August Reading Log

Lots of great reading this month. Take a look!

5 Articles I Like This Month

"Schlitterbahn's Tragic Slide" by Skip Hollandsworth, Texas Monthly. 31 minutes.

When Skip Hollandsworth writes a feature for Texas Monthly, I read it, simple as that. This one, about a fatal accident at a Kansas City Schlitterbahn water park and the subsequent consequences for the park and its founder, is reliably excellent. A uniquely American story of innovation, hubris, and tragedy.

"Dear Mr. President" by Jeanne Marie Laskas, The Guardian. 16 minutes.

During his two terms as president, Barack Obama read 10 letters every night from "typical Americans," compiled and curated by a vast team of White House employees and volunteers with the purpose of giving the president perspectives outside the Washington bubble. In this excerpt from her forthcoming book, To Obama: With Love, Joy, Hate, and Despair, Jeanne Marie Laskas interviews the former president to ask what he learned from those letters.

"Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation?" by Steven Hyden, AV Club. 135 minutes.

In an 8-part series that served as a nice companion piece to the oral history of grunge music I read last month, Steven Hyden gives his personal account of alternative music in the 1990s, from Nirvana's explosion with "Smells Like Teen Spirit" all the way to the dueling Brit Pop approaches of Oasis and Radiohead.

"It's Time We Realize Football Is a Little Less Important" by Tim Layden, Sports Illustrated. 8 minutes.

The American institution of football is under fire once again, thanks to serious scandals at Ohio State and Maryland, an unpopular NFL rule change related to helmet use in tackling, and the seemingly never-ending debate over player protests during the playing of the national anthem. With the sport suffering because of these issues and others (especially our growing knowledge about concussions and CTE), it's worth asking: is protecting this game really as important as we've decided it is?

"The Weasel, Twelve Monkeys, and the Shrub" by David Foster Wallace, Rolling Stone. 104 minutes.

The death of Senator John McCain prompted a lot of great profiles, some old and some new. Perhaps most famous of them all was this 2000 piece by David Foster Wallace, which he wrote after spending a week on the senator's famous "Straight Talk Express" during his 2000 run for the presidency. Fun both for the extremely dated references ("cellular phones", the Lewinsky scandal, Palm Pilots, etc.), the trenchant political observations which remain true today, and the insights into the late senator's character.

THE BAPTIST FAITH AND MESSAGE by Herschel H. Hobbs

I started the month in Arlington at the Baptist General Convention of Texas's Annual Gathering, so I left in a very Baptist mood, ready to more fully engage with my denomination. As is often the case, I began that process with a book in my hands, in this case the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message, accompanied by commentary on the document from Herschel H. Hobbs, chairman of the committee which wrote the document. Since Baptists are not a creedal people, the BFM is defined as a statement of what Baptists generally agree upon, rather than a binding document to which Baptists must pledge their allegiance. The Southern Baptist Convention, which drafted the first BFM in 1925, expanded upon it in this edition, and then did so again in 2000, but this is the one which I believe best speaks to what all Baptists should and do believe.

For all the import of the BFM, I hadn't actually sat down and read it since college, so this was an instructive experience that I think I'd be better off repeating more often than once per decade. Working through topics as general as "God" and as particular as "Education" and "Cooperation," the document biblically lays out what Baptists believe about key matters of faith and practice, usually in no more than two paragraphs per topic. The document does a masterful job of being broad enough to encompass all manner of Baptists (something at which the 2000 document fails in my opinion) while specific enough that it could never be accused of being ecumenical or syncretistic.

This particular volume includes not only the actual BFM document, but commentary from Herschel Hobbs which helps explain in more detail what is being said (and why it is being said) by each section of the document. Like any good commentary, I found much of it to be helpful and well thought out, and some of it to be head-scratching (for example, his argument why the drink used at the Last Supper was actually grape juice, not wine, is...interesting). But largely appreciate both what Hobbs says and the gracious manner in which he says it.

The 1963 BFM is important to me and, whether they know it or not, all Baptists in this part of the country. I'm glad I gave it a fresh look, and would recommend this copy with its accompanying commentary for anyone wanting a closer look at what we Baptist believe.

THE BAPTIST & CHRISTIAN CHARACTER OF BAYLOR edited by Donald D. Schmeltekopf and Dianna M. Vitanza with Bradley J.B. Toben

Ever since Baylor president Robert Sloan unveiled his vision for the university's future, known as Baylor 2012, there has been a running conversation in the Baylor family: what does it mean to be a Christian (and specifically, a Baptist) university in the 21st century? For Sloan and his allies, it meant being a top tier university dedicated to both quality teaching and quality research conducted primarily by Christians for the benefit of the kingdom of God. Three presidents, two big scandals, and two decades later, that largely remains the dream at Baylor, but the debates continue to rage on: what's more important, teaching or research? Should Baylor hire only Christians as faculty? Mostly Christians? Mostly Baptists? How do fields like mathematics interact with the Christian faith? What does it mean for an institution of higher education to have a Christian identity?

This collection of essays, presented in 2003 as a colloquy and tribute to then-provost Don Schmeltekopf, provides various answers to those questions from some of the best minds engaged in that debate, mostly from Baylor's own faculty. Different perspectives are taken, both from those who clearly cherish the Baylor 2012 vision and those whose skepticism runs deep, but the conversation between essays is always fascinating.

What was remarkable in reading this book was how relevant the conversation contained within it still is at Baylor. Nearly 20 years after Robert Sloan unveiled his vision for Baylor (one that was then extremely controversial), it mostly endures today...but so do the questions and skepticism surrounding it. Some of the finer points in these essays seem dated now, but as a whole the book holds up remarkably well considering it was written for a certain time and situation.

Obviously this book is not for everybody—it’s the epitome of inside baseball for folks in the Baylor family. Furthermore, it's a book about academia written by academics for academics, so some of the essays are more accessible than others. But I largely enjoyed reading it and reflecting upon how some things have changed in the last 20 years, some things have stayed the same, and some things are still on the verge of changing. Sic 'em.

17TH AND DUTTON by Craig Nash

The local church is, for better and for worse, the community that has given me life and to which I have chosen (in obedience, I believe, to a calling from God) to return the favor. The local church is a place of ugliness and grace, of scars and healing, of sinners and saints. The church is not perfect, but for all its hypocrisies and failures, I fundamentally believe it is good, because for all that it is not, the church is the body of Christ.

17th and Dutton is the story of a local church and one man's journey with it, almost from its founding up to the present day. With heart and humor, Craig Nash (who, disclaimer, is a colleague of mine in a couple of Waco ministry circles) tells the story of how he first came to University Baptist Church, why he stayed, who he befriended, how he eventually came on staff as a pastor, how he handled being let go in the face of financial difficulties, and ultimately how he and the church found resolution and even reconciliation. The book is ostensibly a memoir, but also serves in places as a history of UBC (albeit from a specific vantage point), a cautionary tale about the dangers of being a "celebrity church," and even borders at times on being a tell-all.

But ultimately, 17th and Dutton is a love story about a man and his church, the community where he has set down roots that seemingly no tragedy or rejection can sever. With breathtaking sincerity, Craig lets readers in on the ways UBC has succeeded over the years, the ways it has failed, and what part he has played in both—but I think he'd be the first to tell you that "successes and failures" are hardly the point, neither of the book nor the church. What matters is the deep love for God and for one another that keeps the church alive even in the hardest times.

This was the second time I read 17th and Dutton, the first being when Craig initially released it as a series of blog posts. Just like the first time, I laughed at some lines and stories, got goosebumps reading certain passages, and felt my eyes well up with tears on more than one occasion. Craig is an excellent writer, evocative and authentic, and anyone wishing to read a story about the pain and the power of the local church would be well served to start here.

Note: 17th and Dutton is published by Patristica Press, a small, local publisher, so if you want to buy it, Amazon won't be able to help you. Click here if you'd like to purchase a copy. I highly encourage you to do so.

THE TRUETT PULPIT VOL. 1-5

One of the great gifts my seminary has given me over the years (both as a student and an alum) has been its weekly chapel service, in which students lead worship and the gospel is preached by everyone from students to faculty to visiting scholars. As recently as this past week I have been blessed by the work of those who lead worship during these services. From 2006-2012, the sermons preached in these worship services were collected in volumes called The Truett Pulpit, and I used the last week of August to read these sermons.

As you might expect, you get a little bit of everything in these 50+ sermons: Old Testament, New Testament, Baptist history, deep theology, and early works from students who have since gone on to do great things for the kingdom. The sermons contained in these volumes are, blessedly, all available online in audio and/or video. So rather than try to speak about all of them broadly, let me just provide links to my favorites:

"Otherwise" by Hulitt Gloer, 2006
"How Do You Keep at Ministry?" by William Willimon, 2010
"Gazing at the Glory: Closer to the Center" by Joel Gregory, 2010
"Who's Missing?" by Austin Fischer, 2011

Reading these was good for me. Watching/listening to them is better.

THE PATH TO POWER by Robert A. Caro

Once upon a time, the multi-volume biography was the norm for historians. Great men, the thinking went, were worthy of a lifetime of study, and so it was the duty of biographers to devote not years but decades (not to mention thousands of pages) to their subjects. While that methodology has mostly given way to the one-volume biography, Robert A. Caro is a singular biographer of the old school, having devoted four books, 3,000+ pages, and 36 years—with at least one more book to go—to the study of Lyndon Baines Johnson. And based on the first volume of the series, Caro is not only singular in approach, but also in talent.

The Path to Power begins with the immigration of LBJ's grandparents to the Hill Country of Texas and carries the future president's story up to his first major political defeat in the 1940 campaign for U.S. Senate. Caro leaves no stone unturned in his quest to document Johnson's life and vividly identify his ambitions. Believing Johnson's poverty-stricken upbringing in the Hill Country to be formative, Caro and his wife moved there for 3 years so they would better understand the area and its people. Believing Sam Rayburn to be one of the most important figures in Johnson's life, Caro spend 40 pages on a mini-biography of Rayburn before even referencing Johnson. Believing (correctly) that few readers will understand the importance of rural electrification, which Johnson brought to his district as its congressman, Caro spends an entire chapter detailing the life of the rural farmer in 1930's Texas, a chapter that reads more like Little House on the Prairie than a biography.

This kind of exhaustive research and attention to detail is what justifies the series' hefty page count (this first volume is 763 pages, and we're still more than 20 years away from LBJ becoming president). But aside from the amount of information, this biography is also notable for the quality of the writing. Many biographers can lay out the facts of someone's life, and many others can speculate as to their intentions, but few can do it with Caro's talent for storytelling. There aren't many high-quality historical biographies that manage to not only interest but actually thrill the reader, but thanks to Caro's prose, this one does. Accessible, precise, and detailed, Caro proves himself not only a brilliant researcher, but a masterful writer.

"The Years of Lyndon Johnson" will take me months to finish, but after reading The Path to Power I am certain it will be a journey worth taking. I cannot recommend this first volume highly enough.

THE PRIVATE EYE by Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin

In our digital age, privacy is something we have chosen to incrementally abandon. By now we generally know the deal: details about our lives once considered private are now on loan to Facebook, Google, and the rest. But what if all those private details—your Google search history, for example—suddenly became public knowledge. What if the cloud burst?

That is the world that The Private Eye inhabits, a post-Information Age world in which society has reclaimed privacy as a virtue and abandoned the Internet altogether after all its secrets (and ours) were laid bare. Everyone wears masks so as not to be identifiable. Taking pictures of someone without their permission is now something you can be arrested for. The press now serve as a sort of police force. It's not quite dystopian, but you sure wouldn't want to live here.

The story in The Private Eye is, as the title indicates, a mystery tale, but the truth is, the most fascinating aspect of this book is not the plot but the world it inhabits. Without ever being too heavy-handed, Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin do a brilliant job making the reader uncomfortable with the current state of our Information Age, and demand that we ask questions about it that we'd rather not think about. And they do it with characters who, appropriately for the subject matter, never reveal too much of themselves to be predictable.

Part crime noir, part dystopian thriller, The Private Eye is a tight, addictive joy. Great writing and great art complement an important topic and leave you wanting more. Highly recommended.

CRIMINAL VOL. 1-6  by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

Speaking of crime noir, there are few who do it better than Brubaker and Phillips, whose work I've previously enjoyed on Fatale, The Fade Out, and Kill or Be Killed. For all the success those series have had, Criminal is generally considered their best work as collaborators, so I seem to have saved the best for last.

Criminal is distinctive from most comics in that each volume tells a different story. While the world of Criminal is the same in all 6 volumes, and characters occasionally appear in stories that are not "theirs," there is no serialization from book to book. The only thread that reliably connects these books is the dark, seedy world these characters occupy, a world of degenerate gamblers, ruthless mob bosses, and hookers with hearts of gold.

These stories are old-fashioned, hard-boiled crime noir that don't pretend to be anything else. In a comics landscape where many writers are desperate to say something profound with their work, Brubaker and Phillips seem content here to just tell great stories, which is kind of refreshing. Clearly influenced by the likes of Raymond Chandler, Frank Miller, and scores of pulp thrillers, these stories highlight and delight in all the cliches of the crime genre while remaining gritty, enjoyable romps.

My favorite of the stories was probably "The Sinners," the fifth of the six volumes I read. This story brings back Tracy Lawless, the protagonist of the second volume's "Lawless" as an AWOL soldier turned reluctant hitman, who in this story is tasked with finding out who killed three local crime lords. Part mystery, part morality tale, the story does a masterful job of keeping things tense right up until the final pages, when all loose ends are neatly and masterfully wrapped up.

I'd recommend these books for anyone who likes crime stories, but I'm not sure I'd read them in order if I were you. I thought the books generally got better as they went, so I'd read them this way:

1. The Sinners
2. The Last of the Innocent
3. Bad Night
4. The Dead and the Dying
5. Lawless
6. The Coward