April Reading Log

For some, a month at home has meant much more reading than normal. For others, it has virtually eliminated the time (or desire) to read. For me, not much changed—since I do my reading between the hours of 4:30 and 6:30 in the morning, this part of my routine remained intact. So here's what I read in the month of April!

2 Articles I Like This Month

"If I Wrote a Coronavirus Episode" by Various, Vulture. 28 minutes.

How would our favorite TV characters handle sheltering in place due to coronavirus? Thanks to Vulture, which rounded up the showrunners from some of TV's most popular shows, now we know! A fun diversion from all the serious news this month.

"We Are Living in a Failed State" by George Packer, The Atlantic. 12 minutes.

In this compelling editorial, longtime Atlantic writer George Packer lays out the sad reality that COVID-19 has exposed: America is not functioning properly, and now our social, political, and economic decay is costing us lives. A sober but powerful look at how our nation's underlying conditions have made this crisis even worse than it had to be.

THE LAST WEEK: WHAT THE GOSPELS REALLY TEACH ABOUT JESUS' FINAL DAYS IN JERUSALEM by Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan

When we think about Holy Week, there are certain days whose details we know well: we know about Palm Sunday's processional, Maundy Thursday's supper, Good Friday's crucifixion, and Sunday's empty tomb. But the gospels, which give us a broad overview of Jesus's three years of ministry only to tightly focus on this final week in Jerusalem, have more to say about Jesus than we tend to make time for during Holy Week. By looking at all the events of Holy Week, from Palm Sunday's triumphal entry to Easter Sunday's resurrection, we are shown the full scope of Jesus's message and mission.

This the task of Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, two progressive Christian scholars well-known for their work in the quest for the "Historical Jesus," which seeks to determine 'what really happened' for those unwilling to take the gospels' accounts on faith, in The Last Week. Using the Gospel of Mark as their text, Borg and Crossan devote a chapter to each day of Holy Week, dispelling what they see as misconceptions about Jesus and offering sorely needed context to Jesus's actions in Jerusalem.

In the end, the gospel they perceive Jesus to be preaching is an anti-imperial message about the kingdom of God, one which declares that Jesus is Lord and therefore Caesar is not, and more broadly, that Jesus's way of the cross is ultimately more powerful than the domination systems of worldly powers. While not dismissing the personal element of the gospel, Borg and Crossan's emphasis is on the political aspect of what Jesus said and did.

Borg and Crossan have valuable exegetical and theological insights in The Last Week—in fact, I used this book as a reference guide for a series of daily video Bible studies I led my church in during Holy Week. However, I read the book with a grain of salt, and I advise other readers to do the same. You don't have to be a fundamentalist to be uncomfortable with the way Borg and Crossan dismiss the historicity of parts of the Bible while affirming other parts. Their research and conclusions, while academically sound, are nevertheless a step too far in their skepticism to be fully affirmed by the faithful. For teachers of the Bible, The Last Week is a complicated meal—taste and see, but I don't advise you to swallow it whole.

HOW TO PRAY: DEVELOPING AN INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

This book was a gift from the leader of our church's women's Bible study group, since this is the book they intended to read through in April. COVID-19 prevented that from happening, but I was still curious to see what the book had to say, so I gave it a quick read after Easter.

Written by Ronnie Floyd, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's executive committee and former president of the National Day of Prayer, How to Pray is a practical guide through the Bible's teachings on prayer, with a special emphasis and why and how we are called to go to God. Drawing from both Scripture and his own experiences, Floyd does a good job explaining what barriers stand in the way of effective prayer and how they can be overcome, and concludes with his own personal prayer plan.

Admittedly, Floyd doesn't break any new ground in this book—prayer is a pretty well-worn topic—and the book doesn't hold many surprises. However, he is an effective communicator, and does a good job distilling things down to what matters most; there's not a lot of fluff in this book. How to Pray offers some good insights into prayer, some good tips on how to pray more effectively, and a pastoral reminder of prayer's importance. If you want to grow in your prayer life, I'd love to let you borrow my copy of this book.

RABBIT, RUN by John Updike

I picked a bad month to read this book if I was supposed to sympathize with its protagonist. Rabbit, Run tells the story of how its titular character, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, a husband and father, impulsively leaves his pregnant wife without a word of explanation and shacks up with a prostitute. After being befriended by the local Episcopal priest, he eventually returns to his wife's side the day she gives birth to their second child, only to abandon her again weeks later, a decision which results in an unimaginable tragedy. Running back to his partner in his affair, he learns that she is pregnant and then flees her too.

Rabbit Angstrom, who starred in four Updike novels, has never been considered a hero. But especially now, when we're all holding our families a little tighter and when individualism has given way to solidarity, he came across as the epitome of selfishness, a character I reviled throughout the book. His main character trait, as the title suggests, is that he runs from his responsibilities in search of some purpose or meaning that he doesn't believe he can find at home. The way he treats the people around him, especially women, is appalling. Though the story is told largely from his perspective, Rabbit nevertheless comes across as irredeemable.

His story, and Updike's telling of it, is captivating. Updike manages to say a great deal about everything from sex to religion to masculinity in this novel, and the prose is beautiful throughout. The trouble is that Rabbit is intended to be an everyman, the kind of Don Draper-esque salesman whom Updike saw as the symbol—for better and for worse—of America in the 1950s. But Rabbit's selfishness is so over-the-top that, at a certain point, I couldn't buy him as an everyman anymore; he was just too loathsome to stand in for that role.

Did I appreciate Rabbit, Run? Yes; it's a modern classic for a reason. Did I enjoy it? I can emphatically say no. Few books could have been a worse fit for a shelter-in-place read. Glad to have read it, and glad to be done with it.

BASEBALL BETWEEN THE NUMBERS: WHY EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT THE GAME IS WRONG by Baseball Prospectus, edited by Jonah Keri

Ever since the publication of Moneyball in 2003 (not to mention the subsequent movie 8 years later), baseball has been going through a revolution in the way the game is analyzed. Statistics like batting average and RBI, once the backbone of statistical analysis, have given way to OBP, OPS, and WAR. Conventional wisdom has ceded is authority to sabermetrics. The nerds have won.

Baseball Between the Numbers, a 2006 collection of essays by the folks at Baseball Prospectus, is a handy guide to the fights (and, in most cases, victories) sabermetricians waged over the last 2 decades. Analyzing everything from statistical analysis to front office methodology to on-the-field strategy, these essays use numbers, charts, and graphs (sooo many charts and graphs) to look at how baseball can operate more efficiently.

Reading this nearly 15 years after its publication, I was amazed by how many of these essays, which were presumably controversial takes at the time, are now settled dogma in the game. It turns out that essays like these have been making a big impact over the years, and the numbers have won out over gut feeling. You can understand why when you read them—while none of these writers are going to win Pulitzers anytime soon for their prose, they craft convincing arguments with the aid of hard numbers.

If you've ever killed half an hour on Fangraphs, this book will be familiar territory. If you're a more traditionally minded fan, it may be an acquired taste. Nevertheless, no one can doubt the influence on the game of books like this one.

HARLEEN by Stjepan Sejic

I've got to be honest: beyond the whole Margot Robbie of it all, I don't really get the surge of interest in Harley Quinn. First debuting in the 1990s Batman: The Animated Series TV show and comic book, Harley eventually worked her way into the mainstream DC Universe, where for me she was a welcome addition but far from a superstar. Nevertheless, she's somehow found herself the star of 2 DC movies and has become a fixture not just in Batman's rogues gallery, but the DCU at large.


Harleen is writer-artist Stjepan Sejic's new take on Harley's origin story, chronicling Dr. Harleen Quinzel's descent into love and madness when she becomes the Joker's psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum and eventually his partner in crime. Portraying Quinzel as a doctor committed to using empathy to heal the criminally insane, Sejic does a remarkable job making readers sympathize with Harleen even as we see the cracks in her psyche beginning to form. Harleen is convinced that the Joker can be saved; as readers we know otherwise, and the story's job is to confirm our preconception while still maintaining the tension.

I had never read anything by Sejic before, but was impressed overall, especially by his art, which isn't flashy but tells the story well. The writing was occasionally a little stilted, but delivered on the promise of making me care about Harley Quinn in a way I never had before. For fans of Harley's movies and Batman's villains, this is a psychological thriller worth a read.

ESSENTIAL HULK VOL. 6 by Len Wein, Roger Stern, Sal Buscema, et al.

The more Bronze Age Hulk comics I read, the more I think that, despite a lack of innovative or even memorable stories, this is the definitive era for the not-so-jolly green giant. In the 1980s, Peter David would begin a 12-year run writing The Incredible Hulk which would tackle big questions about anger, psychology, and personality. No one really disagrees; that's the best run of Hulk comics. And yet the conventional conception of the Hulk—a "giant green rage monster," as Tony Stark quipped in The Avengers movie, a brute who smashes unthinkingly and talks like Frankenstein's monster—was solidified in the 1970s.

The Essential Hulk Vol. 6 continues walking us through those definitive Bronze Age comics, running from issue #201 through 226 of The Incredible Hulk. A few major developments occur: Betty Ross and Glenn Talbot's marriage falls apart, Bruce Banner moves to New York, and Doc Samson becomes a regular member of the supporting cast. But by and large, these comics tell simple, predictable stories. Hulk wants to be left alone. An antagonist (usually a villain, but sometimes a superpowered agent of the U.S. military) engages the Hulk in combat nonetheless. Hulk gets angry. Hulk smashes.

As I said in my review last month for the fifth volume, it's all good fun, albeit not especially memorable. Writers Len Wein and then Roger Stern keep the stories moving and provide enough soap opera-style background drama to fit the serialized nature of comics storytelling. Sal Buscema, whose work can be found in just about any Bronze Age Marvel book, provides great-but-never-amazing art that excels at storytelling but is unlikely to make you ooh and aah over a particular panel or page.

The Essential Hulk Vol. 6 tells the kinds of stories that don't move the creative needle, but are still delightful. Most people picking up a Hulk comic aren't looking for Shakespeare, they just want to see Hulk smash. In that regard, this book delivers.

UNDERSTANDING COMICS: THE INVISIBLE ART by Scott McCloud

What is a comic? Why do we like them? And are they really art?

These and other question are all examined and answered in Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, a 200+ page art lesson told in a graphic format. With a tone that is at turns professorial, humorous, and insightful, McCloud manages to break down the entire medium, showing how comics are far more than superhero kids stuff and how and why they rise to the level of art. So much of how we read and understand comics is intuitive; McCloud manages to explain how technical things like layout and spacing shape our reading.

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from this book, which is an unquestioned classic among comics readers. After finishing it, I can understand why creators and critics especially praise it to the skies, since it reveals to casual readers the things they wrestle with every day. For me it was an interesting intellectual exercise, and one that made me see the medium a bit differently, but it's a book I'm more likely to return to as a reference than as something to read for fun. If you like comics or even just have a general interest in art, this is a fine book, and one-of-a-kind as it relates to comics.