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.
"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
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!
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!
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