THREE IMMENSELY IMPORTANT AND TRULY CAPTIVATING READS ABOUT LIFE IN  SMALL TOWN and/or RURAL AMERICA (plus five more briefly mentioned)

With my wife’s cancer and my birthday fast approaching and our store’s happy 43rd anniversary a week ago, I’ve been thinking about my life, my past, growing up, old high school pals, college friends. I miss my deceased parents and only brother (and several college buds who died too soon.) Beth would say the same. So these three books each touched me personally.

Growing up in the rural outskirts of a medium sized town in a rural county in the 1960s was, in some ways, idyllic. I had a lovely childhood, playing in cornfields and learning to hunt. It’s funny, in the mid-60s, the classmates I considered to be “rich kids” were, I now realize, merely middle class. We were, too, almost.

Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America Beth Macy (Penguin Press) $32.00 // OUR 20% OFF SALE PRICE = $25.60

Beth Macy’s Paper Girl is one of the most important books of the year, and certainly one I’ve pondered as much as any, lately. The stories she tells of returning to her small high school in rural Western Ohio — Urbana, near the town of Springfield that Trump’s people lied about, saying the Haitians were eating dogs — made me wonder about so much. (One of her class reunions went sideways as political polarization seeped into the reunion Facebook page and they had to cancel the whole thing.) My old high school is bigger and better than it was, I think, but for many of us, her story will resonant. She returns to a decimated Rust Belt economy, the social fabric tearing, the kids hurting, the school barely holding on. She got to college on a Pell Grant but, of course, Reagan and his Republicans slashed that years ago, and now Trump’s team is cutting the social safety net even more, so her story is tragic and urgent. As a rough-neck Midwesterner might say, it’s a helluva book. I’ll be listing Paper Girl as one of the best books of 2025 and wanted to give you a heads up.

I’m sort of choked up, thinking about this, my friends, but I want many readers to get this journalistic report-slash-memoir by a reporter I admire as much as any nonfiction journalist out there. I couldn’t put it down as she documents small town chaos, broken families, rural poverty, school truancy and social services hampered by right wing politics that seem to disdain anybody helping others. You may know her stunning Dopesick (the TV show was excellent, but the book had nuances as only a good book can) and the sequel — I called it a must-read and declared it one of the best books of the year two years ago — called Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis. Of course almost every Labor Day I highlight an old review I did of her specular Factory Man about a brave furniture factory owner in North Carolina who took on off-shore rip-offs, fighting global economy thugs to keep his workers employed. What a story of the little guy, of the complexity of institutional dysfunction, based on what we Christians would (or should) call idolatry. The principalities and powers were causing lay-offs and shut-downs and her story explored earnest resistance to the ways of the world. It, too, is one of my favorite books.

And so, when Paper Girl was touted as Macy’s most personal book yet, showing off her reporting chops and investigative journalism alongside her own memoir, I was excited. We stocked it here and I read it immediately. It was a great glimpse into a brave woman who endured the hardships of an alcoholic father and poverty stricken mother and became the first in her extended family to go to college. (Again, through the social investment of the Pell Grants which helped smart, poor kids go off to college.)

This is one of the compelling take-aways of the book, her Pell Grant example being nearly axiomatic: it helps us understand the need for institutional reforms, structural adjustments, policy proposals that are useful for the rural poor and to help alleviate complicated, multi-faceted problems facing many American regions that were hurt by the free trade stuff of Reagan and Clinton. Don’t get her talking about NAFTA and the other Neo-liberal reforms of the end of the last century. It was, as we see so clearly now in the current regime, an era that caused the rich to get richer, boldly so, and the poor to get further entrenched in various sorts of crummy hardships.

Paper Girl imagines what hardships a contemporary Beth Macy might be facing if she were growing up in Urbana, Ohio, in that same school, now, instead of in the 1980s. She finds some other youth who are facing domestic violence or parental alcoholism and the like and imagines that these kids are sort of like what her life was like. Except. Except there are more dangers and fewer supports, less help and greater odds. One boy — a beloved drum major in the dwindling high school band — sleeps in his car, a car that breaks down as he travels to his first week of community college. There is a youth center in town doing exceptional work but the founder of the remarkable nonprofit is gay and (despite being a former high school football star) is despised by many, and right-wing MAGA guys got a grant the center had won cancelled, significantly kneecapping the only major service of its kind in the town. Beth Macey travels with the teens, hangs out at the youth center and their after school programs and embeds herself with everyone from the beloved band director to a brave truancy specialist who faces down drug-addled parents, getting their kids to school. She tells the story of the hurting, small-town poor and a way that is impeccably documented, both experientially and citing the research of sociologists and researchers. Her passions for the poor and dispossessed is clear in her other vibrant books and it is tenderly on exhibit here. I admire her, her book, and want to press it into the hands of anyone who cares about a good chunk of our American citizenry.

Call it flyover country or the rust belt or whatever, but the region Macy describes and the stories she documents is both heartbreaking and infuriating. And the political polarization and the increasing dysfunction and poverty is happening near you, too.

I mentioned that there is more personal memoir / storytelling here than in her other  very engaging projects. This makes this book important (and page-turning) almost for another reason: it is a story — or at least a subplot in the engrossing narrative — of her own siblings and extended family that stayed in Ohio even after she moved away and won awards for journalism and public advocacy. She writes about her aging mom and other typical family stuff. And, yes, some of her loved ones are Trumpians, and, worse, some are QAnon conspiracy theorists. (As are some of her beloved high-school pals; they go out for coffee or drinks and promise not to talk politics, but one of them can’t not bring up the pedophile rings run by the Democrats and other bizarre accusations promoted by the weirdo-dark web.) Some family members are hurt by her liberal politics and others try to convert her to evangelical faith. Her now-regular visits back to Ohio and her trying to rebuild relations with extended family (including a family deeply distressed by accusations of sexual abuse, a niece that was believed only by Beth — the family Pentecostal pastor told them not to believe such accusations against a man he thought was Godly.)

This is crazy-making and anguishing but Macy keeps the narrative going, bringing in new chapters of the lives of the youth she’s tracking, the drama at the school and the youth center, the politics of the local town and county. It’s a snapshot of America, my friends, and an unforgettable one. It is no wonder the Pulitzer Prize winning author Geraldine Brooks calls it “heartfelt, intimate, and enraging”

The important journalist Jeff Sharlet (of the excellent, powerful, The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War) calls Macy “one of our greatest chroniclers of the America that’s fallen victim to the crises of capitalism” and suggests this book is “memoir, biography, elegy and advocacy.” Sarah Smarsh (famous for Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth and Bone of the Bone: Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class) says it is “essential.” She notes that the crisis Macy is exploring in Paper Girl “requires not just digging for facts but digging even deeper into our very souls.”

I Hate It Here, Please Vote for Me: Essays on Rural Political Decay Matthew Ferrence (West Virginia University press) $21.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59

I would like to ease into this review telling you a dozen things I liked about it, the good writing, the feisty politics, the idealism, the rage. I could quote beautifully-crafted paragraphs that left me wondering “how does one learn to write like that?” and, yes, “wow.” I’m a fan of this incredible book and I commend it, at least to some of our readers.

I loved this book so much and it made me think about so much that I want to rave about it, but yet, there are some issues that a few readers will find distracting. It is very well crafted but a few times it is so poetically written, it is abstract to a point of being head-scratchingly obtuse (indeed, there is a whole chapter about poetics as politics and politics in need of poets. I think he is speaking mostly metaphorically, but still.) He’s a college lit prof who ran for office as a far-left Dem in a very red region, so quixotic that even the state party ignored his campaign — why invest in a sure loss? — and his anger about this drives much of the book. I don’t blame him, but geesh. So it’s both deeply written with poetics and metaphor that might lose some of us on occasion and it is angry. There’s that.

But he’s right. There’s a terrible scene of a Democratic breakfast in his Northwestern Pennsylvania town of Meadville when the shorts-wearing, rough-looking guy, urban hero and cool Lieutenant Governor of our fair Keystone State, (now Senato) John Fetterman appears and does not even mention Ferrence’s quixotic campaign, offering no local support other than the urgent call to vote for Biden. Ferrence is deep in the struggle and gets no help whatsoever from his party, not even a shout out when he is standing right there. Which not only makes him bitter, but is a symbol of what much of this powerful book is most about, a theme that Wendell Berry often describes: the main conflict in our culture is less ideological, as such, but is between rural and urban. And this dude is rural, having grown up on a farm in Indiana, Pennsylvania.

I know his exact home(somewhat blighted from careless coal mining) area outside of the state university that I attended — and where he now lives in what might be considered a rust belt town, in Crawford County in Northwest PA. Meadville was a robust industrial town and was once a heart of industry (they made, among other things, zippers!) Of course many of the robber baron types extracted wealth while paying poor wages and lived well elsewhere. Much of I Hate It Here, Please Vote for Me is about how both rural and rust-belt, postindustrial towns (not to mention inner cities) have much in common. They are passed over, mocked, despised and the people, for reasons sociologists are still trying to parse, often vote for candidates that do not have their back. This prophetic rant is the latest, and in some ways, the most tender and compelling, treatise to be read alongside Paper Girl by Beth Macy and, also, her Factory Man, or maybe Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild (not to mention her amazing 2024 book Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right.) But his is beautiful and personal.

Here are two other striking portions of I Hate It Here… Besides the beautiful story of the nearly redemptive family farm in Indiana, PA (with strip mines and polluted creeks and fracking pipes all around) Ferrence and his new wife moved to the glorious desert ecology near the border with Mexico and his reflections about the topography there are glorious. But his passion for the dignify and freedom of refugees and immigrants is palpable and radical. His ruminations about the militias who knowingly trash the water stations set up in the desert for needy sojourners is righteously angry. The chapter about their season in the Southwest — and his longing for home in Pennsylvania — is worth the price of the book.

And then they move to Paris. His wife was pursuing a PhD in French and his vulnerable sharing of how out of place he felt, how foreign, was unlike any travel memoir I’ve read. I highly commend it, how he connects the poor seeking refuge in the American southwest and his own nostalgia for his family farm, and his hopes for a restoration of a sense of place when they return home. Themes of exile and homecoming are increasingly voiced and his yearning in that chapter is, without him saying it, is nearly spiritual.

But then there is the campaign. His loss. His bitterness. His failure. And his content rumination, from this angle and then that, about why rural folks, small town people, and rust belt burned over districts are plighted, caught, stuck, voting, regularly, for those who simply do not care for them or their places. He pulls no punches in talking about it; one chapter is specifically about violence and it is worth a couple of reads.

I mentioned that he makes much of metaphor; there is a chapter called “Crown Vetch” which is about an exploitative, colonizing, invasive species of nasty ground cover. You can imagine what he does with that. Another glorious chapter is “Succession” which, in natural history studies, is about the evolution of forests. He runs with that beautifully, too.

I do not know why he calls the book I Hate It Here as he clearly does not. He waxes beautifully about the natural grasses and flowers they’ve planted in their downtown Meadville home. He writes like Aldo Leopald and Wendell Berry, affirming the long-haul in the same place.

From lovely writing about the county fair (and great sections about showing animals) and the anguish of polarization between Red and Blue America and the details of running against a do-nothing, blustering right wing incumbent (who he ungraciously calls every name in the book) I Hate It Here, Please Vote for me: Essays on Rural Political Decay is a fabulous, striking, unforgettable read.

Existing in the same context of What You’re Getting Wrong About Appalachia and Appalachian Reckoning as an attempt to both understand the shifted political sands of place, and to assert a theory as to why, this book is an opportunity for people to deepen their understanding of rural people and politics. — Neema Avashia, author of Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place

A direct look at the media narratives of politics. Ferrence wrestles with how he understands himself as an individual, a demographic, and then as Aristotle’s political animal. It is a fascinating look at the making of political and cultural tropes from the inside. — Edward Karshner, author of Writing the Self: A Phenomenological Approach to Composition Theory

Barn Gothic: Three Generations and the Death of the Family Dairy Farm Ryan Dennis (Island Press) $30.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

I announced this a month ago and was glad a few people picked it up. Still, I hadn’t read it at that point and was just suggesting it looked good, and had good reviews. Many Hearts & Minds readers, I figured, would enjoy a memoir and collection of moving ruminations on life on the farm. It’s a beloved genre and I figured this seemed like a fun one to recommend.

But, man. What a book! I simply couldn’t put it down and I was moved, deeply moved, by some of the stories and the tragedies that befall this three generational family of Western New York dairy farmers. It’s not quite like the gentleman farm that Matthew Ferrence grew up on in Western Pennsylvania (his dad made his main living as a biology prof at the local university.) And he’s not writing with the humor and grace of my favorite farmer-writer, Michael Perry, although I bet Perry has read him already wondering why Dennis hasn’t made at least one joke about all the manure.

Ryan Dennis, though, is the really real deal. His dad and mom were hard-working dairy farmers and in the end of the 20th century into the 21st, these were very hard times. We learn just a bit about farm subsidies and milk quotas and the infamous insistence of Department of Agriculture head (under Nixon), Earl Butz, that farmers must “go big or go home.” As a few got bigger, smaller ones languished and, despite being encouraged by the likes of Louis Bromfield or Wendell Berry or the new agrarians, most farmers were in deep debt and facing often unjust pressure from banks. (M&T Bank has an ugly bit in Barn Gothic.) Barn Gothic is not often polemical, but the subtext of the farm crisis and the mess of agribusiness is there.

There are sweet and tender remembrances in this story, some of which feels like a short collection of readings or captivating essays. Always well written, the details of tractors and plows — most dairy farmers also grow their own silage for their herds, so while there is plenty of fun stuff about cows here, much of it is about farm implements and the many tools needed to repair them. The barns are filled with manure and other outbuildings are like garages and repair shops In the midst of the clutter and mooing, dad and son will tape together two big lids from teat-cleaning fluid and make hockey sticks and mess around, with the errant improvised puck flying into the flank of an unsuspected Holstein.

Most cows are pretty compliant with the milking and feeding, but there are always those that kick, and when a cow is dry (not making milk as she is pregnant) she can get cantankerous. It makes for some good drama.

The bigger drama of Barn Gothic, besides the hair-raising injuries and daily danger, is the question that appears half way through; will Ryan take over his grandpa’s farm, the one adjective to his own father and mothers. The two farms are, for odd reasons, tied together financially, and there is an occasional question about the health of the relationship between Ryan’s dad and his father (Ryan’s grandfather and family patriarch and good, old-school farmer.)  Ryan’s dad tries hard to be a better dad, and while singularly focused on his dairyman’s work, he’s at times fun and funny. I liked a lot of this; you will too,

“Even though Ryan grew up watching his father and grandfather struggle to survive, he always thought he would follow in their footsteps and take over the family farm. But as he milked cows and fed calves, the world outside the barn was changing. Between 2003 and 2020, forty thousand dairy farms went out of business in the United States.”

We know in the beginning of the book that Ryan has become a writer and is no longer running a family dairy farm. In the first page the two men are drinking gin on the porch and talking about the old days of the farm, the region, the milk industry, their lives. We learn that Ryan has become a writer drawn to telling rural stories and writing for literary journals that creatively tell of farm life. He is no longer a farmer and neither is his sister. Barn Gothic explains how they all got where they are. One reviewer calls it “deeply personal and unique.”  I call it a beautiful, profound elegy.

We owe a debt to the farmers who feed us — and to Dennis for this memoir.” — John Piotti, President, American Farmland Trust

 

FIVE MORE – ALL 20% OFF

I could list oodles of others about rural life, about small towns, about domestic poverty and the church’s call to be involved in helping. Write to me if you need more ideas and I can sent a list. And then there is an increasingly good shelf of ministry in rural settings and small town pastoring.  Again, let us know if your interested!

For some reason, these five just seemed to be important to share now, to be read alongside or after the above three.

Disposable: American’s Contempt for the Underclass Sarah Jones (Avid Reader Press) $30.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

This is brand new and I’ve read a quarter of it — what a book. Holy smokes. The first chapter is on an old phrase “social murder.” Do you know its origins? Jones is a senior writer at New York magazine (covering politics and, often religion even though she says she is an atheist.) Can the most predatory features of late modern capital even be constrained? Can we be honest about the inequality in our Mammon-driven culture?

She uses the disparities during COVID (including the horrific differences in death rates) as a way into this discussion, blending astute and up-to-date data and personal story, making this a vivid, passionate study. Beth Macy calls it “a masterful act of love.”

Disposable is a massive work of journalism–and a masterful act of love. Meticulously reported, voraciously researched, and poignantly rendered, Sarah Jones makes the blurry clear and the unseen visible. Both a scathing rebuke of corporate health care and a clear-eyed call to action, this book reminds us that we should not and cannot put the pandemic behind us. — Beth Macy, author of Dopesick and Paper Girl

Incisive . . . In the tradition of Barbara Ehrenreich, Jones combines interviews and firsthand observation of poverty with deeply researched history. . . . A full-throated, class-first critique of how the right-wing tendencies of American capitalism made the pandemic so devastating for the working poor. What Jones brings to this telling is an unflinching focus on American capital, its unholy marriage to the political class, and the way that union has eroded ordinary people’s faith in authorities. —The New Republic

White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (Liveright) $22.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

While this incredibly important work deserves a longer, more careful review, I hope you at least recall that we’ve featured it before, suggesting it with enthusiasm. Read it and make up your own mind if this is as compelling as I think it is. On the back is says it is “a generational work with far-ranging social and political implications White Poverty promises to be one of the most influential books in recent years.”

We can hope, but it has to be read and discussed, reviewed and shared, cited and used as a catalyst for deeper understanding and action. I think it is profound and could become influential.

I suppose you know of Reverend William Barber, the vibrant black pastor who founded Moral Mondays and is President of Repairers of the Breach. He is a spiritual leader calling us all to higher ground and righteous action. As Representative Jamie Raskin puts it, Barer “upholds the movement of interracial ‘moral fusion’ as the only way to pull America back from the complete economic and moral impoverishment of right-wing politics.” Black leader and scholar Eddie Glaude says it is “brimming with insight and prophetic fire.”

Poverty, By America Matthew Desmond (Crown) $20.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

I needn’t say much about this. Desmond is famous for the award winning and exceptional study of homelessness called Evicted. Here he brings his stellar journalistic skills and research habits and reporting gifts to offer what dozens of outlets called one of the best books of 2020. Now in paperback, this book by the Pulitzer-Prize winning author is simply one that is — I the words of novelist and bookseller Ann Patchett — “essential and instructive, hopeful and enraging”

Yep. Like others on this list, the writing is vivid and hopeful, even, but first it is fierce and enraging. And informative. We’ve got to know the facts about poverty in these times and it does no-one any good to have a sentimental or judgmental or wrong-headed view of things. This book helps us see why the United States, even as the richest country on earth, still has more poverty than any other advanced democracy.

If you are serious about working on this topic, this is a must-read, learning to become what Demond calls a “poverty abolitionist.”

The Overlooked Americans: The Resilience of Our Rural Towns and What It Means for Our Country Elizabeth Currid-Halkett (Basic Books) $32.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $25.60

I read this when it came out the summer of 2023 and wrote about it later that year. It was striking and enjoyable — I’ve been reading stuff about rural life and small towns for a long time — and while I do not recall what all I said about it, I’ll remind you now that it is important for a number of reasons. Currie Halkett is an honest sociologist and when COVID-19 hit, her research needed to be meticulously carried out by phone calls and Zoom. It may have somehow facilitated entering oddly deeper relationships as she came to know families from small towns all over the land, and she learned what sort of common values urban and rural folks share. The mix of qualitative research and quantitative is impressive. I noted that she was particularly open to talking with families about their religious faith and found it somehow plausible and even pleasant to include in her conversations topics of about faith and ultimate meaning.

As the publisher has put it, ”In The Overlooked Americans, public policy expert Elizabeth Currid-Halkett breaks through stereotypes about rural America. She traces how small towns are doing as well as, or better than, cities by many measures. She also shows how rural and urban Americans share core values, from opposing racism and upholding environmentalism to believing in democracy.”

One of the takeaways from this big book is that “when we focus too heavily on the far-right fringe, we overlook the millions of rural Americans” who are neither deplorable or fanatics, Some are, in fact, rather content with their lives.” Is this somehow in contradiction to the beautiful diatribe by the localist professor in Meadville, PA? Did she talk to injured and defeated farmers like the Dennis family in rural New York? Did she talk with anybody in Urbana, Ohio? I don’t know. It’s good data which points in a helpful direction and I recommend it. You’ve got to read Beth Macy first. Start with the powerful Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America.

The Wages of Peace: How to Confront Economic Inequality and Love Your Neighbor Well Brian Humphreys (Herald Press)$19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Obviously, each of the above titles would note that American problems, even with poverty and hunger, are more than economic. Reading Paper Girl you’ll be entertained reading quite a narrative, but you’ll be reminded about mental health issues and drug abuse, about people pulling their kids out of public schools and familial dysfunction. You’ll learn about work habits and faith and values and policy.

Still, deeply connected to the social inequalities and cultural problems of what the Sarah Jones book calls the “underclass” is the question of money. Economics. I hate to scare anybody away, but it is an often-talked about topic in the Bible and we’ve got scores of books that explore what Scriptures teach about poverty, injustice, and public justice. One simply cannot read theBible and remain disinterested in economics, as it is a key topic from Genesis to Revelation.

The Wages of Peace is just one relatively short and upbeat book tracing about how people of faith might confront economic injustice. With a foreword by Liz Theoharis (who wrote the weighty but vital Eerdmans volume, Always with Us? What Jesus Really Said about the Poor) you know this is substantive, theologically and in terms of Biblically-based passion. But it always has a certain level-headed hope, showing what can be done, how to proceed, offering stories to clarify and embolden.

With inflation and stagnant wages and so on, it’s hard for many to get by. Humphreys is a Mennonite so he is shaped deeply by the call to be peacemakers. It’s an operative image in The Wages of Peace (the title comes into a clearer light, eh?) and he invites us to be aspiring economic peacemakers. He invites us to “seek shalom in the marketplace and the neighborhood” and take up (as one chapter puts it) “Local Economic Peacemaking.” Socioeconomic stuff is admittedly complex so this book moves us towards talking well about money and profits and stewardship and sharing and wise public policy. Get it now to have on hand after you’ve read a few of the above titles.

The Wages of Peace is a rallying cry for the church to pursue true shalom by biblically reframing assumptions about wealth and work, by dismantling systemic barriers, and by activating economic equity for all, one living-wage job and empowered voice at a time. — Leonard Sweet, author, Jesus Human and Designer Jesus

 

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BookNotes

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DISCOUNT

20% OFF

We hope you enjoyed that last BookNotes a few days ago listing more than a dozen brand new Advent resources for 2025. In the BookNotes column a year ago I shared links to a handful of previous posts listing great resources from previous years and some of these remain popular and, in some cases, nearly essential. Those links provide some lovely books for adults and children, families and churches, of various styles and price-ranges. I hope you browse those archived BookNotes and are reminded of some of the great ones we’ve shared in the past.

12 NEW ONES. Here are 12 new children’s books that are wonderful for this season. As the season of Christmastide draws nearer I’ll list other good gifts for kids, but for now, these might prove useful in your search for resources to explain all that we are about to celebrate. Praise the Lord for this month of anticipation, right?

THANK YOU. Remember that great ad that ran on TV years ago of those guys waist-deep in cranberry bogs, humble farmers simply thanking you for your support of their work? That’s us, too — up to our ears in books, grateful for those who appreciate the quality of our down-home service. From Dallastown, thank you for your support.

ALL ARE 20% OFF.  As always, our BookNotes selections are all offered at 20% off. We don’t make that much on them selling them at sale prices, but we hope it enables you to pick up more than you might otherwise. Let’s do it!

The Biggest Story: Advent Kevin DeYoung, illustrated by Don Clark (Crossway) $27.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

Hefty, colorful, and sturdy, this large-sized lift-the-flap board book has the big theological vision and amazingly colorful graphic style to make this a spectacular stand-out this season. Sure to be used over and over in homes and Sunday school classes, this is inspired by but a supplement to the extraordinary The Biggest Story Bible Storybook. It features new devotions by DeYoung and vibrant art by Clark and his innovative design team.

This is not the only Advent tool that does this, of course, but it does say in the introduction that “this Advent book does not tell the traditional Christmas story — at least not in the traditional way. Instead of recounting familiar scenes full of shepherds, angels, and wise men, this book focuses on the prophecies leading up to the Christmas story. You might think of it as the story before the story — or, better yet, as a fuller version of the Biggest Story.

The Biggest Story Advent highlights twenty-four promises from the Old Testament about the coming Messiah (and then, only then, a final chapter that summarizes the birth of Christ from Matthew 1.) It starts with the “snake crusher”, a theme DeYoung explored in his first, great children’s book, The Biggest Story: How the Snake Crusher Brings Us Back to the Garden, also illustrated by Don Clark. Their big Biggest Story Bible Storybook evolved out of that as did the big Biggest Story Family Devotional. They all are shaped by this historical / redemptive vision of the unfolding narrative that points to Jesus. As DeYoung puts in the introduction to the Advent book, while some prophecies in the Old Testament are well known during Advent, some are less familiar, emphasizing “that the coming of the Deliverer fulfilled the larger story of God’s redemptive purposes for His people.” And, in fact, for the whole creation!

This big, fat, lift-the flap board book is a sight to behold and a simple way to engage children in the biggest story behind the Nativity. Highly recommended, especially for children maybe as young as 4 or 5 and up to maybe 11. It really is cool looking so older kids may be captivated.

The One We’re Waiting For: An Illustrated Advent Devotional for Families Taylor Combs, art by Aedan and Natalie Peterson (B+H) $22.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

If the above Biggest Story Advent board book and its 25 lift-the-flap pages is a bit too juvenile for your kids then this one, with modern but rather traditional art, might be a great fit. It included ornaments for each day of December that can be punched out, making this a handsome hardback, a great book to read and cherish, but also a family activity book, with this nifty project artfully included.

The opening reflection on “What is Advent” is very good for kids and the note for parents introduces (or reminds) us of Tolkien’s fascinating phrase, eucatastophe; a great tragedy, or a sudden turn of events that prevents a greater catastrophe. J.R.R. called Christmas “the great eucatastrophe of human history.” Anybody that starts an Advent book like that has earned my respect and, believe me, this book deserves your careful look. The daily readings may be a bit long for some preschoolers but it is ideal for elementary aged kids, into middle school.

Not unlike the DeYoung one, above, The One We Waiting For makes great use of Old Testament stories that have — for those with a trained eye and Biblical imagination —connections to the coming of the Messiah. From texts and stories as unique as Jacob and Esau and Rebekah to Joshua 6 to the story of Ruth and so on, the line “There is One coming..” and “He’s the One we’re waiting for” ends each story. There is a song suggestion and three good questions to discuss, on the OT text and its connection to the ongoing story. I really like the illustrations, too, and the ribbon marker, making this a fabulous keepsake.

Promises Made / Promises Kept: A Family Devotional for Christmas Marty Machowski, illustrated by Phil School (New Growth Press) $22.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

Wow, what a great idea. Again, working this deeply Biblical motif of the history of redemption and the “promises made and promises fulfilled” nature of salvation history, this book cleverly gives two weeks worth of reflections, with great, contemporary, somewhat stylized artwork. You can count on New Growth Press to offer gospel-centered, grace-based content and almost anwayswith the very best in children’s illustrations. This book, not surprisingly, is stellar.

Here is part of what makes it fun and useful. It is one of the crazy books that can be read from start into the middle and then can be flipped over and read from back to the middle.

The first half covers seven “Promises Made” (starting with “The Promise of a Son” in Genesis 3) and then when you turn the book over, you start again, in the “Promises Kept” section. Here’s the thing: it’s best to start reading this one week before Christmas so you come to the climatic last promise on Christmas Eve or Day. Then you flip the book over and start the “Promises Kept” devotions, reading that the week after Christmas. What a great idea.

Here is how the good folks at the “Redeemed Reader” website put it:

Promises Made Promises Kept is a unique book: during the first week, families will read from the Promises Made side. Half-way through the book (on Christmas Day, naturally), readers must flip the book over and start again from the other side (Promises Kept). But Jesus Himself did the same thing: turned the world upside down when He appeared as an infant to a humble couple in Bethlehem all those years ago.

With die-cut cutouts on the front and back cover (or, should I say, the two front covers) the art shows through making this a really neat-looking picture book. Great for elementary age and up through middle school, with good discussion questions, too. Nice.

Twas the Season of Advent: Devotions and Stores for the Christmas Season Glenys Nellist, illustrated by Elena Selivanova (Zonderkidz) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I believe this was out previously but I somehow missed it, and so I”m listing it here, admittedly knowing it is now brand new. But it may be new to many of our BookNotes readers and I am thrilled. I don’t know if I’m happier about the charming, expansive prose of Glenys Nellist or the esteemed art of Elena Selivanova, one of the great illustrators of our time. (Check out her pages at the Beehive Illustration site to see samples.)

I believe this may be among my favorite seasonal books, lavishly (but not overdone) and creatively illustrated and illuminated, with each entry including an earnest, child-like prayer. Twas the Season of Advent stands alongside Twas the Evening of Christmas and Twas the Morning of Easter, all stellar.

Children’s Advent Stories for Bedtime: Celebrate the True Meaning of Christmas Julie & David Lavender, illustrated by Shahar Kober (Z Kids) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Just to be clear, this isn’t really about Advent as such. What is unique about this book from a solid indie press is that it is text heavy, with pages to read out loud to little ones. It is well written, nicely designed with Bible stories (but no examples or reflections or other stories to clutter the power of the straight Biblical text.) It is enhanced by some very nice illustrations. (But it is not mostly a “picture book” as much as I like the rich illustration by Israeli illustrator Shah Kober.)

There is a full page of what they oddly call Bible study for each story, even though it only telling about Bible truths, mostly for application. (They might have called this “living the story” or “going deeper” or “applying the lessons.”) and then very appropriate questions for conversations at bedtime. Over 215 pages, this is useful, nothing particularly imaginative, but with a standard focus on Scripture. Why not try this custom of reading the Bible together at bedtime? (And, of course, it would be suitable to read anytime — I recall our own family’s best intentions for routines and schedules that seemed rarely to be actually kept.) Children’s Advent Stories is about the age-old effort to (as it says on the back) “unwrap the true meaning of Christmas with bedtime stories.”

God’s Big Picture Bible Stories: The First Christmas N.T. Wright, illustrations by Helena Perez Garcia (Tommy Nelson) $17.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

By now I hope you know (perhaps recalling our several shout-outs) that the great New Testament scholar Tom Wright has done a large-sized children’s Bible storybook called God’s Big Picture Bible Storybook. This is in that format and style but actually has more content than the Christmas portion of that storybook Bible.

For those that appreciate Wright’s keen insight and literary voice and want to take in his telling of the nativity story, this is fantastic. There are two pages in the back that highlight five Old Testament prophecies that are fulfilled in the Nativity story, so there is that bit of “Big Picture” perspective which I appreciate a lot.  It is just a few inches bigger than a typical children’s picture book, giving it some extra heft (good for reading aloud and good for church use, maybe.) The art is vibrant and realistic by the same London-based, Spanish artist who did the bigger picture Bible. She is amazing and respected throughout the world. Yes!

The World’s Best Christmas Light – A Light-Up Board Book Chelsea Tornetto, illustrated by Amanda Morrow (ZonderKidz) $14.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

I needn’t say much about this neat little gift book for a very young child other than to say it has a few pages a happy inter-racial family looking at Christmas lights. It’s fun, a common-enough experience, with some cute rhyming words. Fine. And then the child realizes that the best Christmas lights display is a single light. Maybe not the biggest and brightest but the clarity of this one light wins the day.

What’s fun about this simple story is highlighting the light of God’s love as better than all the glitz, but, great for tiny little fingers, is a button to push that causes the picture of the light over the manger scene to actually light up. Yep, there’s a real glowing lighten the last page. Babies and toddlers will no doubt get a kick out of this gimmick, eh? Merry Christmas!

The Wonders of the First Christmas: Explore the Birth of Jesus through History, Archaeology, and Art Andy McGuire (Zonderkidz) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

I love this simple, intriguing book and would’ve poured over it in my childhood I’m sure.  First, I must say this — it is not an encyclopedia-type book with photos and examples of the history of art. (The art oddly mentioned in the subtitle are the illustrations by Mr. McGuire himself — fun and funny and fascinating, but it is not a survey of Western archeology and art.) That would be a whole different sort of text.

This is for inquisitive younger readers and in every two page spread — the pictures are vivid and the angle of vision is often clever (you’ve got to see the pictures of the camels!) — there are sidebars of facts, details about what archaeologists and historians have learned about the nature of daily life in the time of the birth of Jesus and the years afterwards. It’s a pretty standard telling of that first Christmas but laden with extra details complimenting the gospel truths with historical, cultural, and geographical facts. From the nature of donkeys to the meaning of the word angels to how a manger was made to speculations about the wise men to a sidebar about Egypt all enhance the experience of trading this well-told story.

The author and artist, by the way, has written a lot, including a fabulously similar book called The Things God Made but is perhaps best known for illustrating the big, artful, informative book by Marty Machowski published by New Growth Press called The-Ology: Ancient Truths, Ever New. He’s talented and experienced and this picture book with sidebars is a fun one for kids maybe as young as 4 or 5 but the historical parts might attract older kids. Or adults.

The Memory Tree: A Holiday Grief Book Joanna Rowland, illustrated by Thea Baker (Beaming Books) $18.99 // OU SALE PRICE = $15.19

Although not overtly religious this is, in a very special way, a sacred book, one of the most tender and lovely books of recent years. It is very simple prose (indicating it is, a first blush, for very little children) who tell about how sad they are celebrating this Christmas season with a person missing from the family. (Readers do not know if it is a parent, or most likely a grandparent, or maybe — as in the real story that inspired this book —a sibling.) The child decides to pick just the right Christmas tree (“that you would’ve picked”) and finds ornaments that remind her of her lost loved one. The family joins in and soon even others are adding ornaments that remind them of the deceased. That each ornament brings to mind a certain memory or story is made evident and as company comes over, they leave a special seat at the table in honor of their beloved member. Oh my, this will cause tears to well up, and this is good.

Christmas is an awful time to try to celebrate when one is carrying hard grief. This is one child’s ingenious plan to make the most of it, honoring their lost family member and having a memorial tree full of memories.

There is a long letter from the original family who inspired this story — their 20 year old daughter, Marisa, a beloved swim coach and community leader. She was well-loved and the memory tree was one way they learned to honor her. Every public and church library should have one of these available; bereavement centers, grief share groups, and others who know those who have lost loved ones may want to share this gentle, caring story and find comfort.

The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t Laura Alary, illustrated by Ana Eguaras (Beaming Books) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

Could this be based on a true story? I don’t know, but it sure could be. Aidan’s city is hit with an ice storm just days before Christmas, causing the electrical grid to go down. Are all their Christmas plans ruined? Uhh — you bet. This is a disaster.

As it says on the back, “One disappointment piles on another: Grandma and Grandpa cannot travel, the Christmas pageant is canceled, there are no Christmas lights, and it’s impossible to cook Christmas dinner.” Is this going to be the worst Christmas ever? More profoundly, will this be “the Christmas that wasn’t?”

I’m not going to tell you how this drama all plays out, but you can guess there is a lesson to be learned. And the gospel rings out, the true truth of the Christmas story somehow realized anew. In the dark.

One lesson is that sometimes our Christmas celebration is not all we hope or expect it to be. This is something that many of us need to remember (not just children); the nostalgia and images of a romantic holiday that are embedded in the social imaginations of Americans makes the quest for a happy holiday nearly an idol, or so I suspect. This simple, animated children’s story might be just what we need: maybe it will help us ponder how “sometimes when things are taken away, we are brought closer to the heart of the holy mystery that still draws us into its warmth.” You’re going to love this.

The Birds of Christmas Olivia Armstrong, illustrated by Mira Miroslavova (Eerdmans) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

I’m not going to lie — I’m not always fan of folk tales. From old Russian tales to indigenous First Nations stories to African fables, some are just too complicated. Honorable as they may be, some are not immediately attractive to me or some kids. Not so with this classic European tale, a story told so nicely by Olivia Armstrong (and creatively illustrated by Mira Miroslavova, a Bulgarian artist) that I almost cried. This one really works!

The story is fairly simple — a raven is flying late at night and ends up at the scene of the Nativity, awakened by the Star. She comes to know what is going on and flies to various species of birds, each which comes to the manger to play a part — singing sweetly as the Nightingale did or making a feather pillow like Wren and Stork (or making an announcing ruckus like Rooster.) It’s fun and the plot builds as a small bird there laments having nothing to offer Mary and the Baby Jesus. Oh how she wanted to contribute. Just then, a fire begins to wane and the baby shivers; the little bird knows just what to do — she flutters her wings by the fire and fans the flames until it is warm again. What a parable!

However, a hot coal fell upon the breast of the little bird, but is saved, and blessed, by Mary. You’ve seen a robin redbreast? Now you know how they got that way.

Eerdmans does artful children’s books, often imported from Europe. Olivia Armstrong shared this story in a way that was just right. Big kudos to Miroslavova, too.

One Star, Three Kings: The Journey of Epiphany Rebecca Grabill, illustrated by Isabella Grott (Paraclete Press) $20.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $16.79

This Is a large, colorful book that is complex and interesting and tender and curious. It has two sorts of writing, Most of the book is creatively written with the engaging, storytelling of the characters, some speaking in almost ancient cadences and phrases, and then there are interludes of pages of contemporary facts and scholarly speculations. There is a great section explaining some theologies of when the Magi first saw the star; there is a page asking “where did the Magi come from?” You’ll appreciate a spread telling what the three gifts of incense, myrrh, and frankincense were typically used for and what they symbolized. There is a page about astronomical ideas of what the moving star was. There are Bible verses and colorful drawings.

But most of the story unfolds as a drama unfolding in real time, and what a drama it is. A small bit is that some of the wise men hear singing along with the star (and in one page the author says it is the song and voice of the “Holy Mother.”) It’s a mystical moment or two, deepening the wonder of the story. I didn’t realize this, but apparantly some think that the Wise men returned at the time of the crucifixion (this, too, they see in the stars.) It explains that they eventually were baptized by Thomas and are considered saints and martyrs to this day. There is an informative spread of just a little bit about how Epiphany is celebrated around the world. Nice, fascinating, a useful contribution about a key moment in the Bible and church calendar about which is there is precious little for inquiring kids.

I hope you saw the last BookNotes — you know the one the other day where the formatting got all bungled. Can’t say why that happened but the video came through. The good folks at the Christian Study Center called Upper House in Madison, Wisconsin, had me on their UpWords podcast for an hour chatting about Advent, Christmas memories, the Biblical vision of hope and a whole bunch of old and new Advent favorites. All the books mentioned there get a 20% off so if you’d like you can listen to that (on Spotify or Apple Podcasts) or watch us on YouTube and then use our secure order form at the Hearts & Minds website to place orders. We’ll be sure to write right back to confirm everything.

By the way, it’s worth watching a bit of that as you’ll see me unrehearsed, describing for the first time in public my friend Steve Garber’s forthcoming book, Hints of Hope: Essays on Making Peace with the Proximate. It releases officially in late January 2026 but we’ve been assured by Paraclete Press that we’ll have it in December. PLEASE CONSIDER PRE-ORDERING THAT NOW — I could even be an IOU sort of Christmas gift for his many fans. The official retail price is $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99.

There are so many great Advent reads and holiday books that I have described the last few years, I hate to skip over them. Why not go back to our website’s archives and revisit those BookNotes columns (use the search box and put in Advent) — the prices might have changed a bit but most are still in print and most likely readily available. Don’t miss my descriptions of books such as the excellent, literary A Radiant Birth: Advent Readings for a Brith Season edited by Leslie Leyland Fields & Paul Willis or the must-read The First Advent in Palestine: Reversals, Resistance, and the Ongoing Complexity of Hope or the surprisingly good Rediscovering Christmas by A.J. Sherrill.

Here are twelve brand new ones.  All are 20% off. Read well, live in hope.

Waiting for Jesus: An Advent Invitation to Prayer and Renewal Rich Villodas (Waterbrook) $18.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

I hope you know how much we esteem Reverend Rich Villodas, a vibrant and powerful pastor in NYC. His church is delightfully multi-ethnic, healthy and sane, deeply evangelical with high regard for personal faith and Biblical fidelity who never fails to draw on the best of wise insights from other traditions. He’s rooted in the Bible and its grand, redemptive story but he quotes black poets and Latina scholars and calls us to live out our faith in gracious, embodied ways. I can’t say enough about his fine, approachable, provocative books of Christian living.

Waiting for Jesus is another to be added to his recent study on the Sermon on the Mount (The Narrow Path) and his powerful call towards the common good in Good and Beautiful and Kind. As you might expect from an Advent reader, it is concise and brief. It’s a trim, hand-sized hardback with 25 great reflections. The four weeks of reflections are shaped by the themes of Waiting, Peacemaking, Rejoicing, and Beholding. It’s a curious flow and I found it compelling. I highly recommend it.

By the way, at the end of each day’s meditation there is some guidance and prompts suggesting silence and preparation, a “prayer for presence”, a Scripture, a quote from another “guide” (from medial mystics to Thomas Merton, Bonhoeffer to Dallas Willard, often deeply prayerful) and a reflection question to ponder before a closing prayer. You will, as the title suggests, experience this as a call to renewal. Happy holidays, for real!

Incarnation: 8 Lessons on How God Meets Us Derek Vreeland (NavPress) $17.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

Some years in our annual Advent listing I try to give a nod to one of the great books in all of Christian history, the dense but seminal On the Incarnation by Saint Athanasius. C. S. Lewis wrote the forward to the paperback edition from Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press although other cheaper editions are available. Last year I highlighted my friend A. D. Bauer’s nice, short and useful book One of Us: Reflecting on the Radical Mystery of the Incarnation (Square Halo Books; $16.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59) which you should consider. 

This year, I’ll suggest this very nicely produced 8-lesson Bible study book, Incarnation by Derek Vreeland. It is part of a series NavPress is doing (including matching volumes coming next season on the crucifixion and on the resurrection.) Incarnation is ideal to study this season, but is, of course, foundational for any Christ-follower and would be good for any time. Best used in groups, I’m sure you’d enjoy it solo, as well. The Bible texts used are in The Message paraphrase, which is fun. God is with us, friend, and this study allows you to dive deep into this fascinating reality that the Creator God of the Universe came in flesh and blood and, as Engage Peterson colorfully put it, “moved into the neighborhood.”

I hope you recall our promotion of Vreeland’s wonderful 2023 book Centering Jesus: How the Lamb of God Transforms Our Communities, Ethics, and Spiritual Lives. He knows his stuff and this handsome, new study has lots of reading, Biblical exploration, reflection questions to discuss and application points to ponder. As with any diligent study of Scripture, you will be drawn closer to Christ and challenged into deeper discipleship. Happily, there are fine closing prayers to help us all not just learn more, but live well because of it. Perhaps even a bit incarnationally.

The Advent Tree: Meeting Jesus in God’s Big Story Kara Eidson (WJK) $17.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60

When we first opened our store over Thanksgiving weekend of 1982 local folks seemed glad that we had Jesse Tree ornaments and resources. We both grew up knowing of this custom which decorated a tree with symbols of God work in the Older Testament, showing the thread of redemptive promises throughout Scripture. The custom seemed to wane and over the years we’ve had fewer people ask about Jesse Tree resources. And now — hooray! — we have a brand new book with an upbeat and fresh take on this great, seasonal tradition.

Kara Eidson is a pastor who is a fine communicator (we used her DVD Stay Awhile in our own church last year) and we’ve appreciated her Lenten study,  A Time to Grow: Lenten Lessons from the Garden to the Table. Now, we’ve got an intergenerational resource (or a fine book to read on one’s own) that offers daily reflection, creative symbols, and engaging insights. It’s more than a devotional (and with the book there is free access to digital resources (wjkbooks.com/AdventTree) to enhance yours of the book during worship, group study, or family time.)

Her United Methodist colleague Magrey DeVega says,

Edison reminds us that as we make our way to the manger, we ought to lean in and listen. There, among the stars and the shepherds, we will hear the voice of our spiritual ancestors, joining us in celebrating the fulfillment of a story generations in the making. To truly commemorate Christmas means to remember all that led to the coming of Christ. This book shows us how.

I love that quote. Read it again.  Well put, isn’t it?

Unhappy Holidays: Blessings for a Blue Christmas Sherah-Leigh Gerber (Herald Press) $17.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

There have been a number of good resources of late inviting us to care well for those who aren’t up for a joyful Christmas and who recoil from the trappings of the festive America holiday cheer. I am sure some of you reading have lost loved ones in recent months, have gotten a horrible diagnosis, are fearful of losing a job, are distressed by abusive memories and alarmed by the grave threats to our democratic order daily promoted by our current political regime. Who can rejoice in times like these?

Unhappy Holidays is asking the question “how can we hope when not all is merry and bright?” Ends up, this honest collection of fascinating stories and tender words are just what many of us need.

Besides the honest, good reflections there are some appendices, good stuff on adapting this for a small group, some about using the material in communal worship, a set of sensitive Advent candle-lighting litanies, and a plan for a Blue Christian service.  Very useful.

For other resources (which we’ve highlighted, among others, in a special Blue Christmas BookNotes list last year) don’t forget Blue Christmas: Devotions of Light in a Season of Darkness by Todd Outcalt (Upper Room; $14.99 // our sale price = $11.99), A Weary World: Reflections for a Blue Christmas by Kathy Escobar (WJK; $16.00 // our sale price = $12.80) and Honest Advent: Awakening to the Wonder of God-with-Us, Then, Here, and Now by Scott Erickson (Zondervan; $19.99 // our sale price = $15.99.

The Art of Living in Advent: 28 Days of Joyful Waiting Sylvie Vanhoozer (IVP/formatio) $12.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $10.39

What a lovely little book this is! You will be sure to find it literate and thoughtful, beautifully done and, dare I say, both unique and profound. It is a sure, solid, resource that you will revisit often, making it one of the best new resources of the year.

The Art of Living in Advent is not drawn from but is similar to her previous year-long daily devotional The Art of Living in Season. That year-long one followed the church calendar and its theme or motif was drawn from the author’s girlhood in Provence, France, a region known for extravagant, multi-figured creche sets including workers, peasants, gardeners, merchants, and farmers galore, all crowding around the nativity. Her memory of these unique, expansive creches included insights about how they incorporated common folks and daily life, all caught up in the redemptive project begun in the manger. Somehow common life was dignified and all manner of townspeople played a part in this cosmic drama. What a beautifully illustrated and poetic set of reflections she offered in that volume last year.

This new, pocket sized one, The Art of Living in Advent, is all new material, with new, tasteful but clever artwork, pastels just like in the bigger book. William Edgar calls it “exquisite” and Amy Peeler, an Anglican priest and Wheaton prof, says it is “a veritable feast of image, flora, story, and Scripture.” If. you have her previous one, I’m sure you’ll want this one. If you haven’t gotten that one yet, this is a great intro to her style, insight, and charm.

Praying with Saint Nicholas: A Christmas Devotional Matt Mikalatos (Tyndale) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

You might want to know that even before we’ve highlighted this here, now, it’s become our best selling Advent book this season. Folks from several locations are using it and Matt has been righteous enough to tell people to buy it from indie bookstores. Our name comes up — he orders from us himself — so followers of his have found us. What a blast sending out a handful here and there. We even pitched it last October at our annual Wee Kirk (small church) conference in Western PA.

You may recall that we featured his fabulous Praying with Saint Patrick early last Spring and while Irish folks are passionate about their flamboyant and storied saint (and who doesn’t love the true story of this converted slave who returned to teach his pagan captives to read and lead them to Christ.) This one has even wider appeal and is arranged nicely with readings and quotes and stories. Nicholas — who was a bishop in Myra, an outpost of the Roman Empire which is modern-day Turkey— was a man of great generosity, helped trafficked children, cared for the needy, and did all sorts of remarkable things, including crafting remarkable prayers (“for light in times of darkness” and “to be a blessing.” And yes, he got into a fight over the divinity of Christ in the famous dust-up (okay, he just up and punched him) with Arius at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. You gotta get this book!

The Star Still Beckons: Gifts of Presence at Advent and Christmastide Leonard Sweet (The Salish Sea Press) $27.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

This is a book for which we’ve waited for years (decades?) and I’m thrilled to announce it here. Sweet published it himself in his little, indie publishing outfit from Orcas Island (in the state of Washington) so you may not have heard of it. He’s a master wordsmith, an amazing reader, who, with his photographic memory, can draw on sources old and new, obscure and au current. That is, he’s a blast to read and I promise you that you will learn new stuff, be challenged to reconsider things you thought you knew, and be invited to live out this Advent journey in fresh and maybe even exciting ways.

Here is what is says on the back:

In the chaos of the Christmas clamor, The Star Still Beckons, invites unto pause, breathe, and journey back to the sacred heartbeat of the season. With his signature blend of rich theology, poetic insights, and cultural imagination, Dr. Leonard Sweet leads us through an Advent encounter — one that begins in a stable and ends in stardust. You’ll encounter wonder in wounds, dignity in dirt, and a God who chose not majesty but matter to declare: You matter.

Read that again and wonder about stables and stardust, not majesty but matter. Wow.

He would say that this is not just another devotional, but a “symphony of silence and song.” There are “donkeys and dancing, manger grime and divine glory.”

There are a set of six reflections here, all well-written, jarring and at times jubilant, first four for the Sundays in Advent. Then there are three more, one for Christmas Eve, one for Christmas Day, and one for New Year’s (in which he tells about the Scottish “Hogmanay.”) There is a detailed guide in the back, full of special “interactive” — more than discussion questions, but stuff to do together — and invitations to find sacred space and interact with the material alone and together. There are “prayerful ponderings” and more.

Somebody said “Whether you’re a Silent Night soul or a Jingle Bells spirit, these pages offer sacred space to rediscover the enchantment of Christmastide.” Exactly.

A Child Is Born: A Beginner’s Guide to Nativity Stories Amy-Jill Levine (Abingdon) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

A Child Is Born four-session DVD $44.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $35.99 A Child Is Born Leader’s Guide  $15.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

Agree or not with this upbeat and opinionated and provocative New Testament scholar, Amy-Jill Levine is legendary for bringing her own expertise as a Jew to the study of the gospels. A (Reformed) rabbi and prof at Vanderbilt and nationally recognized scholar and teacher, she writes with passion and insight. This is another in a series of books offering introductions — for seasoned church folk or those unfamiliar with the basic historical gist — of Biblical stories. Here she asserts that the miraculous birth of Jesus to the virgin Mary stands in a tradition, starting with Abraham and Sarah. James Howell asks “Who else would remind us that Samson, Moses, and Hannah, too, are “the chorus rising in with their stories when we hear of Mary’s conception?” “Pondering our Old Testament stories of unexpected pregnancies and births illuminates what’s up in the stories of Mary and Jesus.”

Adam Hamilton calls it “a wonderful and inspiring book — a book to be savored.”  Even the contemplative Catholic writer Father Ronald Rolheiser weighs in, saying that A Child Is Born that Levine’s Judaism allows her to”highlight Jesus’s roots in Judaism in a manner that helps us understand him and his teachings more accurately and more in depth.”

One leader calls it “a masterclass” and “a literary ultrasound.”   Four chapters and an Epilogue. 115 pages.

With Heart & Soul & Voice: Advent Devotions on the First Christmas Songs Tim Chester (The Good Book Company) $14.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

Ha — what a great idea. It’s been done before but never so well: here Chester explores the Biblical songs sung in the birth narratives in the gospels. That is, there are meditative essays on Mary’s Song (The Magnificat), Zechariah’s Song (The Benedictus), the Angels’ Song (The Gloria) and Simeon’s Song (The Nunc Dimittis.)

There are seven readings on the first two of these songs; five for the next two. Each day includes carol lyrics, prayers, quotes from famous theologians old and new. I respect Tim Chester (who serves in urban London) a lot; in a way he reminds of the impeccable John Stott.

“So much of the joy and courage we need each day is carried in these life-giving songs” — Kristyn Getty

Everyday Gospel Christmas Devotional Paul David Tripp (Crossway) $7.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $6.39

Perhaps you have heard of Tripp’s mega-best seller, New Morning Mercies perhaps the biggest selling devotional in recent years (except for Jesus Calling.) We routinely stock the hardback and the nicer gift edition as well. Tripp has written bunches of books combining his astute, conservative Bible exegesis and his caring counseling insight, offering a gospel-centered and grace-based view of Biblical insight for living. His devotional captured (among other things) what Luther might have been meant he advised that we “preach the gospel to ourselves” each day.

Following that still popular New Morning Mercies devotional, Tripp release another called Everyday Gospel. It, too, is an intense and handsome hardback, offering Christ-exalting and personally transformative meditations, day by day, offering kernels of the gospel to transform everyday life.

This new, slim collection of 25 readings drawn from Everyday Gospel, shows that Tripp loves Christmas, and loves to connect its glorious truths with our everyday lives. As he reflects on Biblical events from Genesis to Revelation he shows us the historical redemptive insight about who Jesus is and why He came to be born in that Bethlehem manger.

After each reflection there is a poignant question to ponder and a rich prayer to enjoy and share.

Come Thou Long Expected Jesus: An Advent to Christmas Pilgrimage Andy Langford & Ann Langford Duncan (Abingdon Press) $17.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

Andy Langford is a respected and vibrant United Methodist pastor from North Carolina and Ann Duncan is daughter, a graduate of Duke Divinity School and a United Methodist pastor serving in California. They both are writers (and collaborated on The Gospel According to the Hunger Games Trilogy.) I love the idea of a father/daughter book project and this one is both, or so it feels to me, both gentle and quiet and yet at the same time exciting and invigorating.

I think it comes across this way, with tones of contemplation and vigor, because it is working the metaphor of a pilgrimage. There’s even a map of ancient Palestine in the front, giving a sense that we are going someplace for real, down to dusty Earth, and, maybe, we will encounter thin places. We are ordinary folks trekking along but it is a sacred journey. This, they say, will get us to open our eyes to the goodness of Christmas.

I think of the U2 song about all that we can’t leave behind. I think of the burdens of this season, of this life. We need a transforming journey. We need to let some stuff go and head out fresh. We need this season to think about the Word becoming flesh.

There are five main chapters in this Advent pilgrimage, and with each they give a destination. The first chapter, reflecting on the lectionary text of the first Sunday of Advent, is called “An Early Prophet: Isaiah” and the journey’s destination is ancient Jerusalem and the first temple. The second chapter of this travelogue is called “Two Later Prophets: John the Baptist and John the Theologian” and the destination we head for is the Jordan River and over to the Island of Patmos. The third leg of our journey is to meet “The Mother of God and the First Disciple Mary” in Nazareth, while the last stretch for the Fourth Sunday of Advent we head for Bethlehem and the Second Temple in Jerusalem, in a chapter called The First Witnesses: Angels, Shepherds, Simeon, and Anna.” At pilgrim’s end we get to the First Sunday of Christmas and the title here is “The Nativity of Our Lord (Christmas): Grace Born In Bethlehem.” The final afterword closes with a good piece saying that “our pilgrimage ends and continues…” The destination? The new Jerusalem and your local congregation. Nice, eh?

The messages of Come Thou Long Expected Jesus strikes me as solid, mature, thoughtful, common-enough stuff. It’s brought to life by the pilgrimage metaphor, I think, and by the good writing, preaching, storytelling, and the historical stuff in each locale. I hope you enjoy it.

(Although we’d have to order them (which we would gladly and easily do) I’m told there is a DVD and a leader’s guide. Let us know if we can help.)

All Is Calmish: How To Feel Less Frantic and More Festive During the Holidays Niro Feliciano (Broadleaf) $25.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.79

I will suggest this therapeutic book as a nicely written, often insightful, often energetic reminder of the stresses brought on by various seasonal holidays; the author mentions Thanksgiving, Diwali, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year’s, occasions which often “makes us frazzled and frantic. Stressed and stretched. Distressed and depressed.” She is a trained and certified psychotherapist and an expert on anxiety and relationships. Maybe you’ve seen her on the TODAY show or in the Oprah Daily. She is a first generation Sri Lankan American and is a popular writer and counselor.

I have dipped into this hardback in several spots and have been each time been engaged and entertained. I’m not sure it’s that brilliant — it’s mostly common sense stuff about connecting with others, letting go of perfectionists tendencies, reducing expectations, and finding the joy of simple pleasures. But they are taught with compelling stories and anecdotes, not preachy, spoken like a friend. She’s breezy and tells stories about leaving cookie-dough unbaked (her plans were, she tells us,”half-baked.”) She tells a funny story about getting a big Christmas tree off of her roof (“the closest I have ever come to wrestling an alligator.”) She has some helpful advice about gifts and gift-giving (which is not everyone’s forte) Okay.

If you like upbeat, even charming, writing with a bit about brain science and boundary-setting and the value of religious rituals even at our business, this winsome might be a fun companion for your harried season. As best-selling author Julie Lythcott-Haims (How to Raise An Adult) simply puts it, “Niro Feliciano gets it.” We do not have to “lose ourselves” in the process of striving for a meaningful holiday season. We really can — as Feliciano’s watchword puts it —“be times of connection rather than perfection.”

The book’s footnotes include fascinating summaries of research on mental health and resilience and pieces from journals like the Harvard Divinity Bulletin (on the value of silence) and Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience (on cortisol) and Studies in Psychology (on FOMO.) Yet, the final appendix listing suggestions for simple holidays are so banal (and upper class) I’d snip those out if I could. Otherwise, what’s not to love about a book called All Is Calmish.

We hope you appreciate these rather diverse sort of resources, curated for your reading pleasure. Don’t forget to check back to last year’s column (where I have convenient links to five other previous BookNotes seasonal lists.) Just jump on our website and see the archives of old BookNotes. We’ve got a whole lot of books here, so let us know how we can help you some right for you or your group. Thanks for your support this season.

AND NEXT ISSUE — coming soon — ADVENT BOOKS FOR CHILDREN & FAMILY.

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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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BookNotes

SPECIAL
DISCOUNT

20% OFF

Happy All Saints Day, or Reformation Day, or Halloween, or World Series week, or whatever you fellow book-lovers are celebrating these days. I hope you’ve got lots to read but if not (and even if you do) we’re here to help.

For those that missed it, HERE is the link to the recording of the fabulous conversational webinar I had last week with Jeff Crosby around his must-have new book World of Wonders: A Spirituality of Reading. Feel free to share it with book lovers everywhere.

Soon, we’ll get you the link for the lovely online conversation I had with the great Kathleen Norris, author of Rebecca Sue: A Sister’s Reflections on Disability, Faith, and Love.

And, for a few lucky readers, while supplies last, we have a few autographed copies of the brand new book by Diana Butler Bass, A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance.

I’ve reviewed each of these before and our 20% off discount offer remains. Hooray.

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For this week’s BookNotes I am going to try to be brief, even though I love some of these books and feel like the authors deserve so much more. Many I haven’t studied yet, but I am confident that they are great. I’ve curated a basket full of over 20 that I’m eager to talk about and want you to know about. Please send orders our way — we need the biz. Thanks.

Something for everyone, all 20% off, in no particular order. Happy reading.

Spell-bound: How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump Molly Worthen (Forum) $32.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $25.60

The famous historian Tom Holland (Domino and Pax), like Worthen herself, is a recent convert to Christian faith, somewhat an evangelical intellectual. Holland says of Spell-bound: “The great story of charisma in American history, from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to MAGA, has never been more thrillingly told, never more learnedly explicated.” (I’m no expert on the tens of thousands of history volumes, but I’d said it has never really been told, thrillingly or not.) This is new ground for me and it is drawing connections between various peculiar features of the American ethos; it is very stimulating. I think Jon Meacham may be right when he says it is “a truly original study.”

Carl Trueman — a very different cat than Jon Meacham — says in a long paragraph on the back that is quite astute, that it is “a very thoughtful and entertaining read.”

I can tell you it is entertaining — and full of wit and energy, as a book on the human spirit and charisma ought to be. Why we search for Messiah figures and what kinds have captured our attention, how we understand the sometimes weird sort of charismatic leaders (and sometimes fall for them even if they are nutty), all of this is important today given the popularity of the current President. One of the key questions she is asking is what happens “when Americans lose faith in their religious institutions and politicians fill the void?” This is a sweeping social history and reveals that there is a connection between our drift from religious institutions and the rise of charismatic leaders. Yikes. With the notes, Spell-bound is over 430 pages.

The Great Contradiction The Tragic Side of the American Founding Joseph J. Ellis (Knopf) $31.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $24.80

Joseph Ellis has earned a Pulitzer Prize for his enormously rewarding Founding Brothers and won the National Book Award for his book on Jefferson, American Sphinx. He has, as they say, earned the right to be heard. In the hands of other scholars, I might be a bit wary, or bored, by another book exposing the contradictions deep within the hearts and worldviews of those who drafted the Declaration, saying all were created equal and then failed to resist slavery and accepted gross ugliness in their treatment of indigenous peoples. But if Ellis is weighing in on this much-noted topic, it will be well worth reading. Very well worth reading.

Ken Burns notes that “The American Revolution is often encrusted with the barnacles of sentimentality and nostalgia; we see what we want to see.” He tells us that “Jospeh Ellis has masterfully widened our lens to tell a deeper, more complex, more accurate story of our founding.”  This is said to be fluidly written and cogently argued (Annette Gordon-Reed, author of On Juneteenth and “elegant and concise” (Stacy Schiff, known for her book on Samuel Adams.)

Against The Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity Paul Kingsnorth (Thesis) $32.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $25.60

I don’t know what is more interesting, this splendid, powerful new bit of cultural criticism or the story behind it. Kingsnorth is British and it has been said he was into the occult. Slowly he became aware of (among others) Wendell Berry (he deftly put together one of the best Wendell Berry readers and wrote the foreword, The World Ending Fire.) Eventually he came to Christian faith and is now part of the Orthodox communion. (Frederica Mathewes-Green has a lovely blurb on the back this new one.)

(And when you read the epilogue you get the connection between his title and a Wendell Berry line.)

Speaking of blurbs, the heady Iain McGilchrist (you should know his Master and His Emissary) says it is “the most powerful and important book I have read in years.” Nicholas Carr says it is eloquent and erudite. Sure it is about the perils of modern technology, with a bit of the Luddite vibe from Berry and, better, Jacque Ellul. So far I can tell you it is written very well, even moving at times. It is doubtlessly one of the important books of the year!

What Is Wrong With the World: The Surprising, Hopeful Answer to the Question We Cannot Avoid Timothy Keller (Zondervan) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

The late Tim Keller remains one of my favorite contemporary writers and speakers — so much is available  on line, interviews and talks — and this is him doing what he did so very well: he offers a distinctly Christian apologetic about very foundational things in a way that is just philosophical enough to attract the mildly intellectual and just theological enough to show his doctrinal chops and Biblical enough to impress anybody who cares about the classic Book, all while saying it in a winsome way that appealed to many of the disillusioned, doubtful and weary.

I’ve been to Redeemer, sold books for him, met him at several events, and liked his vivid speaking and solid prose. He wasn’t overly gregarious, wasn’t overly upbeat or goofy, and yet, for a PCA pastor, was remarkably open-minded and eager to think things through with anyone, from any perspective.

This is a series he did on sin. I think it is obvious that everywhere we look we see brokenness and sadness and Keller shows that a Biblical worldview and Christian tradition gives the best answers to this foundational question we all have to ask. What is wrong with the world? I think this will be akin to his absolutely essential book on idolatry Counterfeit Gods which is one of his excellent smaller works. We are glad that Redeemer got these talks into print and that Zondervan happily released it as a fine-looking book.  Each chapter ends with an eloquent and heart-felt prayer, inviting people to a gospel-centered faith and a bone fide experience of the grace of God.

Art + Faith: A Theology of Making Makoto Fujimura (Yale University Press) $17.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60

Speaking of the fruit of Keller’s ministry, Makoto Fujimura, the brilliant, high-class, abstract artist was in Manhattan early in his career and became friends with Keller who encouraged him in many ways. Keller has endorsed his writing and they each had a chapter in the splendid It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God. Years later, Mako is still at it, and he continues to be in conversation with the world’s most impressive artists and the world’s leading theologians and Biblical scholars. (N.T. Wright wrote the foreword to this.)

You may say that this is not new and you are correct. (Yale University Press did just release his very new and really amazing Art Is… which I have reviewed here already.) I mention Art + Faith here, though, as it is brand new in paperback (and consequently much cheaper than the previous, sturdy hardcover.) I am not just saying this but for some reason, I am very fond of the paperback; it is a tiny bit more trim in size and it just feels right — better than the first edition, even.  It won, by the way, the annual Kuyper Prize. And carries a blurb on the back from, among others, Martin Scorsese. Very cool.

Understanding Biblical Law: Skills for Thinking with and Through Torah Dru Johnson (Baker Academic) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

I don’t know how Dru does it — that’s Dr. Dru — as he continues to write various sorts of books in various genres, all impressive. He makes his main living as a Hebrew scholar and as director of (get this) the “Abrahamic Theistic Origins Project at Wycliffe Hall, University of Oxford.” He is a visiting prof at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, and directs the Center for Hebraic Thought. As brainy as all that sounds, he is a heck of a guy, a fabulous host of his The Biblical Mind podcast, and a good friend to many sorts of folks. (Geesh, he has the globally-respected Rabbi Joshua Berman of Bar-Han University offering a blurb on the back of this.) Brand new, it seems to be one of the best resources for understanding this portion of our Bible that we’ve seen in ages. It has been called “creative, timely, and entertaining remedy for widespread misguided readings of biblical law.”

This is a thorny question and vital for anyone who reads the Bible — whether it is the stuff about mildew in Leviticus or the stuff about debt cancellation in Leviticus or the questions about holiness in worship: anyone wondering how to approach Torah will find Understanding Biblical Law, as Michelle Knight says, “short and sweet but nuanced  and insightful.” She says “this is the introductory book I have been seeking.”

Awake: A Memoir Jen Hatmaker (Avid Reader Press) $30.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

This had a whole lot of press when it came out a few weeks ago, including a riveting long piece in the New York Times Magazine. Lots of folks weighed in; left right and center, judgy evangelicals, sympathetic exvangelicals, those who appreciate memoirs about women who have been hurt by crummy husbands having affairs, thoughtful readers who never heard of her. Those in the evangelical book world know of her rise to fame (I still adore her early book Seven which was a good effort to disentangle faith from materialism and fame, trying to simplify and be responsible in a world of poverty.) Many, as expected, have turned on her, sometimes viciously. She has, admittedly, gotten lost in her own story.

(Hatmaker was a popular evangelical speaker and a Southern Baptists pastor’s wife so her story is not quite as weird as the remarkable, intense, The Woman They Wanted: Shattering the Illusion of the Good Christian Wife by Shannon Harris, but there is some overlap. It is also very different than the fantastic, moving work by Beth Moore that have raved about here, All My Knotted-Up Life, but there are some overlapping themes.)

I have not read this yet, only dabbled in a few sections.  I’ve noted that the great Kate Bowler says it is “a gorgeous, raw, deeply convincing memoir. This is a book for all of us who need to feel brave again. What a triumph.”

Lori Gottlieb says it is “like being offered a lifeline when you’ve drifted too far out to sea — it is warm, witty, wise, and wide awake to what matters most.”

I don’t know about any of that and I am sad that for whatever reason she seems adrift in matters of faith and church. But I get it, and I’m going to pick up this important testimony soon. I love memoirs and there is much to learn. I gather this is very well done. I hear it’s funny. One woman, herself an author and host of the popular The Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast, says it is “one of the best books I’ve ever read.” Okay, then.

By the way, not to undermine the literary merit of this well told story and the value of hearing Hatmatker’s voice, off the top of my head I might also share two extraordinary memoirs of marital strife that ended well: How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told by the very thoughtful and really funny Scott Harrison Key and the powerful 1999 Cleaving: The Story of a Marriage by Dennis & Vicki Covington.

Devotions for the Fall: Celebrate the Harvest Season with Gratitude and Joy Thomas Nelson Gift Books) $14.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

I selected this to include this time even though it isn’t going to be a long-lasting classic or transformational with life-changing depth. But, you know, it is just a beautiful little book with pictures of the fall’s changing leaves and lots of pumpkins in this season of blazing bonfires and getting out the LL Bean boots and cozy scarves. Summer really has faded where we live and the Thanksgiving gourds are on people’s porches. Maybe I’m trying to counter the ghoulishness of Halloween, which some people take way too seriously, I’m afraid.

Anyway, this is a lovely hardback with full color photos and 40 nice devotions, great quotes and daily Bible texts (and a couple of fall-inspired recipes and fun ideas for new traditions to spice it up.) Do you know somebody who loves the spirit of the changing seasons? This might make a nice little gift — maybe even for a housewarming token over Thanksgiving.

The Body Teaches the Soul: Ten Essential Habits to Form a Healthy and Holy Life Justin Whitmel Earley (Zondervan) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Again, this is too new for me to have read but I love Justin Earley and have appreciated him in several settings (like our Jubilee conference out in Pittsburgh) and over the course of three absolutely excellent, five-star books. We continue to always keep a big stack of The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction on hand as a core title in our self improvement / lifestyle section. His Habits of the Household: Practicing the Story of God in Everyday Family Rhythms applies the well described principles in The Common Rule to family life and is a must for young parents today. Lots of charts and graphics and good internal design on that one, too. And then came a surprisingly great, great book on friendships and the epidemic of loneliness in our high tech culture, Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship. I loved it.

Now Earley has this brand new book with an uninspiring cover and a slightly off-putting title, even if it does allude, maybe, to The Body Keeps the Score which he cites. (The title is weird to me, anyway, as I hate anything that suggests there is a body vs soul dualism that is, as we all should know, orthodox, pagan Platonism, but not Biblical. At all.) I suppose the cover could grow on me and it is fully obvious, happily, that the book fully rejects that sort of dichotomy, affirming the body as an integrated part of the human person. He critiques gnosticism and the like early in the book (citing the classic Wendell Berry essay “Christianity and the Survival of the Creation.”) He has a section on food, studies Jamie Smith (and the big fat volumes of N. T. Wright) and even draws on Bill Bryson’s book on the body. Man, this guy reads widely, integrates so much, writes so well, and tells us amazing stuff in simple lessons that are do-able. Does this go on the philosophy shelf, the cultural section, on in the self-help section with others on the body? Maybe all of the above. I hope it find it’s way to your shelves.

Curt Thompson puts it well:

The Body Teaches the Soul reminds us of what the ancient biblical writers informed us of so long ago: that our bodies together with our breath makes us human, and we ignore or idolize the body to our peril.

The Quiet Ambition: Scripture’s Surprising Antidote to our Restless Lives Ryan Tinetti (IVP /formatio) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

I knew nothing of this author even though we have a book he authored called Preaching By Heart that we picked up because of the forward by Richard Lischer and the blurb by Will Willimon. Now he’s got this solid hardback on IVP in their formatio line. He was a long-time pastor of an ELCA church and now teaches practical theology at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. I’m a new fan.

This book is written gracefully and is very much about how our lives might be best understood as small, quiet, moderate. It seems a lot like the Mockingbird stuff from the great David Zahl (remember how I raved about his Big Relief: The Urgency of Grace for a Worn-Out World?)  Zahl, in fact, endorsed it, saying it “abounds with practical wisdom, timeless insight, and infectious humility.” In a way, it seems to be about humility, or at least a constellation of virtues around that that just might keep us from losing ourselves in restless ambition.

It reads differently than the masterfully brilliant book of Miroslav Volf, who wrote about this same topic recently, perhaps with some overlapping concerns. (See, again, one we reviewed, The Cost of Ambition: How Striving to Be Better Than Others Makes Us Worse.) If feels different than that astute study.

As you might have guessed The Quiet Ambition is a book of spiritual formation, written in lovely, gentle, reflective prose; it is a mature reflection on 1 Thessalonians 4: 11- 12. Harold Senkbeil says  “Tinetti opens our eyes to the glories of the simple, common, and ordinary — where God’s highest and best work is done by the lowliest people.” Sylvie Vanhoozer calls it “a tract for our burnout times.” Am I the ony one longing for a read like this?

Rhythms of Faith: A Devotional Pilgrimage Through the Church Year Claude Atcho (Waterbrook) $25.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00

I hope you recall our rave, rave reviews and special joy in promoting Claude’s book a few years ago, the must-read Reading Black Books: How African American Literature Can Make Our Faith More Whole and Just. As a professor of Black literature, the brotha knows his stuff and I continue to dip into that book over and over. I hope you have it.

Atcho is also an Anglican priest and pastors the Church of the Resurrection in Charlottesville VA. Again, this is impressive and delightful… and it therefore comes as no surprise that this new book is his long-awaited volume on how attending to the church calendar and liturgical cycles and helps cultivate and develop a faith shaped by the very presence of God in every season. As it says on the back, “More than just marking time, the church calendar invites us to walk with Jesus in a rhyme of remembrance, renewal, and formation, helping us see the gospel not only as a message to be heard but as a story to be lived.”

As you know, we’ve touted the forthcoming set of reflections on the church year by our friend Diana Butler Bass (an Epsiopalian from Virginia) and her A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance is now here at the shop. So is Claude’s — hooray. This is an embarrassment of riches, folks, two grand, thoughtful, culturally-relevant, set of meditations that guide us through this key spiritual practice, attending to and embodying time in a distinctively Christian manner. There are nearly 60 mediations in Rhythms of Faith, each around a liturgical day or key week of the church year. I am really, really excited by this and highly recommend it.

We Pray Freedom: Liturgies and Rituals from the Freedom Church of the Poor edited by Liz Theoharis & Charon Hribar (Broadleaf) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I hope you know of the Poor People’s Campaign:A National Call for Moral Revival, founded by the dynamic Black pastor, Rev. Dr. William Barber. Both Theoharis and Hribar work for the Poor People’s Campaign (Rev. Dr. Liz is co-chair with Barber and Dr. Charon Hribar is a co-director of theomusicology and movement arts for the Campaign. In other words, she’s the movement song leader — what a bit of brilliance!

So of course, the singers known as Sweet Honey in the Rock have a blurb on the back of this, saying We Pray Freedom offers a powerful blueprint for individuals, churches, unions, and organizations to work together toward liberation, justice,

and equality for all.” Nice, huh?

With other raves from the likes of Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis and Richard Rohr, this book of prayers and rituals and liturgies is a vivid companion to one that came out just a few years ago, We Cry Justice: Reading the Bible with the Poor People’s Campaign. To be clear, there are a real variety of prayers and services but there are also reflections about them, studies on them, even discussion questions to help mobilize folks to “pray with their feet.” It is as, or more impressive, as We Cry Justice. Get We Cry Freedom today!

The Prayer of Unwanting: How the Lord’s Prayer Helps Us Get Over Ourselves and Why That Might Be a Good Thing David Williams (Broadleaf) $16.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

This thin, compact-sized book immediately struck me for three reasons. I like the size, the shape, the brevity. And the almost funny sort of subtitle, understated as it is. It’s clever but utterly profound, this question of whether we indulge our desires in our spirituality or allow God to undo them.

And then I realized I know this author’s name, his other work — we’ve exchanged emails. Wow. You should know him, too.

David Williams wrote a fascinating apocalyptic novel set amongst the Amish (When the English Fell) and a fabulous, even wonderful work about climate change and reasonable Christian responsibility, Our Angry Planet: Faith and Hope on a Hotter, Harsher Planet. We said that that was one of the Best Books of 2021 and I think I’ll read it again, now that the planet is even hotter and harsher. David is a Presbyterian pastor in a pretty normal congregation and I value his whimsy and his sane, pastoral perspective. His writing is not arcane or dense but it seems mature, even with fun quips and stories.

So this new little book is a study of the Lord’s Prayer, line by line, ruminating as a pastor with a penchant for writing novels only can. Amanda Held Opelt — who knows her way around good writing — says it “excavates the depths of transformative grace in Jesus’s ancient words.” Walter Brueggemann noted that it was winsome and reflects “an awareness wrought of real personal engagement with an eye on contemporary connections.”

Theo of Golden: A Novel Allen Levi (Atria) $20.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

Okay, this is a very special announcement — no time for a review, but a drum-rolled sort of shout-out. We have stocked this underground, self-published novel for a year and it has been really loved by those who try it. We used to carry Allen Levi CDs back in his singer-songwriter days, cool and allusive, fine storytelling stuff. When we heard he had done a big self-released novel we were impressed and jumped on that small bandwagon, sending them out here and there.

This rarely happens, folks, very rarely, actually, but a big mainstream publisher (Simon & Schuster) took notice and picked it up, re-issuing it this week in a just slightly trimmer size and a few dollars cheaper. The only difference is that it now says “National Bestseller” on the cover, which I guess is sort of true. Or it will be now that it will be sold into stores all over. Allen Levi is a good guy, a strong Christian, honest about doubts and struggle.  You should meet Theo. Of Golden, Georgia. Congrats, Mr. Levi, also of Georgia.

(We have a few of the slightly larger size volumes that were his original, first editions. They are $24.99 with our sale price, while supplies last, at $19.99. Let us know if you prefer one of those while they are still around.)

Between Interpretation & Imagination: C.S. Lewis and the Bible Leslie Baynes (Eerdmans) $38.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $31.19

I think I have written this line before, but just when you think nothing new needs to be said about C.S. Lewis another really great book comes out. I suspect that Dr. Leslie Baynes has worked much of a lifetime on this. She is a scholar of New Testament and Second Temple Judaism (and worked on the revision of the New American Bible.) She has been a scholar-in-residence at the Kilns (Lewis’s home outside of Oxford), and was an Inklings Project Fellow. I suspect this is deeply rooted in her expert Biblical insight and in her deep knowledge of all things Lewisy.

Edith Humphrey (who wrote an Orthodox take on Lewis called Further Up and Further In) says “among the many books on the work of CS. Lewis, this one is unique.” I am sure this is so.

It seems that Baynes is working to show the formative influences on Lewis and from her own study of his musings “as judiciously excavated from marginal notes of books that the owned and personal letters.” It is going to be a work both academic and personal, fascinating and, I suspect, lasting. Mark Noll calls it “masterful” and “captivating.”

Folks from various points on the theological spectrum cite Lewis on his views of things from time to time, including his view of the Bible. (Some find it intriguing that he was so accepted by conservative evangelicals years ago when he was not exactly an American born-again.) In any case, it is good to have a loyal fan and Bible scholar offer such a thorough study of his approaches to and engagement with the Scriptures.

There have been rave, rave reviews from everybody from David Bentley Hart to Michael Ward. Even Michael Christensen ( himself author of C.S Lewis on Scripture) says it is “a landmark contribution.” One of her points, as you will see, is that Lewis did some of his best Biblical work in The Chronicles of Narnia when he wasn’t trying to do Biblical scholarship but allowed his Biblical imagination to shine.

Reading the Bible on Turtle Island: An Invitation to North American Indigenous Interpretation T Christopher Hoklotubbe and H. Daniel Zacharias (IVP Academic) $26.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

Again, this just arrived so I make no pretense of doing a real review. I just want to quickly announce it, honor the publisher and authors, and insist that it is important. We are all slowly learning that hermeneutics — the art and science of Biblical interpretation — is not a neutral skill, but is always informed by the reader’s deepest presuppositions and the state of one’s worldview. It was Lewis who said, in one of the Narnia stories, that what you see depends on where you stand, and, of course, the kind of person you are.

Evangelical scholar Amy Peeler says it is “a must-read for everyone.” Willie James Jennings, the extraordinary Black scholar from Yale says it is “groundbreaking, urgent, and necessary at this present moment.” A number of First Nation Christian authors, such as Terry LeBlanc and Patty Krawec and Terry Wildman, all rave.

Dr. Hoklotubbe (with a ThD from Harvard) is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and director of the graduate studies program of NAITS: An Indigenous Learning Community, which is the first accredited Indigenous designed, developed, delivered and governed theological institute.

Dr. Zacharias (his PhD is from Highland Theological College at Aberdeen) is Cree-Anishinaabe/Metis, originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is the associate dean and professor of New Testament studies at Acadia Divinity College and is adjuster at NAITS.

The Way of the Wild Flower: Gospel Meditations to Unburden Your Anxious Soul Ruth Chou Simons (ThomasNelson) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

I can think of a big handful of different sorts of folks who would love this as a gift, those who would be truly blessed to see it. Ruth Chou Simons is a bestselling author who can craft beautiful, touching sentences, colorfully and tenderly. She is not deep or obscure but isn’t merely sentimental, either; there is a profundity of depth in her work that is focused on knowing God intimately and trusting the ways of Christ’s Kingdom. (Her last book was Now and Not Yet.)

Ruth Chou Simons is also an artist with a loyal, world-wide following. Her GraceLaced company offers all sorts of artistic products and I think she has done cards and illuminations, mostly of flowers. Many of her books have been laden with lush illustrations, and this one is as extravagantly designed as any (even if the flowers are themselves sometimes rather simple ones — not the bright orchids she has done before, but gentle Whiplash Daisies and Wavyleaf Thistle and Snowdrop and German Camomile.) It is about resting in God, yes, but she will show that such faith can lead to real freedom. That is, we can live the way of the wildflower. It is a metaphor worth exploring and she does it beautifully in this slightly oversized clothbound, artful book. Nice!

Barn Gothic: Three Generations and the Death the Family Dairy Farm Ryan Dennis (Island Press) $30.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

I do not know, yet, if this book could be about farms and lives like relatives of ours, but it’s at least close. Maybe you, too, know farmers, maybe even dairy farmers, who have a hard life and yet love their calling to care for their cattle or cows (or land and crops.) This vivid work of creatively told nonfiction will explore what it’s all like. The dairy industry has changed much in our lifetime and this not only documents it all for us, but draws out the deeply personal challenges of American farm families. There are personal bodily injuries and there are the wounds that come from the low milk prices and the big, big banks.

There are a handful of books I will never forget and this may end up being one like them. Think of the brilliantly written and emotional read documenting the shrinking furniture industry (Factory Man by Beth Macy) and a legal thriller about pollution and repression from big ag and their hog farms (Wastelands: The True Story of Farm Country on Trial by Corbin Addison) or the struggle for health-care justice for miners with black lung, Soul Full of Coal Dust: A Fight for Breath and Justice in Appalachia by the magnificent by Chris Hamby. Of course Sarah Smarsh is rightly famous for her Heartland: A Memoir Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth. I wonder if Ryan Dennis will soon be mentioned among these classics? It is a  story that needs telling.

The President of American Farmland Trust, John Piotti, says “We owe a debt to the farmers that feed us — and to Ryan Dennis for this memoir.”  Indeed.

How to Remember: Forgotten Pathways to an Authentic Faith Andrew Osenga (Moody Press) $15.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

Sometimes I weary of all the basic books on Christian living that come out. Many are absolutely fine, even good, but sometimes strike me as the “same old, same old” which are no better than lots of previously published titles. And then every now and then a book comes along that is so fresh and well written, interesting and insightful, artful and inviting, that it is a big cut above the others. Sometimes you can tell from the footnotes and citations — they have read deeply and wisely — and sometimes even a few pages are so compelling that you know this is a very good book. Such is the case for How To Remember by singer-songwriter Andrew Osenga. This is a great little book about “the beauty and wonder of old paths.”

And much of what these are, for him, this trail guide, as he calls it, is “what I’ve learned from oft-forgotten songs, prayers, and practices of believers who have gone before us.” He notes that “our culture has raced past these older signposts in its haste to grow and stay relevant, because we’ve forgotten that relevance is not about being trendy and modern.” Indeed, he notes, being relevant is to be trustworthy. Not bad, huh?

So here you’ve got a writer who also a singer-songwriter. Osenga works with Indelible Grace and Anchor Hymns and has collaborated with award winning artists like Andrew Peterson and Sandra McCracken and sang on the gut-wrenching unforgettable “Jesus I My Cross Have Taken” on Pilgrim Days. He’s sharp on faith and culture questions, caring and wise and artful, and this book focuses on real human stuff, big questions about prayer and faith and confession and joy and lament — and all the “sturdy traditions” that have gone before us that helps express our deepest true stuff.

The book enters this modern conversation by starting each chapter with a line from a mostly old hymn. Andrew found in these ancient songs a certain substance that is missing from much of today’s so-called worship music. This isn’t exactly a hymn-based devotional, at least not the way you’d think. But it is inspired by a depth and lyricism we’ve often lost in our modern faith communities. Join him. You’ll be glad you did. This is not a typical book, but richer and better, like the older hymns he cites.

Faithful Futures: Sacred Tools for Engaging Younger Generations Josh Packard (Baker Academic) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

I’ve heard that Packard, with a PhD from Vanderbilt, is a popular speaker and has great sensitivities to, as one of his previous books calls them, “church refugees.” With authors like Andrew Root, Kenda Creasy Dean and Kara Powell offering very impressive blurbs on the back of this brand new one, it is clear that his is a trusted voice. Cool, and trusted. This really is already touching those who work with youth or young adults, guiding them “from theory to faithful practice.”

As the publisher says, “In a world where young people are increasingly disconnected from traditional religious institutions and influenced by social media, Faithful Futures offers church leaders a lifeline: practical, research-based tools to engage Gen Z and Gen Alpha in meaningful conversations about faith.

Kenda tell us it is “absolutely essential reading for anyone who cares about young people.”  The President of Youth for Christ says “Anyone serious about reaching young people should study this work closely.”

Worth Doing: Fallenness, Finitude, and Work in the Real World W. David Buschart & Ryan Tafilowski (IVP Academic) $25.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.79

This powerful pair of scholars teach theology and historical studies at Denver Seminary and I am thrilled that this has arrived here at the shop a bit early. I’ve not spent much time with it, but I am so taken with it already that I wish I could now add it to my latest “Three Books from Hearts & Minds” podcast episode that just released, the one which named three books on relating faith and the work-world. It’s a theme that means a lot to us here and we recommend titles for you to relate your faith to your career pretty regularly. I think this (especially for those in leadership groups that are mentoring others in the faith/work interfaith or who are trying to motivate others into this sort of conversation) is going to be a must. It is a realistic approach — not that others don’t look at the toilsome consequences of the fall on our workalikes — and it is serious about the realities of our limitations. I often get breathy and visionary, even zealous, when I speak of these things (just watch the Youtube of that podcast, or see the extra video we made advertising a bunch of books on calling and vocation and career and occupations.) But an unrealistic vision of what it means to be human in a rotten system with broken workplaces isn’t helpful. Worth Doing is a remedy, I’m sure, a good one.

Denise Daniels, whose book Working for Better I highlighted in that aforementioned podcast, says that this book is “a vital contribution to the faith-work conversation, especially for those who don’t always feel seen in traditional narratives of calling and purpose.” That is, as David Robinson from Regent College puts it, “If you don’t work in Paradise, this book is for you.”

I like that the great Kelly Kapic did the excellent foreword. He wrote You’re Only Human, one of the great books on human limitations (which he insists is less from the fall into sin but, in fact, constitutive of our created creatureliness.) I like the poetic writing and amazing chapter titles. The afterword is the best several page summary of the faith and work movement (with most of the best books mentioned) and is itself worth the price of the book. Ryan used to work at the esteemed Denver Institute for Faith and Work and it shows. Hooray.

Famished: On Food, Sex, and Growing Up as a Good Girl Anna Rollins (Eerdmans) $24.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

Eerdmans is known for academic Bible commentaries, thoughtful social ethics, often excellent guides to Christian living and lots of heady theology. But they also do excellent, esteemed biography and, increasingly, memoir. Creative nonfiction. They have found some breathtakingly good writers (think of the heartbreaking but compelling memoir Shattered: A Son Picks Up the Pieces of His Father’s Rage by Arthur Boers or Night Driving: Notes from a Prodigal Son by Chad Bird or the captivating brand new memoir about a woman married to a gay man, Beard: A Memoir of a Marriage, by Kelly Foster Lundquist. Where do they find these beautiful badass writers?) Anyway, I’ve not started this one yet but it seems to be a nearly groundbreaking memoir that examines what she calls “the rhythm scripts of diet culture and evangelical purity culture, both of which direct women to fear their own bodies and appetites.” Wow, let that sink in.

I do not know most of those who give this book such stunning reviews (although Kelly Foster Lundquist, of Beard, says it is a “visceral account of the work it takes to release the choke-hold of bodily compulsion, religious inspired and otherwise.” But it is getting a lot of good acclaim.

It seems Rollins spent years “learning to disappear” and this was due, in part, to the relentless pressures on women to be thin from the sexy voices of our culture and oddly, from the preachy ethos of her fundamentalist subculture. The journey this book takes you one is going to hit hard and I think it is important. It is divided into three literary sections — girlhood, marriage, and motherhood.

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BookNotes

SPECIAL
DISCOUNT

20% OFF

Thanks to those who joined us for the rousing online conversation at our free Hearts & Minds webinar the other night. Jeff Crosby was a delightful and inspirational conversation partner as we talked about his book World of Wonders: Towards a Spirituality of Reading. We have this great new read at 20% off.

If you missed the World of Wonders program, you can watch this recording of it right HERE. A number of folks have exclaimed how much they enjoyed it. Thanks to Paraclete Press for putting all that together.

THIS COMING MONDAY (10-27) at 8:00 Eastern Time A FREE HEARTS & MINDS ONLINE CONVERSATION WITH KATHLEEN NORRIS

This coming Monday (October 27, 2025 at 8:00 PM, Eastern Time) we have another free webinar scheduled with none other than the great spiritual writer and memoirist, Kathleen Norris. You can register for that HERE. Once registered, they will send you the free link to join our conversation Monday evening.

The other day I mentioned that we were hosting an online conversation with her to a customer (himself an author) and he happily exclaimed “Oh my!” Those in the know realize what a big deal this is. Thanks to InterVarsity Press for setting it up.

I hope you’ve heard of her best-selling books; maybe you own some of them, such as Dakota: A Geography of Faith, The Cloister Walk, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, The Virgin of Bennington, Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life, and, of course, her small classic, The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and Women’s Work. She has also been a published poet for decades and we commend her collection Journey: New and Selected Poems (published by Pittsburgh University Press; $25.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00.) Just a year ago she released a co-authored book with the great Irish film buff, Gareth Higgins called A Whole Life in Twelve Movies: A Cinematic Journey to a Deeper Spirituality (published by Brazos; $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99.) Let’s just say that as a small town bookseller we couldn’t be more thrilled than to get to host a writer of this professional prominence at our little webinar. Join us, won’t you?

The new book means a lot to Kathleen and, actually, means a lot to Beth and me, too. Rebecca Sue: A Sister’s Reflections on Disability, Faith, and Love (IVP; $25.99 // OUR 20% OFF SALE PRICE = $20.79) is her most intimate and person memoir so far and it is both a memoir of Kathleen’s life with a disabled sister but also a biography of Rebecca, a good glimpse of her hard, colorful, and fascinating life.

In our BookNotes column last week announcing the recent webinar with Jeff Crosby and this forthcoming chat with Kathleen Norris, I lamented a bit about how demoralizing it can be to try to make a living as a thoughtfully Christian bookstore these days and that these sorts of author events recharge our own batteries, as they say. But I continued:

When authors like Jeff Crosby and Kathleen Norris offer their considerable talents to show up for folks, they serve you — their readers — and this is really what it is all about. We get to midwife a magic moment or two when you get to meet (and even type questions to) real authors with beautiful books. So we hope this inspires you, gentle reader (and Hearts & Minds friend.) This is for you.

I suspect if you listen deeply to your own internal dialogue these days, given your hectic pace and longing for a bit of sanity in these crazy days, you know this will be good for you, a fun hour or so to be inspired by folks with good stuff to say. We can’t wait to introduce you to our new friend Kathleen Norris, we talk books and faith and writing and reading. Beth and I hope you can schedule it now and register soon.  It’s going to be a blast and we all will be better for it, I’m sure.

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During this coming Monday’s “Evening with Kathleen Norris” she will discuss her new, most personal memoir, yet, Rebecca Sue: A Sister’s Reflections on Disability, Faith, and Love.

Norris became a New York Times bestselling author decades ago when, as a poet in the early 1990s she wrote her tender memoir about moving to Lemmon, North Dakota, entitled Dakota: A Spiritual Geography. A sublime reflection on the rugged Great Plains and her neighbors (in a “town so small the poets and ministers had to hang out together”) its fame didn’t deter her from her rural life. In fact, when she, as a Protestant, was drawn to Benedictine spirituality she wrote a truly remarkable, even stunning book called The Cloister Walk which remains, in my view at least, a modern spiritual classic. She followed with a wonderful alphabetical book about the faith, a fascinating look at her college years (The Virgin of Bennington) and then the memoir Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life.

Maybe her most beloved book is the pocket sized The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and Women’s Work, an eloquent look at the spirituality of the mundane, an ordinary sort of down-to-Earth embodied faith where there are “sanctifying possibilities” every day. It was a lecture delivered at a Catholic women’s college in 1997 and is good for anyone, anytime.

In all of these books she speaks of historic Christian faith in profound and yet approachable ways, being a pray-er, yes, who often sits in silence, but always a curious learner and creative poet (and film aficionado.) She has been likened to a rather contemplative Frederick Buechner (even before she wrote the fabulous alphabetical Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith; they both know their English literature, both were Presbyterian, both applauded as thoughtful people of faith by the mainstream, secular press. In any case, she is impressive and it is an honor to get to tell us about her sister and her remarkable emotional growth.

We get to talk with her for an hour or so at 8:00 PM (Eastern Standard Time) on the last Monday of the month, October 27th. Please pre-register so you can join us online and bring your questions!

Again, you can register  HERE.

Rebecca Sue: A Sister’s Reflections on Disability, Faith, and Love about which we’ll be talking, is compelling and fascinating. Rebecca Sue was such an incredible person and Kathleen is an upbeat conversation partner as she chats with us about her sister.

I noted that this book really does mean a lot to us. Beth and I met in the mid-1970s while working at Camp Harmony Hall (in central Pennsylvania), a camp run by the Easter Seal Society for kids in wheelchairs. (If you saw the award-winning documentary, Crip Camp, that came close to our experience there.) I was a Special Education major in college and Beth used to direct a group home for the intellectually challenged and severally disabled. Oh my, how we were captured by this riveting story.

Rebecca Sue is not as notably luminous as some of Norris’s other poetic writing but what it may lack in descriptive creative nonfiction tone it more than pays off in poignancies, tenderness, and really important insight. It is a no-nonsense, intelligent recollection of living with a mentally handicapped (and, we eventually learn, narcissistic and bi-polar) younger sister. Becky, as Kathleen calls her, knew she had experienced brain injury at birth and was unable to live on her own. She was colorful and creative and feisty; she was self-centered and giving, artful and smart, wise and intellectually what they used to call “slow.”  She was jealous about Kathleen’s literary fame and religious stature. More than once she said “you should write a book about me and that way I could be famous, too.”

This book, Rebecca Sue, is Kathleen making good on that promise made so many decades ago. It is a book she obviously had been writing most of her life.

(As we will surely discuss, though, a lot of serious research and reckoning goes into a project like this. She interviewed former caregivers, requested medical records, saw the notes written in the hands of doctors and psychiatrists. There were police records, too. She has the long lists of drugs — some things never change —as Rebecca was dosed and dosed. She dug up old journals and boxes of letters. Some of it caused her to break down and sob.)

Kathleen and her siblings moved around a bit when the kids were young (her father was in the Navy band and there is some lovely stuff about him in the story, and certainly her mother as well.) They finally settled in Honolulu, although Kathleen soon left, famously attending Bennington College in 1965. She got the writing bug, became a published poet, and worked (naturally) in New York City.

In those years Rebecca Sue and Kathleen were nearly daily pen-pals, corresponding regularly and talking on the phone — we called it “long distance” back then — quite often. We learn about Rebecca’s rather immature boy-crazy style, and, more deeply, her longing to be fully loved (beyond the extraordinary love and support offered by her family.) There are awkward episodes of romance, obsession, gratuitous sexuality, too much drinking, gross abuse. (It isn’t vividly portrayed, but gut-wrenching to remember that some guys would literally take advantage of an obviously mentally challenged young woman.) The obstacles of independent living for dear Becky were almost everywhere. That this emotionally volatile woman would soon take a liking to Kathleen’s husband, himself a poet, was a great blessing and a blessed example of a common grace in their lives.

We learn much in Rebecca Sue and, as in any good memoir, we are taken in by the narrative of the author’s life just like in a novel. This is a collection of stories, impressions, remembrances, and the plot deepens as Becky navigates romances and schools, group homes, sheltered workshops, poor-paying jobs, and a ever-growing avalanche of medical issues, hospitalizations, social service agencies, and the complex arena where physical, mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual challenges collide. Of course she worried as her own parents aged. I’d say Kathleen had a front row seat to all the drama, but she was not an observer but a participant.

The lovely text we are given, Rebecca Sue is about Becky, born in 1954 in Bethesda MD with perinatal hypoxia, raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. She lived quite a life in her 60 years and you will be glad Kathleen introduces you to her.

But it is also about Kathleen herself and what she learned — sometimes the hard way — from her disabled, troubled, and often-ill sister. It is her most intimate book, yet. It is about faith and love and forgiveness and grace and grit and family and sorrow and art. I think it is, in a way, about all of us.

Publishers Weekly did a great interview with Kathleen Norris about the new book. She was asked that standard question what she hopes readers will discover in the book:

I hope that readers will encounter my sister as a full person who refused to let her disabilities define her. It strikes me that my sister’s transformation from a self-absorbed person to one who genuinely cared about others is, in a sense, the normal transition we all make from adolescence to adulthood. For my sister, narcissism was a good defense mechanism, a useful and maybe even necessary protection that served her well for years. When she finally began to shed it and take more interest in other people, it was a revelation.

But Becky wore her narcissism so transparently that it was easy to forgive her. When I once tried to tell her about something good that had recently happened to me, she interrupted me with an emphatic, “No! I go first! My story is more important than yours!” I hope readers will be able to laugh at themselves as they hear Becky say out loud what many feel but prefer to keep hidden.

Our online “An Evening with Kathleen Norris” event at 8:00 (EST) on 10-27-25 is going to be a marvelous opportunity for all of us to learn from Kathleen as she tells us about what she understood as a fairly ordinary family learning to love each other well, or at least the best they could. It will be about the writing life, about memory, about God and grace. It is a way for all of us to meet her late sister, Rebecca Sue. And it will, I assume, offer a healthy bit of encouragement to those in the disabled community, or the broader community of loved ones and caregivers and friends of the disabled or mentally ill.

Do you know anyone who might find such a conversation valuable about this online event? Could you please share this and let them know? My hunch is that we all know someone who is caregiving for a handicapped or chronically-ill loved one. We invite them to this conversation, confident that it will be an inspiring time. The book is captivating, and Kathleen is a born storyteller. It’s going to be good.

Please join us for this online webinar, Monday night, October 27,2025, “An Evening with Kathleen Norris.” We’ll start at 8:00 PM Eastern Time. You have to pre-register online; when you sign up you’ll get a link to join in. REGISTER HERE. 

The book, Rebecca Sue, of course, is still 20% off. We look forward to sending book out and serving you well. Thanks for your interest. See you soon!

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BookNotes

SPECIAL
DISCOUNT

20% OFF

You are cordially and energetically invited to join us online at two virtual webinars, on two consecutive Monday evenings, with two exceptional conversation partners who are great authors, each with loads of experience in the publishing world.

I can hardly tell you how privileged Beth and I feel to get to host both of these friends (one a long-time pal, the other a more recent acquaintance who many of us feel we somewhat know due to her many best-selling books.) This is a bookseller’s dream come true, getting to chat with not one, but two great writers, both respected for their lives well lived and their literary craft. Two different events, two consecutive Monday nights (Eastern Time.)

First, we will host Jeff Crosby talking about his new book published by Paraclete Press, World of Wonders: A Spirituality of Reading on MONDAY NIGHT OCTOBER 20th at 8:00 PM – EST. You can sign up and register for free right here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BLur4CX5Qa-2c8aJ_YZpQw#/registration

(Once you register there you will then be sent an emailed link to join in the fun that night.)

Then we will host Kathleen Norris talking about her new book published by InterVarsity Press, Rebecca Sue: A Sister’s Reflections on Disability, Faith, and Love on MONDAY NIGHT OCTOBER 27th at 8:00 PM – EST.  You can sign up for that free event here:

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_7aNJeWmEQhGMZmUx93sJ_w#/registration

(Again, once you enter your name and email there you will then be sent a link to use in order to join in that night for that event.)

Got that? Two different free events, two different links to click, and for each one you will need to pre-register (please, please do.) That will then generate an auto-email to you giving you a link to view the program at the appropriate time in your particular time zone. Makes sense?  Call the shop at 717-246-333 if you want more info.

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Here is my more extended pitch as to why these two separate events are going to be so very special for us and why we think you should try hard to join us. And if you really, really can’t, at least send us an order for the books (as some of you already have.)

As Hearts & Minds endures the usual struggles of those in the bookstore biz, we are often discouraged — I don’t have to rehash the obvious about how publishers and authors [especially in the overtly religious subculture] often promote a not-to-be-named big-time and verifiably corrupt super-sized amazonian outfit while those of us with a passion for real books curated by real bookstores are left just eking out a living. It’s demoralizing.

So when truly decent people who are world-class writers come forward, expressing a desire to partner with us to promote their work, it is more than a happy occasion, but a notable vote of confidence and a glorious bit of encouragement. So we’re blessed and delighted and want you to join with us to celebrate our indie bookstore moments with these two fine authors

But more, and more importantly, when authors like Jeff and Kathleen offer their considerable talents to show up for folks, they serve you — their readers — and this is really what it is all about. We get to midwife a magic moment or two when you get to meet (and even type questions to) real authors with beautiful books. So we hope this inspires you, gentle reader (and Hearts & Minds friend.) This is for you.

I suspect if you listen deeply to your own internal dialogue these days, given your hectic pace and longing for a bit of sanity these crazy days, you know this will be good for you, a fun hour or so to be inspired by folks with good stuff to say. We can’t wait to introduce you to our friends, Jeff Crosby and Kathleen Norris, as they talk books and faith and writing and reading. Beth and I hope you can make both events (or at least one of them.) It’s going to be a blast and we all will be better for it, I’m sure.

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Jeff Crosby is a guy with a resume a mile long and almost all of it in the book industry. I’ll let him tell his colorful story when we chat on the 20th but he has worked as a clerk in a store and with the largest distribution warehouse for wholesale book buying; he has worked in a very significant way for a significant publisher and now is the Director of ECPA (Evangelical Christian Publisher Association.) We were emailing the other day (about a book he is currently writing for an academic publisher on the spirituality of music) and he had to run as he was involved in an awards ceremony for contemporary Christian fiction. He’s a busy guy who has really been around (and has fabulously wide reading habits, and knows everybody) and we admire him more than anyone in our industry. And, yes, he has visited Hearts & Minds and is a customer (although he is equally supportive of an array of other indie stores, secular and Christian, across the country.)

Which is just one reason why he seemed born to write this most recent work, World of Wonders: A Spirituality of Reading recently released by Paraclete Press ($18.99 // OUR 20% OFF SALE PRICE = $15.19.) As I have said when I highlighted it at BookNotes before, it is an absolute delight, charming and inviting, enthusiastic and interesting, accessible and informative. It isn’t a heavy theology or mystical spirituality, really, but it does show the deeply religious influence that books can have. If you are a book lover you’ll simply adore this great read. If you are less than inspired by the printed page, you’ll find this just the shot in the arm you need to pursue the reading life with greater gusto and joy. He is a guide, a sherpa, a mentor, a wise and experienced friend, reminding you of so much and showing just how it’s done.

World of Wonder has a handful of chapters — on reading Scripture, reading poetry, reading widely from diverse authors, reading fiction, and more. At the end of each chapter he has another wise practitioner chime in, offering their particular take on the topic at hand. That he wanted this book to be a bit collaborative not only speaks to his generous spirit but reminds us that reading is subject and idiosyncratic. Not everybody has the same tastes or needs the same sort of book in their hand at any given time. Offering other voices from other rooms brings the urgency of the task to light in a fresh and fun way. And he has some really good people as part of this project. Hooray.

(If your interested, I chatted a bit about the book in a previous “Three Books from Hearts & Minds” podcast a month ago. Check that out at Spotify or Apple Podcasts or watch on YouTube.)

Join us on Monday October 20th at 8:00 Eastern Standard Time (that would be 7:00 pm Central Time, etc.) for “An Evening with Jeff Crosby.” Just register at the link above and you’ll get a reply with a link to join us live. Don’t worry, your own picture will not be seen, so you can come over dinner or while in your jammies. You’ll be able to send us questions or comments and depending on time, we’ll try to let Jeff reply. No doubt, I’ll chime in as well.

Jeff Crosby is also the author of the wonderful book The Language of the Soul: Meeting God in the Longings of Our Hearts (Broadleaf Books; $26.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59.) It is the sort of book about spiritual formation that is at once contemplative and quotidian. That is, he really does help folks understand their deepest desires and longings and how God shows up in the middle of these real-life hopes and dreams in our ordinary, daily lives. It is gentle, full of stories, delightfully written and, without seeming heavy-handed or overly dense, truly profound. We raved about it at BookNotes when it first came out and named it a favorite book of 2023.

Please help us spread the word about this upcoming Monday night conversation about the role of books in our lives and the value — for anyone, of course, but particularly for those who are followers of Jesus — of reading widely.  We are grateful for this opportunity to serve you, our friends and customers, by putting this little online gig together. Join us, please.

And order World of Wonders now at 20% off. The order link to our secure order form is at the very bottom of this column.

Again, click on the link shown above (or HERE ) to join this online Hearts & Minds event, an Evening with Jeff Crosby, author of World of Wonders: A Spirituality of Reading. Monday, October 20, 2025 at 8:00 PM (Eastern Standard Time.)

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One week after our conversation with publishing hero and passionate reader and author of the new World of Wonders we have, as noted above, the well-known and highly regarded memoirist and writer and poet, Kathleen Norris. During our “Evening with Kathleen Norris” she will discuss (among other things) her new, most personal memoir, yet, Rebecca Sue: A Sister’s Reflections on Disability, Faith, and Love (IVP; $25.99 // OUR 20% OFF SALE PRICE = $20.79.)

I mentioned that we were hosting an online conversation with her to a customer (himself an author) the other day and he happily exclaimed “Oh my!” Those in the know realize what a big deal this is.

Norris became a New York Times bestselling author decades ago when, as a poet in the early 1990s she wrote a tender memoir about moving to Lemmon, North Dakota, entitled Dakota: A Spiritual Geography. A sublime reflection on the rugged Great Plains and her neighbors (in a “town so small the poets and ministers had to hang out together”) its fame didn’t deter her from her rural life. In fact, when she, as a Protestant, was drawn to Benedictine spirituality she wrote a truly remarkable, even stunning book called The Cloister Walk which remains, in my view at least, a modern spiritual classic. She followed with a fascinating look at her college years and then the serious work — her hardest, she told me — Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life.

Maybe her most beloved book is the pocket sized The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and Women’s Work, an eloquent look at the spirituality of the mundane, an ordinary sort of down-to-Earth embodied faith where there are “sanctifying possibilities” every day. It was a lecture delivered at a Catholic women’s college in 1997 and is good for anyone, anytime.

In all of these books she speaks of historic Christian faith in profound and yet approachable ways, being a pray-er, yes, who often sits in silence, but always a curious learner and creative poet (and film aficionado.) She has been likened to a rather contemplative Frederick Buechner (even before she wrote the fabulous alphabetical Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith; they both know their English literature, both were Presbyterian, both applauded as thoughtful people of faith by the mainstream, secular press.)

We get to talk with her for an hour or so at 8:00 PM (Eastern Standard Time) on the last Monday of the month, October 27th. Please pre-register so you can join us online and bring your questions!

The recent book is compelling and truly fascinating, published in hardback by InterVarsity Press. Again, it is called Rebecca Sue: A Sister’s Reflections on Disability, Faith, and Love.

I simply could not put down this riveting book. It is not as notably luminous as some of her other poetic writing but what it may lack in descriptive creative nonfiction tone it more than pays off in poignancies, tenderness, and really important insight. It is a no-nonsense, intelligent recollection of living with a mentally handicapped (and, we eventually learn, narcissistic and bi-polar) younger sister. Becky, as Kathleen calls her, knew she had experienced brain injury at birth and was unable to live on her own. She was colorful and creative and feisty; she was self-centered and giving, artful and smart, wise and intellectually what they used to call “slow.”  She was jealous about Kathleen’s literary fame and religious stature. More than once she said “you should write a book about me and that way I could be famous, too.”

This book, Rebecca Sue, is Kathleen making good on that promise made so many decades ago. It is a book she obviously had been writing most of her life.

(As we will surely discuss, though, a lot of serious research and reckoning goes into a project like this. She interviewed former caregivers, requested medical records, saw the notes written in the hands of doctors and psychiatrists. There were police records, too. She has the long lists of drugs — some things never change —as Rebecca was dosed and dosed. She dug up old journals and boxes of letters. Some of it caused her to break down and sob.)

Kathleen and her siblings moved around a bit when the kids were young (her father was in the Navy band and there is some lovely stuff about him in the story, and certainly her mother as well.) They finally settled in Honolulu, although Kathleen soon left, famously attending Bennington College in 1965 (about which she wrote in The Virgin at Bennington.) She got the writing bug, became a published poet, and worked (naturally) in New York City.

In those years Rebecca Sue and Kathleen were nearly daily pen-pals, corresponding regularly and talking on the phone — we called it “long distance” back then — quite often. We learn about Rebecca’s rather immature boy-crazy style, and, more deeply, her longing to be fully loved (beyond the extraordinary love and support offered by her family.) There are awkward episodes of romance, obsession, gratuitous sexuality, too much drinking, gross abuse. (It isn’t vividly portrayed, but gut-wrenching to remember that some guys would literally take advantage of an obviously mentally challenged young woman.) The obstacles of independent living for dear Becky were almost everywhere. That this emotionally volatile woman would soon take a liking to Kathleen’s husband, himself a poet, was a great blessing and a blessed example of a common grace in their lives.

We learn much in Rebecca Sue and, as in any good memoir, we are taken in by the narrative of the author’s life just like in a novel. This is a collection of stories, impressions, remembrances, and the plot deepens as Becky navigates romances and schools, group homes, sheltered workshops, poor-paying jobs, and a ever-growing avalanche of medical issues, hospitalizations, social service agencies, and the complex arena where physical, mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual challenges collide. Of course she worried as her own parents aged.  I’d say Kathleen had a front row seat to all the drama, but she was not an observer but a participant.

The lovely text we are given, Rebecca Sue is about Becky, born in 1954 in Bethesda MD with perinatal hypoxia, raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. She lived quite a life in her 60 years.

But it is also about Kathleen herself and what she learned — sometimes the hard way — from her disabled, troubled, and often-ill sister. It is her most intimate book, yet. It is about faith and love and forgiveness and grace and grit and family and sorrow and art. I think it is, in a way, about all of us.

Publishers Weekly did a great interview with Kathleen Norris about the new book. She was asked that standard question what she hopes readers will discover in the book:

I hope that readers will encounter my sister as a full person who refused to let her disabilities define her. It strikes me that my sister’s transformation from a self-absorbed person to one who genuinely cared about others is, in a sense, the normal transition we all make from adolescence to adulthood. For my sister, narcissism was a good defense mechanism, a useful and maybe even necessary protection that served her well for years. When she finally began to shed it and take more interest in other people, it was a revelation.

But Becky wore her narcissism so transparently that it was easy to forgive her. When I once tried to tell her about something good that had recently happened to me, she interrupted me with an emphatic, “No! I go first! My story is more important than yours!” I hope readers will be able to laugh at themselves as they hear Becky say out loud what many feel but prefer to keep hidden.

Our online “An Evening with Kathleen Norris” event on 10-27-25 is going to be a marvelous opportunity for all of us to learn from Kathleen as she tells us about what she deems a fairly ordinary family learning to love each other well, or at least the best they can. It will be about the writing life, about memory, about God and grace. It is a way for all of us to meet her late sister, Rebecca Sue.  And it will, I assume, offer a healthy bit of encouragement to those in the disabled community, or the broader community of loved ones and caregivers and friends of the disabled or mentally ill.

Could you please tell anyone you know who might find such a conversation valuable about this online event? My hunch is that we all know someone who is caregiving for a handicapped or chronically ill loved one. (Some of them might even be thinking of writing a book!) In any case, we invite them to this conversation, confident that it will be an inspiring time. The book is captivating, and Kathleen is a born storyteller. It’s going to be good.

Again, please join us for this online webinar, Monday night, October 27,2025, “An Evening with Kathleen Norris.” We’ll start at 8:00 PM Eastern Time. You have to pre-register online; when you sign up you’ll get a link to join in. REGISTER HERE. 

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Thanks to those who enjoyed that last BookNotes — including pre-ordering everything from the (now just released) new Wendell Berry novel or the latest Jan Karon “Mitford” book to the eagerly awaited Art Is by Mako Fujimura (coming from Yale University Press in a week or so) to the very popular, forthcoming set of reflections by Diana Butler Bass. A Beautiful Year. Lots more to consider — if you missed that good one, please click HERE.

an ANNOUNCEMENT:

I’ll tell you more soon but please mark on your calendars two upcoming dates when Beth and I would like you to join us for two free webinars, opportunities to join me live as I host two conversations with two extraordinary authors, each telling about their amazing new books. October 20th and October 27th

On Monday evening October 20th at 8:00 PM EST I will host an evening with Jeff Crosby, talking about his brand new, must-read World of Wonders: A Spirituality of Reading.  Jeff has long been a hero to us, and a friend, (and our bookstore is even mentioned in the book) — we know you’re going to want to join us for this dialogue. We are grateful for Paraclete Publishers for setting that up for us. Watch the next BookNotes for a bit more, but please save the date (and help us spread the word.)

Then, one week later, on Monday October 27th (at a time we’ll announce soon) I have the exceedingly great privilege of chatting with the world-class poet and best-selling author of several spiritual memoirs, Kathleen Norris, as we explore her recent book, Rebecca Sue: A Sister’s Reflections on Disability, Faith, and Love, nicely published by InterVarsity Press.

Next week we’ll give you the free links to these two online gatherings and we hope you’ll be able to, as they say, log on. Both events will be really interesting, I promise, not so much because of me, but because these generous authors have a lot to discuss about their recent books. I’m a little nervous and hope you’ll be able to sign on and join in.  Stay tuned for more info.

So, speaking of authors and those who care about words and paragraphs and publishing, a prominent book editor recently sent me this amazing review of and conversation about the recent, exquisite, deep, memoir Children of the Book: A Memoir of Reading Together by the brilliant Jewish author and book-loving mom, Ilana Kushan (St. Martin’s Press; $28.00.)

That reminded me a bit of another brainy collection I’ve recently been taken with, Readers for Life: How Reading and Listening in Childhood Shapes Us, edited by Sander L. Gilman & Heta Pyrhönen (Reaktion Books; $26.00.)

Perhaps you recall our little rave review of the marvelous recent memoir Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of the Books That Saved Me by Glory Edim, founder of the “Well-Read Black Girl” project (Ballentine; $28.00.) There are so many great ones in this genre. I would be you have some thoughts about your memory with books and what you loved when you were a child. Or, if a parent, what you’ve read to your own children.

I know a few customers were very excited to learn about the release of The Redeemed Reader: Cultivating a Child’s Discernment and Imagination Through Truth and Story a companion book to the website, put together by Janie Cheaney, Betsy Farquhar, Hayley Morell & Megan Sabin (Moody Publishers; $17.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39.) What a joy this is; we’re eager to sell this to those who might need reminding that — as it says on the back cover:  “God loves stories. We understand the world and ourselves in light of His great story.”

They are very discerning and wise about all sorts of books for all sorts of ages. It sits alongside others in this genre, including our all time favorite, the essential Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for Children, edited by Leslie Bustard, Cary Bustard, and Théa Rosenburg (Square Halo Books; $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99.)

“A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into an expanding universe.” — Madeleine L’Engle

Let’s start the habit of finding beauty and story and truth and goodness in books by reading picture books to our little ones. Let’s make sure they have them around to see and select. Church community rooms, office waiting rooms, local libraries, of course the coffee tables in living rooms and little bookshelves in the children’s rooms should have plenty of these kinds of books.

Here are thirteen (mostly) recent ones that seem useful, helping you shape your children or grandchildren in healthy ways.

 ALL ARE 20% OFF. Order by tapping the link at the very end.

Bud Finds Her Gift Robin Wall Kimmerer; illustrated by Naoko Stoop (Allida) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Kimmerer might be one of the most famous indigenous writers in North America these days, a biologist and storyteller and ecologist, author of the famous Braiding Sweetgrass and the recent The Serviceberry. Lovely, thoughtful, wise, informative, charming, even if profound. We are glad many of our best customers are fans.

This is a children’s picture book which reminds us that “everyone, from the day of their birth, was given a gift to share with the Earth.”  Bud is an eager young girl who wants to be included in the bustle of important activities but a wise grandmother shows her “a different way to find belonging, one that relies on stillness and observing the natural world.” It’s a handsome, gentle book, as you might imagine from Kimmerer and Stoop.

Abigail and the Waterfall: Loving God’s Earth Sandra L. Richter; illustrated by Michael Corsini (IVP Kids) $18.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

I could fill up a page telling why I think this author — known as a professional and sophisticated Old Testament scholar — is important for us all to know about. She has published a huge and readable introduction to the Old Testament and has a great video series on the Psalms. Her teaching about the Bible is second to none. And, she has a particular, Biblically-influenced passion about creation care; she even wrote an excellent book published by IVP with Bible and science and ecology themes, a perfect primer on the topic, called Stewards of Eden: What Scripture Says about the Environment and Why It Matters.

Now her avocation as Christian ecologist and naturalist has found its way into this fantastic kids book. I can’t say enough about it, except there is a painting of a beautiful salamander on the back cover, with this invitation: “This Saturday we are going on my favorite hike to our special place!”

To whom is this offered? What is this special place? What will kids find as they travel along with this family going on a rigorous outdoor hike? One of the nice touches is at least one critter that is named in each spread, with a bit of extra info (a lot, actually) in the back. Perfect for ages 4 to 8 or 9, I’d say. The dreamy, colorful illustrator is from Pennsylvania, too.

We Sing! Teaching Kids to Praise God with Heart and Voice Kristyn Getty; illustrated by Laura K. Sayers (Crossway) $17.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

Maybe as young as three or so we can start to read this book to show children why singing at church (or other places) is part of what Christians do to express our devotion and adoration to God. As churches shift their worship styles and singing together seems less vibrant in some circles, the insights of the famous contemporary hymn writer Kristyn Getty, is as important as ever. What does Ephesians 5: 18-19 mean for us?

This really is about singing throughout the day, and advises having Biblical truths in our songs. The contemporary design of the pages, a bit minimalist but surely engaging (done with expert paper art) is very, very cool, and the smooth rhyming is good. (Some children’s books insist on sing-song rhymes that are just too forced, even cheesy, sometimes.) I’m not sure I’d say this is sophisticated, but it is loaded with wisdom and insight and the art is creative to warrant repeated viewings. Hallelujah!

Sound!!! Discovering the Vibrations We Hear Olga Fadeeva (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

This may be the most lush, wild, informative, weird, and amazing book on the list (and, therefore, is maybe for older kids 8 to even to 14, maybe. Booklist gave it a coveted starred review, calling it “dynamic.” It is European (and many European children’s books are especially imaginative and eccentric, even.) This one is remarkable, stunning, even, as it invites readers (despite the art some might find a tad busy, if not bizarre) into the big question of what sound is. How does it work, where does it come from? The phenomenon of sound is fascinating — there are sounds we humans can’t hear, of course. It isn’t theological, as such, but I bet you could bring spiritual insights into this engaging book about mystery and science and music and the joy of being alive.

From animal sounds to the technology of recording music, Fadeeva (as one writer put it) “explores sound’s vital role on our planet with this playful, wide-ranging tour through science and history

Go Tell It: How James Baldwin Became a Writer Quartez Harris; illustrated by Gordon C. James (Little Brown) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

When I heard the lush oil painter and Caldecott Award honoree Gordon James had done art to illustrate a children’s book on James Baldwin, we jumped on it, and we’ve been happy to have this on our shelves since it came out a few months ago.  We admire James for his vivid art that just seems to carry movement and motion. Quartez Harris is a teacher and award-winning poet (he was the Ohio Poet of the Year) and this energetic book is so great. Here’s just a line or two, which are so wonderfully enhanced by the art…

“Jimmy took out his pencil and scribbled words into his notebook. They flew off the pages and drifted across the Harlem sky as he felt his anger fade away. He realized that writing words could heal. After that, he scribbled stories everywhere.”

 

“The first time Jimmy read a book the words stuck to him like glitter.”

This really is a celebration of the power of reading and writing, of language and story, of a boy falling in love with books. Highly recommended.

Kaylee Prays for the Children of the World Helen Lee; illustrated by Shin Maeng (IVP Kids) $18.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

We have highlighted this before when it first came out a few months ago and we want to honor it again and recommend it strongly. Helen Lee is a super smart editor in the publishing world and a very fine non-fiction writer. Years ago she gave voice to the unique concerns of Asian American young adults, wrote a great book called The Missional Mom, and recently has offered good insight to evangelical readers (and others) about being a racially-aware parent.

This wonderful picture book — replete with vivid images done by Shin Maeng — both reminds children (and their adult caregivers) that they can pray, and pray about important things, and it shows a variety of cultures and contexts of children around the globe. As Kaylee leads the way praying for the world-wide body of Christ, readers learn a bit about other places, about immigration and refugees and family genealogies, cross-cultural stuff and a Kingdom that includes folks (young and old) from all over the world. What a great resource!

Every Nation: Seeing God Around the World Sarah Nunnally (David C. Cook) $16.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

Sarah Nunnally serves as a missionary in Southeast Asia and has started a book series called “God Everywhere” and this is just a beautiful, creative, contemporary exploration of that. As the publisher puts it, “Through beautiful landscapes and words, join us on a journey to countries near and far to experience God’s presence in every nation and know His love for every child.”

Something most adults might need to be reminded of, too, eh?

The very cool, contemporary designs of the illustration matches the upbeat majestic themes, where on each page spread there is a statement about some attribute or characteristic of God, which is, in a way, linked to something seen on Earth — mountains, say, or a river that seems endless, or the many grains of sand in the desert.  I love this simple way of reminding kids about God and just a few of the world’s many nations, from Norway to Thailand, Costa Rica to Chad, from the USA to Nepal and more. Very handsomely done.

All Will Be Well: Learning to Trust God’s Love Lacy Finn Borgo; illustrated by Rebecca Evans (IVP Kids) $18.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

If there is anybody writing today about the faith formation of children and a spirituality of childhood that we really trust it is Lacy Borgo (author of, among others, Spiritual Conversations with Children.) As one who works with kids (including at a respite home for unhoused families) Borgo knows her stuff. And as you can tell from the title of this, she knows her medieval mystics, too. Who doesn’t want a children’s book with a line from Julian of Norwich in the title! And, yes, the famous hazelnut figures into the story.

This really is about the hope that God’s love prevails, that God works out things in ways that can be finally hopeful and healing. A elderly and ill grandmother tells young Julian who was angry and despondent about her grandmother’s health, about the famous saint and her trust in God. It shows the girl, Mimi, going back to school with a bit less anger and carrying the hazelnut.

There is a wise note to parents and adult readers in the back about processing loss and grief with children. It’s short, but very, very useful.

Every Breath, Every Blessing: Finding Hope on Tough Days Dorena Williamson; illustrated by Paran Kim (Zonderkidz) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

Speaking of kids coping with complicated matters, finding hope in hard times, the themes of All Shall Be Well are expressed similarly here in these colorful, exuberant scenes. What a fun and yet tender book this is, advising troubled littles to

• Breath In — Your life is a blessing
• Breath Out — You are more valuable than even the creatures in the sky
• Together, we are going to live one day at a time.

Whether a young child is worried about storms or news about natural disasters or social unrest or just  feels the feels of passionate emotions in ordinary life, this can help. “No matter what happens, you are loved and never alone.” This is a soothing message for every precious child so this moment together reading these words can be perfect for bonding time or addressing worries. Dorena Williamson is an esteemed children’s picture book writer who we love — we have her ColorFull and Crowned with Glory.

Keep Us This Day: A Morning Prayer for All of God’s Children / Keep Us This Night: An Evening Prayer for All of God’s Children  Todd R. Hains; illustrated by Natasha Kennedy (Lexham Press) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

This is one of these great flip books that can be read first one way, and then you turn it over and upside down and the second half is read, also front to back. A delight, no matter which end you start with!

This is one of the handful of FatCat books that we regularly promote and we’re glad for this gently liturgical resource, offering the rhythms of morning prayer and evening prayer for the child, her energetic family, siblings and, of course, the hidden cat on every page spread.

One need not be Lutheran to appreciate this, but the twin prayers in this book are drawn from his Small Catechism, published in 1529. The simple phrases are drawn from Psalm 31:5, Psalm 91:11 and Psalm 121.  Hooray.

Another neat part of this book is that the family is Korean, so there is some Korean language print besides the English type, and you will notice it in the home-life scenes. A fabulous book in so many ways, mature, if simple! Kudos.

Love Your Neighbor Chris Singleton; illustrated by Jayri Gómez (Bushel & Peck Books) $18.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

We love this inspirational (but not overtly Christian) book by the award winning author Chris Singleton. Yep, the former professional baseball player. It simply encourages kids and adults to love (!) everyone. Every one.

Those we know well and those we’ve not met. Those who see the world through different eyes. Even those who are far, far away. Everyone means everyone. So get loving — and watch how the tiniest actions can change your community forever.

I guess this is somewhat about diversity and acceptance of everybody, and it does a fun, playful job of showing various sorts of people to love. It’s simple, but not simplistic. And there is a scene of a bookstore. Hooray.

⊗ Bushel & Peck Books give free books to those in need as part of their literacy mission among those who are not fortunate to have books. On the book you can nominate a school or organization to receive free books!

God, Right Here Kara Lawler; illustrated by Jennie Poh (IVP Kids) $18.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

This is a charming book, with great cadence and vocabulary, provocative for younger ones and sweet even for those you might not think would settle in with such a poetic read. On the back it says, “God, right here. God, right there. God’s handiwork is everywhere.” (In a little afterword the author tells about her own love for nature and appreciation for God’s creation — citing Job 12, no less — as a child. Nice.)

The book is arranged by the seasons, so there is a lovely bit about apples and crisp weather and fall, and another has a picture of a Christmas tree (even though this is not a holiday book, as such.) I love the depiction of the changing of the seasons as a part of the Divine plan… really profound and lovely.

The art is a unique, edgy style, maybe a bit too Tim Burton for some at points, but it really works.

Sparking Peace Teresa Kim Pecinovsky and Hannah Rose Martin, illustrated by Gabhor Utomo (Herald Press) $17.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

You know that children you care about have heard about recent shootings, even school shootings.

Most know that some adults think we must do something about this, while others seem to think there is not much to be done. I hate to say it, but this book is needed now more than ever. We highlighted it when it came out this past Spring and here is what I wrote — I want to share it again. I hope you’ll consider who might need it in your circle of acquaintances.

Ooooh, I could say more about this brand new poetic tale which shows how weapons are turned into tools of peace. People can come together, the back cover promises, “to create lasting friendships and positive change.” What an interesting inspiring book.

Sparking Peace is a very redemptive story of a boy who helps his older neighbor clean up her yard and start a new garden. Later, the boy goes with his father to a community event that doesn’t only commemorate the sadness of gun violence but turns weapons into gardening tools just like the Bible predicts. The art is so vivid and moving — and at times exciting as community members (who are bearing grief, it seems) each take a moving swing at the forge under the supervision of their peacemaking blacksmith. You’ll love the ending, and the conversation starters at the end are really helpful. What a beautiful, beautiful book.

Check out RAWtools.org which inspired the story. 

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Thanks to those who told us that they found the last Hearts & Minds BookNotes helpful, reviews scattered across style and theme and perspective and price range as it was. It was a fabulous hodgepodge of titles that I said were some of our most anticipated releases of the early Fall. Apparently, some of you had been eager to see them, too. Aren’t you glad for fellow book-lovers who cherish the printed page as some sort of bread and ballast for this complicated journey? Anyway, that was a list of great reads, and I am glad they are all in stock. Visit our archived lists of our previous BookNotes at our website so you don’t miss any.

(As most of you know, we’re closed for in-store shopping, but you can pick them up here at the shop anytime; of course, we are mostly doing mail-order from this online setting. Thank you all for keeping us afloat in these trying days for indie booksellers.)

In this BookNotes we’re listing a baker’s dozen that are not here yet. Some will arrive in the next few days or so, others are a bit farther out, forthcoming, as we say.

You can PRE-ORDER them here, now. All are 20% off.

Remember: you can pre-order anything from us anytime and we are always grateful if you send us a note about whatever you want and whatever you are anticipating. These 13 are just a few that are coming in this season, a handful of the very best that we thought you’d want to consider.

Helpful hack: if you are pre-ordering more than one, or pre-ordering one that is forthcoming along with one that is already released, please tell us if you want us to send them as we are aable, one by one as they trickle in OR if we should hold them together, consolidating them. One is more expedient if you just can’t wait; the other more stewardly, I suppose, saving on shipping costs by bunching them together. They get our discount either way. We’re at your service — just tell us how we can help you best.

I’ll list the official release date of the title. We will get some of them early, I am sure.

Marce Catlett: The Force of a Story – A Port Williams Novel Wendell Berry (Counterpoint) $26.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.80

RELEASE DATE October 7, 2025

Wendell Berry hasn’t done a new novel in years and years. He has continued to write award-winning essays, had a collected edition of Sabbath poems released not too long ago, and, of course, did more than one volume of short stories. Many think he is a master of that genre, and adored his most recent, How It Went which was thirteen stories of the Port Williams membership, as he calls those who are part of that small, fictional town. They are members, he famously noted, whether they know it or not.

(In our next “Three Books from Hearts & Minds” podcast I describe three excellent books about the work of Wendell Berry which I think will be fascinating for anyone who reads his work. Look for it at YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts.)

Small town life, rural farming, woodsmanship, ecology, family, faith, duty, and fidelity are all themes in his gentle writing about home and exile and land and aging. His lyricism is famously beautiful as he develops a sense of place. I hope you know his beloved novels, at least Jayber Crow and Hannah Coulter. We can’t wait to get a few more pre-orders for this next novel, a story about an elder in the Andy Catlett family.

Marce has already appeared in a few of the books all set in the Port Williams locale. He’s the father of Wheeler Catlett and the grandfather of Andy (who has a short book about his travels one Christmas to visit his grandparents.)  The new Marce story includes a lot about Andy as he and his brother start the Burley Coulter Tobacco Growers Cooperative to fight the buyer’s greed and abuse.

The publisher has told us this much:

Andy Catlett tells the story of his grandfather and father’s lives and how their stories, recalled by Andy to his own children and grandchildren, become “A Story Unending.” Marce Catlett rises in the dark to go from his farm, by horseback and train, to Louisville for the sale of his tobacco crop at the auction house there. The price paid for each year’s crop is being determined and destroyed by the power of a single buyer, James B. Duke. This year is especially grim since the price offered each grower is less than the expense of bringing the crop to market, and a year’s worth of labor is lost. He returns to his family defeated and determined to discover some way to proceed. Many of his fellow farmers lack the resiliency and resourcefulness to continue, and the end for them is clearly visible. But with the help of other neighbors and growers, a way is discovered to protect the farmers and keep their rural families vital and in place.

It has been called both wistful and granular. Sounds about right. It will be one of the great novels of the year.

Marce Catlett: The Force of a Story releases October 7th in hardcover; 176 pages.

My Beloved: A Mitford Novel Jan Karon (Putnam) $32.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $25.60

RELEASE DATE October 7, 2025

Releasing the same day as the long-awaited Wendell Berry novel is this, the also very long awaited novel about faith and small town life, upbeat and charming in a way Berry’s perhaps is not, exactly, but still beloved by readers of all sorts. The Mitford saga continues — Karon hasn’t done a new novel since 2017 (To Be Where You Are) — and we are sure it will be heartwarming and delightful.  In My Beloved, a very personal letter Father Tim writes somehow goes missing and then goes public and it has a far-reaching (and, apparantly, sometimes quite poignant) effect. Just ask Hope, the town bookseller about that. Can a brush with death be a portal to a happy marriage? This is going to be good for those with a broken heart or longing for deeper hope, I’m sure. And they say it is a storied delight.

Fannie Flagg (author of Fried Green Tomatoes) says “Jan Karon is a national treasure. Prepare to laugh, cry and fall in love all over again…”

My Beloved releases October 7th in hardcover; 432 pages.

Christianity and Intellectual Inquiry: Thinking as Pilgrimage Douglas & Rhonda Hustedt Jacobson (Oxford University Press) $29.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

RELEASE DATE October 10, 2025

The husband and wife duo here are retired, I think, from Messiah University where they have not only had a long and important teaching career, but has spearheaded conversations about how their unique orientation — Messiah in rooted in a pietistic and Anabaptist heritage, although many profs are not exactly in the same evangelical tradition (Jacobson’s are UCC, I believe) — offers a particular sort of vision for what those in Christian higher education have discussed as “the integration of faith and learning.” In the past decades there were many scholarly books and a handful of accessible ones for undergrads or thoughtful others about the Christian mind, the vocation of Christian scholarship, the nature of relating one’s deepest orienting principles to one’s academic research. Many in the largely evangelical movement of distinctively Christian colleges and universities were nearing some sort of a consensus that faculty must profess not only their faith and their professional expertise, but must show somehow how the former influences the latter. And maybe vice-versa.

Artists, scientists, businesspeople, historians, journalists, nurses, engineers, teachers and all the rest of us day-to-day workers are called to have the renewed mind (see Romans 12: 1-2) so we can think well about living faithfully in but not of the world around us, even in our jobs and professional associations.

Messiah profs — decades ago — put out two major works (both Oxford University Press) showing how their unique theological tradition put a certain spin on this project and we still stock both of those, who want a only slightly Anabaptist take on this vocation of Christian scholarship.  But now — wow! — the Jacobson’s are back, doing yet another grand volume less specifically, I gather, for faculty serving in Christian higher education but for any and all of us. What does it mean to be a person of faith and be engaged in authentic intellectual inquiry? How do we know what we think we know and how might we be formed in conversations with others? How might the metaphor of pilgrimage help us in this big project that they’ve tackled here?  They go deep into these sorts of queries.

There are shorter trade paperbacks that address all of this (just see our latest “Three Books from Hearts & Minds” podcast highlighting three really nice books about reading widely and the love of learning) but this major academic work will be a must for those grappling seriously about all of this.

Christianity and Intellectual Inquiry releases October 10th 2025 in hardback; 232 pages.

Everyday Apocalypse: Art, Empire and the End of the World David Dark (Vanderbilt University Press) $24.95 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.96

RELEASE DATE October 15, 2025

I have not seen this forthcoming edition yet, but I will tell you that I admire David as much as any writer working today and enjoy his friendship and often allusive calls to justice and building a better world. I hope you know his extraordinary book I’ve loved since the first edition (where both Eugene Peterson and I had endorsing blurbs), The Sacredness of Asking Questioning Everything. That one naturally gave rise to the even more extraordinary Life’s Too Short to Pretend You Aren’t Religious which he considerably updated a few years back. And then the most robust, creative, remarkable bit of clever and profound social criticism I think I’ve ever read, We Become What We Normalize: What We Owe Each Other in Worlds That Demand Our Silence which should be read more than once and shared with others. I think he read the audio himself, if you like that approach.

This forthcoming one is a considerably re-written, major revision of his much-used and much-loved early work Everyday Apocalypse which was (and is) about pop culture. We have a huge section of such books — dozens of titles exploring faith and philosophy and meaning and hope and danger and goodness within rock and roll, films, video games, advertisements, country music, rap, TV and more. Everyday Apocalypse struck most readers as a perfect blend of edgy Christian insight, honest appreciation for everything from Radiohead to the Simpsons, and a lot of insight about how God’s alternative Kingdom might be better realized if we took seriously the social criticism embedded within many artifacts of popular entertainment. It was and is one of the best in show

Alas, David wants to repent of some things (and I take his use of the word seriously.) He thinks he not only needed to do a contemporary update, but, truly, a rethink. Like with his Life’s Too Short, he has learned some things, changed his mind about some stuff, and added some new intellectual shticks to his repertoire. He’s still fun and even funny, with a wit to match his passion and lament about a world gone wrong. I loved the first version of this book and cannot wait for this alternate version.

And it will have a forward by Ohioan Hanif Abdurraqib, author of There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension and They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us — wow.

I think of one of the most provocative and interesting books of Bible commentary I’ve ever encountered, by David’s friends Brian Walsh & Sylvia Keesmaat, is Romans Disarmed: Doing Justice/Resisting Empire. I wonder if David’s book might be “popular culture disarmed” as we “do justice and resist empire.”  In any case he will celebrate the goodness of the gifts of various cultural artifacts and carry a bit of punchy subversion.

Again, this new edition isn’t a rehash of the older one but, he says, an entirely new book. His Tennessee colleagues at Vanderbilt know him well and he is proud to be published by this storied academic publishing house. We can’t wait to get it in and see what the new edition has to offer. It will, I hope, cause us all to repent a bit. And have fun doing it.

Here’s the new table of contents:

• Foreword by Hanif Abdurraqib
• Chapter 1: Fight The Real Enemy: Apocalyptic & Earthseed & the Lyricism of Protest
• Chapter 2: You Think You Been Redeemed: Flannery O’Connor’s Exploding Junk Pile of Despair
• Chapter 3: Damn Everything But The Circus: Loving The Simpsons
• Chapter 4 Bearing Witness: The Tired Gladness of Radiohead
• Chapter 5: Living in Fiction: The Matrix, The Truman Show, And How to Free Your Mind
• Chapter 6: We’re All Part of the Total Scene: Digging in with Beck
• Chapter 7: Daylight is a Dream If You’ve Lived with Your Eyes Closed: The Cinematic Epiphanies of Joel and Ethan Coen
• Chapter 8: True Garbage: An Exercise in Self-Exhortation

Everyday Apocalypse releases October 10, 2025; 222 pages.

All Things Together: How Apprenticeship to Jesus Is the Way to Flourishing in a Fragmented World Heath Hardesty (Multnomah) $18.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

RELEASE DATE October 14, 2025

There are so many good, and even great, contemporary books, written in breezy prose, and offering good insight about deepening one’s discipleship. Few say much truly new (who needs to, after all?) and many are very fresh to read, even as they draw on ancient truths. I’m so happy about the accesible, yet mature writing, that it is hard to suggest just one or two of the many books about basic Christian living and growing faith in these crazy days.  To be honest, I figured this was another fine and dandy one, and we’d order a few, hoping somebody out there would have heard of it and send us an order. I was happy to do so, but not that excited.

Until I got an advanced copy and in skimming it sensed that this was accessible and fun, and really a cut above most. And then I heard from a literary friend I very much respect who assured me that Hardesty is the really, real deal and his book is a contemporary gem.

So I’ve started it and I fully agree. This is a quiet torrent of good writing and splendid insight, maybe a contemporary sort of Eugene Peterson, even. Not as dense as Dallas Willard but not quite as simple as the (great) John Mark Comer. Jon Tyson from NYC wrote a fabulous foreword predicting that this book about living an integrated life —Tyson says it is “not a quick fix but a way home” — will surely gather a good reputation. I loved his down-to-Earth line about getting bruises from “plumbing and pastoring.”  We don’t need more spiffy big screen televangelists, but I will listen to a pastor who is bruised. From plumbing, no less.

In a fast-paced and even fragmented world we need a “long obedience in the same direction” as we live out of our union with Christ and practice disciplines of formation in apprenticeship to the Lord Jesus. This book is going to be remembered as the debut of an author who will be respected for years to come.

All Things Together releases October 14, 2005; 260 pages.

The Myth of Good Christian Parenting: How False Promises Betrayed a Generation of Evangelical Families Marissa Franks Burt & Kelsey Kramer McGinnis (Brazos Press) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

RELEASE DATE October 14, 2025

I read this in one long, aggravated sitting, one long Sunday, and it was, as I expected, both common sense concerns about extremist parenting stuff that passes for “Christian” and an expose of the harm done by exceptionally strict and cult-like leaders like the Ezzos and Bill Gothard. These are names and teachings we never appreciated, and Burt & McGinnis are expert sociological critics offering sane Christian criticism of those fundamentalist dangers.

But the book does more than critique the far-out fringes of conservative Protestant parenting advice that was popular over the last four or five decades, the “QuiverFull” cult and those who wrote large, detailed manifestos about punishing sinful children. (Including some really weird statements by Doug Wilson.) No, it looks at the more mainstream sort of stuff sold in typical Christian bookstores — including ours! — largely on the coattails of Focus on the Family. Their insights about how evangelical entrepreneurialism and radio and TV firepower and the huge (now decimated) network of Christian bookstores created a real movement (making millions for many) of conservative, patriarchal, self-help, evangelical parenting.

The Myth of Good Christian Parenting documents tragic stuff in those circles and insists that even the less egregiously strict authors and teachings left a mark that wounded many. It is something we know a little something about.

The book is important as it is one slice of what some are calling the trend towards deconstruction (that is, giving up some or all of the teachings and attitudes of an evangelical past.) If you care about those who have been hurt by toxic sorts of faith — perhaps as children, perhaps as parents, perhaps as church leaders — this book is a must.

Their theological meditations and storytelling and exposé and historical study is all very persuasive. I must say — maybe I’ll write about it more, later — that some of it was convicting as I recall selling some of the books and authors they discuss who at the time seemed relatively benign.

I know we had and still do have diverse titles in our huge parenting and family section; we had Episcopalian contemplative approaches and books like Parenting for Peace and Justice and mainline Protestant studies alongside selected Focus products. I can remember vivid conversations with other young parents (we were parenting kids ourselves) as we walked through our family section, reminding customers to take every thing written or advised with a grain of salt, not to overdo any one “school of thought” and to temper it all with some standard-fare secular wisdom as well. We sold Veggie Tales and enjoyed Mr. Rogers. We pushed the mostly secular Read-Aloud Handbook alongside wise Christian resources like Honey for a Child’s Heart. Our side-by-side blend of titles from Reformed and secular and Methodist and progressive and Mennonite authors seems to have mitigated, or so I hope, some of the harshness that these authors more strict authors that were in many Christian bookstores or church libraries.

Apparently, as you can imagine, not all Christian booksellers promoted egalitarian authors and feminist critiques of harsh patriarchal vibes. Still, I found it troubling to think we sold and maybe continue to stock resources that could inspire parents to do harm to little ones. This book is important, and has got me thinking more about all this, and I commend it.

I especially commend it to any booksellers or Christian educators tasked with helping with the formation of wholesome Christian families. Their citation of dozens of popular evangelical titles and their comparison charts are exceptionally helpful to illustrate what authors and books tend to be more or less harmful or troubling.  This includes older best-sellers in this genre and other family-oriented ministries which many of us know by name. Agree or not, fully, with their keen assessments, there is no book on the market like this and anybody who uses resources of this sort simply has to have it in their toolkit so they can lead well in this arena.

Burt and McGinnis are good writers and they care deeply about human flourishing, as God intended, without toxic sorts of faith hurting families with shame and patriarchy. I think this is a significant book.

The Myth of Good Christian Parenting releases October 14th, 2025; 225 pages

Art Is: A Journey into the Light Makoto Fujimura (Yale University Press) $30.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

RELEASE DATE October 21, 2025

I gave an early shout-out about this previously and we have a few pre-orders, but I know many of our favorite customers (and maybe some future favorite friends) will surely want to know about this. I can’t say much, yet, since I have not seen it, but Mako is a friend and a very, very esteemed writer. It is an honor to know him.

As you may know, he is a faithful, profoundly devout Christian with a big worldview that  leans into the goodness of creation, even as it is broken and vandalized. His hope for Christ’s generous redemption, pointed at even in the glories of beauty and the hints of divinity found in common grace, is palatable. He is a serious thinker, an excellent writer, a bold person of faith who is generous to all. And, he is a world-class, highly regarded abstract artist using a rather rare and ancient style of Japanese painting.

Mr. Fujimura has written a handful of excellent books that we have loved and anytime we set up books off site we almost always include a few of his. His reflections are mature and wise and we regularly recommend his Refractions or Culture Care or his fine chapter in the bigger collection It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God. In 2021, Yale University Press released what felt like a magnum opus, a major, serious work, Art and Faith: A Theology of Making. There was a forward by one of the great Biblical writers of our time, N. T. Wright. As important as that was, I have often wondered what in the world he would do next?

Art Is…is going to be nothing short of awesome, I am sure, and I’m told some of his art will be reproduced. It has been called “luminous” and another early reviewer, Christopher Rothko, calls it a “beautifully heartfelt text.”  It is said to be somewhat like an “intimate study tour” and shows us something of his process. Joyce Yu-Jean Lee of New York’s famous Pratt Institute says it “invites creative souls into Mako’s painting process–fusing the alchemy of light with his theology of making.”

Yale University Press writes:

When Makoto Fujimura painted as a child, he felt a mysterious electrical charge pass through him. Over decades of art making, writing, and reflecting in his studio, he has come to understand this charge as his Creator — a source he connects with most profoundly when making art. To be human is to be creative, Fujimura believes, and art making is a discipline of awareness, prayer, and praise by which we journey back to our original light.

Art Is… was listed by Publishes Weekly as one of the most significant titles of Fall 2025. We agree. It releases in hardcover October 21, 2025; 232 pages.

For the Love of Women: Uprooting and Healing Misogyny in America Dorothy Little Greco (Zondervan Reflective) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

RELEASE DATE October 28, 2025

Dorothy is a very fine writer – she has two excellent books about marriage (one about the beauty in marriage and the other a fabulous resource for middle-aged couples.) We respect her and are grateful for her good thinking and well-crafted prose.

This book is important, very important. From the debates about toxic masculinity (and some clearly is toxic) to the way women still get paid less than men, to the push back in recent years about women’s role in church and family, the complicated word misogyny carries an important message. Certain views about men being in charge hurts half the human race. And, I think Dorothy would say, hurts men as well.

We have learned (or most of us have) to think about the ways racist attitudes pervade our deepest assumptions and certainly how white supremacy has been encoded in certain systems in the land. From politics to the economy, family studies and urban affairs, racism is part of the informed conversation and most decent folks want to be anti-racist, personally and in terms of the architecture of society. Right?

And so, we must be anti-misogyny. Anti-sexism. Pro-justice for all of God’s children.

Dorothy Greco’s book is not a woke screed mimicking new wave feminists, although I’d be glad even if it was only that. But it is more: For the Love of Women is a theological and substantive bit of exploration, a study and expose, a call for us to realize and act against disdain for women that is more prevalent than we may realize.

As Greco points out in this lively book, “misogyny persists in American culture — often in ways subtler and more insidious than the outright sexism of the past. (Although, in recent months some so-called Christian leaders, more popular than they ought to be, have floated the idea that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote! Maybe it isn’t so subtle after all!)

As the back cover so properly says, “If we hope to disrupt and heal from misogyny, we must first be able to identify and understand it.” For the Love of Women has tons of research made understandable, lots of interviews (some rather painful, actually) and solid Biblical guidance. She shows how this anti-women tone corrupts six spheres of culture.

For the Love of Women looks at healthcare, the workplace, the government, media and entertainment, religious institutions and our intimate and family relationships. It’s important and particularly that she covers these domains — from the personal to the public, from church practices to government policy, from workplace habits to media trends. There is no other Christian book like it.

Can we turn this thing around, create relationships and cultures and structures that promote mutuality, care, and justice?

Violence against women is too prevalent and people (of both major political parties) in high places have been too often given a pass for their actions. This should light a fire for all of us to study and resolve to be agents of God’s ways in this central aspect of our lives together. I am glad for books like the must-read Safe Church: How to Guard Against Sexism and Abuse in Christian Communities by Dr. Andrew J. Bauman (Baker Books; $18.99) or Diane Langberg’s solid When the Church Harms God’s People: Becoming Faith Communities That Resist Abuse, Purse Truth, and Care for the Wounded (Brazos Press; $19.99) or the nearly seminal The #MeToo Reckoning: Facing the Church’s Complicity in Sexual Abuse and Misconduct by Ruth Everhart (IVP; $19.99.)

But we really need a broader, Christian assessment of misogyny in culture and society. Dorothy Littell Greco’s well-researched volume is a God-send. Read it and weep. And then read it again, and vow to take steps to become more intentionally vocal about expressing God’s good and gracious love for women.

For the Love of Women releases October 28, 2025 in paperback; 256 pages.

The Body Teaches the Soul: Ten Essential Habits to Form a Healthy and Holy Life Justine Whitmel Earley (Zondervan) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

RELEASE DATE October 28, 2025

I adore the fine, hip, honest writing style of the upbeat and practical lawyer, Justin Earley. We sold a lot of his first one and it remains one we show off everywhere — The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction. (A gig shout-out goes to IVP for putting this handsome book into the world and getting this author known.) The family-oriented version of that came next, called Habits of the Household.There is now even a youth / teen edition of The Common Rule, with its cool graphics and references to research, Earley’s practical guidance or setting boundaries on screens and affirming things to do rather than getting lost in the digital sphere. Since his guidance on making your own Common Rule included fostering friendships and accountability partners and seeking community rather than solo, on-line stuff, it was natural that his next book, Made for People. Overlapping with concerns documented in books like The Anxious Generation Early focus on the loneliness epidemic and insisted that God made us for relationships. Friendship matters.

And yet, there is more. In this forthcoming one he will explore the embodied context of all of this. Our shift from an almost exclusively online, digital life to a lively, relational, principled one, will take not just rules and friends, but an attention on the body. He wants us to live wholistic, integrated, embodied spirituality.

I do not think that the soon to be released The Body Teaches… will be mostly a book about exercise or physical strength building, but, rather, it will explore the interface of our bodily reality and the breath /spirit that makes us alive. Following several recent titles about creaturely embodiment and the value of our bodies (think, just for instance of Embracing the Body: Finding God in Our Flesh and Bones by Tara Owens or Faith Embodied: Glorifying God with out Physical and Spiritual health by Stephen Ko) this soon-to-be-released one is going to be an amazing, vital contribution. Especially with some recent research about everything from insomnia to anxiety, which he himself experienced. And I’m betting on a really handsome look, too, making it really interesting.

I’m looking forward to it.

Listen well to our friend and one of the most wise and eloquent writers today, Dr. Curt Thompson (author of, among others, The Soul of Desire and The Deepest Place.) Curt says:

We need to be regularly, repetitively reminded of what is good and beautiful in the world, not least of how we are to live. And with The Body Teaches the Soul, Justin Whitmel Earley reminds us what the ancient biblical writers informed us of so long ago: that our bodies together with our breath make us human, and we ignore or idolize the body to our peril. I invite you to read this book with hope and confidence that the God who made us, bodies and souls, is in the business of honoring and redeeming all of who we are for joy and glory.

The Body Teaches the Soul releases October 28, 2025. It is paperback; 272 pages.

Insane for the Light: A Spirituality for Our Wisdom Years Ronald Rolheiser (Image) $27.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $21.60

RELEASE DATE October 28, 2025

I hope you know Ronald Rolheiser, a Catholic priest (Oblates of Mary Immaculate), former college president, and spiritual writer who has given us some of the finest ruminations on the inner life that I have read in recent decades. He is to be found alongside those who appreciate Richard Foster and Ruth Haley Barton, Basil Pennington and Richard Rohr, Henri Nouwen and Howard Thurman, Martin Laird and Evelyn Underhill. You get the drift; this guy is up there.

Many loved his Shattered Lantern: Rediscovering a Felt Presence of God. I think his most notable work is The Holy Longing: The Search for Christian Spirituality and many really liked his Sacred Fire: A Vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Maturity. This, however, is more specific, applying his holistic and humane Catholic spirituality to those who are approaching their elder years. In a way it seems to be the final part of a trilogy, starting with Holy Longing and Sacred Fire.

The title, by the way, comes from a line from a poem by Goethe (and, not surprisingly, translated from the German by Robert Bly.) The poem is called “The Holy Longing” and the line about the light is what Rolheiser applies to those maturing into wise ones, older sages. I think this is more theologically meaty than Rohr’s popular Falling Upward and more deeply Christian than Parker Palmer’s altogether lovely On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old, both of which I’ve enjoyed and heartily recommend. I haven’t gotten very far into it yet, but I see it coming: Rolheiser moves us through some stages of our evolving spirituality and then uses Saint John of the Cross (and some Henri Nouwen) to reflect on “giving away” our own deaths. Hmm.

Father Rolheiser has not written a major book in a while. He has done exquiste small ones, almost booklets, on sexual chastity, on coping with suicide, on praying at home, and more. This forthcoming one is a long-awaited collection of major chapters — with fabulous citations and great footnotes! — and for those of us in our “wisdom years” I think we really need it. Thanks be to God.

Insane for the Light comes out October 28, 2025; 224 pages.

Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around: How the Black Church’s Public Witness Leads Us Out of the Culture War Justin Giboney (IVP) $25.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $20.79

RELEASE DATE November 4, 2025 Just arrived!

I know we’ll get this early and I’m thrilled to soon read it. The historic Black church has been a fascinating topic for me and those who study the Civil Rights movement know how the church served as an empowered space for activists. Not all Black congregations have the same public theology or social ethos, of course, and this has been an area of some scholarly study — The Divided Mind of the Black Church: Theology, Piety, and Public Witness by Ralph Warnock is an important work. I wonder if Giboney will cite it?

Another book that ought to be in conversation with this forthcoming must-read is Making It Plain: Why We Need Anabaptism and the Black Church by central Pennsylvania activist and professor, Dr. Drew Hart. In that great paperback, Hart invites us to receive the witness of the Anabaptist tradition, realizing that the two marginalized voices in Christianity — the black church and the Anabaptists — have major contributions to make. Again, I wonder if Giboney will cite it?

Justin Giboney’s big project, then, is immensely important and I am sure this book is going to become a go-to, vital vision for those seeking a way out of the conventional left vs right culture wars. As important as the two books I just mentioned may be, I am quite sure that this is going to be extraordinarily vital. Drawing on the rich spiritual insights of this particular minority faith community might be one of the most instructive practices for many of us, and most of us have a lot of learning to do to get up to speed. Giboney has already given us great words and insight in his co-authored book with Michael Wear called Compassion [&] Conviction (about the “and” campaign.) Rejecting the false dichotomies between word and deed, between evangelism and social engagement, between conservatives and liberals is a great start to thinking about how to engage the cultural ethos and point to a better way. The tag line on the back of this well-researched work will be “choose witness over war.”

Esau McCaulley wrote the forword to Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around and Tish Harrison Warren has an endorsement saying it is “required reading.” Sportscaster (and founder of the K.I.N.G. movement) Chris Broussard calls it “A masterpiece — a Christian, historical, political masterpiece.”

Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around officially releases in November but it just arrived and we are permitted to sell it early. It’s  212 pages in hardcover. Hooray.

Liturgies for Resisting Empire: Seeking Community, Belonging, and Peace in a Dehumanizing World Kat Armas (Brazos Press) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

RELEASE DATE November 4, 2025

We have enjoyed having the two previous books by Kat Armas, a Cuban-American writer of great depth. Her fantastic book on marginalized women in the Bible and in her own life, Abuelita Faith: What Women on the Margins Teach Us about Wisdom, Persistence, and Strength remains a staple here. Next she did a 40-day devotional, a collection of provocative readings called Sacred Belonging: A 40-Day Devotional on the Liberating Heart of Scripture. Those paying attention to young-ish rising authors with excellent insights and good writing chops will keep an eye on her. Rave endorsements support her work, with blurbs from Randy Woodley and Karen Gonzalez and Marlena Graves and Emily Freeman. Danté Stewart talks about how her words “dance and sing” made him rethink “what it means to dance and sing and write as a theologian.”  Along with them, I can’t wait to see Liturgies for Resisting Empire. I suspect we’ll have it early, too.

I do not know what the actual format of this will be. I have a hunch it will be more than poetic prayers, maybe some reflections or ruminations. (These days different people have different uses of the word “liturgies.”) I do know that there is a call-and-response sort of cadence, with chapters like this:

• A Liturgy for Resisting Empire
• 1. Rejecting Empire, Embracing Joy
• 2. Rejecting Lies, Embracing Reality
• 3. Rejecting Ideology, Embracing Wisdom
• 4. Rejecting Hierarchy, Embracing Kinship
• 5. Rejecting Dualism, Embracing Paradox
• 6. Rejecting Hustle, Embracing Rest
• 7. Rejecting Sameness, Embracing Wholeness
• 8. Rejecting Dominance, Embracing Connection
• 9. Resisting Violence, Embracing Peace
• A Benediction of Belonging

A Liturgy for Rejecting Empire releases November 4, 2025; 225 pages

A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance Diana Butler Bass (St. Martin’s Essentials) $28.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $22.40

RELEASE DATE November 4, 2025

I’ve arranged these books to pre-order by release date but I’m happy to say, with no disrespect to the other awesome authors named above, that we’ve saved the best for last. Okay, that’s a little schmaltzy, but Beth and I love Diana. We have known her casually for decades and have worked with her husband perhaps just as long when he was in the publishing industry. I have read all her books. We have celebrated and tried to sell these great titles — even if I might say things a bit differently from time to time (imagine that!) We have commended them to folks across the church spectrum and from various theological traditions.

Diana’s last book, Freeing Jesus, was a memoir of sorts, reflecting on how she came to understand the person of Jesus and his and work and teaching at various stages in her life. Like a beautiful unfolding drama or a complex mosaic, she tells personal stories and offers both Biblical and theological insight at various places in or stages of her ever-growing relationship with Jesus (and His church.) As a devout believer, as an ecumenical church person, as a professional historian, as one who has studied the sociology of churches, and, as one (living near DC) who has been particularly attentive to the dangers of recent shifts in the American political and religious landscape, she is an ideal writer to reflect on all of this. Have her own changes and shifts and growth in faith and understanding mirrored those that others have felt? Certainly, yes. I loved Freeing Jesus and found myself in its wondrous pages time and again.

Anyway, Diana has used her training as an historian and scholar of American religious experience to guide her into doing several important books of congregational life, offering hope for churches in a changing religious context. We’ve reviewed her books here and celebrated them all. I especially loved her one called Grounded: Finding God in the World (which she calls “a spiritual revolution”) and her wonderful work, surprisingly captivating for me, called Gratitude: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks. We follow her online writing and commend it to you, even as she explores the dangers of the resurgence these days of white supremacy and idolatrous Christian nationalism.

And yet, here’s the thing: she has studied under and been friends with some of the finest mainline denominational leaders of our era and she is a heck of a preacher. She is well-rooted in her ecumenical understanding, including her previous seasons in evangelicalism, Reformed and otherwise. Now she is a fairly standard, if exceptionally thoughtful, Epsiopalian, with a generous and wide network. She knows everybody from Rowan Williams to Mariann Edgar Budde, from Brian McLaren to Canon Kelly Brown Douglas to the non-Episcopalian, Anne Lamott. One of my favorite photos of dear Diana showed her in her middle-class business suit (with pearls!) next to her pal, the sleeveless, tatted up Nadia Bolz-Weber.

Which leads me just to say this: A Beautiful Year is a great way to encounter her charm and brilliance. She starts with some rumination on our view of time, the flow of the seasons. Christians, of course, have historically arranged their lives to be somewhat shaped by the story of the gospel expressed in the liturgical calendar. You know we’ve featured many books on this (and hosted our friend Paul Metzger once on a webinar inspired by his good collection of meditations around the church year.) Here, Diana is doing something similar, inviting us to think through the big themes of the church year as a way to get our bearings in these disorienting, dangerous times. Yep, this forthcoming volume offers 52 weekly, Biblical essays, thoughtful devotionals, if you will. The very meaning of the title as I’ve pondered it — a beautiful year — has left me gobsmacked.

I do not for a minute think Diana is backing away from her prophetic call to resist the powers that be, to speak out against the madness of indiscriminate ICE detentions and troops illegally dispatched to cities, of gross wars against civilian populations in Gaza and a President who dabbles in QAnon chaos. But as those who follow her lectionary sermons online well know, she wants to be grounded in a story that is not merely a reaction to our times. She wants to be rooted in a classic understanding of the Good News of the restoring reign of God, springing to new creation life in our midst. She wants to share Bible truths, rich and generative and creative and lovely, not to pummel those who do not see what she sees or insist that her interpretation is the only way, but to invite us all into a year-long conversation. What does faith mean in these times, knowing what we know? What does it mean to be rooted in ancient wisdom? How do we carry on when religionists cite violence against those not like them?

I think her call to perseverance through beauty is really something. The title is lovely, the cover has flowers on it. There are a few pencil drawings of fruit and seashells and pumpkins and such, a nice, homespun touch. She may be an academic but her father was a florist and she has this decorative touch. And that’s an indication that she’s a darn good storyteller, too. She relates her own often tender stories to the epic stories of the Bible, creatively considered, sometimes with daring interpretation. You are going to cherish this book. Pre-order a few today.

A Beautiful Year releases November 4, 2025; 336 pages.

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