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If you’ve followed me long you know one of my favorite genres is memoir. That is, not heady detail biographies and not utterly fictional, but those creatively told stories of a piece of somebody’s life — lived well or poorly as the case may be. I often say that if the plot twists and relationship issues in some memoirs were in a novel readers might protest as it being too unexpected or twisty. But life is stranger than fiction sometimes, and I’ve always got a memoir or two going. L

Some I read for the sheer joy of the writing, for others maybe it is to get a glimpse into another sort of person I don’t know well. Often it is to say, as C.S. Lewis reminded us, that we read to discover that we are not alone. What? You too! 

Currently I’m in the middle of two that are somewhat slower reads but the rave reviews drew me in and the prose is elegant (if sometimes eccentric.) One is A Truce That Is Not Peace by the award-winning fiction writer Miriam Toews (Women Talking, Fight Night, and others) published by the prestigious W.W. Norton. The impressive intellect Laura van den Berg described it as “haunting, tragicomic, and incredibly moving inquiry into the landscapes and the people that define us.” It has great allusiveness and sometimes great rage and is, as another novelist put it, “a stunner.” The other I keep dipping back into is Small Town Girls: A Writer’s Memoir by Jayne Anne Phillips who won the Pulitzer for the fantastic novel Night Watch (set in an asylum in West Virginia after the Civil War.) I’m often draws to small town stories and memoirs and when I learned that Phillips grew up in West Virginia, I knew I had to check it out. You may recall my review from early in the summer where I raved about a edge-of-your-set story of an NYC investigative activist writing about a far right extremist outpost in WV called Strange People on the Hill and the struggles of this changing Appalachian tourist town so I’m still thinking about small-town WV. Anyway, Small Town Girls ends up being what some call “a memoir in essays.”

I’ve dipped in and out of a bunch more and there’s some I’m eager to tell you about. As entertaining as any novel, as informative (sometimes, at least) as straight nonfiction, this genre is a joy and a reminder that we are not the only ones with “one wild and precious life.” Read on.

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Roosevelt Park Rising: A Memoir of the Renewal of a Past, a Church, and a Neighborhood Reginald Smith (Reformed Journal Books) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE =  $19.99

This is a really good read, riveting in many ways, as you find yourself pulling for this black pastor serving in a conflicted (mostly white) Dutch Reformed church in a rougher part of Grand Rapids, MI. Authors you may know — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, just for instance — are involved in these congregations, two old, flagship, traditional CRC churches that merged after both congregations lost steam and members (most from classic white flight as the neighborhoods transitioned to Black and Latino.) On a good day, the tension between these two former congregations now merged was high (they fielded two different church league softball teams — and which one would their new pastor play for?) Any pastor who has navigated congregational mergers will sympathize with this dude. That he wasn’t Dutch didn’t help.

And yet, they called this remarkable person — raised on the rough streets of Chicago, eventually the first Black student to graduate from their prestigious denominational seminary (Calvin Theological), experienced in urban ministry in Paterson NJ. Some of their elders and search committee had enough of a missional vision to somehow reach the changing population in their neighborhood so he was invited to bring change to these two nearly merged congregations. Or so he thought.

Any pastor or church leader who has coped with self-doubt in the midst of congregational conflict (or who has to navigate exceptional frustration) will relate to this. Anybody who has been in a church where issues of “then” (the glory days) and “now” (harder times and less robust ministry) will appreciate reading this pastor’s honest story. As the congregation moved to fresh expressions of their vision for ministry — and added a Spanish-language component to worship — you can imagine the anxiety, the new hope and the naysayers. Curiously, one of the two previous congregations was the last church in Grand Rapids to offer a service in their original Dutch. One might think that a congregation which prided itself on its immigrant heritage would be sensitive to the experiences of the Hispanic neighbors as they assimilated into the mid-Western city. Pastor Smith tried; oh how he tried. Did I mention that he wasn’t Dutch and neither were the newcomers to their neighborhoods?

But yet, the Reverend Reginald Smith brought his Reformed worldview to his missional sense of God’s love for God’s world and for Christ’s Lordship over all things. Including the daily grind of ghetto life. He has to muster God’s grace for street hustlers of all races and of all kind; there were drug deals gone bad, shoot-outs and the fairly typical urban plethora of drunks and those affected with mental health stuff. Street people would come to church and then make scenes. New believers would be attracted to Roosevelt CRC only to be put off by the quiet racial animus pervading the congregation. Church leaders would either affirm or criticize (or both) Pastor Smith’s efforts to open itself more widely to the needs of their neighbors. It was one step forward and two steps backwards. And even with his white wife (they met when she was a student at Calvin College across the street from his seminary) it became evident he wasn’t “one of us.”

I kept thinking that his interest in cultural engagement and institutional reform and social action would resonate with these folks raised on the language of their forefather Abraham Kuyper and their unique evangelical passion to be agents of reform within the structures of socidety. Smith started doing that, talking about housing co-ops and public playgrounds and various sorts of sensitive ways to help redirect the cultural development in that part of town, hoping for better flourishing for all. There is something about the DNA of his denominations tradition (or at least there once was) that insisted that all of creation is God’s and the local church should be a conduit for missional outreach and Godly social reform.

I suppose you can see where this might be going. Reginald Smith is dedicated and serious. He’s a fun, ordinary guy, but troubled by traditional church experience that doesn’t seem to care adequately about the needs of the neighborhood. He gets involved in all sort of community development projects — everything from raising money to advocating for policy changes in local government to starting nonprofits and pursing evangelical outreach to local families. Soon he realizes more about his own sense of calling, and his own spirituality and piety nurtured not only behind the stained glass and denominational theology but in the streets, from the people, longing for a cross-cultural movement of improving lives and building community. He was ahead of his congregation and the memoir isn’t fully clear how much he understood this.

If you are interested in changing congregations, about debates about missional vision, about the relationship of prayer and public action, if you want a glimpse into the life of a working urban pastor and his wife and kids, if you care about race relations or Kingdom living among the marginalized, Roosevelt Park Rising is for you. It is an easy read, compelling, lively, honest, and helpful. Like other RJ books, I highly recomend it.

American Christians have long touted the goal of “racial reconciliation,” but Reggie Smith’s story makes clear that healing the racial divide doesn’t happen through quick fixes. Transforming a church requires changed hearts and transformed lives. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of  Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation and Live, Laugh, Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made

A wonderful book! I am so grateful for this book. I found reading it profoundly moving. Often, I was moved to tears by how Reggie was treated by a church community that I love, but, in the end, I was also moved to hope and gratitude. We owe so much to Reggie and others who have hung in there with their courageous commitment to the grand vision of a racial justice grounded in the power of the Gospel. — Richard Mouw, President Emeritus of Fuller Theological Seminary and author of Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World

Thy Tender Care: What Caregiving and Disability Can Teach Us About God’s Kingdom John Van Sloten (Herald Press) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

We have highlighted each of John Van Sloten’s various books here over the years and this one is not dissimilar in style, although it is much more personal than the others. Let me explain.

In Every Job a Parable he highlighted in each chapter a different sort of job or career and showed us something we can learn about God and His ways in the diligence of those who work in that occupation. John interviewed tons of ordinary workers and came up with a lovely list of various ways ordinary jobs can not only be an avenue of service and even build God’s Kingdom but point to attributes of the God we know in Christ. Similarly, he focused on things scientists can teach us about God in God Speaks Science and, again, there are interviews with various sorts or researchers and science experts, sidebars with a varity of guests.  Those studying the scientific details of creation surely have windows into the nature of God and that book is at once a introduction to thinking well about the sciences and about opening our vistas of who God is by way of learning what scientists know.

In this brand new one, Thy Tender Care, Van Sloten doesn’t have to interview dozens of others; he doesn’t have to tell the stories of other caregivers or family members of the disabled because he and his wife have a son, Edward, a young man, now, with Down Syndrome. Edward is also nonverbal and in this memoir of parenting John gives us glimpses — like Jesus’s parables one reviewer noted — into the deeper reality “where weakness becomes strength, difference brings life, and love speaks clearly even when there are no words.”

Yes, we can “discover God’s Kingdom in the sacred space of caregiving.” I would say that it seems that the primary audience of this book is those who are parents of or caregivers for those who have disabilities. Church leaders, school teachers, social service workers all need this insight, too, as do (well) all of us, eh? We have a large section of disabilities studies but few of the books are so clear and poignant and honest and good. If you are a caregiver or pastoral leader or educator I very highly recommend Thy Tender Care. It will help you understand the nature of such caregiving, a bit about disability-sensitive theology, and will help form your own broader vision of God’s reign.

But, yes, I’m listing it here as an enjoyable memoir because, at the heart of John’s pastoral heart and teaching gifts, sits the vivid story of his life with his son. This is John and his wife, Fran’s, book, and Edward’s. John shows — just like he did in the previous books — that ordinary life can reveal much about God and, just as Psalm 19 starts with the truth that God speaks to us in creation, so God can reveal much in the ordinary lives of orindary folks. In this case, he, a father, and Edward, a son.

The opening line is jarring. “I didn’t feel that I could love my son when he was born.”

John continues:

It pains me to think about it now — a helpless little boy with Down syndrome, his life just beginning, deprived of the fullness of a father’s love, all because his dad couldn’t handle the reality of having a child with a disability.

If that isn’t the start of a memoir-like story, I don’t know what is. True, there is Godly instruction here about the way of Jesus, about Edward’s life pointing us toward life-giving virtues, but, again, the heart of the lessons are in the story. Thank you to the Van Sloten’s for opening their lives to us and for Herald Press for publishing such honest, tender, amazing books. Love it!

Arsenio: A Memoir Arsenio Hall (Black Privilege Publishing) $30.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

I know, celebrity tell-alls are a dime a dozen and there are plenty of intriguing characters we’d enjoy hearing all about. Michael Douglas has a long-awaited one coming next month as does the great LeVar Burton; Malala Yousafzai’s moving international story from last year, Finding My Way, was just released in paperback; and Sylvester Stallone has one coming called The Steps, mostly about “Rocky” I gather; the brand new Taylor Tomlinson (Actually, Nevermind) is a collection of comedic essays but might as well be a memoir. But of all the many cool stories by so many celebrities we know and maybe love, Arsenio is more important than the rest.

I liked Arsenio back in the day, I did. I didn’t watch that much TV but late night talk shows were often on, and I admired that there was a young black guy competing with the bigger, established names. He always did a good job and was more serious than folks maybe knew. He was mentored from a distance by the likes of the great Johnny Carson and he had solid aspirations about doing this job with joy and seriousness.

In this new memoir it is clear just how funny and just how serious he indeed was. And is.

(I did not know much about the underground comedy scene of the 80s and 90s, but this explains a lot. Cleveland-born Hall ends up in Chicago, home of the legendary Second City Comedy movement. Hall later had an important mentoring sort of relationship with the vital Richard Pryor on the West Coast and his telling of these last decades of the 20th century entertainment world is really significant social history for our times today.)

I was hooked on this story and ordered the book for the shop when I heard him on the NPR show Fresh Air with Terry Gross. I recommend that interview as it shows just how innovative he was; the first to do so much good on national TV. And just how esteemed he was in the black community. He’d interview major social activists and political figures in a way that has yet to be matched. Muhammad Allie? Denzel? Luther Vandross? Nancy Wilson, the great jazz singer? Magic Johnson? Eddie Murphy? Will Smith? Tupac? Maya Angelou? Nelson Mandela? Yes, he had them all as guests. He helped move the needle on our public awareness of many Black leaders and the issues for which they advocated. He was valuied within the Black community in ways I didn’t realize. With humor and glamour and tons of grit (who knew?) Arsenio Hall was truly a groundbreaker. The 1990s were wild times and he had on his couch stars like Elton John, Tom Cruise, George Burns, Tom Hanks, Jerry Seinfeld (and Moses — Charles Heston!)  He tells how nervous Dolly Parton was and how she sat on the wrong chair — Arsinio loved how she played it. The story, like much of the book, is charming. The book is described as “no-holds-barred” but it is also full of grace.

Read his new memoir to realize how it all played out and why it is a window into a part of America culture we all know — the talk show host — and how it felt as a black comedian doing important conversations then and now. Like when George Bush bad-mouthed him so he booked candidate Bill Clinton instead, who was surprisingly very alert to issues of violence in the black community.  And the story of rocking the boat with the anti-semite Louis Farrakhan. Fascinating. Arsino is an easy read, but substantive, and I’m sure you’ll learn something new. Enjoy.

Summer of Gone: A Memoir Phil Madeira (W. Brand Publishing) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Anybody interested in alt-country or Americana music or even the indie music biz most likely knows (even if they don’t recall his name) the amazing musicianship and side-man role of performing artist, song-writer, record producer, Phil Madeira. Phil came to fame for some of us by being the other Philly in the 1970s-era Phil Keaggy Band whose story of a lifetime in the music world (most of Nashville) and leaving his overly strict sort of fundamentalism behind was powerfully chronicled in 2013’s God on the Rocks: Distilling Religion, Savoring Faith. Local friends might recall that we hosted Phil here at the shop for a book reading of that now out of print title and how he brought his guitar and played a few tunes, which was breathtakingly cool. As a member of the backing band for the legendary Emmylou Harris (the Red Dirt Boys) this was as good as it gets for a small-town shop like ours.

(Okay, we’ve hosted NT Wright who played a Dylan song on a borrowed guitar and Michael Card who was splendid on guitar and keyboards, but I digress. Phil really was very, very cool.)

If you like stuff about singer-songwriters, about tour life and producing albums and playing benefits and name dropping everybody from Keb Mo to Amy Grant to Steve Hindalong and Derri Dougherty to Buddy Miller to Cindy Morgan, you’ll dig this; he dishes a bit about some unpleasantness touring with John Cougar Mellencamp but mostly it’s all really noble. He likes almost everybody and even gives jerks a second change. I loved this glimpse into the life of a working creative but I loves his memoiristic reflections on his desire to be gracious, honest and usually kind.

But therein lies the heart of this Summer of Gone. It is about betrayal and forgiveness, about relationships gone sour — his long-standing romantic partner was by everyone’s account a very mean person and Phil took the brunt of it as she was dying of cancer. Why do some people allow nearly toxic or abusive relationships to continue? Why is the music business filled with creatives who can be so very giving, and also egotistical and self-centered, narcisistic, event? The memoir unfolds as a few years in Phil’s creative life, always in the context of a faith that is undeniable, if a bit loose at time. As we bear the weight of loss, can we live into a hope that God is still good? As we grow into self-awareness, can we live with trust and good humor? He doesn’t intend this book, I am sure, as any instruction manual to guidebook to any thing. It’s his life and as a writer and singer and painter, what else can he to but testify? It is about a hard few years, focued mostly on a painful season, a summer of loss and of being gone. This is what it was like for him.

I wished it didn’t end. From travels to produce albums in Norway to smoking Christmas Eve cigars with his Episopal priest, from the confessions of his role in broken friendships to his enduring faithfulness to his family, Summer of Gone may be about a hard season coping with a bizarre and sad relationship, but it still glows with the joy of making music, honoring old friends and family, rediscovering new sounds — he did an almost jazz instrumental album, and shifted from acoustic guitar to piano for Providence which was all about his growing up in Rhode Island. As a good writer can, he captures the skylines and horizons (literally and metaphorical) wherever he travels, making this a standout memoir. Thanks, Phil. I hope we cross paths again one day.

The Spirit in the Sky: The Power of Music in Our Search for Graceland Jeff Crosby (Bloomsbury) $32.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $25.60

I know we raved about this previously and since it is a study of religious themes in the lives and recordings of various popular singers and musicians — from Van Morrison to Mavis Staples to Tracy Chapman and so many more — one might not expect to see it here under recent memoirs. I get it; each biography of the artist tells of their life and times, their work, their influence in the field. But yet, all of this is seen through the lens of Jeff’s youthful obsession with music and his life-long quest not only for religious spirituality but for resonance with the music he loves. Why was he attracted to Pink Floyd? How did Bruce Cockburn expand his faith towards global justice issues? How did Van’s journey “into the mystic” mirror Jeff’s own? Or guide Jeff’s own?

No, this isn’t a standard, straight-line memoir but each and every chapter includes often quite tender (and always self-aware) reflections of Jeff’’s own interests and spiritual yearnings and how the experience of listening to each artist added another window into the big search for goodness and truth for beauty and God. In a way, it really is his story.

No matter your age, if you care about music at all you’ll love hearing him talk about how he missed the Beatles on their famous Ed Sullivan TV premiere. (His parents watched it, but he had not yet caught the music bug.) If you are old enough (or a vinyl collector now) you’ll thrill just having him describe pulling an album out of its sleeve and carefully placing the needle on the turntable, and then spending hours reading the liner notes. You’ll appreciate his description of seeing Dylan live (and the journey to visit Hibbings, Minnesota, where the young Bob Zimmerman once lived.) This is as much a coming of age story and a conversion story (of sorts) and a musical awakening journey as Crosby reviews these seventeen artists as it is a study of the individual artists and albums discussed.  Sure he digs (not too deeply so it is never arcane) into the life and beliefs of Bill Withers and Paul Simon and Mickey Newberry and Laura Nyro. From Cat Stevens to George Harrison he finds much to learn about non-Christian religions and is always curious and generous. As fellow book-man and music-lover David Zimmerman puts it, “Crosby offers a lifetime’s journey into the thin space between the human and the divine.”

And, for many of us, he brings back a lot of memories, too. When was the last time you listened afresh to Seals and Croft or Marvin Gaye or the esteemed Judee Sill? Or the Beatles, for that matter? The Spirit in the Sky is, like Jeff’s great, gentle book The Language of the Soul and, like his splendid World of Wonders on the need for a Christian appreciation for books and the reading life, loaded with personal reflections, honesty, and his own brand of clear, gentle storytelling. I guess it isn’t written as a memoir, but I’m delighted to suggest it here. It’ll scratch that itch, believe me.

By the way — we are hosting a webinar with Jeff so I can interview him more about the artists and his experiences of their work. I think it will be a fun conversation (and, believe me, Jeff knows his stuff, even if much of the book is his own story encountering these artists, he gives plenty of informative detail.) It’s going to be a blast. Stay tuned for how to register (coming before long) but do put Tuesday night October 27th on your calendar now.

All the Way Home: The Incredible True Story of an American Aid Worker’s Harrowing Seven Years as an Al-Qaida Hostage Jeff Wood (Zondervan) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

Do you remember the TV shows after 9-11 — intense stuff like Homeland and The Looming Towers and the docuseries Captive, which examined complex hostage negotiations including “high-profile kidnapping cases carried out by extremist organizations in regions destabilized by the post-9/11 global conflicts.” Well, this author was just such a victim and brings his amazing true story into a must-read book. It is gripping, a story of survival, geo-politics, personal faith and “new life that can emerge when all seems lost.”

Certainly all seemed lost when Wood was captured, in a blinding flash of flame “mutating into a surreal mix of terror and blood.” He was a former missionary and hostage of al Qaida. The physical brutality, I’m told, is described sparingly but the soul-crushing fear is palpable.

His capture in Northern Niger on the night of October 14th 2016 — ten years ago — led to six and a half years of unspeakable horrors. Once released (in March of 2023) he suffered PTSD which, as the story will show, nearly destroyed his Christian faith.

They say this is an incredible story of “loss and redemption, brutality and forgiveness, should-wrenching questions and soul-deep peace.” Jeff Wood learned what it means to be carried through suffering and his faith helped him realize the ultimate power and victory of the love of God. He had won (through his work with YWAM in Niger) acclaim from the United Nations for disaster risk reduction as he prepared farmers in Africa for sustainability and climate change prep. He now writes poetry and fiction and advocates for not only lang regeneration but helping trauma survivors.

Shattered: Picking Up the Pieces of My Father’s Rage Arthur Boers (Here Below) $22.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

I wrote about this at length when it first came out, and then again when I name it one of the Best Books of 2023. No lesser literary lights than Andre Dubus III raved about it (Dubus wanted to do a forward and it was an amazing blessing upon this subtle, nuanced memoir.) Now that Shattered is out in a paperback — on Here Below, that new imprint from Eerdmans featuring more literary works — I wanted to acknowledge it again. It really is an amazing memoir by a very good writer.

Shattered has much that many want in a memoir, a coming of age story, a survival narrative, a struggle against all odds to keep faith in a hurtful, constructed religious institution, a writerly sense of elegant prose and aesthetic taste. It is harsh and lovely and wise and beautiful, even as it is heartbreaking and hopeful. And it ends (thanks be to God) better than many such stories do. I love this book and I love this author.

Arthur’s story is complicated and the book covers a lot of captivating ground. You’ll be eager to  keep turning the pages. But the very short version is that he was raised in a very strictly Calvinist subculture among Dutch immigrants in Ontario. These are first or second generation immigrants who remember fighting Hitler in their occupied homeland and who most likely don’t trust their significantly Dutch CRC denomination’s flagship Calvin College. Too liberal, too accommodationist. And so Arthur comes of age being chastised severely by his hyper Calvinist parents for wanting to attend a nondenominational fellowship group for high school kids.

The restrictive church life and violent home life lead to Arthur becoming Anabaptist for a season (think nonviolent activism for peace and justice rooted in solid New Testament scholarship) and, along with being nurtured by a friendship withPresbyterian pastor and spiritual writer Eugene Peterson, he found a ministerial home in the Anglican Church of Canada. Even while publishing on (the Mennonite) Herald Press he was interested in the liturgical calendar and fixed hour prayers and the monastic movement of contemplative spirituality. His journey makes sense, but it wasn’t at all easy. You see, his father had nearly uncontrollable rage attached to his fundamentalist Calvinism and, as many youths of such homes, Arthur paid a price. I’m gathering that writing this epic, eloquent book was somehow more than cathartic. It was healing.

The title is a good one, but means more when you realize the Boer family had connections to the world-renowned glass industry back in Holland. His dad worked making glass for greenhouses in Canada and as a kid Arthur handle the dangerous panes. There is an unforgettable scene of family violence and shattered glass. Your heart will stop for a moment but it is so worth reading.

Arthur concludes — and the writing here is tender and insightful — that his father was carrying PTSD wounds from the horror of his war years in the resistance to Nazism. Maybe it is mostly me, but I think of PTSD as a plight of Viet Nam vets or the vets of the 21st century endless wars on terror. Fighting Hitler in Europe was horrible and the Boer’s family carries stress in their family DNA. Shattered is a book of honest reflection on being raised in the setting of that defining Christian worldview tinged with the wounds of wars decades previous.

Rift: A Memoir Cait West (Here Below) $22.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.39

Speaking of the acclaimed new publishing imprint Here Below developed by Eerdmans, Rift is one of the first of their brand new releases. I might have mentioned it before but it is now out as a paperback edition of the previously released hardback and it is good to have it in a less expensive paperback but also in this growing line of literary projects. Here Below is a line of books to watch. And to buy!

Rift is not totally unlike any number of popular books these days — I don’t mean to be insensitive to suggest it is nearly a cottage industry — of stories of deconstructing one’s previously overly strict faith, of recovering from harsh religion, of escaping the often ludicrous confines of fundamentalisms. Not all of these are contemporary accounts of leaving MAGA-extremist cults, although there have been a rash of those. Some are not stories of escaping typical Protestant fundamentalism, either — just think of the hugely popular Educated, the memoir of Tara Westover or the lesser known but high octane writing of The Motorhome Prophecies: A Journey of Healing and Forgiveness by Carrie Sheffield. In any case there are a lot of such books and Rift is one I very highly recommend.

Yes, the pathos is real, the odd customs of the super-patriarchal parents at times unimaginable; this extreme courtship stuff that kept a young adult woman at home under the strict watch of her father is reprehensible. That they operated in plain sight in denominations most of us have heard of is mind-blowing. How could any denomination approve of cruelty and family weirdness like this?

Here’s the thing, or at least one of the things: the family was, on the face of it, not so bad. Yes, they fussed about the modesty of a five year old’s swimsuit; yes they homeschooled with an ideology that suggested all others were lost and corrupt, yes they insisted that girls and boys had different needs and their parenting reflected much of that. College was forbidden and a career unthinkable. But they weren’t like the off-the-grid family of Ruby Ridge or involved in extremist cults that everyone knew as unsavory. There were ordinary church people with seemingly normal lifestyles. Except…

In memoir fashion West tells her unfolding story and it is moving, elegantly written, thoughtful. The story moves and crescendos, falls back, rises again. A good novel couldn’t do it much better. As it says on the back cover it is “heartbreaking, hopeful, and blazingly honest.”

Why do some church folks dig so deep into this particular sin, this inappropriate idolatry of the masculine? How do we approach churches that hints at this kind of toxic repression of girls and young women? How bad does it have to get?

Cait’s journey to find courage to say no to this family system and her gender obsessed family developed slowly. Her love life is shattered and then rebuilt. Her faith is nearly ruined and she moves into spaces where being kept under male authority isn’t necessary. She learns most people don’t live like that. She realizes something was very, very wrong in her family of origin and the churches that in one way or another funded such ugliness.

We need good nonfiction books to help us understand this mess. I would start with Dorothy Greco’s must read For the Love of Women: Uprooting and Healing Misogyny in America (Zondervan; $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99.) Other memoirs will help you realize the crisis in this area — we recommend A Well-trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy by Tia Levings or Shannon Harris’s The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife. But start with Cait West and the excellent Rift: A Memoir.

“Written with unusual sensitivity and unflinching honest, there is a sort of aching loss and gritty resilience, of brokennes, beauty, and hope.”  — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne and Live, Laugh, Love.

A Merciful Journey: The Memoir of Bill Pannell William Pannell (Cascade) $17.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60

His handful of phone calls to me meant the world. We had met at a conference out selling books somewhere and even though he worked in Southern California (at Fuller Theological Seminary) he crossed the country often and  regularly checked in with folks he knew. I learned this was not uncommon, that he was one of these rare leaders who consistently showed extraordinary kindness and strategic care. I’m sure he didn’t even realize how important this was.

As I had told him, he was the first black public speaker I ever personally encountered. I heard him at a CCO conference in Pittsburgh in maybe 1973. CCO later followed up with other legendary evangelical African American leaders for what became the Jubilee Conference, from Tom and Barbara Skinner to Elward Ellis, John Perkins, Lisa Sharon Harper, Carl Ellis, Anthony Bradly, Ekemini Uwan, Vincent Bacote, Eric Mason, Karen Ellis, Esau McCauley, and many more. But, for me, it started with Bill and his first book My Friend the Enemy released in 1968. I think I got it in 1973 or so and it was riveting and, I suppose, life-changing.

A Merciful Journey tells his story, a memoir he had been working on for years, including up to his death in 2024. It chronicles his life and education, his deep involvement with white evangelicalism (he worked for Youth for Christ for a while) and how he was always in the middle of this outsider / insider tension. After the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles he wrote The Coming Race Wars? Which was prescient; he remained always a gospel-centered evangelical wanting to share the good news of Christ’s Kingdom, but always alert to explain the ways this Biblical understanding of Christ’s work should lead to protest against injustice, wholistic missionary endeavors, bringing together word and deed, evangelism and social action. He was influenced by — and significantly influenced — popular evangelicals with this justice vision like Ron Sider and Tony Campolo, say.  His influence over the next generation of black evangelical leaders is notable — think of Brenda Salter McNeil, who called him a “trailblazer and role model of racial reconciliation.”

Two of his former students offer a forward and an afterword, Anthea Butler and Jemar Tisby, both who have distinguished academic careers with an activist style. Thank God that Bill models this approach to being “salt and light” in gracious, engaged, brave and yet well grounded ways. This lovely book explains this motivating theme of his whole life.

I sometimes think of how many good writers and culture shapers and sophisticated Christian influences there are these days. On the themes of Biblical peace, justice, and racial reconciliation there are so many good resources. But I sometimes worry that there aren’t rising leaders of the character and statue of Bill Pannell. Losing him, and then John Perkins this Spring, makes me wonder who will take his place. We should be passing out copies of this simple life story anywhere we can so that we might all learn about the life and times of a quiet, gentle giant of a man.

The resources listed in the back of A Merciful Journey include two films; one is called Black + Evangelical made by Christianity Today in which Bill features prominently. The other is produced by Jemar Tisby and Fuller, called The Gospel According to Bill Pannell. Check ‘em out.

Joyful Anyway Kate Bowler (The Dial Press) $30.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

I have already highlighted this at BookNotes and I suppose many who might want it already have it. It released this past Spring and while this is cheating a bit, I really wanted to mention it, at least in passing.

I suppose you know her first two memoirs, that are among my all time favorites. They explain her life-threatening brain tumor and how she, as a witty and brash religion PhD (studying the “name it and claim it” sort of prosperity gospel preachers) with a teaching job at Duke, and a couple young ones in the house, realized she might soon die. She takes the journey with pathos and lots of cheeky humor; she is bold and funny and honest and a great, great storyteller. I’ve read both Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I’ve Loved) and No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) twice!

We could say that Joyful Anyway is ore of the same — serious advice brought to you in the form of laugh-out-loud (or, as the case may be, tissue-needed ) stories. Or, we could say, it is autobiographical theology, Christian testimony of an off-beat source, offering what one reviewer called “luminous clarity and unsentimental grace.” I sometimes call her this generations Anne Lamott. I love the observation of Jerry Seinfeld (!) Who notes that she “suffers no fools, especially the toxic optimists.”

But yet, if she rejects the cheeriness of the “everything happens for a reason” optimism and rejects the certainty that God will heal you no matter what, how does she invite us to joy? Well, with a hella lot of realism and a lovely bit of grace. She brings light and goodness to our aches.

Joyful Anyway is not a call to be happy or to deny the sorrows of life. But it is charming. and full of resilience. And, goofy as the cover looks, it is profound. What a collection of down-to-earth episodes from her fascinating life!

And the Sea Was No More: Reading the Bible in the Deep Dave Nienhuis (Eerdmans) $28.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.19

Okay, I have only started this and I can’t say too much. But, man, is it engaging, even stunning. The thesis is something that captured my attention immediately before I knew a thing about the book or the author, who I know realize is friends with friends of mine and is widely respected in several important circles. (The blurbs on the back are from Michael Curry, the presiding bishop of the Episopal Church and Chuck DeGroat from Western Theological Seminary whose new book I touted last week, and Brenda Salter McNeil, who was named above as she was a student of the late, great William Pannell.) So he gets around, which is reassuring, but I’d have bought this book even if I didn’t know anything about the calibre of the author.

You see, this is a memoir about reading the Bible. I know most BookNotes fans are bookworms but I also assume your most often read volume, the Book of all books, is your Bible. But reading it isn’t always easy and how to apply it isn’t always obvious. I don’t know a thoughtful soul who doesn’t feel weird reading some of these stories. Even the lovely one can cause us to stop short. How many times have you scribbled in the margins or underlined something (or blamed the book shut in exasperation)? Reading the Bible is a human activity and even with the help of the promised Holy Spirit (and situated in a supportive community of fellow-readers) it is something, is it not?

I am not sure I can say much more but this book is not mostly about intellectual challenges with perplexing texts. It is, rather, about being overwhelmed. It is about Dave Nienhuis’s story of his emotional trauma (experienced as a child) and how that interior brokenness led to panic attacks and more. Can this book bring healing and hope when one brings such baggage to the text? This is not theoretical. This is not a test.

And the Sea Was No More strikes me as a brilliant title for a book — the sea was a dangerous place in land-locked Judea and the ancients viewed the dark and forbidding ocean as the creation at it’s most out-of-control. Or so I’ve heard. And somehow it is tamed — isn’t our title phrase a line from the eschatological promise of new creation? I can’t believe God doesn’t like ocean waves and sandy beaches or deep sea mysteries. No, it is the foreboding, the danger, the scary deep that the ancients feared that is “no more.”

Here is what is really going on in this brand new memoir: “When a panic attack shattered his world, leaving him growing in a chaos he couldn’t name, biblical scholar Dave Nienhuis discovered something unexpected: Scripture itself offered language for his anguish. The Bible’s recurring image of the menacing Deep — the watery chaos that threatens to overwhelm — spoke of him when he had no words of his own.”  Part memoir, part confession, part Bible study, And the Sea Was No More looks like a fabulous study and a great story.

I saw an interview at the Eerdmans blog and he quoted T.S. Eliot’s line about what T.S. Eliot once called a raid on the inarticulate. So he’s a smart dude. Nienhuis continues:

I’d been through a horrible event that tossed me into a world of suffering, and though I made it through to the other side, I found I lacked words to describe what I’d experienced. And because I couldn’t articulate it, I couldn’t incorporate it into my life — I couldn’t speak honestly with God or truthfully with others about it. I couldn’t embrace it, fully, as a part of my life’s story.

 

Then, one day, I was surprised by Scripture. As a Bible professor I’ve sometimes told my students that we come to the Bible to learn God’s story, only to discover it has the capacity to tell our own story better than we could have told it ourselves. This was proven true for me when I rediscovered the biblical theme of the watery Deep.

No matter how hurt you are, no matter the nature of your woundedness,  no matter how confused, no matter how acutely you feel our broken world these days, as Nienhuis puts it, this new book “reveals that the only way through the Deep is to follow the slaughtered Lamb who went down into the waters and came out the other side, scarred and singing, follow me.”

And the Sea Was No More is a rare work of depth and honesty. Dave Nienhuis refuses trite answers to challenging biblical and existential questions, creating space for mystery, lament, and truth-telling. In doing so, he offers what we most need and what we know today to be the antidote to ongoing trauma and woundedness–a compassionate witness to our pain, and faithful companionship when we find ourselves in the deep. — Chuck DeGroat, professor of pastoral care and Christian spirituality, Western Theological Seminary; author of Healing What’s Within: Coming Home to Yourself–And to God–When You’re Wounded, Weary, and Wandering and the brand new Who You’re Becoming: The Slow and Courageous Work of Cultivating Character in a Narcissistic Age

Dave Nienhuis has written a remarkable book: honest, unsettling, and full of theological wisdom. And the Sea Was No More speaks with rare depth to the realities of trauma, anxiety, shame, and embodied suffering, while resisting the false comfort of simplistic religious answers. What emerges instead is a vision of faith shaped by lament, truth-telling, and the discovery of God’s presence in the very places where people often feel most abandoned. This is a deeply humane and profoundly Christian work. It will be of great importance to those going through suffering and to those who seek to accompany them with greater care, wisdom, and compassion. — John Swinton, professor in practical theology and pastoral care, University of Aberdeen; author of Seeking Sanctuary, Finding Shalom: Toward a Deeper Practical Theology of Mental Health

Conversion Therapy Dropout: A Queer Story of Faith and Belonging Timothy Schrader Rodriguez (Broadleaf) $27.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

When I read a memoir I want it to entertain me, capture my imagination, make me feel something close to reading fiction, and, hopefully make me a better person my understanding something afresh. I may not be fashionable to say it in some circles these days but I want a good story to give me greater empathy. To walk a mile, as they say, in another’s shoes.

Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez’s stunningly honest story did all of that for me. Like him or his choices or not, Conversion Therapy Dropout is a fabulous read, and I recommend it.

Look: most of us know that the much touted “pray the gay away” strategy that was all the rage for decades in most evangelical circles (not to mention many Catholic and mainline Protestant churches) was fraudulent. Besides the critics that said it was just cruel to insist that people change their own sexual orientations, or to say God expected such a seemingly impossible change, increasingly a decade or so ago voices began to emerge saying that the stories of success were fabricated, that the leaders were themselves closed gays, and that much of the apparantly well-intended ministries like Exodus International were a sham. It was more than a decade ago that Exodus International fully shuttered its doors and Alan Chambers, the President of Exodus wrote My Exodus: From Fear to Grace which was bravely published by Zondervan.

Memoirs of those chewed up by the evangelical world’s hostility to persons of the LGBTQ community are many. I’ve reviewed the heart-breaking memoir Out of Focus: My Story of Sexuality, Shame, and Toxic Evangelicalism by Amber Cantorna who was rejected by her father (who ironically worked for the pro-family Focus on the Family.) I’ve suggested Affirming: A Memoir of Faith, Sexuality, and Staying the Church by Sally Gary, another heartbreaking but honest memoir of a thoughtful evangelical gay woman.

But Conversion Therapy Dropout has a different tone than these stories that focus mostly on the family relationships of the authors. Rodriguez tells of his becoming an early internet guru and learning to do marketing and online campaigns for evangelical ministries. From megachurches to Christian worship-music record labels, from well known celebrity pastors to various missionary projects, Timothy knew the leaders, was trusted by them to crank out good digital content, and he was a behind the scenes regular at some of the nation’s leading evangelical gatherings. Once he became known for that niche skill, he did workshops and trainings for leaders of all kinds of cool churches that were embracing the digital age. This lead him to get job offers from places like Hillsong, Australia.

On one hand, this alone is a worthy story, or almost, anyway. A young student is mentored in the faith, gets a couple of jobs at a couple of medium sized churches, and sooner or later is guided towards service in bigger, more influential platforms. Its’s fascinating and anyone that has mentored young adults (or have hired young adults in their own congregations or parachurch ministries) will smile over some of this.

The memoir move alongs in a few phases: his own godliness and early awakening of his same sex attraction, his shame and struggle (and joining pretty secretive support groups) and the valiant effort to trust God for some inner transformation that would lead him out of being gay.

Eventually he attends some groups that are less hateful about it all, still insisting that same sex partnerships are not God’s will but that gay Christians need not be saddled with shame over it. He never heard such liberating news that one’s identity might be as a gay Christian with the need for sexual purity like with any other unmarried hetero Christian. Those moderately accepting spaces held his interest for a while until he realized the later homophobia and hostility still lingering within those circles. All the while he is trying to find an evangelical church home, he loves the charismatic experiences of Pentecostal churches, and he adores, mostly, the rock power worship teams of places like Hillsong. They are gay friendly, they say, as song as it is “don’t ask don’t tell.” You will read about the personal questions of integrity and honor that he struggles with, wanting to be honest about his struggles and wanting to be candid about his distaste not only for the painfully crude conversion therapy models, but for the disdain and ugliness behind much of it. There are a lot of jokes in this book, but it is tear-inducing as well. What harm some church movements put people through!

It is anguishing to read about a person who so badly wanted to be a part of churches that continually kept shutting him out. I’m struck by how vulnerable Tim is here, and how gracious he is, given what he has experienced.

You can imagine where all this leads and he finally finds a place of full acceptance and belonging. It entails fresh relationships, new understanding of theological process, and a different sort of spirituality and a new church home. It asks big questions about the nature of being made in the image of God, what we know about human sexual desire, and what it means to be accepting of others.  It is on one hand “raw, radiant field notes on survival” and it is also a moving story of letting go.

The forward is very lovely, a brave and celebratory affirmation by Shauna Niequist. As she writes,

All of our stories are worth telling, of course. But some stories have been going untold for too long, and this is one of them. This is a story whose time has come and I’ll be pressing this book into the hands of so many people.

This is a story that has the power to reshape our churches, to mend the hearts of those we’ve wronged, and to build a more beautiful, just, inclusive, Jesus-centered future for us all, and for generations to come.

Our Knives Will Save Us: Dispatches from a White Mountain Apache Chef Nephi Craig (Penguin Press) $32.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $25.60

For those who are foodies or listen to the NPR podcast “The Splendid Table” or like international cultural stuff, this riveting memoir is sure to please. It isn’t just about cooking, though, as this indigenous Apache chef has led a dramatic life. He has struggled with substance abuse and at eighteen years old was facing felony charges when a merciful and wise judge sentenced him to either going back to school or find a job. Nephi Craig turned over a new lease on live and enrolled in a culinary arts program where he was surprised to find his passion for cooking.

He also experienced while there, despite being not far from the Navajo Rez, a “profound dissonance as the only Indigenous person in the kitchen, preparing European recipes that — disguised by their French and Italian names — relied on ingredients native to the Americas.”

Wow.

This story untangles some of the buried histories of Indigenous cultivars (tomato, cacao, acorns, and amaranth) “each one a portal into possibility as well as a marker of the violent legacy of colonization.”  Yet, some reviewers have comments on the joy and gentleness in the prose. Chef Nephi Craig is not only a historian a Indigenous footways and a very fine chef, but a good educator and kind mentor who has “walked through an often treacherous path which evolved from a culinary pursuit to a life of incredible purpose.” Daphne Miller (author of Farmacology) says it shows how food can nourish not only our bodies but our souls.

Even as he wrestled with addiction Chef Craig travelled around the world, serving high-end restaurants and fine dining places from Brazil to Germany to Japan. But, of course, he realized food could help with his recovery and the recovery of his people.

A visionary blend of Indigenous food, culture, and decolonization, Our Knives Will Save Us traces Craig’s deeply personal journey while offering a grounded history of the White Mountain Apache and Indigenous Peoples on Turtle Island. Guided by mentors, parents, elders, and chefs, Craig confronts settler culinary colonialism and the erasure of Native food knowledge. His return to Indigenous traditions is inspirational and profound. This is one of the most important and powerful books about recovery, decolonization, and resurgence that I have read. — Dr. Michael Yellow Bird, professor and former dean of social work at the University of Manitoba, Arikara, co-author of Sahnish (Arikara) Ethnobotany and Decolonizing Pathways Towards Integrative Healing in Social Work

Things In Nature Merely Grow Yiyun Li (Picador) $18.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

I have only dipped into this, just out in paperback, a bracing book that the New York Times Book Review said was “Strange and profound and fiercely determine not to look away.”

You see, Ms Li tells us, frankly, “There is no good way to say this. My husband and I had two children and we lost them both: Vincent in 2017 at sixteen, James in 2024 at nineteen. Both chose suicide, and both died not far from home.”

Can you imagine?  Of course the prose, as one reviewer noted, “cuts deeply.” She is a meditative writer, but also deep philosophically, so part of her memoir is a reflection on the limits of language in describing loss. What words can hold a place for her sons? Apparantly some, as she has given us the great gift of a whole book’s worth. She is a deep thinker and it is a gift — as an NPR reviewer put it, “to be in Li’s head.” It is a rare privilege watching her figure out how to write about such things. In this, Thins In Nature Merely Grow is a powerful memoir, yes, but also a bit of a guide, a tentative lifeline into the abyss.

Yiyun Li is a prolific novelist and has won the Pulitzer Prize in 2026 for Things in Nature… as well as the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction; it was a finalist for a number of prestigious awards (including the PEN “Best Book of the Year.” And the National Book Award.) We congratulate her on this, but can’t say much more than that what I’ve dipped into is hard and beautiful and touching and anguished, exceptional.

Raiding the Heartland: An American Story of Deportation and Resistance William D. Lopez (Johns Hopkins University Press) $28.95 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.16

I suppose this isn’t a typical memoir in terms of the rules of the genre. Let’s call it “narrative nonfiction” where an author writing a report or expose so enters the scene that the journalism that unfolds is very much first-person, real-time, action-oriented storytelling. It is less about the author’s own life, so in that sense it isn’t memoir, but it is first-hand storytelling about a given time and place.

And, my friends, the time and place is now, in these United States, and the book tells about how ICE is doing terrible things to people and to their towns, businesses, churches, teams,and locales, especially in the mid-West. Again today I was adding a comment to a social media post that has asserted simply that if people were fully legal, ICE wouldn’t bother them. If they were citizens, they wouldn’t be detained. Of course I replied that this simply is not true. Mark it up to unjust intent or bad training or Trump’s quotas or sloppiness or racism, but the ICE programs have been brutal and often illegal, detaining perfectly legal fellow citizens and those (legally) awaiting green cards or (legally) awaiting asylum claims. Raiding the Heartland is less about these injustices of ICE against people who ought not be captured, but more broadly about the impact of this era of mass deportation on the lives and schools and churches and business in American neighborhoods.

It is colorfullly and passionately written as the author (a public health scholar from the University of Michigan) tells of his experiences on the trail following this story, writing it as a sequel to his acclaimed Separated: Family and Community in the Aftermath of an Immigration Raid. I’ll let the back cover reviewers tell you why we recommend it.

A work of narrative nonfiction that grabs readers from the opening pages and doesn’t let go. Raiding the Heartland is a well-told, sometimes personal, often infuriating tale enriched with stories from across the U.S. that effectively shows deportations aren’t just an immigrant story but an essentially American one. — Gary Rivlin, author of AI Valley and Katrina: After the Flood

Raiding the Heartland is an absolute must-read in this terrifying political moment. Lopez deftly chronicles what it means to render entire communities fearful as they attend church, take children to school, and make their livings. But his rescuing of how these same communities navigate and resist this fear will inspire in ways beautiful and necessary. — Heather Anne Thompson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy

The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness Cal Flyn (Viking Press) $35.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $28.00

Travel writing is an armchair traveler’s delight, artfully crafted memoirs and tales of going here and there. We have a section of books in our shop about pilgrimage, too, that unique kind of spiritual travel writing about one’s physical journey. I’ll admit The Savage Landscape is not a memoir in the traditional sense nor is it a reflection on the spirituality of pilgrimage. But what is it — first person nature writing, narrative nonfiction, personal essay, travel guide, stories of anthropology? Yes, and more.

The Savage Landscape starts with a very memoir-like recollection of an encounter with a bureaucratic sign (and sign in) as she horse-backed days journey away from any other signs of civilization in the Colorado Rockies. It annoyed her, and as she ruminated on that first page I was hooked. I’ve not gotten far in this far-flung story of Cal Flyn journeys to find answers about the very definition of wilderness. But as one Pulitzer Prize winning author put it in review, it is about “searching in the best sense — full of ideas, beauty, doubts, and adventures.”

Flyn is (as the world-class Pico Iyer notes) “one of the most exciting writers around. She is obviously learned and a clear-headed writer, but yet full of exuberance and a poetic sensibility, even lyrical. She is no Annie Dillard as she is driven not be mere observation of creation, but engaging the wildness of it all, the places that are hardest to find, the truly untamed places, and the people who, for better or worse, are usefully nearby. And, as Iyer puts it, her stories “open one door after another — to wonder, to terror, to rich and mixed feelings, so that we can see the world anew.” Call it a “bracing meditation” or a collection of global adventures into the wild, or a beautiful memoir of her quest, but The Savage Landscape is amazing.

She visits (and has stunning full color photos of) places not only in the US like Yellowstone but tracks gorillas in Uganda, spends time in zodiac boats off the coast of Antarctica, travels with wild game hunters in Mozambique, visits with the Yanomami tribe in Brazil, hikes the slopes above Lake Phoksundo in Nepal, and has mysterious pictures of the “Cloud of Unknowing” in the Grampian Mountains of Scotland. To name a few of the places her travels take her.

She is like Barry Lopez on steroids, a respected writer, having filed reports for outlets as diverse as National Geographic to Granta to The Wall Street Journal. Her previous book was Islands of Abandonment.

Remembering: A Biography of Books Stanley Hauerwas (Cascade) $17.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60

I wanted to end with a round number of books but I thought of this one which I had to mention. I had not reviewed this before, and while this isn’t a conventional autobiography, it is somewhat like a memoir, and it is one I intended to celebrate months ago. How did I miss not telling you about it? (Or maybe I did, in passing.) It is an amazing book to own and it is an important set of essays by one of our important living theologians and scholarly ethicists. I am sure most BookNotes readers have heard of the cranky, Christ-centered Texan who did his doctoral work at Yale and taught for decades at the University of Notre Dame and then at Duke. He is a figure you should know.

Most popularly he is known for penning some important, accessible books with is friend William Willimon and, philosophically, for any number of heavy titles about narrative theology, Biblical studies, medical ethics, the nature of community, and radical Christian faithfulness. His work on virtue ethics is nearly seminal and his call to mainline Protestants to take seriously the call of Christ to nonviolence has been very, very important for our contemporary social ethics. We love his recently published small collection of excerpts and sermons published by Plough called Jesus Changes Everything: A New World Made Possible with its lovely introduction by Tish Harrison Warren. In 2010 he did a bone fide memoir simply called Hannah’s Child. I hope you know it.

Earlier this year, though, this curious title came out to little fanfare and while I was very, very excited about it, it is the sort of book one can dip in to somewhat haphazardly, and so I’ve had it laying around my bedroom for months. And what a treat it is for those who are interested in such things. Somewhat like Karen Swallow Prior’s first fabulous collection Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me or like Jon Sweeney’s My Life in Seventeen Books: A Literary Memoir, Hauerwas here tells about his intellectual journey by way of a series of reflections on his various books.

Is there such a thing as a philosopher’s memoir focusing on his or her intellectual development? I suppose there is, and this little volume is a good example.

In the lengthy introduction Hauerwas has a section sub-titled “A Brief History of Where I (We) Have Been and Where I (We) May Be.” Okay, then. He has six chapters looking at six eras of his publishing work, starting with the first chapter discussing books pubished in 1974 through 1981; the most recent era goes from 2011 (Working with Words) to his recent little Plough title.

For those who know Stanley Hauerwas is a legend, this book identifies which parts of the legend are true. For those who’ve scratched at the elephant of his work, knowing only a tusk, a tail, or a trunk and not grasping how it all fits in one body, this volume embraces the whole. For those who wonder if he’s changed his mind, here are the answers. To read it is like tidying an office after fifty years–and pausing to cherish, ponder, and rediscover. — Sam Wells, Vicar, St Martin-in-the-Fields, author of Constructing an Incarnational Theology and Walk Humbly: Encouragements for Living, Working, and Being

It is difficult to overstate the impact of Stanley Hauerwas on the last fifty years of Christian ethics. As he here narrates (with characteristic candor) the story of the forty-six (now forty-seven) books he has written over that half century, what emerges is a strikingly unified body of work, a corpus that places on compelling display the practical character of Christian convictions amidst the steady decline of mainstream American Protestant delusions of control over history. Readers are thereby invited to witness, and thereby potentially also carry on, Hauerwas’s remarkable journey of faithfulness. — Jennifer A. Herdt Professor of Christian Ethics, Yale University, author of Putting On Virtue: The Legacy of the Splendid Vices

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