Measurement keeps things real.
Read and Removed 2022 (53)
Akenson, Donald Harman. Surpassing Wonder: The Invention of the Bible and The Talmuds. University of Chicago Press, 1998. added 06.07.2019. [Because of Tim Miller at Human Pages.] (22)
A marvelous book – literally, a marvel. Immense, inventive in its own right, and carefully teaching the appreciation of the inventiveness of the human author-editors of the marvelous texts which are Akenson’s subject. He approaches the investigation of the history of those texts as a historian, and that alone repays the study of the curriculum of this long volume. But it will change your thinking about the texts themselves, too; although it is not congenial to anyone who thinks these sacred texts come down to us by means of a cosmic dictaphone. And I particularly love this book for its painstaking demonstration that whatever you think you learned in western civ, the Greeks were cultural window dressing; the Hebrews were the architects and structural engineers of the western mind and its world.
Anthony, Joseph. How to Read the Summa Theologica: A Practical Guide for Beginners. Kindle editions, 2013. added 04.06.2021 (47)
Seems helpful – and has interesting biographical notes on Thomas Aquinas, and on the purpose or “project” of the Summa. Definitely from a pious, reverential perspective. The challenge now would be actually reading the Summa. …
Atwood, James E. Gundamentalism and Where It Is Taking America. Cascade Books, 2017. added 09.21.2022 – for book study (44)
This is one of those books that is hard to describe as “enjoyable” but that seems necessary, and no doubt important to read. Atwood is a life-long hunter, so an owner and user of guns, but also someone profoundly opposed to the irrational way we treat guns in our society – in public policy, in the way they play into self-images of control and strength and “being protective,” and the way we ignore ALL THE DATA: that the most likely consequence of owning a handgun is that you will kill yourself or someone you love, or else they will kill themselves or someone you love, whether on purpose or by accident. He points out how insane that is, over and over. Because, of course, it is. In fact, we make laws against collecting and disseminating data! Because we don’t want people to know what’s out there to know, evidently. More insanity. And this insanity is primarily driven by the greed for money of the makers and sellers of guns and ammo. So this predicament we’re collectively in is that the NRA and our legislatures and we and our neighbors are the prisoners and slaves of people making money off death. So there’s that. Obviously, I agree with him. Whether he convinces people who don’t already agree with him – well, I’m not well positioned to ascertain that. But it sure makes me wish my daughter’s husband would get rid of that *expletive deleted* gun he bought.
Bean, John C. Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom, 2nd edition. Jossey-Bass, 2011. (23)
A clear, readable, inspiring, state-of-the-art compendium of why and how to integrate writing across the curriculum – that is, in your own course – and thereby encourage critical thinking. And also, just how to encourage more critical thinking. Too late for me, alas, but maybe not too late to adapt some of these ways and means to Sunday school teaching and other educational venues. If I had to put together a list of good books to read for someone starting out teaching, this would be on it.
The Rule of St. Benedict in English. Timothy Fry, OSB, ed. Liturgical Press, 1981. added 12.21.2022. (50)
A classic. “Prefer nothing whatever to Christ.” Less inspirational than I had expected, however – a lot about which psalms to pray when and on which days, what to do about food, instructions for the abbot, etc. Corporal punishment. CHILDREN donated to the monastery. That is: things we cannot imagine being OK, are regulated in this rule. A lot about obedience. It is, after all, about monastic discipline.
Berger, Warren. A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas. Bloomsbury. 2014. added 03.23.2019 (19)
This was by turns an interesting and maddening book: when talking about education, the need to teach or at least to encourage or at the very least not to completely stifle questioning, rock solid; when discussing questioning as a tool of business innovation, no doubt correct, though he sometimes struck me as too instrumental – as if questioning is merely a form of self-help; when failing to ask his own questions about why our world is the way it is, a singularly tragic prisoner of our weird culture. Because how’s this for a sentence: “Almost every company would acknowledge that it is in business to make money so that it can stay in business” (140)? Can anything be more absurd? And he presents that absurdity as simply … obvious. But this is also someone who can talk about Facebook’s “Hacker Way” as if it has no downside (121), which is probably what he gets for writing a book in 2014. But if you can stomach his hero-worship of people like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, he has provocative advice for the church. We no doubt need to be doing a lot of the kind of questioning he is talking about right now.
A lyrical commentary on the opening of the Deuteronomistic history, beautifully written, paying patient and loving attention to the characters and events and especially to the literary features of the text, and to explicating their effects and meanings. Clear and explicit about the multivocality of the text, and its ambiguous contemporary significance. Inviting dialogue, contemplation of the riches of the text, and reappraisal. Seriously, anyone who can convince me that the book of Judges is something more than a gruesome record of hideous mistakes has done something amazing.
A continuation of the work begun in volume 1, here looking at the book of Samuel, from the story of Hannah through the stories of Saul, and almost the full story of David, as told in its various ways. This is a full course in reading, really, demonstrating what it means to pay attention to prose and to poetry, pacing, attention to detail, symbolism, the layers of meaning. Breathtaking, balanced in its treatment of these incredible characters, open to questions and possibilities and indicating where those lie most mysteriously. My favorite part is the argument about who might have, and could have, written the Court History of David.
The continuation of the translation and commentary of the Deuteronomistic history, with the tougher part of the story, as the kings become wickeder and wickeder; more clarification of the international situation than I had personally understood before; really interesting insights into Elijah and Elisha; careful attention to women characters and notes on their uneven treatment. Tremendous attention to place, and to mood. All in all, an intense introduction to what it means to read Biblical text carefully, and faithfully, as literature. Just brilliant.
Buber, Martin. On Judaism. Edited by Nahum N. Glazer. Schocken Books, 1967. (36)
Written versions of lectures Buber gave in Central Europe between 1900 and 1918, and then in London, Jerusalem, and New York between 1939 and 1951. An important testament of Buber’s thought about Judaism in the modern world. Of historical interest, certainly. Also, still, thought-provoking, about Judaism, but also about religion and “spiritual life” in general. What are we trying to do? What impels us to do that? But my favorite was “The Holy Way,” which seemed to tie a lot of Buber’s thinking together, and to say something vitally important: “true human life is conceived to be a life lived in the presence of God.” “… not truth as idea nor truth as shape or form but truth as deed is Judaism’s task; its goal is not the creation of a philosophical theorem or a work of art but the establishment of true community.” “I must mention a man, a Jew to the core, in whom the Jewish desire for realization was concentrated and in whom it came to a breakthrough.” “This atmosphere, which still obtains in our time, is an atmosphere of dualisms of truth and reality, idea and fact, morals and politics. It is the atmosphere in which Christianity rendered unto the Roman emperor what was Caesar’s for so long a time that it had nothing left to deny him; the atmosphere in which Christianity did not oppose evil for so long a time that, when it finally did attempt to resist its most devastating excesses, it was forced to realize that it had become incapable of doing so.” (!!) “… we shall resist those who, invoking the authority of the already existing law, want to keep us from receiving new weapons from the hands of the living God.” “…looming above all is the name of the nameless, all realization’s goal; a grace open beyond any need for words to all who are determined to start the work of realization …” Oh. Probably too poetic to be practical, but to love.
Burge, Ryan. The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going. Fortress Press, 2021. added 10.3.2021 (1)
This is an interesting little book, which mostly reads like it’s been written by a political scientist – which it has – but concludes with a really remarkable sermon that more than makes up for all the prior annoyance. So I continue to think that it is a big category mistake to conflate “one’s relationship with the divine” with “the way an individual thinks” (as he does on page 10); and it is like nails on chalkboard to me every time he uses the word “visualize” to mean “represent” or “depict” or even “graph,” which were all still perfectly good verbs the last time I checked; and I noticed that he treated the behavior of capitalist managers (“business leaders”) like some law of nature instead of as the socially conditioned behavior we all know it is (123). But it really was worth putting up with all that to learn more about the “nones,” and especially to hear his plea for taking the imago Dei more seriously in the life of the seemingly inexorably shrinking American church.
Bushnell, Katharine C. God’s Word to Women. God’s Word to Women, Grapevine, TX, 2004. added 10.29.2021 (31)
This is a hard book to like for some reasons, starting with Bushnell’s relentless anti-Judaism which might even veer into anti-Semitism – it seems to be enough in her mind to source an idea in the Talmud to disqualify it. She is a hardcore anti-modernist fundamentalist writing in 1923. Her anthropology takes Bachofen and Frazier as current experts (aargh). BUT. She knows her Hebrew, Greek, and Bible; she is logical, practical, and not one to suffer fools, clearly; and she argues forcefully that there’s no misogyny or discrediting of women “inscribed in the Bible” that hasn’t been read into the text by its prejudiced – and fallen, and she would go so far as to claim, diabolically misled – readers. She is tough, tougher than a lot of contemporary feminists who would scorn her hermeneutic and bemoan her appalling parochialism. “Jesus is Lord” means something really specific and important for women, in Bushnell’s view. It means: not your husband, not your pastor, Jesus. And she’s not afraid to preach it.
Cohen, Roger. The Girl from Human Street: A Jewish Family Odyssey. New York: Vintage Books, 2015. added 04.30.2022 – a gift (26)
Cohen is a beautiful writer. What makes his prose so beautiful is not obvious, either, so this is a mysteriously beautiful book. It is all about a single family, Cohen’s family, which he traces from Lithuania through South Africa and London and Jerusalem and New York. It is all about love, and loss, and the struggle to balance those, which people often fail to do. It is all about memory, and forgetting, and constructing and maintaining a self that can live, and help others live, in the world of others. It is all about right and wrong, in real life. It is all about what it means to be Jewish. It is all about what it means to be human. It is a wonderful book.
Daum, Meghan. The Problem with Everything: My Journey Through the New Culture Wars. Gallery Books, 2019. added 01.08.2022 (9)
I got this book because it was displayed prominently at Half-Price Books, and I thought, “well, I should learn about younger people and their views,” even though I could tell it was not exactly “my kind of book.” So, sure enough, it was not exactly “my kind of book,” and I found myself disagreeing with things and only imperfectly “relating,” and sometimes feeling like the author was what I would be inclined to call “whiny,” if only that wasn’t so mean to say. Upon reflection, I’d say this is a book about boundary lines shifting and opinion landscapes changing and not being able to count on things as one did in the past. You would think I would empathize more, being a Boomer and a Christian and a mainline Protestant. Where I didn’t was my sense that the prose overstated the drama of the reality it described. But I agreed with her conclusion on page 194: “… the more honest you are about what you think, the more you have to sit in solitude with your own thoughts.” And with her desire for nuance instead of one-dimensionalized simplification in public discourse, too, wholeheartedly.
Davis, H. Grady. Design for Preaching. Fortress Press, 1958. added 07.20.2022 (34)
What a great book! Great, that is, of commanding stature, brilliance, wisdom, power, profound faith, passion … “A sermon is like a tree …” Poetic, but also profoundly analytic. Beautifully written. I think bound to be practically helpful. Also theological, and theological in a way that makes me think, hard. Frankly, it has a providential feel all around it. Also, he has the world’s best sentence on Plato: “[The terms “substance,” “form,” and “idea”] can mean what they meant to Plato only in a philosophical system that tries to comprehend existence without an adequate theology.” (19) Also, an amazing sentence on language: “Language has no right to exist apart from the thing it says.” (294) Also, one of the most thoroughly androcentric books I’ve read in a long time. That makes for a meditation in itself.
Duck, Ruth C. Worship for the Whole People of God. 2nd edition. Westminster John Knox Press, 2021. [added 04.15.2022 – along with a number of other liturgy references that I’m not adding to the list because I don’t want to wreck my stats, but also because they are designed for practical use rather than for reading cover to cover: The Book of Worship of the UCC and Prayers for an Inclusive Church by Steven Shakespeare and The Women’s Lectionary Year W (which is not actually a liturgical reference) by Wil Gafney and Feasting on the Word Year C Vol 1 & 2, which is not, indeed, an inclusive language resource as it turns out. All because I was looking for a solid liturgy of the table that would be less unregenerately patriarchal than the one for the service of ordination in the Book of Common Worship … especially considering that I used to be the director of the Women’s Center at LPTS (where I wrote things like this), and so felt particularly responsible for doing that. Hadn’t thought about that for a long time.] (42)
A terrific resource for all kinds of worship questions and issues; beautiful theology from this former professor of liturgics at Garrett; practical examples; discussions of inclusivity along various dimensions; attention to words, music, forms, purposes; worth reading, and then keeping for ongoing reference. And makes a person think much more deeply about worship and how the theological and practical issues around worship interact.
Duncan, Stan G. The Big Issue: Homosexuality and the Bible from a Christian Perspective. A Jubilee Justice publication, 2006. added 03.15.2022 (16)
This is such a brief volume it barely qualifies as a “book,” but what it lacks in length it makes up for in passion, and also in pastoral concern. Rev. Duncan is a careful exegete [many examples at his blog, “If You Lived Here You’d Be Home By Now”], and some examples of that are on display in his treatment of the issue of same-sex marriage, the issue that precipitated the short essays in this book. More important, for me, is that his careful exegesis is in the service of an engaged and open approach to the faithful living-out of the gospel of Christ that doesn’t conflate “fundamentalism” with “faithfulness.” That approach to Christianity gets an articulate display in these essays. So for an inspiring rhetorical treatment of this “big issue” – the bigness of which he also ably prompts his readers to consider – from this perspective, this is a lovely source, especially for readers who share his “God is still speaking” hermeneutic.
Fairbairn, Donald. Life in the Trinity: An Introduction to Theology with the Help of the Church Fathers. IVP Academic, 2009. added 11.08.2021 (13)
An illuminating book, for better and for worse. I never felt more keenly the insanity and inadequacy of the substitution theory of atonement than I did reading Fairbairn’s account. I’ve never felt so clearly the blinkered perspective on scriptural inerrancy as reading some of Fairbairn’s assumptive statements. At the same time, he offers a marvelous account of Christian life, of the Trinity, and of Christians’ relationship to Christ. A deeply worthwhile effort to read, and one that ultimately anchors a view that how we live in the world matters and is part of or is an expression of the life of the Triune God, in particular of the Holy Spirit, even now in the act of the redemption of all creation. That really is inspiring.
Finkel, Donald L. Teaching With Your Mouth Shut. Heinemann, 2000. added 10.14.2021 (8)
An inspiring book – I wish I’d read it 20 years ago, which WOULD have been possible, too. Finkel’s discussion of John Dewey and the implications of his philosophy of thinking and learning for education only make me fall more in love with John Dewey. His affection for Plato and Rousseau does not make me fall more in love with those guys, although Finkel gave that his best shot. This book is almost inspired enough to make me want not to retire from teaching. Jk, but it definitely DOES make me want to remember that prompting curiosity and reflection on an experience is how we learn, and that telling people things is not (automatically, certainly) the equivalent of doing that! And maybe all that will be relevant to becoming a “teaching elder,” too.
Florer-Bixler, Melissa. How to Have an Enemy: Righteous Anger & the Work of Peace. Herald Press, 2021. added 07.06.2022 – for book group (40)
We read this book for book group, and I kept having mixed feelings about it; Florer-Bixler is not as clear and logical an author as I would like her to be, so I wasn’t always clear on how what she was saying fit in to her larger scheme, or what point she was actually making. Nevertheless, the points I did understand her to be making seemed important: “peace at any price” is not really a Christian value; difference is not automatically a bad thing or a cause for enmity – a good word, surely – but there are some differences that are intolerable, that Christian values require us to oppose, such as doing harm to others; sometimes we do harm to others by not paying attention to what’s going on, or by asking them to tolerate harms being done to them – actually, that’s a common one; Jesus didn’t “go along to get along.” Paying attention to who has power in a situation, and how that power is being used, has a lot to do with whether we are understanding who is the enemy of whom. Sometimes – more often than we might like to think – we ourselves are acting as someone’s enemy. We should work on stopping doing that. Maybe I had trouble with the book because I don’t want to face some of that, personally, honestly. That seems not impossible.
Frankopan, Peter. The Silk Roads. New York: Vintage Books, 2017. added 04.27.2019; Barnes & Noble’s Mother’s Day coupons work. (43)
A wondrous book, full of surprises, not the least that yes, of course, our “western civ” orientation overestimates the importance of “the west.” In spite of everything we know about the Ancient Near East! In spite of everything that is obvious from looking at a map and thinking about history. Another surprise was the profound involvement of the “Silk Roads” territory in the etiology of the First World War, which we think of as having been “caused” by the assassination of Crown Prince Leopold, or else by nationalisms and great power politics in Europe. Well … in a way, almost as an echo of what was at stake in the East, from this perspective. So, this was fascinating, and well-written on top of that, and with implications for thinking about what is happening in the world today – including Ukraine, alas. Highly recommended reading.
Fung, Jason, M.D. The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss. Greystone Books, 2016. added 02.28.2022 – an example of what happens when I go to Sam’s Club with my daughter. (11)
Well, we’ll see.
Gilbert, George B. Forty Years a Country Preacher. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1940. added 04.30.2022 – a gift (25)
Gilbert is the type of preacher who is willing to say that all that Hebrew and Greek in seminary was a waste of time, and that “the academic type of man” who turns to preaching is likely not to connect with his [sic] parishioners. So … not exactly a role model for me, in a way, and definitely “dated” in many ways, but … yes, a role model, because this memoir of “country preaching” is really an illustration of what it means to love and serve the people where you are called to love and serve people. He was clearly good at that. And shows, maybe more than tells, how that works. Entertainingly [when you get past the dated parts]. And valuably. Because not as much has changed as we might think.
Goulston, Mark. Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone. AMACOM. 2015. added 03.23.2019 (18)
This seems like a useful, helpful book. The things Goulston says all make sense, and seem likely to work. They also seem like things that I am likely to forget – at least some of the “quick” bits of advice for not-quite-everyday situations. That makes it the kind of book that I would probably need to reread from time to time, but might not really want to. Still – the idea that it’s possible to get way better at interpersonal relationships mainly by listening better [and articulating just how much better you’re listening] is seductive.
Graeber, David and Wengrow, David. The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2021. added Christmas 2021 (6)
This book is profound and paradigm-shifting, in more than one way! Its exposure of the massive blind spot in our thinking about the inevitable organization of modern life, the unbreakable tie between agriculture and domination, is stunning and conceptually liberating. The authors remake social science method before our eyes. Re-assess our thinking about Americans – indigenous Americans, that is – again, before our eyes, and expose our unobserved and therefor unexamined prejudices in the process. Huge implications, it seems to me, for thinking about the Ancient Near East, the rise & fall of the Israelite monarchy, the doctrine of God’s sovereignty, and the significance of synodical polity. Huge theological implications, but also huge practical political implications. Well – maybe those are never so remote from one another, let’s face it. Deeply researched. Provocative. Begging to be read again.
Green, Gene L. Pardue, Stephen T., and Yeo, K.K. Majority World Theology: Christian Doctrine in Global Context. IVP Academic, 2020. added Christmas 2020 (12)
This is one of those big books that is hard for me to actually get read, which is unfortunate, because now that I finally made some real time for reading it, I know it is really good. The contents cover six key topics in systematic theology: the Trinity, Christology, pneumatology, soteriology, ecclesiology, eschatology. Usually there are eight articles on each, spanning the globe – investigations from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere. In every case, there is a helpful analytic review of the topic, setting the subsequent offerings in historical and often more familiar “western” theological context, as well as sketching some of what’s at stake in the wider global treatment of the area. And then – just in case we had the idea that Christian theology was context free – these careful considerations of theological issues, and examinations of how they are taken up and thought about in the various and varied global contexts in which many Christians are living these days, and reflections on what it means to translate the gospel into different languages and ways of life proceed to remind us once again that words and ideas are not neutral, but are what we think and live with. Theology is not some abstraction; it is related to people’s daily life, which people are trying to live Christianly all over the world, in every cultural context. I learned more from some of the essays than from others, but my favorites might be different from others. Personal favorites C. René Padilla, “The Holy Spirit: Power for Life and Hope”; K.K. Yeo, “Introduction to Part Four, Soteriology in the Majority World”; Daniel J. Treier, “The New Covenant and New Creation: Western Soteriologies and the Fullness of the Gospel”; Ruth Padilla DeBorst, “Church, Power, and Transformation in Latin America – A Different Citizenship is Possible”; D. Stephen Long, “Eschatology, Apocalyptic, Ethics, and Political Theology” – from which: “… for resentment is always a sign that confidence is a sham. It is a sign of insecurity in which what one opposes is more determinative for who one is than what one is for” (613). A deeply worthwhile book.
Guardini, Romano. The Spirit of the Liturgy. Translated by Ada Lane. The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2016 (1930). added 02.07.2022 (17)
A lyrical, thought-provoking treatment of “the liturgy” – pretty clearly, not the abbreviated and rationalized version familiar to the Presbyterians, and for that matter, there are more than a few disparaging remarks about Protestants – but plenty to think about in the relationships between liturgy, art, and play. And beauty and truth.
This remarkable, eye-opening book caused me to re-examine much that I’ve taken for granted. With a chapter on Harbin, of personal interest because of our family history. A reminder that freedom entails a willingness to embrace responsibility. And real difference.
Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab Peoples. New York: Warner Books, 1991. (38)
A hugely informative, beautifully written, fascinating examination of a carefully-delimited subject. He looks at roughly the early 7th century CE (and the origins of Islam) to the early 1980s, and at people living from the Maghrib to Asia Minor, not really crossing the Indus River. He pays close attention to language and who uses it and how; social arrangements; political and institutional organization; economic activity and relationships. He is not simplistic. I hope after reading this book I will never again say “it’s all because of colonialism.” Whatever “it” is. Not that “colonialism” – as if that were one thing, instead of a whole complex of different things – doesn’t show up in this book. Along with a lot of other things. Fascinating.
Kropotkin, Peter. The Conquest of Bread. Penguin Classics, 2015 (1892). added Christmas 2021 (39)
What a fascinating and thought-provoking book – despite the literally antiquated literary style, and the fixation on working out the practical details of his ideas in what I suspect is not, in fact, all that practical, and the glossing over of what I suspect are, also in fact, some really important specifics. Still. Rather breathtaking, and a lot more convincing than I might have thought. It’s a simple idea, in the end: we ought to meet human needs – for food, shelter, clothing, and the nourishment of the mind and spirit; we can do that; and we definitely shouldn’t organize our common life in a way that makes it impossible to do it. Doesn’t that sound sensible, in fact?
Lasker, Alex. The Memory of an Elephant. Alex Lasker, 2021. added 05.22.2022 – happy birthday. (27)
When I was little, I wouldn’t watch Wonderful World of Disney if it was about animals, because I didn’t want to see the animals die, which they always did. So when I got this book for my birthday, from my sister-in-law who reliably gets me THE BEST BOOKS, I was more than a little disappointed. Like – does she not know me?? But, I did read it anyway … mostly … and it is a good book, even though OF COURSE there is a lot of animal death, due to ivory poaching and evil and sin in the world, but there are also good and noble humans, and appropriate justice, and some hope. So all in all, it was still a good birthday present.
Laubach, Frank C. Letters by a Modern Mystic. Purposeful Design, 2007. (2)
What a provocative, life-changing book – even if you don’t start trying to play “the game with minutes,” but you probably will. Watch out.
Linn, Dennis, Linn, Sheila Fabricant, and Linn, Matthew, SJ. Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life. Paulist Press, 1995. (48)
This is a lovely, wonderfully engaging, comforting, and inspiring book, that has made me want to rush out and begin cultivating the practice of the examen. Really, this time. Really. Well, we’ll see, but the idea that God speaks to us through our lives and our experiences, and wants to give us more life, and hold us back from what drains us of life – what a good idea. Not often expressed that way. More people need to read this book, maybe.
Livingston, Glenn Ph.D. Never Binge Again. Psy Tech Inc.??? Kindle, anyway. Year??? added 11.04.2022. (46)
It looks promising, as a matter of fact. And, surprisingly – or, then again, maybe not at all surprisingly – seems to me to have a fully-fledged philosophy of personhood, freedom, responsibility, and behavior that is entirely consistent with the classical Christian discourse around sin. Btw, ever noticed that the authors of books like this seem invariably to incorporate their professional credentials into their names?
McCall Smith, Alexander. The Sunday Philosophy Club. Anchor Books, 2004. added Christmas 2021 (4)
A leisurely walk through a slowly unravelling mystery, with romantic side plot, local Edinburgh color, and moral philosophy musings along the way. This is to be expected, as the main character, Isabel Dalhousie, is managing editor of The Review of Applied Ethics, and thoughtful in every sense of the word. As well as being independently wealthy, an inveterate solver of crossword puzzles, a lover of music and art, and a model conversationalist. Pleasant despite the mortality.
McCall Smith, Alexander. Your Inner Hedgehog. Anchor Books, 2021. added after Christmas 2021, 01.2022: “here, read this one” (10)
What a very odd little book. [I was warned.] Fundamentally – I think – about academic politics; decorum and convention, and differing views of what constitutes those things; wisdom in the sense of knowing how to get things done; purpose (?); value (?); the point of autonomy (?). Entertaining, sure. Odd, but recognizable. In an odd way, really thought-provoking. Hmm.
McCall Smith, Alexander. Precious and the Mystery of Meerkat Hill. Polygon Books, 2012. added 03.27.2022 (20)
Saw this in the bookstore, and it looked short, and sweet. Once I started to read it, realized it is really a children’s book – one of those my daughter’s third grade teacher used to describe as a “chapter book.” That didn’t stop me reading it, though, and it was short, and sweet, and also a little moralistic, but in a charming way. It was not really about anything, in the end, except maybe friendship. Can’t really go wrong with that.
McDonald, Glenn. The Disciple Making Church: From Dry Bones to Spiritual Vitality. Revised edition. FaithWalk Publishing, 2007 (2004). added 09.14.2022 – a gift from a colleague in ministry (49)
This feels like a life-changing book. At least potentially life-changing. Certainly a life-challenging one. Arguing – entirely believably – that the task of the church is supposed to be going out and making disciples. Which really requires Christians themselves to be disciples, and growing in the life of discipleship; and then, to have a plan and practice of … well, going out and making disciples. And if we would do this – and the book is full of discussion of what it means, it seems, to be doing that – it would change our lives, and the lives of our congregations, and the church, and the world. And we really need to be doing that. I believe McDonald on this. So … the next step is obviously to get working on that. This is one of those books that has lists of things, with thematic labels: Six key questions that map out relationships, “Who’s your Lord? Who are You? Who’s your Barnabas? Who’s your Timothy? Where’s Your Antioch? Where is Your Macedonia?” and six marks of discipleship: “A Heart for Christ Alone; a Mind Transformed by the Word; Arms of Love; Knees for Prayer; a Voice to Spread the Good News; A Spirit of Servanthood and Stewardship.” Phobia, amnesia, inertia, mañana. I don’t know why I find that kind of thing so allergenic, but I do. This was less that way than lots, and at least the lists made good sense, as does the message. Let’s take some of those steps.
McGhee, Heather. The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. One World (Random House), 2021. added 03.27.2022 (29)
This is an indispensable book; I wish everyone would read it. McGhee documents the tragic ways racism has shaped the making of public policy locally and nationally for generations in the US, and what it costs all Americans. As my grandmother used to say “it’s like cutting off your nose to spite your face.” Although really what it’s like is “I’d rather have nothing, than let you have more ‘an me.” As usual, what hits me hard is the topic of SWIMMING POOLS, given our history as swim parents. Communities clear across the country CLOSED swimming pools – filled them up with dirt and planted grass, turned them into parking lots, etc. – rather than integrate them. That’s the first chapter, and it goes on from there. It’s not quite as depressing as that makes it sound, because McGhee holds out hope that Americans can overcome this irrational zero-sum mentality of race, to reap a solidarity dividend from a renewed commitment to the common good. I’d like to sign up for that hope along with her.
Merton, Thomas. Contemplative Prayer. Crown Publishing Group, 2014/1968. added 05.22.2022 – happy birthday. (28)
This book was difficult to read, short as it is. Partly Merton’s style, which I have always found a little difficult. Partly because of the issues it raises. In particular, Merton talks about the role of contemplation in the overall life of the monastic, and of the church, and the world. In particular, his discussion of “dread,” and the idea that we might cultivate a purely routine liturgically-focused spiritual life that amounts to evasion of one’s vocation – what a scary idea. So far, I’m managing to block it out of my mind fairly effectively …
Noll, Mark A. Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity. 3rd edition. Baker Academic, 2021 (ebook). (30)
This is a friendly and informative book – accessible, but not unscholarly; confessional, clearly addressed to a Christian audience, but I’d like to think not unreadable by at least some non-Christians; fairly clearly some evangelical bias, but good coverage of non-evangelical topics, certainly in the early Christian history material; nice treatment of modern topics, and especially the Lausanne Conference, which was especially illuminating for me. Nice lists for “further reading” and provocative discussion questions in the back.
Nouwen, Henri J.M. A Cry for Mercy: Prayers from the Genesee. Doubleday, 1981. added 3.7.2022 – for Lent (35)
I bought this book for the beautiful prayer for the beginning of Lent that’s in it, then kept reading it. But honestly, the epilogue was the best part for me: “Prayer is the divine life in us, a life of which we are only dimly aware and which transcends the capacities of all our senses.” “The mystery of life is that the Lord of life cannot be known except in and through the act of living.” “May there be many more prayers by many more people so that the everlasting prayer of God, which cannot be expressed in words, will continue to make itself known.” Amen.
Odell, Jenny. How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. Melville House, 2019. added 03.27.2022 (33)
This is a splendid, quietly splendid, book – beautifully written, alluring, wise, contemplative, inspiring, motivating. It is a little like walking with a toddler, if a toddler could have a conversation with you like someone with a PhD and had read Walter Benjamin and knew about computer programming and Barnett Newman. Also, not a “Christian book” – the author is an avowed agnostic – but I think and feel an important and valuable book for Christians who care about theology and the church and community and creation and ethics to read. We have something specific to offer our world at this moment. I think and feel we will be more likely to offer it, and will offer it better and more intentionally, if we read books by people like Odell than if we spend more time learning how to manage a congregational Facebook page.
Perl, Jed. Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts. Alfred A. Knopf, 2021. added 09.05.2022 (41)
An interesting short book on Perl’s theory that art is a constantly moving tension between authority and freedom. Form is a kind of authority, in his treatment, as are things like content, material, craft, tradition, genre … he quotes Hannah Arendt on authority, saying “where force is used authority has failed” and Auden on practicality, “if the test of art were its ability to move people then Goebbels would be the greatest artist.” I was less than impressed with his concept of politics, which in my view is too narrow. He thinks art “shouldn’t have to be” “political” – which he seems to think means something like advocating for some particular social cause. But since presumably arts communicate something, I don’t see how they can fail to be political, in the basic sense of that word. The arts are a powerful denial that “everything is about you;” they represent an absorption in/with/by OTHER rules and concerns. That, it seems to me, is their potentially greatest power, both for harm (think, e.g., Leni Riefenstahl – an argument for why sufficient attention DOES need to be paid to how art will end up being used) and for good. “You’ve got to serve somebody.” You can’t help it. I don’t think he admits that enough. Still – “artists make lousy slaves” – at least, to imperatives other than the demands of the art. Probably the source of art’s ineradicable danger in any given world.
Petersen, James C. Why Don’t We Listen Better? Communicating & Connecting in Relationships. Second edition. Petersen Publications, 2015. added 02.25.2022 (37)
The second-best listening skills book I’ve read – the first being *Listening and Caring Skills* by John Savage – with very clear perspective and philosophy: listening is about meeting and loving the other person, which (for those of us who are Christian) is an expression of our devotion to God, and an act of love and service to God and our neighbor. With many practical techniques – too many to memorize, but obviously, for review – that are not just about technique, but about practice; the Talking Listening Card idea is lovely; the practice of noticing when we’re actually listening and when we’re talking; and a really wonderful section on anger, and its relationship to hurt, and to caring. That is good stuff, and theological.
Roberts, J.A.G. The Complete History of China. Sutton Publishing, 2003. added 03.20.2022 (32)
This was pretty dry, took a long time to read, and I’m not sure how much I remember from it, even now. But I can at least say I have read an overview of Chinese history, which is more than I’d done before. And it was particularly illuminating to get a different side of the history during the colonial period, which as I recall is all we covered in high school world history! The coverage of the nationalist and most recent revolutionary period was also really interesting. Again, different from how I remember thinking about it in college. All in all worth it, I suppose, although a bit painful, and if I really wanted to know something about the subject I would probably need to follow it up with something else.
Ruiz, Don Miguel. The Four Agreements: A Toltec Wisdom Book. Amber-Allen Publishing, 1997. 03.27.2022 (21)
Someone asked me what I thought of this book, and I hadn’t read it, so I couldn’t answer. Now I have, and I think – these “agreements” [watch that self talk, don’t take things personally, check out your assumptions, just do your best] don’t seem like bad advice, but for “the wisdom of the ancients” they strike me as remarkably consistent with contemporary psychotherapeutic recommendations and postmodern ideas about the narrative construction of the self. Call me skeptical. They also seem short on ethical meta-narrative and transcendent purpose. Both of those things are probably unavoidable, often implicit, and sources of personal incoherence beyond the agreements the author calls out. So I doubt these four agreements will suffice to make a philosophy of life. But I suspect I would have liked this book a lot better about forty years ago.
Siderits, Mark, Thompson, Even and Zahavi, Dan, eds. Self, No Self? Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological, & Indian Traditions. Oxford University Press, 2011. added 05.22.2022 – happy birthday. (51)
I had wanted so much to read this book. And then when I did, I had such a hard time with it. It was difficult. And yet, giving the recurrent sense that THINKING about this subject matter hardly seems to get us closer to the TRUTH of the situation. Because how do we control for the errors in our thinking and our perceptions? For we certainly cannot simply assume that however things appear to us – and however we talk about them appearing to us – is straightforwardly how they are. That we have no blind spots or presuppositions. So I liked the contributions by Albahari and by Strawson best, which seemed to do the most to incorporate some empirical evidence and reasoning from that.
Simon-Peter, Rebekah. Dream like Jesus. Market Square Books, 2019. added 02.03.2022, free with the workshop registration. (14)
I always like Rebekah Simon-Peter’s articles in Ministry Matters; usually think her theology is on target and her insights helpful. I’m enthusiasm-challenged, though, and don’t usually purposely sign up for experiences where I think people are going to make me commit to being excited about whatever. But I signed up for this workshop anyway, and although I did have to battle my enthusiasm challenge, I thought the battle was worthwhile. In particular for the realization that I don’t give myself permission to “envision” as much as I could, thanks to a wall of self-censorship that stops with what would be possible, what would be realistic, etc. That lesson alone was worth the price of admission. That, and the place where she points out that the paradigm of a “Jesus-like” dream is: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” A book I’m glad I read (and a workshop I’m glad I attended).
Smith, Justin E.H. Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason. Princeton University Press, 2019. added Christmas 2021 (24)
More like a book-length essay. As such, it indeed follows Adorno’s dictum that the essay “shakes off the illusion of a simple and fundamentally logical world, an illusion well suited to the defense of the status quo.” In this case, since the subject matter is literally the irrational world, that seems doubly true. He challenges the rationalist pretensions of logic and scientific method. Of course citing Dialectic of Enlightenment. And then spends time looking at several realms the “Enlightenment rationalists” – whoever they might be, and he notes that there can be some confusion about that – and their heirs would consider the special arenas of the irrational. Dreams. Art and religion and ritual. Wishful thinking and the cons and conspiracy theories that take advantage of it. The internet. The 2016 US election and the devolution of US electoral politics. He concludes that irrationality is irreducible – but that doesn’t mean that we might not want to reduce some of its manifestations, in our individual lives, and maybe also in our collective ones. I am not sure whether I liked this book. Even though Smith says many intelligent and even undeniable things.
Ubell, Katrina MD. How to Lose Weight for the Last Time: Brain-Based Solutions for Permanent Weight Loss. Balance, 2022. added 11.04.2022. (45)
Well, we’ll see.
[Actually, though, there were a couple of things in this book that seemed particularly helpful: her identification of “emotional eating,” as any eating that doesn’t have to do with hunger. That makes all kinds of eating, like “because we were out” or “it’s the holidays” or “oh, that looks yummy” “emotional eating.” There’s a concept. Because then, if you make a rule “no emotional eating,” that rule rules out a lot of problematic eating. A lot of CBT, but that’s never a bad thing. Fundamentally based on “pay attention to when you’re hungry, and stop before you’re full.” So.]
Zevin, Gabrielle. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. New York: Abacus, 2015. (53)
A novel – that’s a rarity. I liked it, too. Not too long. Not too sad, and not sad in ways that ordinary life is not also sad. “Heartwarming”? The book jacket said “poignant,” which seems more precise. Appealing characters, I cared about them very much, immediately, although they were quirky, but not too quirky … Thoughtful. Thought-provoking, in ways. Also, a lot about short stories, and anyone whose favorite format is short stories is someone after my own heart, so there’s that. Yes, recommended. If you’re going to read a novel …
Zinn, Howard. Howard Zinn Speaks: Collected Speeches 1963-2009. edited by Anthony Arnove. Haymarket Books, 2012. added 03.20.2022 (52)
A whole education in itself. And an eye-opening switch in perspective. Very thought-provoking. Although it makes me ashamed to think that I have wasted a lot of time. Because these are collected speeches, there is a good deal of repetition – Zinn makes some of the same points over and over and over and … probably they need to be made over and over, of course, as people resist them. Definitely worth reading, and thinking about, and probably acting on. Because who else is going to do it?
Images: Books on shelf – own work, public domain; Juan de Echevarría – “Vase with Bananas, Lemons and Books” – Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Matters of Interpretation 