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Chris​Hubbs​.com

Avionics engineer by day, tech and theology nerd by night.

books

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    My 2018 Reading in Review

    Time for a quick recap of my 2018 reading. I’ve done several reading posts through the year so this can just be a summary.

    Thanks to Goodreads I can report I read 71 books in 2018. 33 of those were fiction, the remaining 38 were mostly history and theology, with a few biographies thrown in. Though I have a large virtual stack of unread books in my Kindle app, most of my reading this year was still dead tree books. (Maybe this year I can start plowing through the electronic ones…)

    A few notable favorites for the year:

    Her Gates Will Never Be Shut: Hell, Hope, and the New Jerusalem by Bradley Jersak
    Meeting Brad Jersak and hearing him teach this past summer at the Water to Wine Gathering was a highlight of my year. In this book Brad sketches a truly hopeful view of final things, of an eternal city whose gates are always open and inviting. I need to go re-read this one.

    The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone
    I’m sure I wasn’t ready to read this one when it was published back in 2011. But to pick it up in late 2018 and read Dr. Cone’s insightful parallels between the cross on which Jesus suffered and the trees on which so many black people were lynched throughout American history was a powerful thing. I was struct by how the Bible is adaptable and interpretable (a more palatable word to some might be “relevant”) to such diverse swaths of the human experience.

    The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
    This one is a sort of alt-history crossed with Hidden Figures written from a strongly feminist viewpoint. Loved it. Next to pass it on to my daughters.

    They weren’t all awesome.

    Generally if I start in and after 40-50 pages I’m significantly unimpressed, I just put the book back on the return-to-library pile and pick up another one. Life’s too short to stick it out through bad books. There were a few clunkers, though, that I did manage to get all the way through and wouldn’t recommend. Two that stick out are Street Freaks by Terry Brooks (sci-fi writer trying cyber-punk and abusing every cliche in the genre) and The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World by Catherine Nixey, which I wrote about earlier.

    On to 2019!

    I started the year thinking that I needed to burn through my Kindle and purchased book backlog. Then a week later I went to the library and borrwed four more books. Maybe I have a problem… but I guess it’s a good sort of problem to have.

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    Painful but true words about gifting

    If you are entrusted with a certain gift, most of the people around you won’t be similarly gifted. They won’t be able to see as clearly because God has not equipped them to. But being gifted with discernment does not give you permission to be spiteful, arrogant, or judgmental toward them. It is your responsibility to help the community by raising uncomfortable questions and then waiting patiently while it struggles with them. And more than likely, you’ll have to wait much longer than you want.

    -- Hannah Anderson, from All That’s Good: Recovering the Lost Art of Discernment

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    The Cross and the Lynching Tree

    Having read very few black theologians over my past couple decades of reading theology, it was far past time for me to get to the late Dr. James H. Cone’s The Cross and the Lynching Tree. Dr. Cone, a longtime proponent of black liberation theology, makes a forceful case for the parallel between the cross of Jesus Christ and the hanging trees on which so many black people were lynched throughout American history.

    Until we can see the cross and the lynching tree together, until we can identify Christ with a “recrucified” black body hanging from a lynching tree, there can be no genuine understanding of Christian identity in America, and no deliverance from the brutal legacy of slavery and white supremacy.

    The book came with great reviews and reputation, so I was a little bit underwhelmed by the first few chapters. But then came chapter 4, “The Recrucified Christ in Black Literary Imagination”, and Cone introduces us to the vivid poetic imagery that black writers have used to parallel Jesus’ suffering with those of black Americans, and I found myself heading off to the internet to better acquaint myself with Countee Cullen, Robert Hayden, and Langston Hughes.

    The concluding chapter, though, was worth the entire book. Dr. Cone shares his own experience and then explains his beautiful theological conclusions.

    The Christian gospel is God’s message of liberation in an unredeemed and tortured world. As such, it is a transcendent reality that lifts our spirits to a world far removed from the suffering of this one…
    …And yet the Christian gospel is more than a transcendent reality, more than “going to heaven when I die, to shout salvation as I fly”. It is also an immanent reality - a powerful liberating presence among the poor right now in their midst… Without concrete signs of divine presence in the lives of the poor, the gospel becomes simply an opiate; rather than liberating the powerless from humiliation and suffering, the gospel becomes a drug that helps them adjust to this world by looking for “pie in the sky”.
    And so the transcendent and the immanent, heaven and earth, must be held together in critical, dialectical tension, each one correcting the limits of the other. The gospel is in the world, but it is not of the world; that is, it can be seen in the black freedom movement, but it is much more than what we see in our struggles for justice.

    I could quote the whole last chapter but I won’t. It’s really worth picking the book up to read the whole thing.

    Or maybe just one last paragraph.

    As I see it, the lynching tree frees the cross from the false pieties of well-meaning Christians. When we see the crucifixion as a first-century lynching, we are confronted by the re-enactment of Christ’s suffering in the blood-soaked history of African Americans. Thus, the lynching tree reveals the true religious meaning of the cross for American Christians today…
    Yet the lynching tree also needs the cross, without which it becomes simply an abomination. It is the cross that points in the direction of hope, the confidence that there is a dimension to life beyond the reach of the oppressor. “Do not fear those who kill the body’s, and after that can do nothing more” (Lk 12:4).

    Simply wonderful.

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    Three dimensions of salvation by allegiance

    I’m reading Matthew W. Bates' Salvation By Allegiance Alone this week, in which he argues that the word the Apostle Paul uses that is usually translated “faith” (pistis in the Greek) is better understood as “allegiance” in relationship to salvation. It’s an interesting way to look at things.

    Bates argues that the essential proclamation of the Gospel in the NT doesn’t culminate in Jesus' death and resurrection but rather continues to his ascension and reign as king and lord. He outlines it in eight points:

    Jesus the king

    1. Preexisted with the Father,
    2. Took on human flesh, fulfilling God’s promises to David,
    3. Died for sins in accordance with the scriptures,
    4. Was buried,
    5. Was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
    6. Appeared to many,
    7. Is seated at the right hand of God as Lord, and
    8. Will come again as judge.

    This is pretty well in line with NT Wright, not an uncommon take. Bates then outlines three “dimensions” of allegiance that he contends are components of salvific allegiance:

    • Intellectual agreement - basic assent that those eight components of the Gospel are true statements;
    • Confession of Loyalty - leaning heavily on Romans 10:9-10 here
    • Embodied fidelity - what he describes as “practical fidelity” to Jesus as Lord, referencing heavily to Matthew 7 and the “not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’” text.

    None of this appears to be hugely controversial at this point, but the reframing is helpful to me to get my head around how we might articulate salvation by grace through faith and yet still say that faith without works is dead.

    More to come, I’m sure.

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    Finished reading: 2018, part five

    My reading has apparently slowed down a bit this summer. Still, there’s been some good stuff recently:

    Well, first an intro to the first two books. I heard Brad Jersak speak at the Water to Wine Gathering back in June - what a treat. Brad is a Canadian pastor and author, more recent convert to Orthodoxy, and spent many years in pastoral ministry working with the mentally challenged and the poor. He’s funny, wise, and kind… and I’ll pick up whatever book he writes next.

    A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel by Bradley Jersak If Christ is the truest expression of what God is like, what does that really mean? How should we then think about God? Jersak is no fan of the “loving Son protects us from the wrath of the angry Father” picture, and instead works through what it looks like to think that Jesus is what God the Father is like.

    Her Gates Will Never Be Shut: Hell, Hope, and the New Jerusalem by Bradley Jersak Here Jersak takes a careful look at the Biblical texts about heaven and hell and judgment. While it seems he can’t quite bring himself to become a universalist, he makes a strong case for the potential that heaven will be much fuller, and hell much emptier, than my traditional evangelical upbringing taught me to expect. And I like the hopeful view. If there’s a reasonable case for being hopeful, why not be hopeful?

    Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee Hugo-winning sci-fi to change things up. A decent story, nothing amazing but entertaining enough.

    Adjustment Day by Chuck Palahniuk I picked this one off the library shelf on a whim and ended up not really liking it that much. Brutal, pessimistic, dark… No time for that nonsense.

    Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky Kurlansky tracks the usage of salt through history. The book is more interesting when it focuses on ancient times, and progressively less interesting as it reaches the modern day. Also there were far more recipes for salting foods included than I will really ever need.

    The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin A classic from Baldwin, and the first I’ve read of him. What a writer! Beautifully written with a powerful message.

    The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber Picked this one up after @johnthelutheran raved about it. I’d previously read Faber’s Book of Strange New Things and enjoyed it. The Crimson Petal and the White was something completely different - a Victorian novel that reminded me a good bit of Dickens - but it kept me interested all the way through.

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    Finished reading: 2018, part four

    What I’ve read the past month or so:

    Head On by John Scalzi A sequel in Scalzi’s series from the near future where some humans are afflicted by a disease that causes “lock in”, where their bodies are vegetative but their minds are able to interact with the outside world via a neural interface and proxy robot-like bodies. An entertaining read.

    The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton by Michael Mott Interesting to read a biography of Merton written by someone other than himself. (While The Seven Storey Mountain is well worth a read, it’s clearly pretty one-sided.) Merton remains a fascinating character to me.

    Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution by Kenneth Miller I found Miller’s name when looking at biology textbooks - he’s the author of a very popular one used by our public high school. Turns out he’s a professing Christian who has spent a bunch of time thinking and writing about how he makes sense of his faith in light of his life-long study of evolution. I found the book thoughtful and very reasonable. Worth a read.

    On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books by Karen Swallow Prior This one isn’t out yet, but I snagged a review copy and will write a full post later. Prior uses each chapter in this book to highlight a virtue and a great book that illustrates the virtue. I now have a bunch more books on my list that I’ve somehow failed to read thus far.

    How Right You Are, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse Light-hearted fluff… perfect for reading on vacation next to a swimming pool… which was exactly what I did.

    Warning Light by David Ricciardi Highly forgettable spy thriller. Something about a guy who may or may not have been spying on an Iranian nuclear site and then is trying to escape. Yawn.

    The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire by Alan Kreider Now this was a good one. Kreider was a Professor of Church History at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana. He spends most of this volume examining primary sources from the first few centuries A.D. (basically 1st century up through Constantine) and looking at what those Christians viewed as important. Notably important: patience and longsuffering. It becomes clear reading Kreider how much the tenor of the early church changed when Constantine brought them out of the

    Bed and Board: Plain Talk About Marriage by Robert Farrar Capon This one was in urban legend status for a while - an old, out-of-print title from a beloved (if somewhat niche) author that supposedly was very good. And hey, it got reprinted, and it’s not even that expensive! Capon is his familiar crusty self, and honestly the chapters on marriage fell a little short in my mind. But the chapter on Things and our approach to them was golden. Completely worth the price of the book. Merits a blog post later.

    Eisenhower vs. Warren: The Battle for Civil Rights and Liberties by James F. Simon A nice overview of Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren and President Dwight Eisenhower and how they interacted specifically around civil rights issues in the 1950s. Most striking to me was how different a time it was politically - Warren and Eisenhower were centrist and courted as presidential candidates by both political parties. We could use some more of that today. Warren particularly was an interesting story to me. Second-generation European immigrant, son of blue-collar parents just scraping by, had fairness as an overriding political objective, and championed both social programs and fiscal responsibility, and somehow made it all work as governor of California.

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    Finished reading: 2018, part three

    Books I’ve read the past couple months:

    Waypoint Kangaroo by Curtis C. Chen

    A fun little sci-fi story I discovered on the library shelf. A sort of space-based adventure / mystery story where the main character has a special ability that comes in quite handy at times.

    Traitor by Jonathan de Shalit

    A not-so-memorable spy novel.

    Immeasurable: Reflections on the Soul of Ministry in the Age of Church, Inc. by Skye Jethani

    A hit-and-miss collection of essays. When Jethani is on, his insight into the issues in evangelicalism are really good.

    Kangaroo Too by Curtis C. Chen

    Hey, I liked the first book in the series… The second one was pretty good, too.

    The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve by Stephen Greenblatt

    An overview of the various historical perspectives on Adam and Eve. Easy to read, fairly interesting.

    City of Endless Night by Douglas Preston

    I have always enjoyed the Agent Pendergast series from Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. This one was no exception.

    What Are We Doing Here? by Marilynne Robinson

    I typically love Robinson’s essays, but this book left me a bit cold. Its themes are more repetitive than her previous books of essays - perhaps because they’re condensed from various talks she’s given?

    Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover

    A fascinating account of growing up as an unschooled Mormon survivalist in Idaho and the journey out to the real world. And it has some really great cover art.

    Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith by Richard J. Foster

    Foster reviews key contributions to the Christian faith from various Christian traditions. Encouraging precisely because it recognizes first that these truly are all strands of the Christian faith (an angle that too many in my current flavor of evangelicalism would dispute) and second, that they provide rich value to believers.

    The Night Trade by Barry Eisler

    Eisler knows how to write a thriller.

    The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World by Catherine Nixey

    I picked this one up from the library against my better judgment, but thought the topic was interesting and that I’d go into it with an open mind. The author admits in the preface that she is telling a one-sided story, and then she grinds that axe for the entire book. Sure, Christianity has a checkered history, but to hear Nixey tell it the world would be a rich nirvana of love and learning were it not for centuries of hateful narrow-minded Christians.

    The Deceivers by Alex Berenson

    I’d never read Berenson before. This one’s a passable spy thriller adopting a ripped-from-the-headlines plot of Russian interference in a US presidential election. They just don’t make spy novels anymore like Tom Clancy used to.

    The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe

    Following my sad pattern of being prompted to read famous authors after hearing of their deaths, I picked this one up after Tom Wolfe passed away last week. Now I’m gonna have to go find some of his other books. While the story of the test pilots who became the first round of US astronauts in the late 1950s is interesting enough on its own, what’s truly memorable is Wolfe’s voice and style.

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    Finished reading: 2018, part two

    Books I’ve read over the past month or so:

    A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles An utterly charming novel about a Russian nobleman confined to hotel “house arrest” after the 1917 revolution. His adventures interacting with hotel staff (which he soon becomes) and guests are full of wit and grace and humor. I don’t recall who recommended this one to me but I owe them my thanks.

    The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage by Jared Yates Sexton A memoir from a liberal writer who covered the 2016 US presidential election. Heartfelt, but not as interesting or memorable as I had hoped it might be.

    House of Spies by Daniel Silva OK, the Gabriel Allon series is getting old. I probably should’ve figured that out seeing as this is book #17 in the series.

    1Q84 by Haruki Murakami I first became acquainted with Murakami through his Absolutely on Music book that I read a couple months ago. Having discovered he was a novelist I figured it was worth reading one. 1Q84 was just interesting enough to keep me going through its 900 pages. I guess it’s a love story at heart, albeit one with some odd and unexplained sci-fi twists.

    An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon A YA sci-fi novel with strong race / slavery / gender themes. Interesting in that it tried hard to represent a lot of racial and gender diversity. Managed to do it while only a little bit heavy-handed with the message.

    We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights by Adam Winkler Heard about this one on an episode of NPR’s Fresh Air. Fascinating (to me, a bit of a con law nerd) history of how American law has treated corporations with regard to rights and freedoms. Some cases, it seems, have had unintended consequences as the years went by; Ralph Nader’s efforts to win corporate speech rights back in the 1970’s seemed meant to benefit ordinary people by freeing up information that the government had restricted. Those same rights were used as the basis 30 years later for deciding in Citizens United that corporations could dump unlimited money into political campaigns.

    Crimes of the Father by Thomas Keneally The author of the novel Schindler’s List takes on the Catholic church abuse scandal. Pleasant yet forgettable prose.

    Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable Realized I didn’t know much about Malcolm X, and this particular biography was recommended by Ta-Nehisi Coates somewhere. A very readable picture of a fascinating man.

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    Finished reading: where has 2018 gone already?

    I start each year with the intent of writing up Finished Reading posts on a book-by-book basis. Then I find myself in the first week of February and realize I’m nine books behind already. So it’s compendium time. Here’s what I’ve ready in 2018 so far:

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    My 2017 reading in review

    Just a quick post to summarize my reading and a few favorites this year. I read a total of 71 books in 2017, which I’ll split up into fiction, non-fiction, and theology. I’ll highlight no more than two in each category as particular favorites.

    Fiction

    • Broken Trust - W.E.B. Griffin
    • Bounty - Michael Byrnes
    • The Whistler - John Grisham
    • The Believer - Joakim Zander
    • Last Year - Robert Charles Wilson
    • Dune - Frank Herbert
    • Before the Fall - Noah Hawley
    • The Girl Who Drank the Moon - Kelly Barnhill
    • The Shadow Land - Elizabeth Kostova
    • Walkaway - Cory Doctorow
    • The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet - Becky Chambers
    • A Closed and Common Orbit - Becky Chambers
    • Parable of the Sower - Octavia E. Butler
    • Till We Have Faces - C. S. Lewis (re-read)
    • The Switch - Joseph Finder
    • Price of Duty - Dale Brown
    • Point of Contact - Mike Maden
    • The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. - Neal Stephenson
    • City of Stairs - Robert Jackson Bennett
    • Boneshaker - Cherie Priest
    • Autonomous - Annalee Newitz
    • The Berlin Project - Gregory Benford
    • Over Sea, Under Stone - Susan Cooper
    • The Force - Don Winslow
    • The Quantum Spy - David Ignatius
    • The Dark Net - Benjamin Percy
    • The Punch Escrow - Tal M. Klein

    The Force is a well-written crime story featuring a flawed detective. A really engaging page-turner where I didn’t know where the story was going when I was half-way through.

    The Punch Escrow is a sci-fi thriller that takes one reasonable conceit and runs with it to great effect. A really fun novel to close out the year.

    Non-Fiction

    • Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America - Ibram X. Kendi
    • A People’s History of the United States - Howard Zinn
    • Reclaiming Hope: Lessons Learned in the Obama White House about the Future of Faith in America - Michael Wear
    • The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion - Jonathan Haidt
    • Instrumental: A memoir of Madness, Medication, and Music - James Rhodes
    • A Wretched and Precarious Situation: In Search of the Last Arctic Frontier - David Welky
    • Now - The Physics of Time - Richard A. Muller
    • The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies - and What They Have Done to Us - David Thomson
    • City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York - Tyler Anbinder
    • A Natural History of the Piano - Stuart Isacoff
    • The Madame Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science - Julie Des Jardins
    • The Silk Roads: A New History of the World - Peter Frankopan
    • Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
    • The World Will Be Saved by Beauty: An Intimate Portrait of Dorothy Day - Kate Hennessy
    • Boeing Versus Airbus: The Inside Story of the Greatest International Competition in Business - John Newhouse
    • Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich - Norman Ohler
    • The Givenness of Things - Marilynne Robinson
    • Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption - Bryan Stevenson
    • The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America - Richard Rothstein
    • Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic - Sam Quinones
    • The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris - David McCullough
    • Movies are Prayers: How Films Voice Our Deepest Longings - Josh Larsen
    • The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II - Svetlana Alexievich
    • A Colony in a Nation - Chris Hayes
    • Getting Religion: Faith, Culture & Politics from the Age of Eisenhower to the Era of Obama - Kenneth L. Woodward
    • Khrushchev: The Man and His Era - William Taubman
    • Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophetic Witness - Edward K. Kaplan
    • A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples - Ilan Pappe
    • Spiritial Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, 1940-1972 - Edward K. Kaplan
    • How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds - Alan Jacobs
    • The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency - Chris Whipple
    • Nevertheless: A Memoir - Alec Baldwin

    I started off the year with a bang reading Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning. Stunning writing about the history of racism in America. So much that we as middle-class white Americans aren’t familiar with. But the one that will likely stick with me even more and provoke some re-reads came late in the year: Alan Jacobs' How to Think. In this time of “fake news” and incessant online argument, Jacobs provides some much-needed sanity and advice.

    Theology

    • How to Survive a Shipwreck - Jonathan Martin
    • Introduction to the Old Testament - J. Alberto Soggin
    • The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’s Crucifixion - N.T. Wright
    • Faithful Presence: Seven Disciplines that Shape the Church for Mission - David E. Fitch
    • Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life - Tish Harrison Warren
    • The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can’t Get Their Act Together - Jared C. Wilson
    • People to Be Loved: Why Homosexuality Is Not Just an Issue - Preston Sprinkle
    • The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? - David Bentley Hart
    • Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony - Richard Bauckham
    • A People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story - Diana Butler Bass
    • The Art of Curating Worship: Reshaping the Role of Worship Leader - Mark Pierson
    • Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God: The Scandalous Truth of the Very Good News - Brian Zahnd

    Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham will permanently change how I read the Gospels. His case that most people named by name in the Gospels were specifically named because they were known eyewitnesses puts the accounts in a new light.

    And I had heard good stuff about D.B. Hart’s little volume The Doors of the Sea for a long time but just never gotten to it. In it he uses the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 to frame his response to the age-old question of how a good, omnipotent God can allow such evil and suffering. My theological upbringing has been pretty Calvinist, but Hart’s very non-Calvinist approach (he’s Orthodox) provided a more compelling and beautiful explanation than anything I’ve previously read.

    Summary

    On the whole, I feel like I got a lot of variety this year and read a lot of interesting books. I do have a handful that I started and for some reason bogged down in and need to come back to - Greg Boyd’s Crucifixion of the Warrior God is on that list… to be picked up sometime soon.

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    Finished reading: 2017 year-end edition

    I’ve gotten seriously slack at listing all the books I’ve been reading. Consider this my year-end catch-up post. (Not to be confused with my year-in-review post which will come next week sometime.)

    Here’s what I’ve finished reading since last time I posted:

    Fiction

    • City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett
    • Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
    • Autonomous by Annalee Newitz
    • The Berlin Project by Gregory Benford
    • Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper
    • The Force by Don Winslow
    • The Quantum Spy by David Ignatius

    Non-Fiction

    • A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples by Ilan Pappe
    • Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, 1940-1972 by Edward K. Kaplan
    • Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God by Brian Zahnd
    • The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency by Chris Whipple
    • How to Think by Alan Jacobs

    I’m currently reading The Punch Escrow by Tal M. Klein, which if it stays on track will climb pretty high up my favorites list for the year. Stay tuned!

    ∞

    Finished reading: fiction!

    Two weeks, two business trips, it was time for light reading. Trolling the fiction shelves found me these:

    Price of Duty by Dale Brown

    Dale Brown has managed to crank out 21 books in the Patrick McLanahan series over the past 30 years. I’ve read far too many of them. They crossed the line into ridiculousness several books back… and this one is no different. This one reads more like the script for a direct-to-video action movie (a genre, I fear, that has been killed off by Netflix!) than a proper novel.

    Tom Clancy - Point of Contact by Mike Maden

    Tom Clancy is long dead and buried but his name and book series lives on. According to Amazon, this book is “Jack Ryan Universe book #23”, which is roughly the same output as Dale Brown’s series in roughly the same timeframe. This one was thin enough that, writing this post a couple weeks after finishing the book, I have exactly zero recollection of what this one was about.

    The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland

    Now this one was worth my time. While it starts out seeming to be about ‘the return of magic’, it’s much more an adventure in time travel combined with some humorous observations about how bureaucracy can take over and ruin even the best ideas. I had a lot of fun here.

    ∞

    Finished reading, part the next

    A rundown of recent book completions:

    A People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story by Diana Butler Bass

    Bass is clearly giving a nod to Zinn’s People’s History of the United States with her title and approach. It’s not a bad effort, but nothing really earth-shattering, either.

    The Art of Curating Worship: Reshaping the Role of Worship Leader by Mark Pierson

    Pierson is an Australian who was writing from a very strong emergent perspective. While the worship experiences he describes are a long way from what would work in my midwestern US church, his perspective on the intent of and attitude toward leading worship was right on and gave me a lot to think about.

    Khrushchev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman

    A very readable biography of the Soviet leader. Still hard to get a grasp on how someone can be so human and yet so depraved.

    Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

    This was the first I’ve read of Butler. Won’t be the last. A wonderful voice in dystopian fiction.

    Abraham Joshua Heschel: Prophetic Witness by Edward Kaplan

    The first of two volumes of biography of a fascinating Jewish thinker from the early 20th century. Now I’ve gotta get volume two.

    The Switch by Joseph Finder

    I was wanting mindless entertainment, and this book overachieved at that. By which I mean it was even more mindless and boring than I was hoping for. Meh.

    ∞

    Finished reading: several more

    It’s been a while since I’ve put a post together, but I haven’t stopped reading… recent books:

    Movies are Prayers: How Films Voice Our Deepest Longings by Josh Larsen

    Larsen is the co-host of the essential Filmspotting podcast, as well as being an editor at Think Christian. Larsen explores the overlap of his two interests with an insightful look at how movies can be expressions of prayer. Larsen goes deeper into the theology of prayer than I expected, with insightful results. As also happens when I listen to Filmspotting, I came away from Movies are Prayers with a bunch of movies to add to my to-watch list.

    Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony by Richard Bauckham

    Bauckham explores the Gospels and makes the case that their content was primarily from eyewitness testimony. He spends quite a bit of time exploring how oral histories were passed down through various cultures, and how the gospels bear many of the hallmarks of such oral tradition based on eyewitness information. He also suggests that part of the reason some characters (including some very minor characters) are explicitly named in the Gospels is because they were known living people who could be referenced as eyewitnesses. (What a fascinating thought!) This definitely gives me a new perspective when reading the Gospels.

    The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II by Svetlana Alexievich

    A winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, Alexievich interviewed hundreds of Soviet women who fought (often as teenage girls) in the Soviet army during WWII. The details are made even more horrific by the narrative telling. War is hell. Terrible, real, and heartbreaking.

    A Colony in A Nation by Chris Hayes

    A short volume documenting the discrepancy in policing and justice between blacks and whites in America. Not exceptionally surprising after all that I’ve read the past couple years, but tragic and infuriating none the less.

    Getting Religion: Faith, Culture, & Politics from the Age of Eisenhower to the Era of Obama by Kenneth L. Woodward

    Woodward was the religion editor of Newsweek for decades, in which role he had opportunity to interview many of the major religious figures of the 20th century. A devout Catholic, Woodward provides a measured view of Billy Graham and other early evangelists, the rise of Evangelicalism and its political efforts, the changes in the Catholic church after Vatican II, and the evolution of the Protestant mainline. Woodward’s easy prose felt familiar in some way; finally I realized it must be the deft touch of a newsman similar to that of the late Steve Buttry who I read regularly for nearly a decade until his untimely death last year. All told, a good history of religion in America.

    ∞

    Yep, still reading...

    A few more books I’ve completed lately:

    Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

    Stevenson tells the stories of many death row inmates he has represented over the years. He makes a compelling case that the justice system is broken for many of these people, documenting gross negligence of counsel, biased law enforcement and judicial systems, and abhorrent treatment inside of prisons. While the inmate whose story forms the through line of the book has a positive outcome, many, many do not. Sobering.

    The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

    A workmanlike path through the immense de facto segregation endorsed by the US government in the early part of the 20th century. It is stunning to understand how zoning laws and public financing were used as weapons to ensure that African Americans were kept out of white neighborhoods. America still has a lot of history to own up to.

    Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones

    Completing my bleak trilogy is this account of the rise of OxyContin and heroin addiction over the past decade. The parallels of aggressive heroin marketing by drug producers from one small location in Mexico and the aggressive OxyContin marketing to doctors and patients even after serious concerns were raised about addiction are remarkable. Quite a horror.

    OK, so my reading hasn’t all been bleak reading on social issues…

    Walkaway by Cory Doctorow

    A near-future sci-fi in which Doctorow explores the benefits of a communal maker culture. Interesting ideas, but reminds me a little too much of Heinlein - characters having long conversations about the ins and outs of the philosophical position, too much unnecessary sex.

    The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

    Now this is a fun little fantasy novel. Space adventure in a ship with a diverse, multi-species crew. Easy and fun to read. I have the second book in the series on reserve at the library… any time now, folks.

    ∞

    Finished reading: a few more...

    Summertime seems to make it hard to get through too many, but here are a few more books that I’ve finished over the past few weeks…

    Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich by Norman Ohler

    Ohler’s book is partly a technical explanation of the development of opiates and methamphetamines by German pharmaceutical companies and partly a chronicle of Hitler’s descent into the hell of addiction. A stunning picture of horror and madness.

    The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can’t Get Their Act Together by Jared C. Wilson

    A beautiful little volume that calls readers back to the spiritual disciplines in a way that is gracious and encouraging.

    The Givenness of Things by Marilynne Robinson

    I’ve posted several quotes from this book already, and should really queue up several more. Robinson’s essays are so thoughtful and engaging. Finding someone who unashamedly professes a belief in orthodox Christianity while at the same time discussing that faith in terms and from angles that are far outside traditional theological writing is a huge treat. Destined to be one of my favorite books of the year.

    ∞

    Finished Reading: The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova

    Grabbed this one off the library shelf on a whim. I read Kostova’s The Historian a few years back and remember enjoying it, and I was ready for some fiction.

    First comment on this one: bet you’ve never read a book set in modern Bulgaria before! (Kostova is an American but is married to a Bulgarian, hence her interest in the region.) The novel flashes back and forth between present-day and early Cold War-era Bulgaria to tell the story of a family and their suffering under Communist rule.

    I didn’t find it as intense or engaging as The Historian, but Kostova writes beautifully and the story kept me going until the last page. Not a bad choice for some casual reading.

    --

    The Shadow Land: A Novel by Elizabeth Kostova

    ∞

    An open letter of apology to my wife, to be reused as necessary

    Dear Becky,

    Tomorrow the postman will drop off an Amazon package in the mailbox. Yes, it’s another book. Yes, I know the last one I ordered just showed up a couple days ago. And the one last week before that.

    I managed to justify them all to myself in one way or another. Last week was a book about major players in my industry, and I figured it’d be good history for me to know. Early this week was one about leadership that a bunch of people have been raving about. Having been in a leadership position at work for almost two years, it’s probably worth reading. Tomorrow is a two-volume (sigh) book of theology.

    Had I been able to arrange the delivery date for tomorrow’s book, I would’ve spaced it out a little bit better, but I ordered it back in January and it just dropped this week. But hey, Amazon tells me I saved $5 by preordering, so that makes it worth it, right?

    And yeah, I know I’ve got a pile of books as long as my arm stacked next to the bed. And another pile as long as my other arm stacked behind that. And full bookshelves everywhere we have bookshelves. But is it really my fault that N.T. Wright is such a prodigious author? Heck, the last time I bought a book of his I spent $4.99 on sale for the Kindle version. That saves bookshelf space!

    (On second thought, let’s not get into how many unread books I still have on the Kindle…)

    I have at various times in the past made a resolution that I won’t buy any more books until I whittle down the unread pile next to the bed. It’s probably time to make that resolution again. (Well, maybe after I use that Half Price Books gift card I was just given.)

    At this point my unread book collection probably outnumbers your cast iron collection, though by weight the cast iron still wins… but maybe not for long. I think we get similar amounts of enjoyment out of our own respective collections, but to be fair I’m sure I get far more benefit from all the yummy stuff you cook in the cast iron than you get from all the rambling I do in conversation with you after reading.

    Thanks for nearly 20 years of putting up with my bad habits. As much as I try to improve, maybe sometimes buying another bookshelf would just be the easier solution. (If we only had room…)

    Love, Chris

    ∞

    Finished reading: The Madame Curie Complex by Julie Des Jardins

    Picked this one up from the library on a whim. The Madame Curie Complex is a relatively short volume covering the history of a dozen or so women scientists starting with the archetypal Marie Curie and running through the 20th century up to Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey.

    Des Jardins consistently hits the themes that these brilliant women were underappreciated, underpaid, and had uneven expectations levied on them - circumstances that continue for women across the workforce today. While each chapter provides a nice summary of each woman’s achievements, there’s not a compelling through line or narrative arc to the book to pull it together as a cohesive whole. Nevertheless, this is a good bit of history to read up on.

    -- The Madame Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science

    ∞

    Finished reading: Faithful Presence by David Fitch

    I’ve kept up with David Fitch for a while now via his blog and twitter. Fitch is a professor of theology at Northern Seminary in suburban Chicago, and has led church plants that reflect his focus on community, mutual leadership and submission, and reconciliation. Faithful Presence seeks to capture those ideas in a short, practical volume for church leaders.

    Fitch outlines three areas of presence that Christians should occupy: the “close circle” (presence with other Christians around the Lord’s Supper), the “dotted circle” (still a fellowship of believers, but open to non-believers, typically in the context of a believer’s home), and the “half circle” (extending Christian presence into the neighborhood).

    He then spends short chapters on each of seven disciplines he outlines as critical to a faithful presence. They are:

    • The Lord’s Table
    • Reconciliation
    • Proclaiming the Gospel
    • Being with the “Least of These”
    • Being with Children
    • The Fivefold gifting (roles in church leadership)
    • Kingdom Prayer

    I really like Fitch’s focus on neighborhood and community presence; this is a welcome redirection from the big evangelical church as social hub. I found resonance there with an end note from Nadia Bolz-Weber’s Accidental Saints, where (if memory serves) she says essentially “do you want what we have? Don’t move here and come to my church - instead, start having a weekly dinner in your home with other believers, and let it grow from there.”

    There’s a lot here to consider in an easy, small volume. Worth the read.

    --

    Faithful Presence: Seven Disciplines That Shape the Church for Mission

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