “sparkling.”

One reviewer (Sarah Westfall, who wrote The Way of Belonging) says it is “deeply human, generous, relevant in our current moments, and thrumming with possibility.”  Other ravers include the excellent counselor Aundi Kolber and Mockingbirder David Zahl.

I love the title of this — Nervous Systems. It is laden with dual meaning and insight… rare is the book that combines so much about so much, inviting us to ask what it really means to follow Jesus in these anxious times.

When Life Feels Empty: 7 Ancient Practices to Cultivate Meaning Isaac Serrano (IVP) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I’ve followed this guy a bit and am so glad this brand new book has hit the shelves. I’m not sure how to sell it simply; many good books are just complex enough to not allow a cheap summary. I suppose, if I had to say it quickly, the title and subtitle are just exactly right: it is a book for those who feel like something is missing, like the story you are living lacks purpose or direction.

In this sense it is a thoughtful and brief overview of some of the conversations — in academic books, conference and debates, and in college dorms and late-night diners — about where there even is a higher meaning to life, does anything matter, is this all there is? There is some philosophical meandering here, not overly heavy, but astute. In this sense maybe this is a book akin to those in the apologetics genre. And with the new call to “cultural apologetics” it invites others not just to agree intellectually with the data about Christianity, but to live into a new story rejecting the social imaginary of the secular age. It invites readers to a better telos, to beauty and goodness and truth, to grapple with the tragic. There’s a chapter about Zombies, but I haven’t gotten there yet.

But it isn’t just an apologetic resource. It is, finally, a book of spiritual formation, I’d say, an invitation to take up wiser, ancient ways. The second half (after Part One being “Signs and Symptoms”) is under the heading “The Remedy — Belief and Embodiment.” It is about knowing God, about song, about baptism, about communion and thanksgiving and church. Oh man, this is good stuff, I’m sure. I can’t wait to get to this part.  The final part is about “spirits” and he means a lot by that, including exposing the spirit of the age and finding better ways to live, ways that yield a rich life and true meaning. Nancy Ortberg says “Serrano leaves us looking into the face of a good and grand God.”

Beauty + Resistance: Spiritual Rhythms for Formation and Repair Jonathan Walton (IVP) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

I know I’m going to have to revisit this, too, maybe tell you more about it later, but it is brand new and I know, at least, three things I’m delighted to tell you about now.

First, Jonathan Walton is a great writer, a Black man with keen insight about the nature of the American Dream and — as an earlier, excellent book put it — “twelve lies that hold America captive.”  He is a wise and thoughtful writer who gets the big picture. I respect him and his good work.

Secondly, like the best prophets, he knows that our malaise (as much as it needs to be named and understood and resisted) requires more than a social or political critique. The principalities and powers of the fallen world and this palpably unjust culture need spiritual resources to come against them. That is, if we are going to resist as we should we simply must have deeper spiritual practices in play that will shape our souls. Geesh, just think of Bonhoeffer or the church-based faith of the civil rights activists of the 50s and 60s. In a way this reminds me of another book I highlighted a month ago, The Soulwork of Justice: Four Movements for Contemplative Action by Wes Granberg-Michaelson (published by Orbis; $26.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.80.) It is granular and deeply spiritual, a good companion to Walton’s amazing new one.

If Wes is connected to the Reformed tradition and is currently pastoring an ELCA Lutheran Church, and draws on a broad range of contemplative mysticism (think Richard Rohr, say, or Merton) Jonathan Walton has worked for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, one of the best evangelical campus ministry organizations out there who have specialists like him serving their staff with resources and leadership skills. Not every evangelical campus minister may fully value it, but Jonathan is tasked to help them prayerfully take up sustainable activism (as Caleb Campbell put it.) In his rave review on the back Campbell notes that “we need not be guided by urgency or outrage but in the life-giving presence of the Triune God.” Walton has guided generations of students into a transforming vision which includes a “lived gospel of hope and justice.” This, friends, is how it is done.

Jonathan invites us to “build sacred rhythms” which include movements to rest, restore, resist, and repeat. This book offers a path to a spirituality where beauty bubbles up and justice work bears fruit among whole people.

The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex ,and Controversy in the 1980s Paul Elie (Farrar Straus and Giroux) $33.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $26.40

I will write more about this magisterial book as I am sure it is one of my very top reads of the year! Never have I ever read such a detailed, captivating, electric, exploration of so much that means so much to many of us — literature, justice, the arts, passion, desire, spirituality, the church, and supremely, faith (and faith in what?) Called an “enthralling group portrait” nobody has so seriously and with such verve looked at the extraordinary ways in which faith went public among artists and writers and activists in the 1980s. The Last Supper by Paul Elie is nothing short of brilliant.

(And, I will offer this urgent bit of two-pronged advice: read it alongside the new edition of David Dark’s Everyday Apocalypse: Art, Empire and the End of the World [Duke University Press; $24.95 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.96] which is a different sort of book with a different tone, but surely is in the same ballpark. I’ve love to see a conversation between the two of them! And since Elie does such a great job exploring the life and work and faith of Leonard Cohen, you simply must get Rags of Light: Leonard Cohen and the Landscape of Biblical Imagination by Brian J. Walsh, which we raved about before at BookNotes; [Cascade; $23.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $18.40.])

Perhaps you have heard of Paul Elie (I hope you have) because of his extraordinary volume The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage which showed his immense insight and journalistic prowess — which explored God-haunted Catholic writers of the mid-twentieth century (among others), Walker Percy, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton and Flannery O’Connor. Grappling with modernity and culture, America and faith, Catholicism old and new, literature and Christianity, this is one of the great books of our era. It won a PEN award and was a finalist for the National Book Award.

The Last Supper goes wider as Elie explores what he calls “crypto-religion.” His exploration of what that means is a bit complex, shifting in nuance as much as the authors and rock stars and artists who he finds illustrate a certain sort of crypto-religion. Some are living out their long-rejected but still present religious upbringing, others are exploring religious elements of the mystery of life, devotion and presence, and some are in existential angst about the meaning of it all. As he unfolds story after story, deeply, carefully, caringly, those of us who lived in those years know he is right. There was, in the ‘80s, as a ’60’s songwriter put it, “something in the air.” And it wasn’t always cryptic — think of the bold faith of U2, who Elie covers really, really well.

The book opens with a riveting vignette when Sinéad O’Connor famously tore up a picture of the Pope on SNL (actually in 1992) and he plumbs her journey well. He moves easily from Morrissey to Czeslaw Milosz to Vaclav Havel to Leonard Cohen to Andy Warhol, whose wild and confusing persona masked a life of seemingly sincere prayer and church attendance. You will learn about Aaron Neville and Martin Scorsese and Bob Dylan and Patti Smith and so many more. (Did you know Toni Morrison’s Beloved was the presumed winner of the Pulitzer Prize In 1984 but her office-mate William Kennedy won for his novel Ironweed? They often talked together about faith and writing, religion and fiction, race and the disenfranchised.) As Colum McCann (of Let the Great World Spin and  Apeirogon) puts it, “Paul Elie has put together a creative jigsaw of the 1980s… which interlock masterfully.” Man, he connects the dots in ways that moved me deeply and sometimes took my breath away. He’s a good, good writer, using words so well as he tells this complicated story.

As the subtitle and rather odd cover jacket illustrate, some of this book is haunted by the horror of the AIDS epidemic (that particularly swept New York, of couse.) How the Catholic Church and the Moral Majority types reacted to it are a backdrop but some of Elie’s journey into this nearly epochal era and hovers over his look at the ministry and prophetic witness of Fr. Daniel Berrigan, poet and renegade Jesuit, (friend of Dorthy Day and Thomas Merton), serving the sick in NYC and protesting the nuclear arms race. Less cryptic about his faith — although allusive, to be sure — Berrigan weaves in and out of the story. Bono, too, is nearly iconic about how Christian faith (cryptic or not, pseudo or not) was everywhere in the 1980s. Remember the great Dylan album Slow Train Coming and the controversy about his conversion to Christ that started the decade? And how his Oh Mercy ended the decade? Ring them bells, indeed.

As an aside, we loved and carried many of the CDs by these sorts of artists alongside our huge selection of CCM music in those years and it either delighted or offended browsers (Acts 17 notwithstanding.) It seemed perfectly sensible to us to stock Cohen — a praying Jewish poet — or Midnight Oil or the Waterboys or Van Morrison or Bruce Cockburn and others whose allusions to faith were even more crypto and subversive. Not to mention CDs infused with the renewed Orthodoxy of classical composers such as Arvo Pärt, who Elie also mentions.

(Springsteen’s Catholic upbringing was obvious but I was glad to see Elie cite a famous article in the Jesuit magazine, America, when Father Andrew Greeley suggested that Tunnel of Love was as important Catholic event as the visit of the pope!)

This is all imaginative but I think compelling and generous social criticism but it cuts close to the bone, here, for me. I hope you love this big book as much as I did.

As you find in Elie’s 450+ page book, many in this often troubled cohort turn to art knowingly as a way to grapple with their deepest desires, faith, devotion to something, and the search for meaning. From Prince to Salman Rushdie to ACT UP to The Last Temptation of Christ to Robert Mapplethorp to Paul Simon’s going to Graceland to the famously religious Amnesty International Conspiracy of Hope tour organized by U2 with Aaron Neville and Joan Baez leading the crowds in “Amazing Grace”, there were deep underlying wrestlings going on in those years, signals of transcendence, perhaps, or just the chronicle of rebellious humans who can’t shake the truth of God’s presence in the world.

Spirit-Filled Singing: Bearing Fruit as We Worship Together Ryanne J. Molinari (Crossway) $17.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

The author is a woman with an advanced degree from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland who is a collaborative pianist/organist and worship director based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where she serves with her husband, the pastor of Prairie Bible Church. I heard of her, I think through some artful musician friends who were part of her wide and thoughtful musical collective called Cardiphonia Music, founded by Bruce Benedict, the Worship Arts Chaplain at Hope College in Holland Michigan. She has networked for years with musicians and artists (who often have “Artist in Residence” residencies in a local church) and has earned the right to speak well about congregational song.

If congregational singing is designed to glorify God and edify the church, what happens when “differing perspectives and approaches render musical worship a time of dissonance rather than harmony”? She notes that this shifts our focus and fractures our unity.

This book is profound and lovely, thoughtful and inspiring, very Biblical. I’ve only skimmed it but I love the discussion questions and the good quotes (and she ends each chapter with a meditation on a hymn, cleverly called the “Closing Hymn” and these alone are worth the price of the book.

It is unlike other books on music in the church or liturgical reform or the heart of worship because it is arranged by chapters on each of the fruits of the Spirit, which is a great hook. Nathan Drake (founder of Reawaken Hymns) says, “What better way to seek the Spirit in worship than by modeling our worship leadership after the fruit of the Spirit. I wish I had read this book twenty yeas ago.” You, too, maybe?

This isn’t heady or hard, and would be great for any worship team, choir, or at least anyone called to offer leadership in congregational singing.  There’s a solid, short intro by Tim Challies, reminding us of what is at stake as we learn to worship well. Nice!

The Life You Were Reborn to Live: Dismantling 12 Lies That Rob Your Intimacy with God Gary Thomas (Zondervan) $25.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.79

I’ve been waiting for Gary Thomas to do a book like this for a long time. His early good work offered an evangelical take on contemplative mystics and guided many of various denominations and traditions into a deeper, Christ-focused and transformational walk with God. Old words like sanctification come up, and his books such as Glorious Pursuit reminded us of that. (In this regard I think he is on similar ground as, but more accessible than, say, Dallas Willard.) Another great book we regularly mention is his Sacred Pathways: Nine Ways to Connect with God which invites us to explore modalities or styles of spirituality that might be overlooked or not taken seriously — finding God in the outdoors, through our senses, in service, in exuberance, intellectually. Really good stuff.

Mid-career Thomas started writing fine books on the spirituality of parenting and family and has done a host of books about marriage. As useful as they have been, I’m glad to see him writing again about personal transformation through our union with Christ, sharing his hard-earned pastoral guidance by (as Kyle Idleman put it) “unpacking common lies that lead us from freedom into bondage.” Yup. The profound writer Sara Hagerty (you’ve got to read her The Gift of Limitations: Finding Beauty in Your Boundaries) said, “I didn’t know how much I needed this book.” I, too, devoured much of it on a lazy Sunday a few weeks ago.

He uses the word “dismantling” in each chapter as he suggests that we learn to dismantle restlessness, dismantle the need to be in control, dismantling our tendency to put family first (rather than the preeminence of God the Father), dismantle isolation, selfishness, the need for comfort, and “the demand for a sin-free life” where he helps learn the lessons that our struggle with sin can teach us. He dismantles our apathy about the church, goes after the closed, materialistic worldview, invites us to a “God-rich life” rather than the allure of earthly splendor, and a sense of entitlement. The twelfth thing he calls us to dismantle, with God’s help, is what he calls “complacent ignorance” replaced with a love for the value of wisdom.

Some of us know most of these by heart. Who wants to admit to an un-supernatural worldview or bow our knee to Mammon? Who doesn’t know we have to give up some of our desperate desire to be in control? This book names these sins and distortions and gives us good tools to notice, name, resist, and overcome these notions in our own lives. Kudos, Gary.

The Mother’s Smile: Philosophical Formation in the Welcome of Mothers and Friends Esther Lightcap Meek (Cascade) $20.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

Speaking of complex books that are so laden with brilliance and insight and depth that they are hard to explain (didn’t I say that a bit ago?) this one is surely just such a book. You may know that Dr. Meek — as a friend I happily call her Esther — has forged a sort of tradition, a school of thought, a style of (Christian) philosophy influenced by the post-World War II scientist, Michael Polanyi. The very short version is that Polanyi researched and pondered what it means to know. (Her study of his realism is knowingly called Contact with Reality.) She explores how actual engagement with real stuff leads us to care and once we care we are on the way to love. This is a covenantal philosophy of love, knowing not just with the brain, cognitively, but with the hands and heart. Her first book on this is still a gem we value, Longing to Know. A bigger, magisterial version is Loving to Know and a shorter version is called A Little Manual of Knowing. She has applied this attentiveness in God’s creation, this knowing through caring, to everything from a rock band who did an album inspired by her down-to-Earth philosophizing to political theorizing to educational philosophy to aesthetics. In 2023 she released a fascinating book on the creative process called Doorway to Artistry: Attuning Your Philosophy to Enhance Your Creativity; it has a lovely forward by the astute thinker and visual artist Makoto Fujimura.

Which brings us to her shorter, dense, new one, The Mother’s Smile, with the great cover created from a print by graphic artist Ned Bustard. It is written by a trained philosopher, mind you, so this isn’t sentimental or anything approaching a self-help guide for moms. It is intellectually demanding and a bit rigorous. But — true to her oeuvre in all her books — she is inviting us to pay attention, to understand the way we know things by encountering them, really, in God’s world. As it says on the back,

From birth, the intimate, face-to-face encounters of life form each person in a natural, everyday philosophy. Mother’s delighted welcome invites her tiny child into a fundamental vision of reality and models flourishing involvement with it. Sustained and matured in the gaze of certain friends throughout life, seeing oneself being seen with delight, grows a “yes” to the world, a sense of ones existence, a regard for others, and a lifelong desire for the face of God. In this modern age skewed by a philosophy of isolation, suspicions, and critique, returning to a primal philosophy of welcome brings personal and cultural healing.

Does that strike you? The forward is by the dense Catholic philosophy D.C. Schindler and lovely endorsements on the back are from everybody from the poet Malcolm Guite to the artist Matthew Clark to the psychotherapist Curt Thompson. Curt says, “Read this book and find your mind sharpened, your heart expanded, and your life transformed.”

In the life-giving power of another’s smile, Esther Meek discerns a whole world of truth about being human. — John Crosby, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, Franciscan University, Steubenville, Ohio.

Beard: A Memoir of a Marriage Kelly Foster Lundquist (Eerdmans) $28.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.19

Oh my, oh my, oh my, I couldn’t put this down, and I’ve been thinking about it every day for weeks. It is a memoir written by a former fundamentalist girl who fell in love (at church camp, wouldn’t you know) with a boy who seemed as rebellious as she was and carrying doubt as she did. They were good kids, sneaking out to listen to Alanis Morissette on their mix-tapes. In their respective southern families they learned about Jesus and church and purity and hope. One surely realizes there is something sad about this story — it’s on the back cover and the inside flap and the prelude. For those that don’t know the meaning of “beard” (I didn’t, I’ll admit) is it the name given to a sexually straight wife of a gay spouse. It’s a thing, a trope, an archetype, maybe. How did she not know? How could she?

This is the beautiful and harsh story of a profound, young love, Christian kids growing into young adulthood and deepening their new marriage. Although it is a very different book by a woman with a different writing style (and of a different generation, in a different spot) I kept thinking of another spectacular memoir of a broken marriage, How To Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told by Harrison Scott Key, another Southerner.

In fact Harrison Scott Key has a blurb on the flyleaf:

“Beard is brilliant and bristly and heart-breaking and funny as hell…. The queerest thing of all turns out to be what we all need: love.”

The author herself was working in feminist and queer studies for a PhD so some of her friendships and social settings are in the academy, which makes the book appealing to other academics or newly marriage students. Her faith was being deconstructed in those years, by the way and in the hardest heart of the story they are living in Chicago, in touch with supportive family but not active in a good church. The story rings so true, sad and sometimes annoying. Many memoirs are that way as we enter the lives of another for a bit.

Beard has been called “a tour de force of empathy and vivid prose.” Kelly Foster Lundquist is an amazing person. It also is a look into the ways in which some churches that have strict gender roles have harmed men and women, husbands and wives. Finally, as she comes to understand her husband’s choices and (seemingly unwanted) desires she must decide what to do with that “beard” trope. And of what being doubled-minded on this is doing to him.

As she struggles, we understand why she says that “the straight woman who unwittingly marries a gay man is either a laughingstock or a fool — or both — in the popular imagination.” Of course, in this case, due to the pressures to not admit to being gay and/or to pray it away that came from his home church and the broader evangelical culture, Devin tried so hard to be straight, to make it work, to deny or cover up his true desires. Kelly just didn’t know, until she did.

This mulit-layered but page-turning story includes beautiful writing and it is, I’d say, serious, clever, edgy, cool, romantic, and tragic. I won’t give more away, but if you like thoughtful memoirs, this is the narration of a colorful, complicated life learning to reject “brittle certainties” and pondering the deepest meaning of desire.

Every Purchase Matters: How Fair Trade Farmers, Companies, and Consumers Are Changing the World Paul Rice (Public Affairs) $30.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

From our little shop here in small-town central Pennsylvania I’ve learned a lot in almost 45 years about the ethics of economics. From Christian thinking about macro-themes to the daily efforts to be honorable in the face of our feeble bottom line, how we think about sales and buying is a matter of great importance for my wife and me. I simply cannot imagine the ways in which many third world peasants sustain a life — coffee growers, sweat-shop workers, migrant workers in the global south hardly able to buy the food they grow. We all know that simple charity to the needy isn’t going to solve big systemic problems (and castigating the global reach of multinational corporations preaches well to the anti-capitalist choir, but rarely makes any sustainable difference.)

Write to me if you want a list of books that show how ethical business practices can be woven into the very warp of business and how Biblical faith might sustain that. (I just started a book I recently discovered called Finding Faith in Business: An Economy of Communion Vision edited by Andrew Gustafson & Celeste Harvey on New City Press, which takes Roman Catholic visions of the sacrament of communion as a starting point for thinking about economic faithfulness. Wow.)

Anyway, as we rethink economic theories and propose meaningful reforms about ethical sourcing, one way we can all start is getting behind the Fair Trade movement. You know the story, or the bare bones of it. This riveting book —showing why Every Purchase Matters —starts with a major meeting the author was having (as founder of Fair Trade USA) with one of the most powerful and influential business leaders in the world (the CEO of Starbucks) who had only one Fair Trade Certified coffee in their line. The day-long meeting was designed for Rice’s team to convince Starbucks to do better.

Well, supply chains and international trade deals and Board of Directors attitudes being what they usually are, nothing is easy. The book draws you in on the first page, wondering how in the world Paul Rice can advance the cause of creating venues for more just deals between large businesses and local farmers and resource providers. One chapter confronts these complications is called “From Farms to Factories to Fish.” Man, what a story!

Call it ethical consumerism or renewed supply chains or just shopping or whatever — Rice has been working for decades at this and has more stories than maybe anybody on the planet. He has much to inform us about global structures and how we are implicated, day by day.This is his long-awaited tell-all, the fascinating story behind Fair Trade, the organization and the movement. There are great examples, lots of pithy insights, and actionable plans.

A day will come when every farmer, shepherd, and worker in the world will be honored and compensated for their unstinting labor and bounty, and Fair Trade is one of the reasons why.” —- Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World

The War for Middle Earth: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Confront the Gathering Storm, 1933 – 1945. Joseph Loconte (Nelson Books) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

This arrived in our UPS shipments just today so I’m adding it on to this good list as I am sure it will be of great interest to many of our friends. Loconte is a sort of public intellectual having contributed pieces to all the major papers and magazines, has contributed regularly to NPR, serves as a Senior Fellow at a good think-tank called the Sagamor Institute and directs the Rivendell Center in New York. He is a historian and advocate of a balanced — some might say truly conservative — approach to public engagement, drawing on classic virtues and, yes, insights from great literature such as Lord of the Rings and Narnia.

A few years ago he wrote a wonderfully illuminating book that added a new dimension for many of us as it explored the way World War I influenced both Tolkien and Lewis. We still stock it, of course — A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-1918. In this brand new one, sort of a sequel, it seems, I’m sure he’ll use his great storytelling skills as well as historical wisdom about the ideologies of the 20th century and will teach us much.

Here is how the publisher describes it, and why I ordered a bunch for our shelves here at Hearts & Minds:

For the first time, historian Joseph Loconte explains how the catastrophe of World War II trans­formed the lives and literary imagination of Tolkien and Lewis. The mechanized slaughter of the First World War had created a storm of disillusionment with the political and religious ideals of Western civilization. The new ideologies of Modernism, communism, Nazism, and totalitarianism rushed to fill the vacuum. At stake was a contest between civilization and barbarism. Tolkien and Lewis sought each other out in friendship and threw themselves into the struggle.

The War for Middle-earth explores how their most beloved works —The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Chron­icles of Narnia, Mere Christianity — were conceived in the shadow of the most devastating and dehumanizing war in history. Like no other authors of their age, Tolkien and Lewis used their imagi­nation to reclaim for their generation–and for ours–those deeds of valor and virtue and love that have always kept a lamp burning, even in the deepest darkness.

Little Woodchucks: Offerman Woodshop’s Guide to Tools and Tomfoolery Nick Offerman with Lee Buchanan (Dutton) $35.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $28.00

Anybody who is a serious fan of the writing and work of Wendell Berry knows that one of his biggest fans and best friends in these United States is the serious comic, actor and craftsman, Nick Offerman. When you see him yucking it up on Colbert or Kimmel, he brings up Berry. When he gave the introduction to a literary award Berry was recieving, Offerman spoke twice as long as Wendell did. Anyway, many Hearts & Minds fans like him for that.

And in recent years he’s got this cottage industry gig, Offerman Woodshop, which makes great custom wood products. Here’s what they say about it before a bit on sustainability:

Offerman Woodshop is a small collective of woodworkers and makers based out of Nick Offerman’s charismatic wood shop in East Los Angeles. We focus on hand-crafted, traditional joinery & sustainable slab rescue–working with fallen trees from our urban LA environment as well as greater California and Oregon.

Anywho, Little Woodchucks is a fabulous, kinda funny, full-color guide to making all kinds of nifty stuff with kids. It features, or so they say, “12 projects for kids & adults” — an illustrated guide, for sure.  They invite Woodchucks of any age and ability to get business with hammer and nails (and maybe a pocketknife) It is mischievous, witty, and good. As he promises, “all projects are achievable and fun and encourage eye contact, giggles, handshakes, and other old-fashioned familial engagement, while introducing young woodworkers-to-be to the satisfaction and good clean fun of hands-on crafting.” Some of the projects are not too complex, some are more serious, they give all the instructions (preceded by an amusing tale or wild story. There’s plenty of wit — he keeps calling his design for a Little Free Library a Meat Locker. He does love his meat.

And I bet it is the only wood-working book that has a blurb on the back from Amy Poehler.

Dance in the Desert Madeleine L’Engle, illustrated by Kjoa Le (Farrar Straus Giroux) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I know, I most often talk about great picture books in a whole BookNotes dedicated to children’s titles. But why? We just discovered this one and we had to announce it for you. The art is stunning — too many computer-generated designs in kid’s books are starting to all look the same, and often uninspiring. This one has great art matched with superlative writing by one of the classic writers of recent memory. Madeleine did wonderful, rich, mature YA stories, sci-fi stuff, adult novels and tons of non-fiction (theology, Bible reflections, prayer books, essays, memoirs.) Her breadth of generous faith and diverse writing inspired us to get into the business of talking books so many decades ago. And to find that they’ve uncovered an old, early book, revised and abridged it a bit, and re-issued it as this fabulous new picture book. Hooray.

When the original, longer edition of Dance in the Desert came out in 1969 it was acclaimed in the popular press and in publishing circles. Booklist, for instance, called it “Subtle, poetic, and imaginatively conceived.” The Horn Book said it was “A tender, beautiful allegory” and Publishers Weekly said it was “beautiful and reverent, bright with joy.”  It is fantastical with a lion, flying mice, a unicorn, a dragon, and some very realistic nomadic travelers in the desert heading to Egypt. The creatures seem to dance for the pleasure of the boy. There is joy and no fear. Lovely.

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