February Reading Log

February was a weird month for me, super busy at times and mind-numbingly slow at others. The result was some days where my reading time was cut short and others where I just didn't feel like reading. So it's a short log this month; hopefully March will be better in that respect!

3 Articles I Like This Month

"Most Americans Want Off Extreme Ride" by Abby McCloskey, The Dallas Morning News. 3 minutes.

The national discourse seems more and more to be directed by those on the extremes of each party. Yet, as Abby McCloskey writes here, most of America is part of "the exhausted majority" who just want government to get things done for the American people. A little guilty of both-sidesism, this op-ed nevertheless is an effective reminder that our country is more moderate than cable news makes us seem.

"The Age of Decadence" by Ross Douthat, The New York Times. 21 minutes.

In this essay, Ross Douthat elaborates on an idea that has become a frequent theme in his New York Times column: that America has entered into an age of decadence, in which we are materially prosperous but spiritually, emotionally, socially, and intellectually numb.

"The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake" by David Brooks, The Atlantic. 38 minutes.

When you hear the word 'family,' you probably think of the nuclear family, i.e. a husband, wife, 2.5 kids, and a dog. However, as David Brooks persuasively argues here, the nuclear family is more of a historical aberration than a norm, and our collective idealization of it has made us less connected as a society. Here he argues for a redefinition of family that reincorporates extended family, friends, and neighbors, hoping that returning to an expansive definition of family will help cure our society's epidemic of loneliness.

THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD by N.T. Wright

You'd be hard pressed to find a more prolific and beloved living theologian than N.T. Wright at the moment. The former Bishop of Durham has authored more than 70 books at both the popular and academic levels and regularly lectures at the finest universities, seminaries, and churches around the world. In June, he'll be coming to my own Truett Seminary for an intensive course on Galatians, which I'm already looking forward to attending. So I decided that between now and then the time had come for me to tackle Wright's magnum opus, the four-volume "Christian Origins and the Question of God" series.

The New Testament and the People of God has the unenviable task of setting the table, which means the first two hundred pages or so are basically a long abstract, thesis statement, and explanation of his research methodology. In the hands of a less capable writer this would be deadly dull; in Wright's it's tedious but bearable (and for academicians, necessary.) Once through this introductory work, however, Wright is able to get going with this first volume's major task: explaining the world of the New Testament.

An advocate of the so-called "New Perspective on Paul," Wright argues that the Protestant Reformation harmfully de-emphasized Christianity's relationship with Judaism, and thus the Old Testament. Thus much of this book is providing information, mostly from the New Testament, Apocrypha, and Josephus, about the beliefs and priorities of first century Judaism and then connecting them to Christ and the early church. For Wright, the gospel must be interpreted as the fulfillment of the Old Testament in order to be fully grasped; to call Jesus the Christ, a.k.a. the Messiah, means understanding him not just as Savior but as the keeping of God's promise to Israel.

Wright does a lot of convincing myth-busting throughout the book. The Pharisees, in his telling, are not trying to get into heaven through works (as the Reformers often caricatured), they are a conservative religious party trying to uphold God's law in a pagan society. The early church is not a brand new faith which rejects Judaism, but an extension of it which did not truly break from its roots until almost the second century. Explanations like these do a helpful job of bringing nuance and new perspectives to readers' understanding of the world of the New Testament.

The New Testament and the People of God is an academic tome, no bones about it; however, Wright is not only a brilliant thinker but one of my favorite religious writers, so the book is readable for pastors and others beyond the ivory towers of academia. For those wanting a fuller understanding of the New Testament world, I highly recommend this book as a reference.

THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER by Mark Twain

Maybe you already know the highlights of this beloved children's book: Tom Sawyer tricking his friends into whitewashing the fence for him, Tom watching his own funeral from the rafters, Tom sleeping in a cemetery  only to come upon grave robbers. I remembered these, both from a Wishbone episode and from my first time reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer as a middle schooler. But what I did not remember was just how delightful a little book this is, and how ably it captures the imagination and adventurous spirit of a young boy with time on his hands and wit to spare.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is less a novel than a series of loosely connected episodes; if Mark Twain were creating the character today he might have made this a Netflix series instead of a book. The through line is Tom himself, a mischievous Mississippi boy with a nose for trouble. Aided by friends Joe Harper and Huckleberry Finn, Tom navigates everything from young love to witnessing a murder, and with Twain at the storytelling wheel, it all makes for an entertaining tale that's tough to put down.

What struck me most reading Tom's adventures for the second time was just how different a reading experience it was as an adult than as a child. Some of Tom's preoccupations and fears, which when read as a boy made perfect sense to me, now read as satire. Twain clearly had a gift for portraying what boyhood is like, and the result is a book that, while meant for kids, is worthy of a different kind of appreciation by adults.

Though overshadowed by The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (which I'll read next month), Tom's novel is fun from beginning to end and introduces some of American literature's most enduring characters and memorable scenes. If you've never picked it up, give it a shot; you won't be disappointed.

THE BOYS OF SUMMER by Roger Kahn

Let's not beat around the bush here—The Boys of Summer is considered by some to be the best baseball book ever written, and I'm not going to argue.

The elevator pitch for this book is that it's the story of the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1940s and 1950s, the team that starred Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, and Duke Snider. But anyone expecting a linear season-by-season account of wins and losses is in for a treat; the book takes a much more interesting trajectory. The first half of The Boys of Summer is a memoir of Kahn's childhood growing up in Brooklyn and his eventual, unlikely ascendancy to the Dodgers beat reporter job for the New York Herald Tribune during the golden age of baseball writing. Kahn continues from there by telling what it was like to cover the Dodgers during those days, culminating in Brooklyn's World Series victory in 1955. After an interlude about his father that serves as both intermission and transition, Kahn then jumps forward several decades where, after years of feature writing for magazines, he decides to track down the old Dodgers and tell their stories chapter by chapter.

The stories—about Kahn's Brooklyn upbringing, the Dodgers' stories from the 1950s, and Kahn's accounts of the lions in winter—are compelling enough, but Kahn's writing is what really takes your breath away as you read. While he spent years as a beat reporter, Kahn's writing ability goes far beyond the just-the-facts kind of writing traditionally employed by such reporters. He has a gift for storytelling, and does a marvelous job of getting to the heart of the Dodgers, both as a team and as individual men. By the end of the book, you feel like you know the team through and through, and only wish you could have seen them play.

While The Boys of Summer is widely lauded, some critics have said the book is overly sentimental and paints the team and its city in sepia tones, ignoring hard realities for the sake of romanticism. Maybe, but Kahn's writing sells it, and by the time I finished, my only disappointment with the book was that it was over. And besides, like the saying goes, how can you not be romantic about baseball? 

ESSENTIAL WEREWOLF BY NIGHT VOL. 1-2 by Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Doug Moench, Mike Ploog, Don Perlin, et al.

As I've slowly worked my way through 1970s Marvel horror comics via my beloved Essentials line, there have been highs and lows. Tomb of Dracula is some of the best Bronze Age stuff I've read in any genre, with interesting characters, gorgeous art, and a don't-take-it-too-seriously sensibility. Comics starring Brother Voodoo, the Scarecrow, and the Living Mummy reside at the opposite end of the spectrum, boring me to tears with dull stories and characters, B-movie dialogue, and mediocre art. With Essential Werewolf by Night Vol. 1-2, two books which contain every appearance of the titular character in the 1970s, I got comics right in the mediocre center, never embarrassing but never thrilling either.

Werewolf by Night tells the story of Jack Russell (yep, that's really his name), a college-aged resident of Los Angeles who discovers on his 18th birthday that he bears an incredible family curse: at the full moon, he transforms into a mindless, vicious werewolf. Over the course of the title's 43-issue run, Jack teams up with his friend Buck, his sister Lissa, and a mysterious empath named Topaz to try and remove his curse while also facing a variety supernatural foes.

There is some Bronze Age-y goodness to enjoy. For example, by the series' end, the werewolf has developed an arch-nemesis named—wait for it—Dr. Glitternight. I mean, how can you not love that? On the other hand, the stories get repetitive quickly, and there's no real arc for Jack throughout the series. What's more, none of the characters really grabbed me.

Reading Essential Werewolf by Night Vol. 1-2 was a perfectly unobjectionable way to spend a month, but I can't say I'll remember much of it long-term. Sometimes comics are middling affairs, and Werewolf by Night, it turns out, was for its entire duration during the Bronze Age.