December Reading Log

Between church work, a busy Christmas break, and life with an increasingly active toddler, there was less time for reading this month, but I managed to read through 4 books and finish a year of daily readings from 3 devotional books. It's been a productive year whittling down my list of owned-but-unread books, and I look forward to continuing that progress in 2018. Enjoy this month's reviews, and happy reading!

5 Articles I Like This Month

"Is Trump a Blessing or Curse for Religious Conservatives?" by Ross Douthat, David French, and John Zmirak, The New York Times. 12 minutes.

A conversation between a pro-Trump conservative Catholic and an anti-Trump evangelical, moderated by the New York Times's conservative Catholic (and generally anti-Trump) columnist Ross Douthat. The article's title is its central question, and I defy you to read the debate without at least questioning your own perspective. This is a national conversation that has been going for at least 2 years and will continue for much longer, but rarely will you find the discussion to be as intelligent and civil as in this piece.

"SI's 2017 Sportsperson of the Year: José Altuve Defied Odds to Bring Houston Hope...and a Title" by Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated. 18 minutes.

A glowing profile of the American League MVP, World Champion, and toast of the state.  Even a Rangers fan has to like José Altuve, especially after the way he and his teammates lifted the spirits of a city that was still grappling with the immediate devastation of Hurricane Harvey this past fall. Tom Verducci is one of the best baseball writers out there, and even if you are familiar with Altuve's story, this article is worth a read.

"'We'll Deal with the Consequences Later': The Cajun Navy and the Vigilante Future of Disaster Relief" by Miriam Markowitz, GQ. 20 minutes.

A look at Harvey relief efforts through the eyes of a reporter who embedded with the volunteer Cajun Navy. Most interesting are the comparisons between institutional disaster relief (FEMA, the Red Cross, and the National Guard) and the vigilante efforts of groups like the Cajun Navy, and the questions those comparison raise about who people can really count on (and who they should be able to count on) when the next disaster hits.

"How the Sandwich Consumed Britain" by Sam Knight, The Guardian. 27 minutes.

Sometimes a completely inconsequential yet completely fascinating article sucks me in for half an hour. Such was the case with this history of the prepackaged sandwich, a lunchtime staple in the U.K.  Anglophiles and sandwich lovers alike will find something of interest in this fascinating piece.

"The Two Americans" by Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times. 29 minutes.

A powerful, real-life story of sin, repentance, and forgiveness. You may remember hearing on the new about a mosque being vandalized with swastikas in Fort Smith, AR in October 2016. If so, you probably drew your own conclusions, about both the vandals and victims, conclusions based on your own worldview. But as is usually the case, there's more to the real story than our assumptions. If you only read one longform story this month, make it this one. Powerful stuff.

A YEAR OF BIBLICAL WOMANHOOD: HOW A LIBERATED WOMAN FOUND HERSELF SITTING ON HER ROOF, COVERING HER HEAD, AND CALLING HER HUSBAND "MASTER" by Rachel Held Evans

Rachel Held Evans is one of the most popular and most gifted evangelical bloggers out there (though she has all but cast aside that label since the 2016 election), so when I found this book on clearance at my local used bookstore, I couldn't resist giving it a shot. The book's premise: having spent her entire life listening to everyone from preachers to church ladies talk about what the Bible calls women to, she decided to explore for herself what "biblical womanhood" was by obeying every command addressed to women in Scripture.

Part stunt, part sincere journey, each chapter represents a month of her year of biblical womanhood. Every month she tackled a different set of challenges, whether by submitting to her husband's authority in all decisions, renting a robotic baby so she could practice mothering, or spending a day in total silence. As such, some months are hilarious and others enlightening, but all make for quality reading. At the end of each chapter she also briefly profiles a biblical woman, from the famous (Ruth, Mary, etc.) to those deserving of more attention (Tamar and Dorcas).

If you've read Rachel Held Evans, little of what she decides upon the way will surprise you. Her approach, by design, makes a mockery of the most stringently conservative interpretations of the Bible, which is entertaining but predictable. And her conclusions about biblical womanhood are, for the most part, probably pretty darn similar to what she would have said before undertaking her yearlong experiment. Nevertheless, if you haven't done a lot of thinking about what the Bible calls women to (hint: you should), then this book makes for a breezy, entertaining primer. I doubt this book will change your life, but it'll make you laugh and think.

TELL IT SLANT: A CONVERSATION ON THE LANGUAGE OF JESUS IN HIS STORIES AND PRAYERS by Eugene Peterson

Whether you love or hate Eugene Peterson (I'm firmly in the former category), there can be no denying his love for language and skill with it. In Tell It Slant, the fourth book in his five-part series on spiritual theology, he looks at the way Jesus used language to impart truth, and what fellow lovers of language can learn about God...not only from the truths Jesus arrives at, but the language he uses to get there.

Separated into two sections, one on Jesus's parables from the Gospel of Luke and another on Jesus's prayers, this book continues the theme found in the previous three books: that we shouldn't just care about Jesus's ends, but also his means. Each chapter generally ends up working on three different levels: 1) as a paraphrase and elaboration of the story or prayer, in the spirit of The Message, Peterson's masterful paraphrase of Scripture); 2) as a commentary on what we can learn from said parable or prayer; and 3) what those words of Jesus show about how he chooses to communicate.

For a professional communicator like myself, this book was catnip, easily my favorite in a series where the books seems to get progressively better as the series goes on. Some chapters are better than others, but taken as a whole this is a valuable resource and a reminder that, in addition to being the Christ, Jesus was a pretty darn good teacher. Propelled by the strength of its message and buoyed by Peterson's language, this book is a must-have for anyone entrusted with teaching the Bible.



THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO by Junot Díaz

I don't typically listen to audiobooks, particularly with literature, because the format forces me to go at its speed instead of my own--if there's a well-crafted sentence I was to savor or a complicated one I want to go back and reread, well, there's no time, full speed ahead. Nevertheless, when I found out that Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda served as one of the narrators of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao's audiobook, that was all it took for me to give the format another try. I'm so glad I did.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, one of the most lauded books of the last decade, is a coming-of-age story about a Dominican American family told from the perspective of the titular character, his sister, his mother, and his best friend. Featuring everything from Oscar's nerdy obsessions to his mother's romance with a gangster to the trials of living in the Dominican Republic under the monstrous dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, this book contains multitudes. Running throughout is the motif of a fuku, a family curse, that seems destined to ensure that Oscar's life and that of his family will know be beset by tragedies.

Truthfully, this is not the kind of book I would normally have picked up, but its reputation prompted me to buy it when I found it at a used bookstore (and subsequently borrow the audiobook from the library). I cannot stress enough how glad I am to have tried it. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is unquestionably the best work of fiction I read in 2017, the rare piece of literature in which the plot, characters, and writing are equally excellent. Accessible but deep, thematic but grounded, anyone from a teenager to a literature professor could read this and get something out of it, and the primary thing they would get is entertainment.

As for the audiobook specifically, Lin-Manuel Miranda continues his streak of turning everything he touches to gold, though in this case it probably had more to do with the source material than his abilities. Narrating an audiobook is harder than it sounds, since the narrator has to find an appropriate balance between straight reading and acting, and Miranda strikes that balance expertly. My only warning is that The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao makes regular use of tangential footnotes in its text, which can make the audiobook's narration momentarily confusing.

If you haven't taken in this book, whether by reading it or listening to it, do yourself a favor and give it a try. I can't imagine anyone regretting it.



WILSON by A. Scott Berg

Woodrow Wilson has not aged well in history's eyes. Beloved in his time as an idealistic champion for democracy, his legacy has come under fire more recently, particularly due to his racist feelings and policies toward African-Americans, which, even accounting for his era, were repulsive. There can be no denying Wilson's importance to the history of the nation and the world--but after reading A. Scott Berg's biography, I am pretty comfortable saying I don't like our 28th president very much.

Berg portrays Wilson as a political scientist with ambitions, ideals, and gifts that lifted him above his contemporaries, a man who somehow rarely flew too close to the sun despite a messiah complex that would make even the most ambitious politician blush. Wilson seemed to believe himself capable of singlehandedly saving the world--and, as president of the United States during World War I, actually kind of did. His greatest ambition in this regard, however, would become his greatest failure, as he managed to convince the heads of Europe of the importance of a League of Nations but failed to convince his own nation's Senate, resulting in the United States's refusal to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and therefore to join the League.

Most interesting to me was not Wilson himself, but his second wife Edith. Wilson, whose first wife died during the second year of his first term, met and married Edith while in office, something unfathomable today. Even more unbelievable, after Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke in 1919, Edith not only cared for her husband but secretly handled many of the nation's affairs on his behalf. Her time as surrogate president, and the willingness of the president's advisors to go along with this scheme, stands as perhaps the greatest conspiracy in the history of the U.S. government.

As for the book, Berg does a good job showing Wilson's strengths and his weaknesses, but despite its 742 pages, I left feeling like he had only scratched the surface of some parts of Wilson's life. I would certainly recommend the book (most reviewers say it is far and away the best popular biography of its subject), but I may have to find some supplementary Wilson reading on down the road to fill in the gaps.

THE BUSINESS OF HEAVEN: DAILY READINGS FROM C.S. LEWIS by C.S. Lewis

MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST by Oswald Chambers

A YEAR WITH GOD: DAILY READINGS, MEDITATIONS, AND SPIRITUAL EXERCISES by Richard J. Foster and Julia L. Roller

All three of these books offered short, daily readings, so I made them part of my morning devotional time in 2017.

I've been up front that I think C.S. Lewis's nonfiction is overrated. That being said, The Business of Heaven is, for my money, the best way to read his thoughts on faith. Lewis is famously quippy, and those memorable quotes are given a chance to stand out in this format. This didn't make for the best devotional reading (Lewis has a tendency to stray from biblical theology to Christian philosophy), but I enjoyed it nevertheless. A topical index at the back ensures that I will return to this book frequently in my sermon preparation when looking for a good line from Lewis.

Speaking of overrated, My Utmost for His Highest is one of the most lauded devotional books of all time and, sorry folks, I just don't get it. Some days contained grains of brilliance and exegetical insight, but more often than not I found my eyes glazing over because of Chambers's dry writing style. Also, the verse his message draws from each day sometimes seemed to have little to nothing to do with what he was saying, a no-no for this exegetical preacher. I'm glad My Utmost for His Highest has been helpful to so many people since its initial publication, but I don't imagine I'll be picking it back up any time soon.

A Year with God was typically my favorite reading out of the three each day. Organized by the spiritual disciplines as listed by Richard Foster, editor of this book and author of Celebration of Discipline, each day offered a biblical text, a paragraph of commentary, and either a quote or a challenge at the end. While some of the disciplines seemed to drag on for more days than was necessary, in large part this was a good daily primer on the spiritual disciplines and made for a good way to start the morning.