December Reading Log

“What are you reading right now?”

That’s one of my favorite questions, both to ask and answer. I love learning about new books through conversations with friends, I love telling fellow readers about the book that’s captivating me at any given moment, and I especially love that moment when I realize a friend and I have read the same book and get to geek out over it. Books are productive, engaging, empowering…but more than any of these things, they’re fun!

So, stealing an idea from my friend and fellow pastor Jeff Gravens, I thought I’d start the New Year by telling you what I’ve read in the last month—just a snapshot of each of the books I finished in the last 30 days. I always enjoy Jeff’s monthly entries, so I thought perhaps you’d enjoy mine as well. So without further ado, here’s what I read in December:

  

INFINITE JEST by David Foster Wallace

This book was brilliant, sad, funny, confusing, and absorbing. And long. So very long.

I hate to lead with something as seemingly trivial as its length, but let's face facts, it's the first thing you notice when you pick this behemoth up. By the time you finish, you've read 988 pages of prose, plus another 96 pages of endnotes in font about this big--endnotes that actually do matter to the main story, lest you try and skip them for the sake of time. Reading this book, especially the last couple of weeks, was like running the final mile of a marathon--I enjoyed the experience, sure, but mostly I was just proud to have finished.

With all of that said, this universally acclaimed Important Book earns its many plaudits. The plot is loose, but generally revolves around a film known as The Entertainment, a film so captivating that once you watch it you don't want to do anything else, including eat and sleep. But the plot is mostly irrelevant; the book's writing, characters, and themes are what resonate most: Wallace's insight into addiction, entertainment, loss, and the way the three connect was incredible. One particular passage about what addiction feels like, told from the perspective of a drug addict, will stick with me for a long time.

This book is a challenge, no doubt--I started it October 16 and didn't finish until December 31, and there weren't many days in that stretch when I wasn't devoting an hour to reading Infinite Jest. Wallace is purposefully wordy, which makes for hilarious prose sometimes, fascinating description at other times, and tediousness in its worst spots.  And again, it's long. But I'm glad I read it, and I would certainly recommend it to anyone looking for a modern classic.

THE DIVINE COMEDY by Dante Alighieri

Another Important Book, and another one that was tedious at times, though that was more my fault than Dante's. It turns out that when buying translated works, it's best to do your homework beforehand. My copy is a translation by the famous American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with illustrations by William Blake to boot...when I saw it at a local used bookstore, I thought I'd found a real gem. Well, word to the wise: when you opt for an English translation from the 19th century, it's going to sound like 19th century English.

Between that language barrier and Dante's repeated references to Florentine politics, ancient poets, and Thomistic theology, I made pretty liberal use of SparkNotes while reading The Divine Comedy, and my experience was better for it. There's a lot to appreciate from Dante, but a lot to be confused by too, so find an annotated copy if you can (not to mention one by a more modern translator than Longfellow.)

The Divine Comedy tells the story of Dante's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and ultimately Paradise, where he (spoiler alert) beholds the full glory of God. If you've heard of Inferno, the first section, and didn't know there were two more parts, there's a good reason for that: it's easily the most accessible and interesting section, as well as the most influential. Purgatorio is, to be frank, pretty boring, one long climb to heaven. Paradiso is interesting, especially for the biblically literate (due to the familiar characters Dante encounters) but it suffers from lazy writing--Dante frequently tells the reader that what he saw was so awesome as to be indescribable, which is fine for a layperson, but not so much when you're a poet who chose heaven as your given topic. If you can't describe it, write about trees like all the other poets!

Overall, my experience with The Divine Comedy was spoiled somewhat by my poor translation choice, but I'm glad to be able to check it off my book bucket list and to see for myself how a 14th century poem continues to affect many Christians' understanding of the afterlife today (usually without them even realizing it.)

SIMPLY CHRISTIAN: WHY CHRISTIANITY MAKES SENSE by N.T. Wright


This book has been described as a modern Mere Christianity. For my money, it's superior to its predecessor. I know that in evangelical circles it borders on heresy to say this, but I'm just not a big fan of C.S. Lewis's theological books, and believe me, I've given him more than a fair shake (I've read Mere Christianity, The Four Loves, The Screwtape Letters, and Miracles.) I love the Narnia series, but for me that's where Lewis makes his best points about faith--not directly, but through the veil of allegory.

So describing Simply Christian, possibly N.T. Wright's most famous and most popular book, as a modern Mere Christianity was not an immediate selling point for me. But Wright is probably my favorite living Christian writer, so I gave it a shot, and I'm so glad I did.

Much like Mere Christianity, Simply Christian is written to and for unbelievers as a kind of soft apologetics--not defending Christianity from specific attacks so much as restating its central narrative in a way that may make more sense to people who don't know or appreciate the vocabulary and traditions of the church. As the book's subtitle indicates, Wright's task is to show why Christianity actually does make sense, despite an unbeliever's reservations. And, while I didn't exactly need convincing, I thought he did a marvelous job considering the ambition of that task.

Wright approaches the argument by looking at four things all humans desire in some form: justice, spirituality, relationship, and beauty, and after proving that these are indeed all human needs, he shows how God meets and fulfills them in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If that sounds too simplistic, believe me when I say I am not doing Wright justice. The book is exceptionally well organized and thought out, and presents Christianity as something that is not only accessible, but attractive and exciting--less a set of doctrines than an announcement of good news.

I highly recommend this book both for interested non-Christians and for believers looking to hear Christianity explained in different terms than what you're used to from a typical Sunday morning sermon. Wright is a brilliant theologian and biblical scholar, but more importantly, he is an excellent writer. Give this book a shot; you will not be disappointed.

ESSENTIAL DOCTOR STRANGE VOL. 1-2 BY STAN LEE, STEVE DITKO, ROY THOMAS, GENE COLAN, STEVE ENGELHART, ET AL.

So this last entry may require a little bit of extra explanation. For those who don't know, I am a huge comic book nerd, and while there are plenty of modern comics I enjoy (some of which I'm sure will wind up in this log in the months to come), my particular passion is comic book history, those titles and creators from when my dad was buying 25 cent comics at the local drugstore. As campy and overblown as much of the stuff from the 1960s and 1970s is, I can't get enough.

The two books I read this month are part of what is, by far, my favorite reprint line that Marvel has ever put out, the now-defunct Essential series. Each volume collects anywhere from 20-30 consecutive issues, presented entirely in black-and-white for $20. If you've ever checked the price on a modern graphic novel, then you know that's not just a bargain, it's a steal...one I am loathe to pass up. As a result, I've amassed a collection of 24 of these volumes and counting, featuring titles from Captain America to the Fantastic Four to Godzilla.

So this month, inspired by the new Doctor Strange movie, I turned my attention to two unread Essentials that have been sitting on my shelf for months waiting for their moment. What I found was a mixed bag, with touches of brilliance, stretches of filler, and a whole lot of late-60s/early-70s psychedelic craziness.

The titular Doctor Strange is not a traditional superhero, but rather the Sorcerer Supreme of this earth (or this dimension, depending on who's writing him on any given day.) As such, while the plots follow the traditional formula of a superhero comic (hero vs. villain of the month), this was generally a different kind of reading experience than what you get from the Incredible Hulk or the Silver Surfer.

The star of the book is definitely the art, first by the character's legendary co-creator Steve Ditko and then later by the criminally underrated Gene Colan. However, this is one of the first times that the Essential series has been a bad fit for a title, because these stories should definitely be read in color. Ditko especially presents the world of Doctor Strange as one full of trippy, Dali-esque geometric shapes and bright, psychedelic colors, and while you can let your imagination fill in the blanks to some degree, you're definitely missing something when you tackle these stories in black and white.

The stories themselves are hit-or-miss, largely depending on who the villain is. If Dormammu, Doctor Strange's arch-nemesis, is the opponent, count on a good story. At the end of vol. 2, there's a multi-issue epic in which the good doctor takes on the primordial monster Shuma-Gorath that is also excellent. The rest is far from "essential" reading.

Sections of these volumes were tedious, and it wasn't hard to see why the title sold poorly by the end of the 1960s (long after Stan Lee and Steve Ditko had moved on). But by the end of vol. 2, when Steve Engelhart had taken the writing reins, things got interesting again, adopting a very 1970s approach to the character by mixing the sword-and-sorcery genre with horror and Eastern mysticism. Man behind the curtain: there were a lot of psychoactive drugs floating around the Marvel offices in the early 1970s, and it shows. But much like with rock music of that time, they make the work pretty interesting. Marvel ended vol. 2 in a perfect spot, because I was definitely left wanting more. The Essential Doctor Strange Vol. 3 is on the shelf at my local comic shop and I will almost definitely pick it up to see where Engelhart went next with the character.