December Reading Log

In a month where my schedule was often not my own, the 4:30 am-6:30 am window was my sanctuary of alone time, time to drink coffee in the dark, cold living room and read. Here's what that time was devoted to in December.

2 Articles I Like This Month

"The Dishonesty of the Abortion Debate" by Caitlin Flanagan, The Atlantic. 14 minutes.

Because of the obviously and understandably heightened emotions around the issue of abortion, it's difficult to talk about it rationally. But as writer Caitlin Flanagan points out in this article, each side has compelling arguments that cannot be reasonably argued. Pro-lifers have to reckon with the inarguable truth that outlawing abortion will result in women dying from illegal, unsafe abortions. And pro-choice advocates have to face what any 3-D sonogram clearly shows: fetuses are not simply masses of tissue, they are developing human beings. I love this article because it acknowledges what few are willing to say: no matter how passionately you feel on either side of the debate, there are no easy answers when it comes to abortion.

"The Decade of Disillusionment" by Ross Douthat, The New York Times. 6 minutes.

In this op-ed column, Ross Douthat writes that the primary theme which animated the 2010s was disillusionment—a sense, on the both the right and the left, that business and usual was not up to the task. An insightful look at how the events of the decade contrast with our feelings about the current state of the country.

THE DIVINE CONSPIRACY: REDISCOVERING OUR HIDDEN LIFE IN GOD by Dallas Willard

The Divine Conspiracy is, without a doubt, one of the most formative books I've ever read. It has colored the way I think about discipleship, the kingdom of God, and the gospel itself. So, having first read it in seminary, I decided in November to dive back in for a second go-round, this time at my own pace. It took every bit of two months of slow, methodical reading, but I was glad to plunge back into its waters.

The Divine Conspiracy tackles a topic as old as time: the meaning of life. But, coming from a Christian perspective, Dallas Willard is approaching the question in a slightly different way, asking "what kind of life does God want for us?" The answer is found in the person, example, and teachings of Jesus Christ, who Willard posits wasn't just teaching us how to 'achieve life after death,' but how to know life as God intended both now and eternally.

Walking through the Sermon on the Mount and countless other biblical texts, Willard writes that the life Jesus described and demonstrated—a life where you love your enemies, where you pray without ceasing, where God is all in all—is not only possible, it is what God wants for us. The key is for Christians to not just believe in Jesus, but to actually follow him, to understand that discipleship is not the call of so-called 'super Christians,' but of all Christians.

The Divine Conspiracy is not an academic book, but neither is it easy reading. I remember from seminary how exhausted I would feel after completing my daily 40-page reading assignment, which sometimes took me as much as 2 hours. Every page of the book overflows with wisdom; those who like to highlight significant passages and quotes will find themselves picking up their highlighter after almost every paragraph. A challenging, powerful read, I cannot recommend The Divine Conspiracy highly enough.

BOYS WILL BE BOYS: THE GLORY DAYS AND PARTY NIGHTS OF THE DALLAS COWBOYS DYNASTY by Jeff Pearlman

I'm too young to remember any of the 1990s Cowboys (I was born in 1989), so all the stories about Jimmy and Jerry and the Triplets are history for me, as relevant to my relationship with the franchise as any of the stories about Tom Landry and Roger Staubach. Nevertheless, the story of those 1990s Cowboys is one worth telling, and Boys Will Be Boys does an admirable job chronicling the on-the-field heroics and off-the-field misdeeds of the boys in silver and blue.

The book begins, after a brief introduction, with Jerry Jones' purchase of the team, then follows the team's rise to glory via Jimmy Johnson's coaching, Jerry's spending, and the historic Herschel Walker trade that netted the Cowboys a seemingly endless supply of draft picks. As the team's talent grows, so does its collective ego, starting at the top with Jerry and Jimmy and flowing down to characters like Michael Irvin and Charles Haley. These egos, in author Jeff Pearlman's telling, have as much to do with the Cowboys' eventual decline at the end of the decade as anything—after all, it was ego that prompted the replacement of Jimmy Johnson with the inferior Barry Switzer; it was ego that made Jerry Jones believe his mind for football was the equivalent of a coach's or general manager's; it was ego that made sure no one in the Cowboys organization knew the joyride was over until it was too late.

And, as Pearlman details throughout the book, it was ego that made players from Charles Haley to Michael Irvin think they were above the law (which, to be honest, was mostly true in football-crazy Dallas.) To a degree unknown at the time, at least on the record, the Cowboys were a hedonist's dream, where no player ever went wanting for drugs or sex. For all the changes that happened over the course of the decade, Pearlman makes clear that the team's appetites never wavered, and were consistently indulged by Jerry Jones and the head coaches ostensibly in charge of team discipline.

A book that is equal parts history and tell-all, Boys Will Be Boys never fails to entertain and horrify, and is likely to leave readers who lived through the Cowboys' glory days reveling in the wins they remember even as they read wide-eyed about the off-the-field craziness that went mostly unreported.

ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE by Anthony Doerr

Moving straight from Boys Will Be Boys to this Pulitzer Prize-winning historical drama gave me a bit of literary whiplash. You can't say I don't have some variety in these logs!

All the Light We Cannot See tells the stories of two children in World War II, a blind girl living in occupied France and a German boy who finds himself drafted into service as a radio technician, and how their paths ultimately converge during the siege of a small French village. Through the experiences of these two young people, so different in their experiences yet so fundamentally similar, readers come to see how war's best attempts to rob the world of beauty cannot withstand the endurance of the human spirit.

The star of this book is Anthony Doerr's descriptive prose. Whether narrating Marie-Laure's attempts to learn the streets of her village after blindness sets in, Werner's skill at tinkering with radios, or the devastating bombing of planes overhead, Doerr's words vividly and beautifully put the reader in the book's setting. Even when the plot seems to crawl, Doerr's writing is a joy to read.

Structurally, the book is made up of short chapters (anywhere from half a page to 5 pages), and Doerr jumps between the 1945 siege of Saint-Malo and events before it as a way of building suspense for Marie-Laure and Werner's inevitable meeting. This device is mostly successful, though the chapters set during the bombing become a bit redundant over time.

Overall I respected this book more than I loved it—it's longer than it needs to be, and historical dramas aren't a favorite genre of mine. But All the Light We Cannot See has a story worth telling, two compelling protagonists, and captivating prose. For those who love stories about World War II, this is a literary novel worth picking up.

THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Frequently referred to as the greatest American novel, I'm convinced that The Great Gatsby is wasted on most of the high schoolers who are required to read it in English class. That was certainly the case for me—I remember liking it fine, but not understanding what all the fuss was about. After my second go-round, I get it. The pairing of a cautionary tale about ambition and decadence with Fitzgerald's genius for language makes for what is indeed one of the finest novels I've ever read.

As you likely know, The Great Gatsby is the story of Jay Gatsby (née Gatz), a mysterious socialite whose seemingly frivolous lifestyle masks an intense love for his neighbor and former beau, Daisy Buchanan. As narrated by another neighbor, the fundamentally decent Nick Carraway, the novel tells the story of Gatsby's doomed affair with Daisy and how all Gatsby's attempts to reinvent himself ultimately come to nought. A tale about ambition, class, and love, The Great Gatsby is the ultimate cautionary tale about the false promises of the American Dream.

Reading this novel a second time, I was taken at first by Fitzgerald's writing. His descriptions are beautiful and his turns of phrase proverbial—while I was too inexperienced a reader to appreciate his talents as a high schooler, this time I was able to admire genius at work while reading. But secondly and perhaps more importantly, I was struck by how relevant the 1920s story of Gatsby was in the twilight of the 2010s. Now as then, the American Dream of opportunity for everyone has revealed itself to be a myth, something everyone is chasing but few actually achieve—and, as is the case for Gatsby, even those who reap the rewards of its promise find those rewards to be ultimately empty. The Great Gatsby is a timeless American story, worthy of its place in the American canon.

Is it a perfect book? No, none are. I found most of the characters flat (with the exception of Gatsby and Nick), and Fitzgerald's dialogue often rang false to my ears. But where it counts, The Great Gatsby is a masterclass in storytelling. Glad I came back.

ESSENTIAL CAPTAIN AMERICA VOL. 7 by Roger Stern, John Byrne, Roger McKenzie, Sal Buscema, et al.

Following Jack Kirby's cult classic run on Cap in the late 1970s, the book went through a creative dry spell, with missteps (such as revising Steve Rogers' origin story), a rotating cast of guest writers and artists, and few story arcs longer than 2 issues. But in this final Essential volume, we get one last great run for the shield slinger when Roger Stern and John Byrne take the reins.

Instantly they make their mark with plotting, dialogue, character work, and art which are all leaps and bounds above what was previously being done on the book. If you're looking for the moment when Captain America stories left the Bronze Age and entered the 1980s, it's this run, which lays down all the markers that made that decade such a successful one for Marvel. Using villains as varied as Baron Blood (a villain first introduced in the 1970s Invaders comic), Dragon Man, and Batroc the Leaper, Stern manages to repeatedly tell entertaining stories without drawing from the well of overused Captain America tropes (the Red Skull as mastermind, angst over Bucky's death, etc.)

And as for the art, well, John Byrne is my all-time favorite comic book artist, and this run came during his peak. The line work is clean, the backgrounds are intricate, and the storytelling is dynamic without being overly flashy. Byrne was a pro's pro, and (as I've argued in the past) his work arguably looks even better in the Essential's black-and-white format than in color. 

For the Stern-Byrne run alone, this book was worth the price of admission (in fact, that's really the only part I'd bother to reread.) With my Essential Cap reading now completed, we'll see what Essential run I dive into to start 2020!

SUPERMAN: SECRET IDENTITY by Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen

Despite appearances, this isn't really a Superman story. But it is one of the best "what if superheroes were real?" stories out there.

Superman: Secret Identity takes place in our world (i.e. not the DC Universe of Metropolis and Gotham) and tells the story of a man named Clark Kent who goes through life resenting the teasing that inevitable comes as a result of sharing the name of a superhero. Then something crazy happens...for reasons that are never entirely explained, Clark develops powers just like Superman's. From there he has to make a decision: in a world without supervillains or a Justice League, what kind of life will a superpowered Clark Kent make for himself?

Those waiting for a big twist or a meet-up with the "real" Superman will be disappointed, but those simply looking for a well-told story with compelling characters will be pleased. This is definitively not a normal superhero story, just good fiction that happens to include superpowers. While there is action (Clark is at one point kidnapped by the CIA), there is far more introspection than punches; Clark's nemeses are natural disasters and terrorists, not aliens or mad scientists.

Most importantly, this is not a story about Superman, but about Clark Kent. The genius of the story's conceit is that it flips the script on what we expect from a Superman story—Superman is the 'secret identity,' not Clark Kent, Clark is the real person and Superman the costume. In telling the story this way, Busiek subtly delves into what makes both characters stand out and reminds us of the enduring importance of Superman's humanity.

It's not a traditional Superman story, but it's one of the best graphic novels out there. Highly recommended.