July Reading Log

2 weeks at Sabine Creek Ranch for youth camp and preteen camp meant that I had less time for reading than usual. Here's what I managed to finish in my shortened month!

4 Articles I Like This Month

"A Crime By Any Name" by Adam Serwer, The Atlantic. 15 minutes.

The immigrant detention centers at the southwest border have been labeled by some as concentration camps. Unfortunately, that label has engendered almost as much controversy as the conditions of the centers. But as this article makes clear, whatever you want to call these detention facilities, this much is clear: while the problem is complex, there are ways to stem the tide, and those ways are not being pursued because "the cruelty is the point." A hard, necessary read.

"Sixteen and Evangelical" by Laura Turner, Slate. 18 minutes.

A loving, reflective essay about growing up in an evangelical youth group. Especially relevant to me this month given that I spent two weeks at camp with our preteens and youth.

"Poetry and Prophecy, Dust and Ashes" by Phil Christman, Plough. 13 minutes.

Ostensibly a review of Robert Alter's The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, this winds up being a reverent and poetic meditation on how and why to read what Christians call the Old Testament.

"Trump's Apostle" by Maria Recio, Texas Monthly. 32 minutes.

Robert Jeffress is a warm, sharp, charismatic pastor who preaches the name of Jesus to thousands of people every week and is undoubtedly the most prominent evangelical leader in Texas. He's also a partisan hack who never met a camera he didn't like and whose full-throated embrace of Donald Trump has made even ardent defenders of the president squeamish. In this remarkably even-handed profile, Maria Recio seeks to understand what drives the pastor of First Baptist Dallas—and determine whether anything would cause Jeffress to abandon the president to whom he's pledged his allegiance.

THE RED LETTER REVOLUTION: WHAT IF JESUS REALLY MEANT WHAT HE SAID? by Shane Claiborne and Tony Campolo

In evangelical life, there is a simple question that we often encourage people to use as a guide to morality: what would Jesus do? Whether dealing with what to say, how to behave, or even what to think in a given situation, that question has a way of distilling complex ethical questions down to the essence of what it means to follow Christ: to do what he does.

But, as Shane Claiborne and Tony Campolo point out in this 2012 book, there has been a widespread refusal to apply this question to politics. While evangelicals are quick to find prooftexts to support views on every issue from abortion to the death penalty, we rarely seem to start with the words and example of Christ. The Sermon on the Mount, it seems, stops at the ballot box.

So in Red Letter Revolution, the authors conduct a conversation about what it would look like to examine various issues from the perspective of the "red letters," i.e. the words of Jesus. Campolo, a sociology professor, preacher, and longtime voice on the evangelical left, represents an older generation and Claiborne, a prominent author and activist for the poor and marginalized, represent the next generation of leaders. This difference in perspectives prompts them to see politics differently even as they agree on issues: where Campolo, who was there for the rise of the Religious Right, seeks to combat that viewpoint, Claiborne, who has never known a world without it, seems to almost want to transcend it.

But despite this interesting difference in viewpoints, the book is limited by the simple fact that the two authors are eminently predictable in their outlooks on different issues. While the book's stated goal is admirable, the result is essentially a manifesto—albeit an engaging one—for the evangelical left. If you come in as a political liberal, you'll probably think it's excellent; if you're a conservative, you'll probably think it's propaganda. In our intensely partisan age, the book fails in my estimation to cut through the partisanship that divides us. Seeing politics through the lens of the Bible's red letters is a worthy goal, but I can't help wonder how a different pair of authors would do so.

A MONTH OF SUNDAYS: THIRTY-ONE DAYS OF WRESTLING WITH MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE, AND JOHN by Eugene H. Peterson

*I wrote a brief review of this book for the Baptist Standard. So as to neither plagiarize nor repeat myself, allow me to simply link to that review here.*

WHITE HOUSE DIARY by Jimmy Carter

Historical diaries make for a fascinating—if sometimes plodding—read, and this one is no different in that respect. During his time as president, Jimmy Carter kept both copious notes and brief daily diary entries on the issues he was facing, his activities as president, and his ideas for the future. White House Diary is a collection of excerpts from that daily diary with occasional annotations for the sake of explanation or follow-up. The result is a book that, even more than his presidential memoir Keeping Faith, shows much of the conventional wisdom about Carter's presidency to appear spot-on.

On the positive side, the diary shows Carter to be sincere in his goals as president and committed to doing what was right whether it was politically beneficial or not. Readers never get any indication that there are sinister or deceptive motivations behind Carter's decisions—in fact, it is almost surprising whenever Carter so much as acknowledges the reality of political expediency. Just as he promised in his 1976 campaign, Carter was committed to human rights, world peace, and the environment, and these are largely the issues that consumed his days.

But on the negative side, it's easy to see why Carter was soundly defeated in the 1980 election by Ronald Reagan. First, Carter was an extreme micromanager, something he even admits in the diary's afterword—his staff and cabinet are not mentioned often in the diary, and when they are it is often derogatorily. Second, Carter was far more concerned about foreign policy than domestic issues, something which while constitutionally sound is generally unpopular with the voting public. Only when the economy sours in the late 1970s does Carter seem to turn his attention to it, and even then reluctantly and defensively. Finally (and most noticeably for a reader of his diary), Carter is just kind of a bummer: sensitive to criticism, resentful of his opponents and allies alike, and dour in his attitude toward the office and the nation. The famous smile that promised an end to the politics of Watergate is hard to remember when you read Carter's diary.

No one, friend and foe alike, has ever seriously questioned Carter's honesty, and indeed this diary is a warts-and-all look at the presidency of Jimmy Carter. But after reading it, it's not hard to see why that presidency ended after one term. White House Diary is a helpful historical record of the successes and failures of a good man who never seemed well-suited for his office.

ESSENTIAL TOMB OF DRACULA VOL. 3 by Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan, et al.

You'd think these Dracula stories would get old after fifty issues. After all, the stories don't change much. Dracula, an undead creature of the night, feeds upon the blood of innocent victims and is always seeking out new prey. A team of vampire hunters is constantly in pursuit of him. Each time, Dracula's would-be killers come thiiiiis close to ending his reign of terror, only to be somehow thwarted. The stories just don't change much. But in Essential Tomb of Dracula Vol. 3, which collects the titular comic's final twenty issues as well as four issues of a more adult black-and-white Dracula magazine, the stories not only continue to enthrall, they're arguably improving even as the book draws to a close.

As was the case for the first 50 issues, these twenty are the work of Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan, who appear to be having the time of their lives. This volume leans heavily into the serialized nature of comics, with the story of Dracula and those hunting him down now a never-ending soap opera. New characters, such as hack writer Harold H. Harold, a thinly disguised Woody Allen stand-in, step into the fray even as older and less interesting characters exit stage left. Dracula dies, then rises from the dead, then dies again, and it somehow never feels stale. Like any good soap opera (or, one might say, any comic book series), the key to Tomb of Dracula was the appearance of change without things ever really changing in a significant way.

The highlight of this volume is a saga in which Dracula becomes a father for the second time, bearing a son with the priestess of a Satanic cult the vampire intends to use to take over the world. However, unbeknownst to him, his new wife has pledged her son to God, so when the child is born he rapidly ages to manhood and defies his father, emerging not as an heir to Dracula's vampiric kingdom, but as an angelic figure who wages war on his evil father. Comics!

The final four issues shift from the traditional format of Bronze Age comics to the black-and-white magazines Marvel was producing for adults in those days. Longer and drawn in a sketchier style, these stories are well told but fit more traditionally in the horror genre than the action/adventure stories Tomb of Dracula told. Essential Tomb of Dracula Vol. 4, which I'll read next month, is comprised entirely of these magazine stories. Tune in at the beginning of next month to see what I think of those.

Youth Movement (Friday Devotional)

Let no one despise your youth, but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

- 1 Timothy 4:12

The past two weeks, I’ve spent my workdays swimming in a pond, playing GaGa Ball (imagine a combination of foursquare and dodgeball), climbing a rock wall, playing all sorts of crazy games, and subsisting on water, salty snacks, and camp food. After all, that’s what it looks like to spend two weeks at youth camp and preteen camp.

But over the past two weeks, I’ve also listened to teenagers bare their souls, sharing with stunning sincerity the temptations they face, the struggles awaiting them at home, and the trials they’ve already been forced to face in their young lives. I’ve had spiritual conversations with children who didn’t yet have the vocabulary to describe the grace of God—as if adults do. I’ve worshipped powerfully and passionately, in spirit and in truth, alongside hundreds of people too young to drive or to vote, but old enough to know that Jesus loves them. Because that’s also what it looks like to spend two weeks at youth camp and preteen camp.

As adults, sometimes we make the critical mistake of condescending to the under-18 crowd in our churches. We understand that they will be the caretakers of the church to come, but we don’t yet trust them to contribute to the church here and now. We call them “the future of the church,” but we waffle on allowing them to be a part of its present. We admire their passion and their vision, but it also makes us nervous.

But our hesitation to let young people participate in the life of the church is far from biblical—in fact, the apostle Paul cautioned against it, telling his student Timothy not to let older church members look down on him because of his youth. And of course, Jesus famously welcomed children when others found them to be a nuisance.

Based on my personal experience and my reading of Scripture, I am here to tell you that God is doing mighty things in and through young people, and we adults owe it to ourselves and to the Lord to listen to them. There are little children, preteens, and teenagers in your life who have something to teach you and something to offer to the kingdom—will you let them?

Who's Allowed In? (Friday Devotional)

When the scribes and the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

- Mark 2:16-17

Author Brennan Manning tells a story about a man whose life was dominated by sin until, in a moment of clarity and repentance, he begged God for forgiveness and a fresh start. In an effort to be obedient, the man joined his local church the next Sunday, where he was initially welcomed with excitement by the congregation.

However, it only took a few days for the church to start hearing stories about its newest member. Horrified by the tales of his sinful exploits, the church’s leaders began to worry that allowing such a man to be an official member of the church would stain the institution’s reputation—and by extension, the reputation of its most upstanding members. So before week’s end, the church’s leaders convened and voted to revoke the man’s membership.

Perplexed and angered by the church’s decision, the man went straight to God with his grievances, shouting to heaven that he wanted an audience with the Lord. To his amazement, God responded: “What is it, my son?”

“They won’t let me in, Lord,” said the man, his eyes wet with tears.

“What are you complaining about?” asked the Lord. “They won’t let me in either.”

In the story, it is the man, not the church, who understands what the gospel of Jesus Christ is: not comfort for the comfortable or respect for the respectable, but medicine for the sick. As Jesus himself said, he came “to call not the righteous but sinners.”

Sometimes we lose sight of that and get preoccupied with maintaining what we’ve built instead of letting God create something new. But a gospel which is not good news to the poor, freedom to the captives, and open arms to the oppressed is no gospel at all. Jesus did not come to preserve spotless reputations; he came to heal what was broken and save what was lost. If we are to follow him, we must do the same.

Dump or Destination? (Friday Devotional)

For the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

- 1 Samuel 16:7

Last Saturday, Lindsey and I took Andrew on a special field trip somewhere we knew he’d love. As we predicted, he ate it up. He got to see things he’d only seen in books, he got to take in a whole new world of sounds and smells, and by the time we left he was already asking when we could come back. It was, by any standard, a great field trip.

Where did we go? The city dump.

Now I suspect the local landfill is not normally your idea of a good time. You go there when you have to, and otherwise you just don’t think about it. But for a 2-year old, it was a magical place, a place where all the garbage trucks, bulldozers, and giant dumpsters were gathered together, a place unlike anything he’d ever seen before. For Andrew, the dump was a destination.

With his innocent sense of curiosity and wonder, Andrew showed me a new way to look at a mundane place. As adults, we have a hard time seeing familiar things with new eyes. The longer you live in your home, the more you start to dwell on what needs remodeling, taking for granted its amenities. The longer you’re in a job, the less you appreciate the highs and the more you get bogged down in the lows. The better you know something, the less you’re able to see it in a new way.

Unfortunately, the same is true of how we see people. As life goes on, we start to think we have nothing left to learn about people; our impressions of them become set in stone. We trust our eyes and our past experiences to judge people we don’t even know, assuming we can distinguish who is and isn’t worthy of our time, attention, and kindness.

But if you think you get it right every time, you’re fooling yourself—sometimes the most put-together people are actually empty inside, and sometimes God accomplishes incredible things with the last people you’d expect. God doesn’t see people through the lenses of generalizations, prejudices, and initial impressions, He looks at the heart of every person and draws His judgment from there. If we are to be obedient to Him, then we ought to do the same.

After all, even a dump can be a destination if you’ll look with eyes of grace. In the kingdom of God, a shepherd can be a king, a fisherman can be an apostle, and a carpenter can be the Christ. God sees beyond the outward appearance of a person to their heart—may the children of God do the same.

Something Worth Seeing (Friday Devotional)

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

- John 4:7-10

One of the quickest ways I can deduce the quality of a restaurant is by looking at its clientele. If everyone there is in their 20s, then the place is definitely trendy but may be better suited for Instagram than lunch. On the flip side, if everyone there is past retirement age, then chances are I’ve found a place whose best days came when I was in diapers, a place serving more nostalgia nowadays than creativity. If I go to an ethnic restaurant and every customer looks like me, I know to look elsewhere for an authentic dining experience. If I go to a so-called greasy spoon where everyone’s on break from their white collar jobs, that’s another red flag. You get the idea.

The way a restaurant immediately gets my attention is when the customers can’t be pigeonholed into one category. If a table full of maintenance men is seated next to a booth of executives catty-corner to a table of stay-at-home moms, then I’m interested. When I hear multiple languages being spoken in the restaurant, when I see multiple neighborhoods represented, when the college radical is as comfortable as the retired veteran—that’s when I know that there’s something worth seeing here.

The trouble, of course, is that there aren’t a lot of places like that. We are living in a time and place in which, sometimes unwittingly and sometimes willfully, we find ourselves segregated more and more from people who look, think, believe, and behave differently than we do. A yearning for comfort and security combined with the means to isolate ourselves has made it possible to go to schools, stores, events, and churches where we always fit right in—and where the ‘wrong kind of people’ stick out like sore thumbs.

What we have to remember is that Jesus didn’t just come for the ‘right kind of people.’ Jesus dined with religious leaders, but also with prostitutes. He loved his family, but he also loved lepers. The gospel he proclaimed, practiced, and embodied was not reserved for a privileged few, but was good news for the poor, freedom for the prisoners, and sight for the blind. The kingdom of God was never meant to be monochromatic.

The sinless, celibate, Christ could hardly have been more different from the Samaritan woman with five husbands in her past and a live-in boyfriend—yet those differences didn’t stop him from offering her living water. The disparities in their backgrounds were no match for the grace of God. As followers of Jesus, we must remember, respect, and replicate his willingness to reach beyond the boundaries of the comfort zone. A restaurant cannot be the only place where God’s people spend time with people different from them. There are ‘Samaritan wells’ all around you—if you’re going to bear witness to the gospel, then it’s time to drop by one sometime.

June Reading Log

Now that I'm settling in to our new home and new church, I'm getting back into the swing of things, reading-wise. Here's a look at the books I spent time with the past month!

3 Articles I Like This Month

"Stephen Colbert on the Political Targets of Satire" by David Marchese, The New York Times Magazine. 19 minutes.

When I agree with him and when I don't, I have a great deal of respect and admiration for comedian and Late Show host Stephen Colbert, and he is always a terrific interview. This one is no exception. My favorite quote from it: "Faith is not trying to change God. Faith isn’t trying to change the order of things. Faith isn’t trying to maintain your position. Faith isn’t trying to make less of the other. Faith is asking God to change you."

"Christ and the Camps" by Caitlin Flanagan, The Atlantic. 6 minutes.

The best piece I've read about the ongoing crisis in U.S. migrant camps, bar none. Whatever you think about President Trump or immigration, this essay does what I wish we all would: focuses on the children, like Jesus would.

"Why Donald Trump Will Win in 2020" by Joshua Whitfield, The Dallas Morning News. 4 minutes.

The clickbaity headline notwithstanding (the physical newspaper had a different headline), this article is not really about Donald Trump, and definitely isn't about partisan politics. It's about the societal shift toward the demons of our nature instead of the better angels, the willingness to accept an agreeable narrative instead of objective truth. Whether you like the president or not, I encourage you to read what this essay has to say.

BECOMING A WELCOMING CHURCH by Thom S. Rainer
WE WANT YOU HERE by Thom S. Rainer

You gotta love free books, especially when they're helpful. Becoming a Welcoming Church, which I picked up at the Baptist General Convention of Texas's Annual Meeting earlier this year (only to find another copy waiting for me on my first day on the job at South Garland Baptist Church), is a short, simple look at small steps churches can take to make sure they're being hospitable to visitors. Every church, author and former Lifeway CEO Thom Rainer notes, thinks its welcoming, but the proof is in the pudding.

If I had to describe the two big takeaways, they would be these: a hospitable church cannot be sloppy and a hospitable church cannot be unsafe. Whether you're talking about the parking lot, the signs (inside and outside the building), the website, or the children's area, visitors notice whether or not a church has its act together, and a church that plays fast and loose with safety or cleanliness loses people long before the sermon starts. The things that longtime members take for granted (for good and for ill) are new for guests, and every church owes it to themselves and to the kingdom to look at things from the perspective of a visitor.

We Want You Here is a companion book, one Rainer wrote so that churches could distribute it as a free gift to visitors. Essentially, it's 80 pages restating the book's title over and over again, promising that at this church visitors are important and respected, and that this church wants to show you God's love. Nothing wrong with the message, but its so generalized that it rang false to me. After the first 10 pages or so, I skimmed this book more than I read it.

Becoming a Welcoming Church, while occasionally feeling more like a book about customer service than ministry, nevertheless offers excellent tips for churches big and small, as well as some good resources in the appendix. We Want You Here is headed to Half Price Books, where I suspect they'll give me exactly what I paid for it.

THINKING THROUGH PAUL: A SURVEY OF HIS LIFE, LETTERS, AND THEOLOGY by Bruce W. Longenecker and Todd D. Still

This was a first for me: I read a textbook cover to cover. But with Todd Still—dean of Truett Seminary, a world class New Testament scholar, and a dear friend and mentor—as one of the authors, I had determined a few months ago that this was a book worthy of more than just occasional reference work. So in daily 30 minute increments (albeit delayed for several weeks by a vacation to Europe and move to Garland), I worked through the book, learning and reviewing the life and thinking of the apostle Paul. By the end, my experience largely mimicked the classes in which I sat under Dr. Still's teaching: I was both better informed and eager to apply what I'd learned to the work of ministry.

The first section of the book is probably what I'll return to the most, a basic biography of Paul. Drawing primarily from Paul's letters, secondarily from Acts, and finally from extant sources and archaeological findings, Still and co-writer Bruce Longenecker weave together a coherent biography of the apostle from his early life in Tarsus to his conversion on the road to Damascus to his missionary journeys and eventual death in Rome. Tackling questions where it's difficult to reconcile different parts of Scripture (particularly Acts' account of Paul's journeys versus what we can piece together from Paul's letters), the writers do an able job both of presenting the different theories and of stating which they believe to be most likely. The biographical section is extremely helpful for pastors and teachers needing a reminder on the details and chronology of Paul's life.

The second section addresses the New Testament letters attributed to Paul. Acting as sort of mini-commentaries, these chapters do a good job dealing with issues of authorship, providing background information, explaining the general themes of the letters, and ultimately giving a linear (but not verse-by-verse) breakdown. As a reference tool, I'd say these chapters fall somewhere between a study bible's aids and a full length commentary—they are scholarly but necessarily broad. Most helpful in my opinion is the work the authors do in laying out the book's big themes and how they connect to Paul's larger theology.

The final section deals with exactly that, Paul's overall theology. It is here that Still and Longenecker seem to have two goals in mind: 1) to explain in typical textbook fashion what Paul believed and 2) to clear up some common misconceptions about Paul's thinking. In both areas they do an excellent job, defending Paul from modern criticism when warranted while never losing sight of the primary goal: teaching, not debate. This section of the book is one I can see myself returning to again, particularly in preparing longer studies on Paul's letters.

Overall, this is an essential reference work for anyone wanting to learn more about Paul—and to my delight, was pretty easy to read straight through! I knew I'd be pleased by Drs. Still and Longenecker's work, and I was not disappointed.

THE YANKEE YEARS  by Joe Torre and Tom Verducci

I so wanted to enjoy this book, and I really thought I would. Tom Verducci is one of my favorite sportswriters, a legend whose Sports Illustrated articles are some of the finest baseball writing the magazine's ever seen. Joe Torre is a man and a manager I greatly admire. And the period being written about (1996-2007) is when I came of age as a baseball fan. So by all rights, this book should have been perfect for me.

....it's just not very good.

The first problem comes when Verducci (because, despite Torre getting first billing, this is clearly Verducci's book, with Torre providing anecdotes and quotes) describes Torre's first five years as manager of the New York Yankees, a period that saw the team win 4 World Series in 5 years, a level of success that hasn't been matched since. The descriptions of this period are pure historiography, where by Verducci's accounting, Torre and his acolytes could do no harm. Players like Derek Jeter, David Cone, and Paul O'Neil (all of whom, perhaps not coincidentally, provided Verducci lots of access) can seemingly do no wrong, and Torre is portrayed as having a golden touch for managing personalities, game strategy, and leadership. Are these Yankees teams worthy of praise? Of course. But the unbridled praise and two-dimensional storytelling gets old fast.

Then, from 2001-2007, the book suddenly shifts from a "let us now praise great men" story to a tell-all, with Torre providing juicy anecdotes about unpopular Yankee players, chiefly Alex Rodriguez. If Verducci has nothing bad to say about David Cone and Co., he has nothing good to say about A-Rod, balancing every begrudging nod to his talent with three or four jabs about the star's inability to fit into the clubhouse and his off-putting need to please. I'm not a big A-Rod fan (though my bitterness over his departure from the Rangers has mostly subsided), but Verducci and Torre's cattiness had the opposite of the intended effect, making me sympathetic to a player who won two MVPs in New York but never won over the fans and media.

Throughout both sections, Verducci is weaving a flat narrative about the 'Yankee Years' that paints Torre as the captain of the ship, whose brilliance guided the Yankees to success and whose record suffered in later years only because the front office stifled his authority and charted a new course. It's a narrative that works in some parts, but undoubtedly overstates Torre's impact and turns complicated men like GM Brian Cashman into cardboard villains. For as talented a storyteller as Verducci, it's inexcusably lazy.

The Yankee Years was an easy but frustrating read, because I know it could have been so much better. If you want to see the old-school conventional wisdom about that period in baseball history solidified, this is the book for you. If you want some original thought or complexity, look elsewhere.

YOU SHALL KNOW OUR VELOCITY! by Dave Eggers

I'm beginning to think I just don't like Dave Eggers' writing. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, his debut memoir, was fun but a little precious for my taste. The Circle, his cautionary tale about Internet privacy, was an easy read but too on-the-nose. What Is the What, his story about the Sudanese Lost Boys, was a well told tale, but one that never really landed for me. Zeitoun, his journalistic story about a Syrian-American man who rides out Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, is probably my favorite of his books...at least until his largely heroic account of the protagonist was discredited by a first degree murder charge and a stalking conviction. So by the time I opened up You Shall Know Our Velocity!, I think it's reasonable to say I'd already given Eggers a fair shake. Unfortunately, this book was perhaps my least favorite of the bunch, a meandering novel that never reveals its point.

You Shall Know Our Velocity! is ostensibly the story of two friends, Will and Hand, who go on a globetrotting journey to distribute $32,000 to random strangers. This strange trip is Will's idea and is seemingly coming as a reaction to two traumatic events, the death of their best friend Jack and a savage beating Will recently suffered. As you progress through the first half of the book, you witness Will and Hand bounce between mishaps, meetings with interesting strangers, and more.

But then, nearly 2/3 through the book, there is a 50 page section in which the narration shifts from Will to Hand and [spoiler alert] Hand tells you that much of the foundation of the book is totally untrue. There is no Jack, Will invented him for unknown reasons. Same with the beating Will suffered before the trip. Will's mother, whom he calls multiple times on the trip, has been dead for years. So what you've got is an unreliable narrator, either Will or Hand, and the last hundred pages of the book does nothing in my estimation to clear up who's lying or why. So a device that was intended to intrigue the reader instead left me profoundly frustrated and, as I got closer to the end, less and less invested.

Just to make sure I'm not an idiot, I read several Goodreads reviews of the book and, as best I can tell, even the people who love the book can't really tell you what it's about other than vague inspirational platitudes about living life to the fullest. Sorry, but after 400 pages I want more than that. Dave Eggers, I've given you a lot of chances, but this sinks it...I respect your impact on contemporary literature, but you're just not my cup of tea.

ESSENTIAL TOMB OF DRACULA VOL. 1-2 by Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan, et al.

The 1970s were a golden age for horror at Marvel Comics, which was doing its best to seize on a cultural fad that movies like The Exorcist and books by Stephen King had stoked. Some of these comics I've already read and reviewed (and there are more to come, specifically Essential Monster of Frankenstein, Essential Tales of the Zombie, and Essential Werewolf by Night Vol. 1-2), but Tomb of Dracula was without a doubt the crown jewel of Marvel's horror oeuvre.

Written and drawn almost exclusively by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan, respectively, Tomb of Dracula is a rare case of a villain being able to carry his own title, with Dracula facing off issue after issue against a motley cast of heroes. From Rachel van Helsing (descendant of Bram Stoker's vampire hunter) to Quincy Harker (ditto) to Frank Drake (a descendant of Dracula himself) to Blade (in a 1970s getup that the Wesley Snipes movie wisely veered away from), none of Dracula's foes ever come close to matching his inherent charisma or power. It takes no time at all for you, the reader, to find yourself rooting for Dracula when he faces off against these would-be protagonists.

What's remarkable in reading the 50+ issues contained in these two volumes is that the stories never get redundant. You'd think that eventually story after story about Dracula fleeing and ultimately overcoming his hunters would start to get dull, but Wolfman and Colan keep things fresh with new locations, new characters, and a reliance on the serialization of comics (while each issue's main story is typically self-contained, secondary stories often run for years without resolution). Relying on Bram Stoker's classic novel for background information, but never making themselves slaves to it, Wolfman and Colan slowly create their own Dracula mythology that is fascinating to watch unfold.

Worth noting: Gene Colan's criminally underrated art is incredibly well suited for these stories. His Dracula is an imposing, dynamic figure, and his portrayal of the dark lord is probably one of the chief reasons why I found him so much more compelling than the heroes I was ostensibly supposed to be rooting for.

If you like classic horror stories told with tongue planted firmly in cheek (especially as the title matures and figures out what it wants to be) and with a bent toward action, this is the title for you. And compared with the other Marvel horror books I've read so far, it's an absolute masterpiece. Two more Essential volumes to go; keep an eye out for more Dracula next month!