In the last BookNotes column I noted that Alan Noble, in his new Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age, talks about how novels can be windows to deeper things, stories can engage our imaginations and create ways for us to think about the things that matter most. As I said, he is in line with what James K.A. Smith, drawing particularly on Charles Taylor and his massive philosophical study called The Secular Age, has said as well. Reading fiction is important for any number of reasons, not least is that it is one of the ways to help us think about and talk about important things with our friends and neighbors.
Of course one doesn’t need to read philosophical studies of the spirit of the age to know the power of novels. Cornelius Plantinga wrote a marvelous book a few years ago explaining in lovely detail why pastors and preachers should read widely. That was called Reading for Preaching: The Preacher in Conversation with Storytellers, Biographers, Poets, and Journalists (Eerdmans; $14.00)and for a while I went around calling him my patron saint. It’s for preachers, I suppose, but we recommend it to one and all. More recently our friend from Englewood Review of Books wrote Reading for the Common Good: How Books Help Our Churches and Neighborhoods Flourish (IVP; $16.00) which explored the missional vision of reading widely, both fiction and nonfiction. Chris is a lover of words, tells about the value of poetry, and insists on the value and importance of reading novels, all for the sake of the Kingdom of God.
Maybe you have heard that there are three books coming out this fall about the joys of reading and offering book lists of all sorts. I was very moved by the serious and helpful Book Girl: A Journey Through the Treasures and Transforming Power of a Reading Life by the very smart and widely read Sarah Clarkson which is coming in early September from Tyndale ($15.99; you can pre-order it from us at our BookNotes 20% off, of course.) Further, we have an early version and can heartily recommend I’d Rather Be Reading:The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life by one Anne Bogel, a.k.a. the Modern Mrs. Darcy book blogger which you can also pre-order from us. It, too, is coming out early September 2018, published by Baker. It will sell for $14.95 and is a compact-sized hardback.
Most significantly, we have been encouraged by the many pre-orders of the forthcoming book by Karen Swallow Prior, On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books (Brazos; $19.99.) I hope you saw our BookNotes description of it a while back.
We are very happy to be hosting Karen here at the shop on Friday night, September 14, 2018. Please help us spread the word – if you love good literature, she will be sharing how both classics and contemporary novels can help us by shaping virtue. It’s going to be a good time and we are looking forward to the release of her book in early September and our book party here the 14th.
TEN GOOD ONES
And so, yes, reading novels is an enjoyable sort of entertainment, a valuable way to spend some time that brings pleasure and insight; such art and entertainment can develop our empathy and give us new courage and deepen even hope, faith and love. Why not take these remaining summer months to read a few extra novels and why not buy one for a friend who needs a lift? It really could be a transforming, appreciated gift. We’ll even send it for you with a note tucked in if you’d like…
ALL 20% OFF // ORDER BELOW
All of these are 20% off their regular prices. You can order them by using our secure order form page at the link below; just tell us what you want. We understand that some have scruples about books with course language or rough stuff. Not all are written from a viewpoint that is Christian. Not all of these are for everyone, naturally.
Still, these are all really good. Happy reading.
Heron River: A Novel Hugh Cook (Mosaic Press) $16.00 Hugh Cook is a novelist who has been known in the Dutch Reformed faith communities of Ontario for quite some time; I used to read him in a magazine called Vanguard decades ago and he has often read or lectured at the popular and widely esteemed Calvin College Festival of Faith and Writing. (That should nearly settle it; to be involved in that bi-annual event is a great marker for faith-informed writers. It is its own kind of recommendation.) Cook is a vivid writer and a great storyteller (and, I happen to know, a voracious reader of excellent literature, from Flannery O’Conner to Kent Haruf.) One of his previous novels earned a regional award in Canada and another has been adapted for the stage. He is Canadian writer that I wish was better known in the States.
Heron River is one of the most enthralling and captivating stories I’ve read all year and I want to highly recommend it. The back cover warns us that it is:
…a deeply moving exploration of human error and redemption, tragedy and triumph, set in the supposed safety of a small Ontario town. The novel poignantly confronts the necessary possibilities for human forgiveness and love amidst adversity.
I think that is a good summary of its emotional and religious themes, except maybe the part about triumph; there is satisfying resolution at the end, goodness, even, but I’d not call it triumphant. I did fight back tears and breathed deeply as I grinned at the beautiful ending but I’d be a little reluctant to use words like triumph or even redemption. It is deeply Christian and there is a scene of great redemption – I don’t want to spoil it – but it is overtly Christian and nuanced and realistic, so, indeed, there is this spiritual aspect that quietly comes to one of the main characters. (That it involved a boy in his Anglican church is itself oddly rare in many religious novels, it seems to me, and a wonderful part of the plot of Heron River.)
But let me be clear; much of this is ugly and hard and although it isn’t horror or true crime, there is a dark aspect to this, some criminal investigations and a few frightening scenes. I don’t read stories about savage crime and I don’t even really enjoy mysteries, so I suppose I was so struck by this because I’m not that familiar with what could easily turn too morbid. But Cook isn’t dreary or nihilistic, so even the awful stuff that happens – the near death of a child, a woman with increasingly troubling MS, a hard-to-handle character in a group home for the disabled, an aging Dutch father with dementia in a nursing home, a senseless murder and vile vengeance – wasn’t overwhelming for this sensitive reader. But it is a robust story of sin and anguish and shame and considerable hardships.
But it is also a beautiful book –a very beautiful book. The opening pages about a woman starting her day, cutting rhubarb from her moist garden as she prepares a pie for a church event, is just so gorgeously rendered it assured me this was going to be a very pleasurable, artful read. When the horrific hits, it is also appropriately described. Cook is a skilled craftsman of words and a mature writer and it shows.
Here’s a fun thing about Cook’s genius in telling this story: different characters have different ways of speaking and his writing style transfigures from elegant to blunt, from complex to long, goofy, run-on sentences that go on and on as some inarticulate folk tend to do. It didn’t take too long to realize this device and when those breathy, nearly stupidly long sentences from those characters began, I took a deep breath and went along for the ride. What fun.
There is an important aspect of the story that is set in a group home for the mentally challenged and a few kind and strong caregivers at the house. Part of the book is told through the experiences of Adam, a resident of the home and it is unlike anything I’ve ever read. The description of the house and the various sorts of handicapping conditions of the young adult residences rang very true. Again, it was weighty, moving, poignant, but also a very enjoyable experience, reading such a well-told story with so many deeply human angles.
Cook doesn’t overplay the role of the beautiful blue Herons that occasional appear in the river that plays such a role in the story. You’ve heard of the “wrong side of the tracks”? In a way, there are two communities in play here, on different sides of the river; one is suburban and seemingly safe and the other side houses folks in poorer homes, including a Native population. One of the First Nation characters is a major voice in the story as he teaches the somewhat brain-damaged Adam some Indian creation stories and pays him for his manual labor. Why was I afraid this would not be the case? Who are the forces for redemption in a story with such brokenness and whose characters have such foibles? How are healing and hope experienced when there are such fierce bonds among families (especially when some families are so broken?)
How does beauty figure in and what is the symbolic meaning of the majestic scene with the heron near the end? I get choked up even thinking about it, and I hope you do to.
To be candid, this is a book intentionally informed by Christian worldview and written by a man known, I suspect, as a Christian writer (although the independent publishing house is not.) Two churches figure into the story, as does a beautiful moment of reading a Psalm from an old Dutch Bible. However there is rough language, some sexual banter, lots of cussing from the characters who appear and some violence. Perhaps it will be a bit much for your taste. Interestingly, I know an evangelical pastor who featured it in his church as a book club title because he wanted to talk about it with his parishioners. Read Heron River by Hugh Cook and you might want to talk about it, too. We are thrilled to recommend it and hope you like it as much as I did.
There There: A Novel Tommy Orange (Knopf) $25.95 This is a complex novel comprised of many interlocking characters who are all urban Native peoples (and it, too, for the record, has characters who use the F word a lot.) So much of contemporary fiction about American Indians is set on the rez and There There breaks new ground, set in the rough streets of inner city Oakland CA. It is vulgar and written with, as one reviewer put it, “A rush of intensity and fervor… bursting with talent and big ideas… Funny and profane and conscious of the violence that runs like a scar thorough American culture.” Ron Charles calls is “Masterful… White-hot. A devastating debut novel.” It has been described in extraordinary ways; Margaret Atwood says it is “astonishing” and Dwight Garner in the New York Times writes of his “Bravura… There There has so much jangling energy and brings so much news from a distinct corner of American life that it’s a revelation. Its appearance marks the passing of a generational baton.”
I am not sure why I couldn’t put it down. It was excellently, passionately written; the characters were all so very intriguing (and most all pretty different.) There was the device of going back to earlier parts of the main characters lives so there was some sort of epic, intergenerational thing going on (including a sub-plot about how some of the American Indian Movement radical activism perhaps influence the younger children of adult activists.) So much going on, so many new insights and experiences about which I’ve never read. It really was a troubling, moving read – with a non-fiction forward about Native people’s history that is itself nearly worth a literary prize for extraordinary prose.
The Solace of Water: A Novel Elizabeth Byler Younts (Thomas Nelson) $15.99 Several of our staff have just adored this fascinating story that gives a very thoughtful and unexpected twist on the “Amish” fiction genre. Younts lives in Central Pennsylvania and the novel is set in the 1950s in a rural community in Pennsylvania. The well-written plot revolves around two women in great grief – an African American woman who has moved North from the Jim Crow South and a local Amish woman. They initially bond over their losses – both have lost children (and in one case, water was involved.) The author believes that it is “eminently relevant to the beauty and struggle in America today.” What a lovely, thoughtful, serious and eloquent book – Beth was very taken with it and has been telling others!
The Cloister: A Novel James Carroll (Nan Talese/Doubleday) $27.95 You may know Carroll as a left-wing Catholic who has written widely about mendacity and complicity and corrupt money in our public lives. He has called the church to greater commitments to integrity and justice. He also, by the way, wrote one of the most moving memoirs I have ever read, An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us for which he won the American Book Award in 1996. (That book, by the way, eloquently tells of his increasing involvement in the anti-Viet Nam war movement even as his father was a strategist for the war at the Pentagon and family friends with President Johnson’s family. It is one of the important books in my life and my dad and I talked about it deeply.) The Cloister is Mr. Carroll’s first novel and it is a modern-day re-working of the famous medieval illicit love story of Aberlard and Heloise – set in the The Cloisters in New York City. (Ha – bet you didn’t see that coming.) Nicholas Delbanco says it is “wonder-filled” and another reviewer says it is an “enlightening, vitally important book, a necessity for our time.” There are overlapping narrative arcs (the lovers are a Catholic priest and a French Jewish woman) as the story moves from the Nazi holocaust to the Crusades to the “startling mysteries of prejudice, brutality, and love.” One writer compared it to All the Light We Cannot See and another says, “like all the best fiction, it commandeers the reader’s heart.” I am really looking forward to it.
Little Fires Everywhere Celeste Ng (Penguin Press) $27.00 Am I the only literate person left in North America who hasn’t read this yet? Beth loved it and lots of folks are talking about it so if you have been dragging your feet on this, why not order it now? It is, as you may know, a much-acclaimed work about family, a deeply empathetic reflection on the perplexities of our lives. Terry McMillan says she is a “powerful and poignant writer” and Jodi Picoult says “I read Little Fires Everywhere in a single, breathless sitting.” Set in Shaker Heights, a rich suburb outside of Cleveland, Little Fires Everywhere is about “the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood.”
Ng is known for exploring the experiences of Asian Americans (as in her stunning debut Everything I Never Told You) and a sub-plot includes a debate about a white family attempting to adopt a Chinese baby and how the potentially adopting parents are or aren’t aware of the complexities of such things. Little Fires has been called “witty” and “wise” and “tender” and “engrossing.” Let’s read it!
Everything I Never Told You Celeste Ng (Penguin) $16.00 Beth tell us that in her opinion Everything… is even better than the excellent Little Fires Everywhere. Again, it is a deep and heartfelt portrait of a family. Full of pathos about the mysterious death of a teen, it might be compared to The Lovely Bones The Los Angeles Review of Books noted that “Ng moves gracefully… creating a series of mysteries and revelations that lead back to the original question: what happened to Lydia. Masterful.” It is “wonderfully moving, a beautifully crafted study of dysfunction and grief that will resonate with anyone who has ever had a family drama.” A thoughtful and passionate Christian friend who is Asian American and speaks of the challenges of growing up as a minority in these times quipped once that folks should read this because “it explains everything.”
Behold the Dreamers: A Novel Imbolo Mbue (Random House) $17.00 We have mentioned this before as it has won bunches of awards and been listed on “best book” lists by everyone from NPR to The New York Times Book Review, Kirkus Reviews and more. The Times review called it “capacious and big hearted” and another reviewer said it “plumbs the desires and disappointments of our emerging global culture.” As an Oprah Book Club selection, you can imagine it is compassionate and stirring, offering a window into the lives of immigrants. In the story, Jende Jonga and his wife, Neni, are Cameroonian immigrants living in Harlem with their six-year-old son; Jende gets a job as a chauffeur for a senior executive at Lehman Brothers and Neni works for the same family in their summer home in the Hamptons. This is set in 2007 as Lehman Brothers is collapsing, so, well, wow.
The Leavers Lisa Ko (Algonquin) $15.95 This remarkable book is beautifully written and ambitious and was a just deserved National Book Award Finalist. It also won the PEN award and the Bellwether Prize for Fiction which was created by Barbara Kingsolver for socially conscious novels. (Aside: we are taking pre-orders for the much-anticipated Barbara Kingsolver novel called Unsheltered which releases October 16.)
The Leavers is about 11 year old Deming Guo whose mother, an undocumented Chinese immigrant working in a nail salon, goes missing. Deming is adopted by a well-meaning white couple who changes his name to Daniel. The book is told from the perspectives of both the child Daniel and missing mother, Polly. In O, The Oprah Magazine, she says “Here is imperative reading: a vivid fictional exploration of what it means to belong and what it feels like when you don’t. Ko gives us an unsparing portrait of the resilience and grit it takes to risk everything to break free of tradition and start over in a foreign land.” People called it “dazzling.”
Jabbok and Beulah: A Sequel to Jabbok Kee Sloan (Peake Road/Mercer University Press) $18.99 each Sometimes we discover lesser known sources for good books, publishers of independent spirit but high quality. University Presses are usually brilliant, but often price themselves out of the market, so to speak, or are just too scholarly or obscure. Here are two very fine, very accessible novels published by the literary imprint of Mercer University Press; I bet you’ve never heard of them. They are, as you might expect from a publisher in Macon Georgia, rooted in deep Southern culture, and they are a genuine delight. In the first book, Jabbok, Buddy Hinton, a young boy who lives in the country outside of Vicksburg Mississippi, meets Jake,
an older, black fisherman, ex-convict, former tent preacher – and their friendship deepens. It captures the late 50s boyhood of the south (including a serious lot about racism and other sorrows.) I think you will be hooked by the first sentence and the first moving paragraph of the Prelude.
We were happy after ordering Jabbok to learn that the late, great Phyllis Tickle was an advocate for these books.
Listen to what Phyllis wrote about Jabbok:
I love this book. I am a writer and I am supposed to be able to say something elegant and impressive about a book, not something so cliché as, ‘I love this book.’ I just know I want to read Jabbok one more time, which is what I knew the last time I finished reading it. I love this book.
By the start of the second story, Beulah, Buddy Hinton is a newly ordained Episcopal priest serving a small congregation in Mississippi. Here is what the Reverend says about the second novel, Beulah:
This is the story of my continuing education, in different classrooms, with three new teaches: JoJo McCain, John Cahill, and especially and most wonderfully, Beulah Grace Bayer.
I suppose it isn’t fair to invoke the name Wendell Berry or Jayber Crow; I shouldn’t compare it to the popular Father Tim stories of the sweetly named Mitford series but maybe these might appeal to those who love such tender stories of rural and small town life. The Rt. Rev. John McKee Sloan is Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama. He went to seminary at the University of the South in Sewanee and was ordained to bishop suffragan in 2008. He and his wife both grew up in the Mississippi Delta.
Not that it matters much, but it is very interesting to me that in the second book, Buddy Hinton works in a summer camp for campers with disabilities; in the acknowledgements, Rev. Sloan says that he did this in the early 70s. As you may know, Beth and I ourselves both worked at Camp Harmony Hall, run by the Easter Seal Society in the early and mid-70s. No wonder I liked this guy! Let’s help get the stories of Jabbok and Beulah become better known. Who knows, maybe Sloan is writing a third…
Caroline: Little House, Revisited Sarah Miller (William Morrow) $15.99 We announced this when it was out in hardback and we’re glad it’s now in a more affordable paperback edition. Beth adored it, but not everyone will, we suppose. It is, in fact, an imaginative re-telling of the Little House stories from the point of view of Ma. Isn’t that a great idea? It is impeccably researched and was authorized by Little House Heritage Trust and is very well done.
Caroline is surely one of America’s most famous frontier women and this is a fabulous look at her inner life. Sarah Miller has written historical nonfiction and several historical fiction works and it is Beth’s sense that she knows what she’s doing and she really got Caroline right. She talked about it as she was reading it, day after day – what fun! As Refinery20 put it, “Little House on the Prairie fans, prepare to fall in love with your favorite characters all over again.”
The Day the Angels Fell and The Edge of Over There Shawn Smucker (Revell) $17.99 We wanted to suggest at least something in the “speculative fiction” genre and for those that like fantasy – and have already finished the must-read Steve Lawhead, In the Region of the Summer Stars, Book One of the Eirlandia series) – these two are among the best of the year. Shawn is a well-respected writer and a great guy.
The Day the Angels came out to great acclaim last year; it remains in hardback ($17.99) but is also now available in paperback ($14.99.) One of the all-time great compliments was given to Mr. Smucker when the well-read and always astute Anne Bogel (of the Modern Mrs. Darcy blog) described The Day the Angels Fell as “Neil Gaiman meets Madeleine L’Engle.”
Foreword Reviews wrote of it:
The otherworldly and the mundane collide in Shawn Smucker’s The Day the Angels Fell, a humanizing tale of cosmic proportions.
Yep, this is supernatural fiction (of cosmic proportions, no less) that another reviewer curiously compared to Ray Bradbury. You see, this really is thoughtful Christian fantasy fiction at its finest.
The new one, The Edge of Over There, is just out (in a fantastic hardback design for $17.99), a fine sequel that itself has gotten good reviews. Here’s the official summary:
When Abra Miller goes to New Orleans Cemetery No. 1 to search for the Tree of Life, she discovers a city teetering on the edge of chaos, people desperate for a way out, and an enemy intent on enslaving the human race.
We are very pleased to announce that author Shawn Smucker will be visiting our store in mid October to do some readings from these two novels, talk a bit about writing (and tell us about a book that will be out then about his work with refugee resettlement in Lancaster, PA. The book about that, Once We Were Strangers: What Friendship with a Syrian Refugee Taught Me About Loving My Neighbor is due out October 16, 2018.) You should know this author; it won’t be the last you’ve heard of him, I promise. Why not pick up both The Day the Angels Fell and The Edge of Over There. If you get the first in hardback they’ll match nicely.
Anatomy of a Miracle: A Novel* Jonathan Miles (Hogarth $27.00 I hope you know this fascinating, talented author who has been widely reviewed and critically acclaimed. I gave a shout out about how intriguing this book was before I read it and now that I’ve spent many pleasurable days immersed in its captivating story I can say it is one of my favorite books of the year. Miles has always been a social critic who seems familiar with questions of faith and religion. (See his acclaimed Dear American Airlines and especially Want Not.) This recent novel is equally rich in themes that matter.
Anatomy of a Miracle tells of an Afghanistan vet who is a paraplegic, wounded warrior, in a wheelchair, who is mysteriously and unexpectedly healed on his way to get smokes at a run-down, inner city convenience store called the Biz-E-Bee run by an enterprising and funny Vietnamese family in post-Katrina Biloxi, Mississippi. Any number of zealots, reporters, medical specialists and military officials want to know what happened and what ensues is a circuitous and complex set of investigations to determine if miracles occur, and if so, if this qualifies for one. There are utter secularists, faith healers, scientists, and a Vatican official who has reasons to need to know if this blue-collar vet is pulling off a hoax, especially when a reality TV show documents his sometimes unsavory lifestyle.
I have rarely read a mainstream, popular novel so course and so touching, so profane and yet fluent in Christian apologetics, so aware of the complexities of faith in a secular age. I couldn’t put it down and, even now, wish the character Cameron Harris and his sister and long lost lover well. That’s part of what a good novel does – helps us care about the characters. I think that might make us better people, but I suppose that would be a miracle that’s hard to prove, too. Regardless, we’ve staked our careers on it: stories matter. This is a fascinating one that is very well told and which raises tons of vital questions and I think would make a great book club selection. Kudos.
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A month or more ago at BookNotes 
As James K.A. Smith in his brilliant How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor (Eerdmans; $16.00) explains, the world-class Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor has written profoundly and deeply to show us how the tensions of the modern age and the secularism that it has brought has rendered much of our lives in our era, not to mention our religious sensibilities, shallow, contradictory, and confused. Like the frog in the kettle accommodated to the rising temperatures, we don’t even realize the mess we’re in.
Add to this Noble’s considerable awareness of and candor about how many of us are nearly addicted to our smart phones – I laughed when he says he even uses it in the bathroom – and how literally distracted we are with the beeps and buzzes and notices from our ubiquitous devices. There are many books about this these days, from the practical 12 Ways Your Cell Phone Has Changed You by Tony Reinke to Andy Crouch’s wonderful Tech Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place to the serious Distracted: The Erosion of Attention in the Coming Dark Age by Maggie Jackson and it is good that Noble plumbs some of the implications of electronic distraction. We all know this is really, really important, but few of us study it, let alone do much about it. I like how Alan calls us to the simple (well, not so simple, after all) task of silence and solitude so we can contemplate and wrestle with ideas. How can we do that when we are so busy, so saturated by constant connection with content, or just “move on” to the next curious thing? Watch 
The second half of this ambitious book offers three large meditations on strategies we can use to resist, to disrupt, the distraction and secularizing ethos of our times. To make a way through the noise towards the fullness of life. He offers deep, philosophical notions and then backs them up with theological insights and proposes ordinary practices that emerge from his own efforts and stories. In a way, this is the biggest strategy of all – we simply must be more attentive to the real, the down to Earth, nurturing virtue by way of daily practices. We have to do stuff well, and show how it points beyond ourselves to the God who is there, in a world that is loved. How do we become agents of that kind of disruption?
In a way, this approach is very much like what James K.A. Smith does in the urgent You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit and what Tish Harrison Warren does in her lovely Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life. This book is a bit more dense than those, but if you’ve read those, this maybe should come next.
sold to him.) That is, there is a creative/artistic side to our human experience and the use of our imaginations – so often captured by popular tastes and popular culture – need to be redeemed and deepened so that we can be more colorful and curious. I hardly know any book – even those that are written about aesthetics and the arts – that draws on Seerveld’s Rainbows as much as one of the chapters in this book does. Noble is wise to show that this imaginative way of living with greater attention to the arts and daily aesthetics helps us take in more of life as we should, but also to bear witness to God’s hopeful, richly human, wholesome ways in this world. Noble’s part about beauty is very, very nicely done.
And so, we are thrilled to once again commend to you a serious summer read, a book of cultural analysis and deft critique of the forces of modernity and post-modernity, that, while slogging through some serious stuff, is still loaded with brilliant ideas and practical suggestions. We commend this book to help you and yours thinking intentionally about the nature of our witness in this hot-wired, saturated age.
Impossible People: Christian Courage and the Struggle for the Soul of Civilization Os Guinness (IVP) $20.00 I have said before that this is a great way to understand our modern and postmodern era; it is a one-volume lesson in discerning and urgent cultural analysis. The always incisive Guinness (with his PhD degree studying the work of sociologist Peter Berger) brings out many of the themes he has explored before – how, just for instance, speed and choice and change have disrupted traditional ways of knowing and believing. He shows how modernity itself has eroded the very notion of authority. Of course he explores how we in the evangelical churches, especially, have too often attempted to link the gospel to marketing, the growth of technology, and such. Have these things come back to haunt us? Have forces we’ve too often ignored actually displaced our first love of the gospel itself? What will it take to be bold, principled, people who will rise up and say no to unfaithful compromise and unhelpful patterns? I have written before in greater detail why I think this is a very important book, sounding an alarm as it does, and read it now would be a another way to understand the need for what Noble calls “disruptive practices” in our personal, church, and cultural lives. If you’re reading Alan Noble, you should (seriously) buy this, too!
Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion Os Guinness (IVP) $22.00 This is a remarkable, one-of-a-kind study which we raved about here at BookNotes when it came out in 2015. Considered by some a magnum opus, it was 40 years in the making, drawing on broad and historically informed cultural studies, incisive insights about apologetics, and a mash-up of three of Guinness’s most decisive influences – C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, and Peter Berger. Granted, as Alan Noble explains (and as Os himself admits) the times are complex, the ideas and the structures and habits of culture often a large obstacle, but we can still learn how best to persuade. There is an art to learning these ways of persuasion, and Guinness has thought about this for a lifetime. Highly recommended. (By the way, just a parenthetical shout out, here: we expect any day his brand new revised and expanded 20th anniversary edition of The Call: Finding and Fulfilling Your Greatest Purpose, which remains one of my all time favorite books.)
Evangelism After Pluralism: The Ethics of Christian Witness Bryan Stone (Baker Academic) $21.99 We have oodles of books about how better to share one’s faith and wish we sold more Despite the good and helpful social analysis offering in books like the Alan Noble (above) we still need to keep trying to talk face to face to people about things that matter most This remarkable volume, though, is less a practical “how to” do better evangelism, but a rich and deep study of — as Noble asks — how to even think about evangelism given what we know about communication in “the secular age” and the buffered nature of our selves. Stone has read his Taylor and any other deep cultural critics and he has drunk wisely from the wells of some of our best mainline denominational thinkers — from George Lindbeck to Rowan Williams to Lamin Sanneh to Kathyrn Tanner. I like his counter-cultural posture (citing early church fathers and mothers and modern radical saints like Dorothy Day.) He cites my hero Ron Sider and asks seriously what embodied Christian witness looks like in an era such as ours. Stone is associate dean for academic affairs and E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at the Boston University School of Theology. You may recall his book Evangelism After Christendom, which also would be a good, serious read for those exploring foundational stuff about worldviews and culture and sharing the gospel well. For what it is worth, not surprisingly, Evangelism After Pluralism has rave reviews on the back from Will Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas as well as rising scholars such as Joon-Sik Park (of Methodist Theological School in Ohio) and Duke’s Laceye Warner, who calls it a “must-read.”
Localism in a Mass Age: A Front Porch Republic Manifesto edited by Mark T. Mitchell & Jason Peters (Front Porch Republic Books) $32.00 This fabulously interesting and curious collection takes more time than I’ve got here, now, to explain. In a sense, the title evokes much – the “front porch republic” is a movement that is, mostly, localist and conservative. (That is, they want to conserve, so they tend to be cranky about suburban sprawl and big Wal Marts and global wars and utopian dreams.) Although Wendell Berry isn’t in here, his spirit hovers near several of the chapters.
The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction Matthew Crawford (Farrar, Straus, Giroux) $16.00 From time to time I enjoy reminding people about Crawford’s first big book, Shop Class as Soul Craft which was, although a bit heady, a call to rediscover the joys of working with one’s hands, of his own departure from a white collar think-tank to starting his own motorcycle repair shop. What do we lose when we gush about the information age or digital culture and defund shop classes and trade schools? The World Beyond Your Head continues these questions, offering more vintage Crawford, investigating the challenging of mastering crafts and how some workers have done well in taking up their jobs as vocations. Of course, as with Noble, is has the word “distraction” in the title, although he may be reflecting a bit more deeply than Noble on kinds of distractions we encounter. The World Beyond Your Head is in a way a study about digital culture vs. “real world” work and how abstraction messes with our minds. Does learning to pay attention to and have focus upon our bodies (by way of manual work) have anything to do with Alan Noble’s “disruption” challenges in his Disruptive Witness: Speaking the Truth in a Distracted Age? What role does embodiment play in Noble’s vision? How about a dose of Crawford, here, who says, “attention sculpts the self”? Do you recall that quotable line from James K.A. Smith when he insists that “the things we do, do things to us”? Do you know Nicholas Carr’s elegant but alarming books The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains and The Glass Cage: How Our Computers Are Changing Us? Noble is truly concerned about this stuff and I wish he’d have engaged Matthew Crawford as a conversation partner.
Subversive Christianity: Imaging God in a Dangerous Time Brian Walsh (Wipf & Stock) $17.00 I know you know that I regularly suggest reading Walsh. From his early The Transforming Vision and Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be (co-authored with Richard Middleton) to a deep study of place and mobility (Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement, co-authored with Steven Bouma-Prediger) through his study of Bruce Cockburn as a way to think about imagination and the arts, to the Wine Without Breakfast Bible studies and worship litanies (St. John Before Breakfast and Habakkuk Before Breakfast) to his must-read Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire (co-authored with his Biblical scholar/organic farmer and bio-regional activist wife, Sylvia Keesmaat) we see over and over in his work a deeply Biblical world and life vision that necessarily says no to the dysfunctional ways of the culture (and the powers that be) when they are in opposition to a Biblically-informed vision of flourishing, gracious love and justice, and care for all of creation. Walsh preaches the Bible with breathtaking adeptness, hearing the echoes and connecting the dots and knows economics and philosophy; he writes about the arts and ancient archeology; he knows homeless folks and hangs out with the marginalized even when he’s writing chapters in books about or with other Biblical scholars (such as his friend N.T. Wright.) Brian is in many ways one of my mentors and a thoughtful example of ways to be deeply rooted – radical, that is – and subversive against the idols and ideologies of the culture. I wish I had his Bible knowledge, his relentless passion, and his guts.
Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks Diana Butler Bass (HarperOne) $26.99 We recently did two reviews of this at BookNotes, one rather long, so I hope you know that we are fans, even if I wasn’t confident, at first, that this book would be that interesting to me or important for serving the cause of of the flourishing of the common good. We’re very glad to report that it is exceptionally well-written, deep, good stuff, and that we think it deserves the acclaim that it has been getting. Grateful is a fabulous, inspiring book to read over the summer. The whole business of happiness and gratitude and such is being researched by scientists and while Diana is a social scientist and spiritual writer, she does discuss some of the brain studies data and such. It is certainly timely and a topic many are interested in.
Sacred Signposts: Words, Water, and Other Acts of Resistance Benjamin J. Dueholm (Eerdmans) $16.99 I so, so want to recommend this and admit from the start that it deserves its own long review; I can only suggest a bit about it now. Dueholm is a Lutheran pastor who is also skilled as a great writer – his sentences are truly a delight to read – while his theological vision is provocative and interesting and generative. Here, as you might guess, he is showing how the church’s most elemental practices are themselves subversive to the secularized culture in which we live. Had this book been out previously (it came just this week) Alan Noble might have used it for his own chapter on disruptive practices in the local congregation.
The Holy No: Worship as a Subversive Act Adam Hearlson (Eerdmans) $24.00 With this boldly subversive, nay-saying title, you can see why I might want to commend this alongside the profound study of the secular age by Alan Noble. Hearlson, a UCC pastor, puzzles out a bit about worship and liturgy as counter-cultural and formative in ways to help us resist distraction; good worship should help us understand God’s transformative work in our lives, and help us bear witness well in the world. But to do that, we must be resistant. How ‘bout a book that just shouts it – The Holy No!
Interrupting Silence God’s Command to Speak Out: A Bible Study for Adults Walter Brueggemann (WJK) $14.00 Walt Brueggemann is very important to me for many reasons, but in the context of the theme of this newsletter — riffing off of the insights of Alan Noble’s Disruptive Witness —I might note that Brueggemann is not only a master Old Testament scholar and evocative Bible teacher, but he is exceptionally well read, especially in the social sciences and history and in what we might call cultural studies. So all of his rich Scriptural teaching is somewhat shaped by worldviewish vision and cultural critique. (Indeed, his old, extraordinary, brief book The Bible Makes Sense starts with two “bad” acculturated views of the Bible, showing ways the left-brain, establishment rationalists and the lefty, counter-cultural romantics each misread the very meaning of the Biblical drama which cannot be tamed and dare not be turned into an ideology of the right or the left.) Anyway, this new pithy book by Brueggemann offers eight fairly short but potent Bible reflections — one from Exodus, one from Amos, one on a few verses from Psalm 32, and five New Testament texts, each with provocative study questions for a serious adult class. Each chapter runs about 10 profound, pages. Brueggemann-esque pages, that is, so you’re getting your money’s worth.
In telling you about Interrupting Silence I must note that I’m reminded of a brand new book I spoke about in my little video for last week’s BookNotes — Kathy Khang’s Raise Your Voice: Why We Stay Silent and How to Speak Up (IVP; $16.00.) We all can use some extra help in learning when and why and how to speak up, and Ms. Khang not only reminds us to use our voice with (as Rachel Held Evans puts it) “holy force” but also has done some good work herself exploring the social, cultural, and familial forces the sometimes intimidate us.
Romans 8 – 16 for You Timothy Keller (The Good Books Company) $22.99 We like this whole on-going series of Bible lessons that have some helpful application points. This is obviously the second volume of a two-volume pair on Romans. Get Romans 1 – 7 for You as well.
The Bible Speaks Today: The Message of Romans John Stott (IVP Academic) $20.00 As I explain in the video, the entire Bible Speaks Today series is a standard, go-to recommendation for us. They are mature and thoughtful, but not tooo critical or scholarly. Stott was the editor of the NT portion of the BST series and they are just so reliable, thoughtful, and relevant. He handles Romans 13 thoughtfully with good balance and insight. Highly recommended
I also suggested that it would be wise just to study the life and teachings of Paul. There’s so, so much, but I gave a quick shout out to Paul: A Biography by N.T. Wright (HarperOne; $29.99.) I think the impressive, passionate scholar Douglas Campbell’s recent Paul: An Apostle’s Journey (Eerdmans; $22.00) sure looks great. And you really should know Reading Paul by the aforementioned Michael J. Gorman. (Cascade; $22.00.) I really should have mentioned that one last night, since I linked to his Facebook post on reading Romans 13 in context.
God in Public: How the Bible Speaks Truth to Power Today N.T. Wright (SPCK) $18.00 These are lectures given by the great New Testament prof on justice, government, public life, political theology and faithful civic engagement. This was published in England (where Wright goes by Tom rather than N.T. on his more popular level books. This is a great collection, highly recommended!
The Political Disciple: A Theology of Public Life Vincent Bacote (Zondervan) $11.99 I love this little volume in the “Ordinary Theology” series. He doesn’t cover Romans 13 much, but offers keen insights on public life, pluralism, and various postures and strategies for being “in but not of” the world as we take up our duties as Christian in society and as faithful citizens.
One Nation Under God: A Christian Hope for American Politics Bruce Ashford & Chris Pappalardo (B&H) $14.99 This is a small hardback written by two very sharp Southern Baptist thinkers who have studied Kuyper, pluralism, law, and understand much about the framework of a Christian view of political order. There’s a lot of meat here for a small book.
The Good of Politics: A Biblical, Historical and Contemporary Introduction James Skillen (Baker Academic) $24.00 My goodness, this overview of how the best thinkers of the Christian West have thought about politics and the state, down through the ages, is brilliant. He is helpful in showing how many have a core conviction about the state being God’s good gift, but many (perhaps influenced by some sacred/secular dualism or some private/public or church/world dichotomy) fail to develop a robust, Biblically-rooted political theory.This is a must for anyone serious about having an informed Christian perspective.
A Covenant to Keep: Meditations on the Biblical Theme of Justice James Skillen (The Center for Public Justice) $12.95 We are so glad to still have a few of these books around, first published by the Christian Reformed Church, solid Biblical reflections and a few nice case studies of people of faith serving as public officials. These Scriptural reflections emerged from Skillen’s work as founder of the Center for Public Justice, a non-partisan think tank for the development of Christian citizenship in light of a Biblical vision of society and the important but limited calling of the state.
Five Views on the Church and Politics edited by Amy Black (Zondervan) $19.99 Those who follow BookNotes know that I’ve commended this recent “Counterpoints” book often. Nice to see the debate and dialogue between a Lutheran, a classic black church activist, a Roman Catholic, a Mennonite, and a Dutch Reformed Kuyper guy (our friend James K.A. Smith.)
Church, State, and Public Justice: Five Views edited by P.C. Kemeny (IVP Academic) $20.00 I gave a quick shout out about this one, too, as it so helpfully allows a variety of good thinkers across a range of views to debate. There’s a Roman Catholic in the consistent, Catholic social teaching tradition, a Baptist, an Anabaptist, a principled pluralism view of the Kuyperian sort, and a social justice, mainline denominational view.
I Pledge Allegiance: A Believers Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America David Crump (Eerdmans) $24.99 Oh man, what a book, feisty, challenging, important. I offers a good study of the Kingdom of God, and it isn’t cheap or simple. I noted that there is a very good chapter on civil disobedience, with this New Testament professor telling of his own involvement in non-violent direct action and the solidarity he felt with those with whom he was arrested. Ron Sider calls it “a must read.” If we are going develop a more singular devotion to Christ and His Kingdom without being co-opted by the political powers that be, we will need this sort of tough thinking. Good discussion questions, too, make this a great study resource for engaged readers.
Jesus for President Shane Claiborne & Chris Haw (Zondervan) $19.99 What a wild and creative book with edgy artwork and colorful illustrations and eccentric, youthful design. More importantly, it shows how the Bible offers an alternative story to the story of economic growth, nationalism, and military might and calls us to embody a counter-cultural community which testifies to the King who rides a donkey (not a warhorse) and whose political victory comes through a nonviolent act of suffering servanthood. Agree or not with the “anti-institutional” tone of this, it is Biblically-rich, capturing an important theme in the Bible. I wish I had said more positive about it in my little video talk as it really is worth reading.
Jesus vs. Caesar: For People Tired of Serving the Wrong God Joerge Rieger (Abingdon) $19.99 Time was running out on my little book talk so I didn’t say much about this, but it is a powerful, liberationist critique of mammon, power, and how the gospel always puts us in conflict with the principalities and powers. I tend to find great value in this strong critique but was frustrated a bit by some of his zealous overstatements. Still, it is true that many of us say we are following Jesus but we are deeply complicit in a violent Empire and we simply must learn to say no to the death-dealing ways of the status quo. Could it be that many who talk about religion in public life are actually serving a false God? Wow.
Raise Your Voice: Why We Stay Silent and How to Speak Up Kathy Khang (IVP) $16.00 I ended my video presentation with an invitation to read this thrilling new book. I described it too quickly, but hope you picked up how thrilled we are to have such a resource and how much I’m enjoying it. I really, really hope many consider it as it is wonderfully written and offers both serious Biblical and spiritual insight, lots of anecdotes, and good strategies and guidance. Khan has worked in campus ministry with IVCF and has previously written a book for Asian American women rising to leadership positions (More Than Serving Tea: Asian American Women on Expectations, Relationships, Leadership and Faith) which of course we stock. Kathy Khang is an voice we should listen to.
tear down and load out, we zoomed to an ecumenical conference at Lancaster Theological Seminary on “Mercersburg Theology” (a 19th century German Reformed tradition that was significant and remains a curious influence in central Pennsylvania United Church of Christ (UCC.) This year, alongside academic papers on Nevin and Schaff (the founders of the “Mercersburg school”) there were Orthodox theologians, a graduate of Westminster Seminary, a Mennonite presenter and an Episcopalian scholar who studied at the Presbyterian seminary in Pittsburgh and works for the Eastern Rite Catholic Seminary in Pittsburgh. (Did you know there were Catholics who are Eastern?) What a world, so many scooped up in the big net of God’s saving catch.
Which brings us to one of the very best books about church life I’ve read in ages, an important and interesting and insightful work by one of the most interesting, ecumenical, globally-connected persons you could ever meet, Wesley Granberg-Michaelson. The book, recently published by Fortress, is called Future Faith: Ten Challenges Reshaping Christianity in the 21st Century.
And, by the way, he is an ideal author to reach both mainline folk and evangelicals. As Wes tells so pleasantly in his fascinating memoir, Unexpected Destinations: An Evangelical Pilgrimage to World Christianity [Eerdmans; $24.00] he grew up on the fundamentalist side of the pew but his journey has taken him into nearly every corner of the broader Body of Christ. As he develops then in his 2013 masterpiece, From Times Square to Timbuktu: The Post-Christian West Meets the Non-Western Church (Eerdmans; $20.00) the realities of the global church — well known from all the recent books with all the statistics that indicate the majority of Christians (for the first time in 2000 years) are now in the global South and Asia and not white, European or North American – are now coming through migration and immigration, to our own towns. That is, even as world Christianity’s center of gravity has moved to some point near Timbuktu, many of these brothers and sisters are, in fact, moving to North America, bringing their experiences and theological frameworks with them.
He sees the good, the bad, and the ugly, in the church these days and remains hopeful. The book is hard-hitting and challenging (not least for Western church folks who are the primary intended readers) but it isn’t strident or pessimistic or alarmist. Well, it’s a little alarming since, well, we simply can’t abide the status quo much longer; things must change in our faith communities. The gloomy statistics about church decline and the disastrous trajectory for many aging and dying congregations are self-evident and it is foolish to disregard the writing on the wall, as they say. Granberg-Michaelson clearly summarizes some of the most recent data on this hard stuff and it was both bracing and helpful.
Future Faith will help churches re-vamp their way of doing life together in their parishes, sure, which will help them practically be more sustainable in these changing times, but more importantly, it will help them be more Biblical. More faithful, more coherent and consistent and natural at bearing witness to the very good gospel of God’s Kingdom. Reading and discussing it will transfigure the church and transform us, hopefully making a difference in the world. This is an interesting book about global trends and includes some data and research and predictions but truly it is a book about theological principles which are too often missed and which simply must be embraced, now, before it is too late.
The stories he tells are often about churches from all over – some international, some from North America, many mainline, some not. Wes has this extraordinary calling and exceptional grace to be able to be in fellowship with and learn from folks from all over the theological spectrum so there are plenty of cool stories and lots of provocative insights and some jaw-dropping stories offered. Did I say this would make a great study for a small group or book club?
about waste and excess called Want Not. His new one is called Anatomy of a Miracle published by the significant Hogarth Press (regularly $27.00, before discount.) In the first chapter a beer-guzzling war vet, made a paraplegic in Afghanistan, is mysteriously healed on a hot morning in front of the Biz-E-Bee convenience story in Biloxi, Mississippi. The book unfolds as scientists and faith healers and reality TV producers all vie to explain what happened. (It isn’t every profane, mainstream novel, by the way, that talks about evangelical faith, both black and white Southern Christians, citing everything from C.S. Lewis on miracles to more low-brow evangelical bestsellers. And that also nicely exposes the reductionism and lack of imagination among those committed to materialistic scientism. And the dangers of, well, I digress…)
Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks Diana Butler Bass (HarperOne) $26.99 I was enthusiastic in my description of this when the book released a month ago, and I encouraged all within ear-shot to consider it. I admitted that I wasn’t sure what I’d think about it, at first, but realized it is really good. I tried to explain it briefly, but wanted to revisit in now.
(A revised and expanded version of her must-read, short memoir called Broken We Kneel: Reflections on Faith and Citizenship is coming out late this summer from Church Publishing ($18.95 – you can pre-order it from us, of course.) It ruminates on the important church/state, faith/politics intersection but is rooted in her own anguished story of leaving a church the year following 9-11, precipitated by flags in the sanctuary. Her spiritually rich, humble phrase, “Broken We Kneel” was in direct contrast to the “United We Stand” motto and expresses her sadness at how some churches – even large main-denominational churches – are too often aligned with militarism and nationalism; it reminds us of the price some of us will have to pay to be faithful to Christ to resist what the hymn-writer called “our warring madness.” I am very eager to see revised edition…)
Reframing the Soul: How Words Transform Our Faith Gregory Spencer (Leafwood) $15.99 Oh my, what a handsome, nice paperback, a perfect book to read alongside Grateful by Diana Butler Bass. In fact, Spencer has a very, very good chapter on gratitude in Reframing the Soul and it helped me as I was reading Butler Bass. I’m not stretching it to say these two really could be read in tandem.
Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World A. J. Swoboda (Brazos Press) $19.99 This is another book that I wrote about in some detail – but not enough – when it first came out. We raved about it, assured you that it seemed to be one of the very best books done on this topic. We celebrated Swoboda as a great writer – we so loved his last few books such as A Glorious Dark: Finding Hope in the Tension Between Belief (Baker Books; $15.00) and Experience or The Dusty Ones: Why Wandering Deepens Your Faith (Baker Books; $16.00) not to mention an academic text he edited on Pentecostals involved in peace-making, social justice, and creation care entitled Blood Cries Out: Pentecostals Ecology, and the Groan of Creation (Pickwick Publications; $31.00.)
When in doubt, I often start with a passionate summary of the doctrine of vocation, talk about Os Guinness’s stellar and exquisite work The Call: Finding and Fulfilling Your Life’s Greatest Purpose (Word; $17.99) and remind folks that their work or avocations are as important to the Kingdom of God as is the work of ministers or missionaries. Explaining how the early church was wrong to so easily buy into Plato’s lie that life is made up of what some call “sacred and secular” spheres is a good way to start almost any talk on any topic. God cares, the world matters, we are called to reflect on the principles and practices that cohere with the actual way God’s good world really works, illumined by the light of Biblical truth. Citing that explosive verse about “taking every theory captive” (2 Corinthians 10:5) it’s helpful, I think, to remind folks to think well about what they do.
If this task or way of thinking about the intellectual implications of passages like 2 Corinthians 11:5 or Romans 12:1-2, I highly recommend at least reading up a bit on the Christian mind. My favorite brief book on this is by the wonderful Greg Jao and is called Your Mind’s Mission (IVP; $7.00.) I very briefly describe in an older BookNotes ten others in a list that’s a little dated but may proof helpful. We still stock these, and more, so 
Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling Andy Crouch (IVP) $22.00 Time and again I insist this is not a book for artists but for all of us, for any who long to be more meaningful engaged in the human task of culture-making, of stewarding the gifts God has given us for the common good. We are all called to make something out of what we are given and this image-of-God work of cultivating God’s garden is intrinsically human. So, yes, it is for butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers, for parents and politicians and practitioners of all sorts. But, let’s face it: who needs to have language to express this stuff, this good, creative calling, this longing to leave a legacy of something real, than those called to be artists, writers, poets, novelists? I very, very highly recommend this one-of-a-kind book.
Rainbows for the Fallen World Calvin Seerveld (Toronto Tuppence Press) $30.00 In my presentation I explained a bit about this important book, on of my own personal all time favorites, especially the early chapters about how Seerveld reminds us, helps disclose for us, the aesthetic dimension to all of life. Here he does his most famous and often-discussed good work on “allusion” and a serious chapter or two on the philosophy of aesthetics. I’d read anything Cal writes – and what an energetic writer he is! For those who want a deep dive into his work, see any of these in 
A Redemptive Theology of Art: Restoring Godly Aesthetics to Doctrine and Culture David A. Covington (Zondervan) $24.99 This is very new and I applaud Zondervan for releasing a book that, sadly, may not seem important to those who read theology. I’m part way through it want to commend the author for doing this kind of good work. It looks at how aesthetics can influence our understanding of doctrine as well as our engagement with the culture and the creative process. Good, good stuff. He quotes Seerveld, too.
It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God edited by Ned Bustard (Square Halo Books) $24.99
Scribbling in the Sand: Christ and Creativity Michael Card (IVP) $17.00 There are heavier books out there, but I really, really like Mike’s mature reflections and balanced call to embrace some degree of creativity in our daily lives. This is helpful for artists and writers, but also good for anyone. We recommend it often.
Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts Steve Turner (IVP) $16.00 This is another standard go-to book for us that is basic, interesting, engaging for anyone whether filmmaker, musician, storyteller, or writer – or anyone who just enjoys the popular arts. I so appreciate this classic book, which was nicely expanded a few years back and often recommend it (to artists and others; maybe especially others.) Steve Turner is a respected rock critic (and has written widely on, among other musical icons, The Beatles.) This is a very good book, highly recommended.
Echoes of Eden: Reflections on Christianity, Literature, and the Arts Jerram Barrs (Crossway) $18.99 When my friend Denis Haack says something good about a book, when jazzman and seminary prof William Edgar has a blurb (saying it is “enriching both professional artists and anyone else sensitive to the power of art for all of life”) and when Nicholas Perrin (once a teaching assistant to NT Wright) says that Barr “clears away the clutter of much-touted arguments and sets forth a clear framework for any Christian thinking Biblically about the arts” you know you’ve got my attention.
Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art Madeline L’Engle (Convergence) $15.00 This is a must-read for any serious writer. Her take on the creative process and the spirituality of the arts is wise and a tad unusual – she draws on desert fathers and medieval artists and more. It is not simplistic. Of course, her main art work is as an author, so it’s very good for writers. There is, in this recently re-issued paperback, a lovely preface by the YA novelist Sara Zarr.
Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination, and Spirit: Reflections on Creativity and Faith Luci Shaw (Thomas Nelson) $15.99 Luci Shaw (or was good friends and prayer partner with Madeline L’Engle, by the way) is a very esteemed Christian literary figure, a poet and nonfiction essayist, spiritual leader and storyteller. (She has a new book of poetry coming from Paraclete Press this fall!!) This is a book that should be on every aspiring writers shelves, maybe on your nightstand. She knows good writing – from Emily Dickinson to Annie Dillard – she reflects on the meaning of symbolism and metaphor and shows how good art (mostly good writing since that is her particular specialty) can help humans flourish and even experience God. Very nicely done and very inspiring.
Refractions: A Journey of Faith, Art and Culture Makoto Fujimura (NavPress) $24.99 We stock and highly recommend all of Mako’s extraordinary books; there is a reason he is so well respected in so many quarters. As an abstract painter living near Ground Zero during 9-11 his ruminations on the arts have a poignant, socially responsible tone. These are beautiful essays, cries from the heart of a lively, thoughtful, Christian artist. I hope you know his many other books, from the broad and thoughtful Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for our Common Life to Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering the specific, award-winning study of the classic Japanese novel, Silence, which raises huge questions about how art can be helpful as we live in a hurting world. We talked about this matter somewhat in the writers group – that good books can help heal the world. Silence and Beauty shows us how it’s done. But I think his Refractions is a must-have book.
Intruding Upon the Timeless: Meditations on Art, Faith and Mystery Gregory Wolfe (Square Halo Books) $22.99 I think any literary person should know the exquisite and thoughtful prose of this well-informed Catholic leader in the movement – the space, as we say these days – relating faith and the arts. You should know the journal he founded, Image, his collection of essays entitled The Operation of Grace: Further Essays on Art, Faith, and Mystery, and a major work entitled Beauty Will Save the World: Recovering the Human in an Ideological Age. (You should know his wife, Suzanne’s, two excellent novels, too, The Confessions of X, about Augustine’s early lover and Unveiling, a revised, newly reissued novel about an art restoration project. But I digress.) This recent Square Halo edition of Intruding Upon the Timeless a collection of short, luminous, essays by Wolfe from Image was expanded last year and reissued with new artwork within, including some by woodcut artist Barry Moser. Very, very nicely done, and good reading for anyone in the arts, and certainly faith-based writers.
Imagination Redeemed: Glorifying God with a Neglected Part of Your Mind Gene Veith & Matthew Ristuccia (Crossway) $16.99 It is surprising that there are few books that are directly exploring the role of imagination in faith. There are a few that are a bit eccentric or obtuse, but this is clear and insightful. It is a good starting point towards a coherently Christian approach and has endorsements on the back by David Kim (of the Redeemer Presbyterian Center for Faith and Work), Jeremy Begbie (who, after Seerveld, may be one of the most important aesthetic theorists writing today) and the esteemed emeritus Wheaton literature prof Leland Ryken.
The Christian Imagination: The Practice of Faith in Literature and Writing Leland Ryken (Shaw Books) $24.99 Some say that this is an ideal book to use in a class on writing or literature, an anthology that brings together some of the very best stuff written on the integration of faith and literature. It is a bit dated and tends towards the classical, but for what it does it is an unparalleled anthology. In it you’ll find excerpts from C.S. Lewis, Flannery O’Conner, Dorothy Sayers, Frederick Buechner, and more… a good exercise for any writer is to dip into good writing and it is always worthwhile for anyone trying to develop their own opinions about creativity and aesthetics and the writing process to hear what great minds have said about this daunting topic. What a joy to have this thick paperback of 480 pages!
Title Pending: What I Think About When I Make Stuff Justin McRoberts (CreateSpace) $10.99 I told the San Fran Bay Area ACFW group that they should know Justin, a singer-songwriter, workshop leader, podcast genius, author and all-around cultural creative who lives out there. Title Pending is a little known self-published work by a guy I really, really respect which is full of advice and ideas about being creative. Congrats to Justin and his friend Scott “The Painter” Erickson who just signed a deal with Waterbrook. Yah. What do you think about when you make stuff? Maybe Justin’s insights can help you answer that, or give a better answer. Cool.
Holy Curiosity: Cultivating the Creative Spirit in Everyday Life Amy Hollingsworth (Cascade) $18.00 Perhaps you know Hollingsworth for her excellent book The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers or the riveting memoir she co-wrote with her son, Runaway Radical. She’s a fine writer and her craft is on full display here as she weaves her own story about discovering something essential about the creative process. As one writer said in a back cover review “Amy draws thread from spools ancient and modern, mythic and scientific, experiential and theoretical and weaves a seamless story…”
Finding Divine Inspiration: Working with the Holy Spirit in Your Creativity Scott McElroy (Destiny Image) $15.99 Scott has made a unique contribution in this field of “creativity studies” by asking, very responsibly, I might add, what active role the Holy Spirit has in our creative efforts. I like Scott a lot and many will appreciate this simple guide to discerning God’s guidance in our own efforts at the creative process. By the way, McElroy has since gone on to write a very useful book for those involved in arts ministries in the local church called Creative Church Handbook: Releasing the Power of the Arts in Your Congregation (IVP; $20.00.)
The Creative Life: A Workbook for Unearthing the Christian Imagination Alice Bass (InterVarsity Press) $19.00 You know we are fond of IVP and respect and trust their instincts about books. This was a workbook full of thoughtful exercises and things to generate greater creativity for anyone hope to unearth their own gift and capacities. I suspect this could be described as an evangelical version of something like The Artist’s Way. 
The Creative Call: An Artist’s Response to the Way of the Spirit Janice Elsheimer (Shaw/Waterbrook) $16.99 This is a book loaded with ideas, experiments, exercises and more. Designed for anyone wanting to enhance creativity, even if it is backyard gardening, a hobby of photography or digging out an old instrument from your youth. It does seems perhaps very suited for writers; for a while, this publisher (founded by Harold and Luci Shaw) had a few books in a series they called “The Writer’s Palette.) Nice, huh?
Different Drummer: Bold Thinking for the Rebellious Creative Erik Lokkesmoe (Elevant) $13.99 This small book is expertly designed with short and pithy chapters, super-graphics, cool design with touches of red ink and black graphics, with no-holds-barred bold reminders to be a “difference maker.” Lokkesmoe – who left a job in the policy world of Washington DC to be a culturally creative organizer — shows how to be encouraged, how to let go of fear and move forward into your essential role in God’s missional plan. This is very, very practical but yet expressing a youthful sort of idealistic energy. First it’ll rock your world and then you’ll really dig it.
Create vs Copy: Embrace Change, Ignite Creativity, Break Through with Imagination Ken Wytsma (Moody Press) $14.99 I hope you recall that we’ve touted Wytsma before – we highly recommend his book that came out of his spectacular work founding the annual “Justice Conference” called Pursuing Justice as well as his excellent book on racism and white privilege, The Myth of Equality. But this hand-sized hardback is not only pretty cool to see but is laden with great insight about how to cultivate a creative mindset in life and leadership, using greater imagination, learning how to unleash some of our in-born creativity. The blurb on the front by Bob Goff is pretty nifty, too.
The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World Lewis Hyde (Vintage) $16.95 This is less a workshop on being creative or an inspirational guide to finding your flow but a very impressive, almost scholarly history of how creators make a difference. Margaret Atwood says it is “the best book I know of for talented but unacknowledged creators. A masterpiece.” Jonathan Lethem said it is an “epiphany, in sculpted prose.” It is a manifesto of sorts, a call for a culture not to be so governed by money and commodity but to be reformed by the audacious generosity of artists who share their work as gift. Canadian folk-rocker Bruce Cockburn did a neat song on his 1988 Big Circumstance album inspired by this book called “The Gift.” 
Everyone’s a Genius: Unleashing Creativity for the Sake of the World Alan Briggs (Thomas Nelson) $16.99 Briggs has a great book about staying put and caring about your own neighborhood called Staying is the New Going and the introduction (by Michael Frost) about how literature can evoke a sense of place is worth the price of the book. Many have heard me rave about this author. This is a fairly new one, absolutely fascinating, about team-building and brain studies and leadership and art and culture and, well making stuff. Very nice; a fabulous way to think about creativity and, curiously, missional church leadership, too. Give it a try – you’ll be captivated.
Do Story: How to Tell Your Story So the World Listens Bobette Buster (Chronicle Books) $16.95 Buster is an extraordinary woman who teaches storytelling at Northeastern University and has done presentations with all the great film studios (Pixar, Sony, Disney.) While this book seems to be more about engaging an audience with live storytelling – if you want to do a TED talk, you’ve got to get this – it is rich for anyone doing any sort of storytelling, writing, marketing, even. It’s a very hip little volume by an amazingly important person of faith. Enjoy.
Academic; $24.99) which is very good, even for seasoned Bible readers. Since I was talking to writers,
though, I slipped into an advertisement for Frederick Buechner’s fascinating Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale (HarperOne; $17.99.) There is much more that should be said about God as Word and the Bible as Story. It’s important for all of us but should be great encouragement to those honing their writing chops, inventing fantastical worlds, spinning years and writing mysteries. Stories are close to the heart of God. And they work for us, helping us long for the right stuff, to learn to belong, to realize the story we are a part of, as Madeline L’Engle explores in her lovely The Rock That Is Higher: Story as Truth (Waterbrook; $16.99.)
Time didn’t allow, but in a more extensive workshop teaching about this, I’d look at least at the splendid table of contents of The Stories We Tell: How TV and Movies Long for and Echo the Truth by Mike Cosper (Crossway; $15.99) which gives us new ways to appreciate the stories we watch (or read!) Although written for viewers themselves, I think writers would be helped by The Stories We Tell, just being reminded how all this works.
so beautifully explored in the forthcoming On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books by Karen Swallow Prior (Brazos Press; $19.99.) I love Smith’s line about how our imaginations can be “conscripted into a story” of a certain vision of the good life. That’s what good stories do; they grab our hearts, shape our imagination, and thereby form our desires (for better or for worse, of course. They sneak right past those “watchful dragons” you know.) They help us want what we want and love what we love. For those who take Christian beliefs seriously, and want to be part of God’s redemptive story, the problem is, as Smith warns, we might not love what we think we do.
Book Girl: A Journey Through the Treasures & Transforming Power of a Reading Life Sarah Clarkson (Tyndale) $15.99 Oh how I wish I had known about this when we did our BookNotes a week or so ago about books you should pre-order. Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson comes out in September and you certainly should pre-order it right away. As I hope you saw, I highly recommended in that BookNotes On Reading Well by Karen Swallow Prior (who will be doing a presentation at our store on September 14th 2018) and invited you to pre-order that book about reading. But this beautiful book by Sally Clarkson should also have been on that list as well. It comes out in September and the first few chapters are about as sweet as anything I’ve ever read about the power of books, the virtues of the reading life, and joy of discovering books. How interesting that there are two books about the reading life coming out from two Christian publishers this fall.
The big second half of Book Girl is comprised of Sarah Clarkson’s remarkably interesting lists of books around varying themes and genres (fiction and non-fiction.) As I skimmed these chapters on real-life topics and marveled at the many books she deftly annotated I kept shaking my head in agreement and kept smiling in recognition…
The Word: Black Writers Talk about the Transformative Power of Reading and Writing edited by Marita Golden (Broadway) $14.99 I nearly have the first pages of this remarkable book memorized as I’ve read them out loud to so many groups… these opening vignettes of novelist and memoirist Marita Golden’s encounter with books have very significantly moved me and never fails to remind me of the impact of books and why we do what we do as booksellers. I love these kinds of anthologies about folks talking about the power of books, reading them and even writing them. That it is black writers makes it that much more vital.
Reading for Preaching: The Preacher in Conversation with Storytellers, Biographers, Poets, and Journalists Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. (Eerdmans) $14.00 Those who are fairly new to BookNotes might want to 
Reading for the Common Good: How Books Help Our Churches and Neighborhoods Flourish C. Christopher Smith (IVP) $16.00 I said in my little writer’s workshop that this was a book I wished I had written and that I so, so value it. I cannot but want to press a copy into the hands of anyone who cares about books, about thinking well and studying and talking about books and being committed to the reading life; Chris really understands the holy significance of books in Kingdom ministry and knows that slow reading and careful conversations are key practices to reform our social imaginaries. This book has such a unique and valuable take on things that I need to say that I even think that without a wider embrace of the ideas shared in this provocative, thoughtful book, the role of Christian bookstores may be doomed. Reading matters, and this gives as robust (and enjoyable) vision for that as any book I know. Buy a few, please, and share them. Give one to a book-lovin’ friend and one who ought to be. Yes!
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction Alan Jacobs (Oxford University Press) $19.95 Jacobs is an exquisite, world-class scholar, a serious essayist – think First Things or Image or the old Books & Culture – and this wonderful 2011 book was a contribution to the discussions around the topic of how on-line reading effects our capacity to pay attention, to read well, to retain what we’ve read. Important books like Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows (a very good, if alarming, read) were pessimistic, exposing how too much time on Facebook and social media erodes our capacities to read seriously. The Shallows was understandably dire, an Amusing Ourselves to Death for the digital age. Well, in all of these conversations and broadsides against tech and laments about the erosion of our reading habits, few noted that what was at stake was not just retaining great learning, but, well, enjoyment. We are supposed to be having fun, reading books we like. So this wonderful book – still a rather serious work of lit-and-culture-criticism from Oxford University Press – is about pleasure. Many of our best customers have truly enjoyed it.
Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies Marilyn McEntyre (Eerdmans) $19.00 What if words were like natural resources, gift from God who wants to steward them well? These are brilliant “stewardship strategies” for anyone who uses words in these awful times. Highly recommended, especially for writers. Why don’t you just get it now, if you haven’t yet, because I’m going to keep recommending it over and over. It’s that good and that important.
Word By Word: A Daily Spiritual Practice Marilyn McEntyre (Eerdmans) $17.99 This is like an ordinary Christian daily devotional, but instead of the standard Bible verse and reflection on it, this offers a word on ponder. One reflects on it in a variety of ways, a different angle each day, for a week. It is a beautifully (and deeply spiritual) tutorial on plumbing the meaning of the words and phrases we use, entering into them in wise and fruitful ways.
Stephen Lawhead:
And, if you will allow me this stream-of-consciousness mention, speaking of fantasy: it is great news for Tolkien lovers that Christopher Tolkien has been working on yet another (and most likely the last) unpublished story of Middle-earth fiction from his famous father. Look for The Fall of Gondolin by J.R.R. Tolkien coming from Houghton Mifflin ($30.00) on the street date of August 30, 2918. Naturally, you can pre-order it by following the link to our secure order form page, below.
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft Stephen King (Scribner) $17.00 I don’t know anyone who has read this book who hasn’t exclaimed about how surprised they were by it, and how enjoyable and inspiring it was; even, for some, how very helpful it was. It is by almost all accounts a tremendous read, wise and thoughtful and full of basic, solid advice, even if it is mostly written as a memoir. A hint: he’s interested in the mechanics of language usage more than you may wish but not big on plot outlines.
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life Anne Lamott (Anchor) $16.00 Are there any serious writers who don’t know this book? It was called “a warm, generous and hilarious guide through the writer’s world and its treacherous swamps.” It is pretty clear that she came to Christian faith as she was writing this – Traveling Mercies colorfully tells that story, of course. An enduring book, it came out in 1994 (preceding the novel, a few years later, Crooked Little Hearts.) As the Seattle Times wrote of it, Bird by Bird is “A gift to all of us mortals who write or ever wanted to write… sidesplittingly funny, patiently wise and alternately cranky and kind – a reveille to get off our duffs and start writing now, while we still can.” Yup.
Letters & Life: On Being a Writer, On Being a Christian Bret Lott (Crossway) $22.99 Kudos to Crossway, so many years ago influenced by Francis Schaeffer, for their conviction that, even for their very conservative theological views, they know that good art matters. They published novelist Larry Woiwode when the New Yorker crowd dropped him; they publish Lott, a New York Times bestselling author (whose book Jewel was even an Oprah Book Club selection) who has served on the National Council on the Arts. Yes, Lott is a straight-laced Baptist Sunday school teacher and he talks a lot in this collection of essays about his classic, evangelical faith, but he also offers deep and erudite ruminations on the craft of writing, on what we mean by “literary fiction” (he doesn’t know either, btw) and all manner of important stuff for serious literary types. Highly recommended.
The Way of the Writer: Reflections on the Art and Craft of Storytelling Charles Johnson (Scribner) $16.00 I have a few friends who swear by this meaty book by an fiction writer who has won the prestigious National Book Award. And who has a degree in philosophy and has been a MacArthur Fellow. In 2002 Johnson received the Arts and Letters Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. James McBride – please tell me you know McBride — says about The Way of the Writer “A treasure chest of writing secrets and philosophy… told by a man who has kissed the black stone of literary excellence.”
Beate Not the Poore Desk: A Writer to Young Writers Walter Wangerin, Jr. (The Rabbit Room) $14.95 Walt Wangerin is one of the great writers of our time, a Lutheran pastor, fantasy writer, children’s author, memoirist, devotional writer, Bible scholar, poet, and novelist. My, my, my. You should read anything he writes. Kudos to The Rabbit Room for offering this book where this National Book Award-winner “turns his keen eye upon the craft of writing.”
Shouts and Whispers: Twenty-One Writers Speak About Their Writing and Their Faith edited by Jennifer L. Holberg (Eerdmans) $18.99 This is the second marvelous book that more or less came out of the legendary, bi-annual Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing. Here you get remarkable, sometimes stunning, essays by excellent wordsmiths and storytellers such as Doris Betts, Frederick Buechner, Betty Smartt Carter, David James Duncan, Jan Karon, Joy Kogawa, Anne Lamott, Madeleine L’Engle, Brett Lott, Thomas Lynch, Katherine Paterson, Barbara Brown Taylor and more. Wow. Just wow. You need this.
Writers to Read: Nine Names That Belong On Your Bookshelf Douglas Wilson (Crossway) $16.99 Wilson is a bit curmudgeonly and an incredible wordsmith (he himself wrote Wordsmithy: Hot Tips for the Writing Life.) This asks, in a way, why certain writers are legendary, classic, enduring. And what it means to choose wise ones to emulate. Of course it is a truism, a classic adage, that to be a better writer one must read good writers. Did I say that in the ACFW Zoom presentation? I intended to, but it almost sounds too self-serving, bookseller that I am. But I’ll say it here, now. To be a good thinker, a good writer, a good reader – read!
On Stories And Other Essays on Literature C.S. Lewis (HarperOne) $13.99 This wasn’t supposed to be a list of books about literature, about reading and criticism, but about creativity and writing. Nonetheless, we simply must list at least this one by the great master. There are some lovely and some haunting and some very important chapters in this handsome, small paperback. The lead essay, “On Stories,” is truly classic, as is his “On Three Ways of Writing for Children.” And I wonder what we should think about “The Death of Words”? While you’ve got your large cup of tea and are in a Lewisy mood, don’t forget his Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (HarperOne; $13.99.)
As I often do in presentations, I quote other authors (well there’s an understatement; I can almost hear my friends chuckling.) Quite regularly I quote or at least allude to Steve Garber. His Fabric of Faithfulness: Moving From Belief to Behavior (IVP; $19.00) is challenging but profound and such a great work; his Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good (IVP; $17.00) remains one of my favorite books. In both exquisitely-written books he cites writers and novelists and artists. In Visions of Vocation Garber tells of an encounter with novelist Tom Wolfe (who was such a zesty non-fiction writer that he is credited with helping launch what is often called “the new journalism.”) When Wolfe died a week or two ago, Steve shared a tender piece on Facebook (that was somewhat similar to his telling in VoV.) It was too timely not to share.
these I knew I had to tell you firstly about how well written they are, how much delight the wordplay and storytelling will bring, and then how they will help you learn and grow and see the world anew. With that in mind I jettisoned a few that were important but not utterly lovely and a few that I liked but didn’t love. There are plenty of excellent, important books. These ten are great because they are beautiful, so very nicely done, each in their own way, all well crafted and pleasing to read, even if the content includes some very hard stuff.
Birthing Hope: Giving Fear to the Light Rachel Marie Stone (IVP) $16.00 I think I am more grateful for this book then nearly anything I’ve read this season and Stone’s well-crafted prose is certainly among the very best writing I’ve encountered in a Christian book in ages. I have promoted this before I spent much time with it by stating the obvious: she is a doula and she works the birthing metaphor beautifully. What a great move, talking about bringing something new to the world by being vulnerable and taking up risk, like parents do. There’s some vivid childbirth stories and plenty of bodily talk about womanly stuff. (I do not buy any assumptions of squeamishness about this attributed to guys; women and men alike may be squeamish and women and men alike will take it all in with wide-eyed wonder. This powerful bit of prose is not a “woman’s book” although surely many will love it.)
God, Improv, and the Art of Living MaryAnn McKibben Dana (Eerdmans) $21.99 Oh man, this is a fabulous book, well-written, creative, and very interesting. It is a brand new release that I can honestly say – I love saying this! – that there is nothing like it in print! Ms. McKibben Dana is a good storyteller and a fine, fine essayist – her first book was the lively year-long memoir called Sabbath in the Suburbs: One Family’s Experiment with Holy Time – and here she offers a blend of creative reflection on her experiences, some artful self-helpy sort of practical guidance, a bit of allusive theology (she is a Presbyterian USA pastor, a bit progressive and open.) It’s well written, entertaining, and in many ways wise.
At the heart of this wild book are two big claims that are common sense enough, to my weird ears, anyway, and from which the author extrapolates. First, God wants us to say Yes. And, secondly, that yes, really must be a Yes, And.
Faith Among the Faithless: Learning From Esther How to Live in a World Gone Mad Mike Cosper (Nelson) $16.99 I have recommended all of Cosper’s books in recent years, from his wonderful book on worship (Rhythms of Grace and the great study of pop culture called The Stories We Tell and the remarkably thoughtful, rich study Recapturing the Wonder.) I list this brand new one now because he is a very fine writer and a very fine thinker and to show that even a Bible commentary can be playful, creative, culturally engaged and full of inspired insight about living well in the very real world.
In a fascinating move Cosper says that for those of us looking for faithful presence in the world and uniquely Christian cultural engagement and calls to fidelity amidst our post-Christendom culture, we might find much more sturdy help from the backslidden and compromised Esther and Mordecai rather than the steadfast Daniel. Both are stories set in exile, but Daniel – the hero of so many sermons about cultural transformation — was raised in a firm faith tradition and he knew well the stories of Israel. Alas, it seems (and this is evident in the close reading Cosper gives) our heroes of Esther were far from fidelity, deeply compromised, clearly accommodated to the pagan ethos of the empire of Xerxes et al.
Everything Happens for a Reason And Other Lies I’ve Loved Kate Bowler (Random House) $26.00 I hesitated to list this as I’m sure most BookNotes readers would know of it already; it has garnered so much buzz and been reviewed so well, it is nearly a publishing phenomenon, riding the best-seller list for a while, now. Perhaps in league with the stunning When Breath Becomes Air or Being Mortal it is a book about ultimate things that is exceptionally insightful, beautifully written, raw and wise (and irreverent and funny, too, believe it or not.) With advanced rave reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus, Bowler’s reflection on dying has become a touchstone for many conversations these days.
Water at the Roots: Poems and Insights of a Visionary Farmer Philip Britts (Plough Publishing) $16.00 Talk about a handsome book – just the cover and artful design throughout won us over before we even read a page. Happily, the aesthetic quality (most of the book is poetry) is front and center, even though it is a book about agrarianism. That is, very much like Wendell Berry, Philip Britts (1917- 1949) was a poet and a farmer and social activist and a person of faith. He was also a pastor and a bit of a mystic. We are thrilled that our friends at Plough Publishing – the publishing arm of the Bruderhof faith communities – has released these long out-of-print essays, narratives, and poems. And, oh, the poems…
The graphic design of Water At the Roots is striking. There are some grainy black and white photos that are just perfect. The chapter’s that bring together his few essays, reflections and poems, are Wilderness, Ploughing, Planting, Cultivating, and Harvesting. There is a very good – no, wonderful — forward by David Kline, the famous author who has written important, intelligent books about Amish farming methods and his own organic farm in Ohio. He gets Britts’s worldview, his writing, his early anticipation of the problems of agribusiness, his faith, his stewardship of the mysteries. With Kline setting the stage, you will even more deeply realize that Water at the Roots is an important little book. But first, it is truly lovely, artful book.
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness Austin Channing Brown (Convergent) $25.00 Eloquent, moving, compelling writing about race and racism – like eloquent, moving writing about grief, say – is not uncommon. Something about the worst in life brings out good words, inspired words of rage, lament, insight, grace. That this new book is a smallish hardcover of a certain trim shape immediately brings to mind Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michael Eric Dyson, the decade’s most well-known writing by African American scholars who have worn their broken hearts right on their sleeves and have been catapulted to fame for their eloquence and profundity and wordsmithing. (The trim sized hard-covers that were so very well written and culturally significant to which I refer are, of course, Coates’s Between the World and Me and Dyson’s Tears We Cannot Stop.) It is too early to determine if I’m Still Here will become known as a similarly fervent, well-told story of one black woman’s journey through white America, but it very well might. Christena Cleveland calls it “a stunning debut.” 
Everybody Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People Bob Goff (Nelson) $16.99 We’ve already announced this one; we were very, very happy to describe it here the week it arrived. We knew then that it would be an energetic, upbeat read and we have certainly not been disappointed. There’s a reason it has zoomed to the top of the best-sellers list.
Worthy: Finding Yourself in a World Expecting Someone Else Melanie Springer Mock (Herald Press) $16.99 I was intrigued by the curious cover – see that one little circle that’s different? — and was intrigued by the first line of the excellent foreword by Carolyn Custis James who says “Every once in a while, a book lands on my desk that I wish I had read when I was in college. Worthy is one of those books.”
Stretch Marks I Wasn’t Expecting: A Memoir on Early Marriage and Motherhood Abbie Smith (Kalos Press) $15.95 Kalos Press is an small, indie publisher we like a lot; that they do artful, well-written and spiritually sound books like this is the main reason why. We were thrilled to announce this when it came out nearly a half a year ago but we’ve not had the opportunity to tell you about it again… although I’ve been itching to. Stretch Marks… is sort of a memoir, well told and delightfully interesting, but which includes spiritual reflections and Bible explorations. It is about the early years of the author’s marriage and her becoming and being a new mom. And it is so much more; a lot, actually.
Mystics and Misfits: Meeting God Through St. Francis and Other Unlikely Saints Christiana N. Peterson (Herald Press) $16.99 This is a beautiful book, surprisingly so, even. There are many informative and nicely written books on historic saints and there are plenty on Francis so it is understandable not to jump immediately on yet another. But trust me. This is remarkable.
Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump John Fea (Eerdmans) $24.99 // sale price $19.99
And so, you should pre-order this fine work that is due out in early June 2018. I’ve read the whole thing (and most of it twice.) I will say that his early chapter (“The Evangelical Politics of Fear”) is very helpful. His chapter “The Playbook” shows how the current evangelical worldview was decisively shaped by the rise of the Moral Majority in the 1980s and they continue to work politically out of that same vision. It is a very important overview. His study of why many evangelicals found the Obama years so very troubling is good to understand. One simply cannot fully appreciate what has been happening in some quarters of our land without this understanding of “evangelical fear.”
Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age Alan Noble (IVP Books) $16.00 // sale price $12.80
Alan is feisty and fun and upbeat and, as you can tell from his work at the Christ and Pop Culture site, is very interested in the world of TV and video games and movies and sports and such. He also founded, with Michael Ware, an organization called “Public Faith” and has a lot to say about what Michael Gerson once called “heroic conservativism” and he offers a balanced political witness for the common good. He cares about cultural flourishing and he cares about civic life. In Disruptive Witness he casts a new vision for the evangelical imagination, helping us playfully poke the idols of the age, subverting the ideologies of the time, creating space for fresh conversations. (Do you recall how we raved about Os Guinness’s brilliant Fools Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion? If you admired that, you will like this, I’m sure, even though it is a very different book.)
On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books Karen Swallow Prior (Brazos Press) $19.99 // sale price $15.99
Ms Prior has written for The Washington Post and First Things and the Atlantic. She is a member of something called the Faith Advisory Council of the Humane Society of the United State (like her beloved Wilberforce and Hannah More, she is an advocate for just treatment of animals.) Like John Fea and Alan Noble, above, she is our kind of scholar – thoughtful, deeply Christian, open to fresh ideas about the culture and our times, and able to hold her own in professional and secular venues. We admire her very much.
The Edge Of Over There Shawn Smucker (Revell) $17.99 // sale price $14.39
Happily, The Day the Angels Fell won a Christianity Today Best Book of 2017 award in the fiction genre. It has gotten quite a buzz, with some local (trusted) friends telling us that this guy is the real deal. To be honest we were a little late to the game, but we’re glad to have been made aware of how good he is. We’ve not met, so I’m not just puffing a friend here; I am sincere that this is a novel published by a Christian publishing house that deserves to be widely known. It is an adult novel but could be easily read by sophisticated teens. Tons of folks raved about the first one and many have been awaiting this sequel, The Edge of Over There where Abra Miller is summoned (in her search for a Tree of Life) to a portal in New Orleans, and has to contend with others that also want to follow into this gateway to Over There. We’ll have it here at the shop in early July so if you are one of those who have been eagerly anticipating it, on the edge of your seats, even, we can send on out as soon as we get ‘em in stock.
Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again Rachel Held Evans (Thomas Nelson) $16.99 // sale price $13.59
I wish the publisher had made an advance copy of Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again available, as I can’t imagine what all she covers, how she tells it, or how much actual argument is in the book for a new kind of hermeneutic. I saw a Chaim Potok quote in this twitter shot, which made me happy. I suspect it is mostly storytelling and memoir and will fit well with her other books.She’s a very smart cookie, has studied theology, and done the work of research and scholarship, but also is an entertaining storyteller. She is, I think, an important voice among others who are helping us all navigate faith in a wise and fruitful way here in “secular age” and in the land of Trump.
over a dozen books about Christianity and art, and several beautiful art books, they have released a few others not directly about the arts – Deeper Magic: The Theology Behind the Writings of C.S. Lewis by Donald T. Williams, for instance, my own Serious Dreams: Big Ideas for the Rest of Your Life and a pair of books on Genesis and on Revelation (The Beginning and The End.) Revealed: A Storybook Bible for Grownups is remarkable. Another recent one from Square Halo that isn’t exactly on the arts (and that we really, really like) is by Tom Becker, called Good Posture: Engaging Current Culture with Ancient Faith. In many ways it is nearly a gentle, fun, manifesto for their publishing program. We highly recommend it and, like all their other books, are happy to stock it here at the shop.
I might suggest, though, that their most important books have been a wonderful pair called It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God and It Was Good: Making Music to the Glory of God. Both bring together theorists and practitioners to reflect on some important aspect about the art and practice of doing faith-inspired art. In both, they’ve had contributions from well-known writers (Timothy Keller, Sandra McCracken, Gregory Wolfe, Makoto Fujimura) and many who are not known outside of their particular field of expertise but are excellent in what they do. To curate such edited volumes has been both a challenge and a joy for Ned as it is no small matter finding artists and musicians who are theologically mature, good at their craft, who have been intentional about thinking about how they integrate faith and art, and who can actually describe and write about their own particular 
experiences in the arts. Some painters or musicians do their work very, very well, but are not particularly adept at talking about it, let alone writing a chapter inviting others to learn or take inspiration from them. And, sadly, as with the books integrating Christian thinking about other professions, there just isn’t the demand for these kinds of books that there should be. As you can imagine, It Was Good volume one and volume two were both labors of love, and both are, thankfully, absolutely must-have resources for anyone remotely interested in the creative arts. Alongside a handful of others, they are modern-day classics in the genre of theologically informed aesthetic vision that can inform our own appreciation of the arts.
The brand new It Was Good: Performing Arts to the Glory of God is unlike any other book on the market so it would be a great gift for anyone you know who is in, or aspires to be in, the world of the performing arts.
Square Halo Books is to be commended putting out these good books. Kudos to Mr. Bustard for the behind-the-scenes work of nurturing relationships with so many artists in so many fields from so many venues which has borne fruit in this series of three It Was Good books. The bibliography in the back of this new one is thorough, but not exhausting, listing only the very best faithful scholars (of the likes of Jeremy Begbie, Calvin Seerveld, Madeline L’Engle, Cameron Anderson, Steve Turner, Sandra Bowden, William Edgar, Dorothy Sayers, and the like.) making it an ideal reference tool.
Everybody Always: Becoming Love in a World Setbacks and Difficulty People Bob Goff (Nelson) $16.99 I can’t wait to read this brand new release by one of my favorite people and one of heckuva fun writer. Goff is a great storyteller and, man, does he have a lot to talk about – his work fighting international slavery, reforming laws in Uganda or his well known efforts forming schools (even in war zones in Somalia and Iraq) make for great testimony. So this is going to be great. He is a lawyer, motivational guy, and great dad and husband and friend to people all over the world. Did I mention the Somalia and Iraq thing? He’s full of good humor and seems to be fearless. The book is going to be great.
If you haven’t read his first collection of wild pieces, or the very good book by his wife and partner Sweet Maria, by the way, called Love Lives Here: Finding What You Need in a World Telling You What You Want (B+H; $17.99) you certainly should and I’m confident that you’ll enjoy them and will be pressing them into the hands of anybody you know who likes to read. The word of mouth buzz on Love Does has been one of the coolest things we’ve seen in our years of bookselling; everywhere we go people know this book. (And, happily, Love Does and Love Lives Here are the sort of books that can hook even though who don’t typically read much.) I also recommend his Love Does DVD curriculum ($29.99) which is a fun five-week course with Bob doing his Bob thing, leaking Jesus over everybody and somehow both reassuring and challenging and equipping us.
The Character of Virtue: Letters to a Godson Stanley Hauerwas (Eerdmans) $21.00 There are many who know that Dr. Hauerwas, Professor Emeritus of Divinity and Law at Duke University, is one of the most important living theologians today, a deep philosopher, a colorful speaker, and a vibrant and robust proponent of character formation by submitting to Christian practices within the church. That is, the church shapes and forms us to be God’s people in the world that, if we are following Jesus, at least, is going to be controversial and counter-cultural. He has written bunches of books, some quite scholarly, and is known all over the globe.
The Path Between Us: An Enneagram Journey to Healthy Relationships Suzanne Stabile (IVP) $24.00 and The Path Between Us Study Guide (IVP; $9.00)There are a lot of diagnostic tools to help us understand ourselves and others, from Meyers-Briggs to Love Languages and more. Learning about the nine Enneagram types has been incredibly popular this last year or two with several good books recently released. Customer keep telling us how much these books mean to them and how they’ve enjoyed these insights. Among our favs of recent titles include The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth by Christopher Heuertz (Zondervan; $18.99) and Mirror for the Soul: A Christian Guide to the Enneagram by Alice Fryling (IVP; $16.00.) But Suzanne Stabile’s first major book, co-authored by the always great and so interesting Episcopal priest Ian Cron, The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery (IVP; $24.00) has been by far the biggest seller and most discussed Enneagram book in years. This is, in part, I think, because it is so lively and fun and also because Stabile and Cron have had tremendously popular podcasts. It’s a great book.
Selfies: Searching for the Image of God in a Digital Age Craig Detweiler (Brazos Press) $19.99 I love the writing and work of Craig Detweiler who has been one of the leading voices offering a thoughtful evangelical voice in the studies of popular culture, the modern zeitgeist, and faithful ways to navigate the world of entertainment, digital culture, video games, movies, and such. We take his book iGods: How Technology Shapes Our Spiritual and Social Lives almost everywhere we go, hoping that it will inspire folks to attend more deeply about the very water we swim in, to discern a bit about the times, being better equipped to follow Jesus’ command to be “in but not of” the world. Detweiler does his good work, linking theology and Christian perspectives with social and cultural and historical analysis, so I trust him a lot. I was delighted to learn that he just recently took a new position as the president of The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology, a graduate school founded by our friend Dan Allender. What a good gift he will be to them.
One Blood: Parting Words to the Church on Race John M. Perkins (Moody Press) $15.99 This is a handsome linen hardback, sans dust jacket, with nice red endpapers and it seems to have some gravitas to it. It is said that this is Dr. Perkins’s last book. I don’t know about that but I am sure that any time this African American leader writes something, many people should buy it, pass it around, share his work widely, and make your friends and churches know how important it is. If this is aid to be his “parting words” you should pay attention. There is a lot packed in here and he speaks plainly. In fact, he asks for our willingness to listen since he is an elder and doesn’t have time to mince words.
Jon Foreman of the band Switchfoot wrote a great afterword for One Blood and it offers a great reminder of the need too keep fighting the good fight, in the power of love. Throughout the book there are some other pastors who have chimed in, offering glimpses into how some churches have embodied and lived out this message Perkin’s brings. There are some prayers, some verses to look up, some thought-provoking questions, so it’s ideal, especially to give to rising leaders or younger folks.