December Reading Log

  

This crazy year is drawing to a close, and with it so is my year of reading. Here's the breakdown by genre of the 72 books I read in 2020:

• "Church books" (i.e. theology, biblical interpretation, church growth, etc.) - 16 books
• History - 5 books
• Novels - 12 books
• Graphic novels/comic book collections - 29 books
• Baseball - 5 books
• Miscellaneous - 5 books

So let's wrap the year up. Here's what I read in December:

3 Articles I Like This Month

"In This Advice, I Was Wrong" by Mark Wingfield, Baptist News Global. 4 minutes.

Midway through the month, there was a dust-up online over a The Wall Street Journal op-ed arguing that Dr. Jill Biden, upon becoming First Lady, should stop using her "Doctor" title because her doctorate is in education, not medicine. That piece was widely (and correctly) scorned as being sexist and condescending, and if you missed it, don't dignify it by looking for the link. However, this article is worth reading: a reflection on the value of such honorifics, specifically in church life, for women and minorities, and why white males such as myself should perhaps be slower to dismiss those titles in the name of informality. 

"The Most American Religion" by McKay Coppins, The Atlantic. 37 minutes.

A history and sociological study of Mormonism, and of the church's attempts from its inception to assimilate into a nation that has repeatedly rejected it.

"How Science Beat the Virus" by Ed Yong, The Atlantic. 26 minutes.

Less than a year after COVID-19 was declared an international pandemic, the scientific community has already invented a vaccine to stop the virus in its tracks. How did they pull it off? In this article, Ed Yong, far and away the best national reporter on the pandemic, details the herculean efforts of researchers and scientists to shift all focus to beating the pandemic. 

AUTOPSY OF A DECEASED CHURCH: 12 WAYS TO KEEP YOURS ALIVE by Thom Rainer

ANATOMY OF A REVIVED CHURCH: SEVEN FINDINGS OF HOW CONGREGATIONS AVOID DEATH by Thom Rainer

Church growth books, as a rule, are not a favorite genre of mine. I find them to generally be overly simplistic, spiritually reductive, numbers-driven, and trendy to a fault. Buuuut that doesn't mean that there's nothing I can learn from them, and part of my getting older (and hopefully more mature) is recognizing that I should never turn my nose up at someone who claims to have answers I'm looking for, at least not without hearing them out first. So this month I spent a week reading through church growth expert Thom Rainer's Autopsy of a Deceased Church and its prequel, Anatomy of a Revived Church, both of which look at the problems that declining churches typically face, diagnose the underlying causes, and offer prescriptions for revival.

The issues Rainer most commonly sees are 1) an inward focus instead of outward focus 2) an unwillingness to make necessary changes and 3) a refusal to face the reality of the situation. Established churches, he says, too often become religious country clubs devoted to keeping their members comfortable and loathe to do anything which might upset the status quo. The problems with that approach are that it walls the church off from its surrounding community and cripples the church's ability to carry out the Great Commission. A church that focuses on itself instead of its neighbors is a church marching towards its own death.

Rainer's solutions, then, are fairly obvious. A church must reorient its vision around service and evangelism to the community. A church must be willing to change the way it does things in the name of growth. And a church must remember—or in some cases, articulate for the first time—what it's all about, and point all its resources in that direction. Easier said than done, to be sure, but reviving something that is wilting is never easy.

Like all the other Rainer books I've read, these books were simple and breezy, easily read in one sitting if you so desired. But these packed more of a punch than some of his other works, and felt deeply applicable to my own situation (distressingly so, in certain instances.) I'm glad I read these, and hope I'll be able to effectively apply their lessons.

A PROMISED LAND by Barack Obama

When the release date of A Promised Land was announced, the first volume of Barack Obama's two presidential memoirs, was announced, I preordered it immediately; I've rarely been so excited for a book release. For one thing, presidential memoirs are a favorite genre of mine; I own and have read every one dating back to Lyndon B. Johnson. For another, Barack Obama is an unquestionably excellent writer, having written a bestselling memoir (Dreams from My Father) long before he became a national political figure. Finally, A Promised Land is the first memoir that feels less like history to me than current events—the 2008 election was the first I ever voted in. So, once I polished off the giant that was Don Quixote at the end of November, I was excited to dive into this book.

A Promised Land primarily covers the events of 2008-2011, following a quick autobiography of Obama's life up to that point (those events had already been covered in more detail in Obama's previous two books). So the book really kicks into high gear with Obama's decision to run for president in 2008 and the historic campaign that followed, one marked by the hope it engendered across the nation ("Yes We Can!"), the unexpected twists and turns (Sarah Palin, the financial crisis, etc.), and ultimately Obama and the Democratic Party's landslide victory.

The next section of the book deals heavily with how, beginning with the transition from the Bush administration to the Obama administration, the incoming president handled the financial crisis. Given that it's been nearly 20 years now and that I was a freshman in college at the time, I'd kind of forgotten just how precarious things felt at that time; Obama makes clear in the book that it was all-consuming for him and his administration. He does an excellent job writing in detail about the steps his administration took without getting too deep into the complexities of the international financial system, and I found this section very informative.

The next big section deals with the passing of the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, the president's foremost domestic achievement. Reliving the political back-and-forth of that year-long fight was interesting, and it was clear from reading just how important the issue was to the president and how proud he remains of the law's passage.

One thing that surprised me was how much time Obama spent writing about foreign policy, particularly the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. When I think of the Obama presidency, I think first of domestic achievements, but as any student of history knows, presidents have more power when it comes to foreign policy, and their most important job is to be Commander-in-Chief. While Obama's headlines came primarily from his political battles, he makes clear in the book that much of his time was spent dealing with figuring out how to end the wars begun years earlier and how to effectively continue the War on Terror.

The most interesting aspects of the book were the personal touches, such as when Obama would write about Michelle and their girls or when he'd give some insights into what it was like living in the White House. These details kept the book grounded and personal and helped break up the wonkier sections of the book.

All in all, this memoir was everything I expected it to be, and a joy to read. Whether you are an Obama supporter or detractor, this is an important historical work, and one which effectively provides the president's perspective on his first term in office. Well written, well organized, and well argued, A Promised Land is (so far) my favorite presidential memoir, and I highly recommend it.

TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Life's too short to waste hours reading books you don't like.  But I'd made a commitment to read a "classic" novel every month, and by December 26 (the day I contemplated giving up on this book) it was too late to start something new. So I plowed through to the end.

Tender Is the Night, the final novel F. Scott Fitzgerald completed before his death, was originally published in four parts in Scribner's Magazine, and that fragmentation shows when you read it. While no one can question Fitzgerald's gift with words, this book certainly makes me question his ability to tell a comprehensible story (something with which I never struggled when reading The Great Gatsby). Honestly, I had no idea what the plot was for most of the book.

....yeah, that's really all I have to say about this one. I started trying to lay out the plot for you, but I'm at a loss. I wanted to tell you something about the main characters (Rosemary, Dick Diver, and Nicole Diver), but they didn't make enough of an impression to make it worth the time. I thought maybe I could tell you what the overall point of the book is, but that would imply I know it.

F. Scott Fitzgerald considered this his greatest work, better than The Great Gatsby. His contemporary critics disagreed, and the book was received tepidly in its time. In the decades since, it has risen in stature and often makes "Best Of" lists of 20th century novels. Don't believe the retrospective hype. I finished this out of obligation. You don't have to.

WHERE DO YOU THINK WE ARE? by Shea Serrano

CONFERENCE ROOM, FIVE MINUTUES by Shea Serrano

Shea Serrano has become, in the last year, my favorite pop culture writer, and it's not even close. Basketball (and Other Things) is possibly my favorite book about basketball, The Rap Year Book is possibly my favorite music book, and Shea is possible my favorite person on Twitter. So when I learned that he'd written PDF collections of articles about two of my all-time favorite shows, Scrubs and The Office, I couldn't click "Purchase" fast enough.

The result is typical (and I mean that in a positive way) Shea: hilarious, tangent-filled, ultimately heartfelt reflections about two hilarious, tangent-filled, heartfelt TV shows. Both PDFs capture the essences of their subject matter perfectly, both treat the shows with reverence and love, and both will appeal to diehards and casual fans alike. Most importantly, these PDFs do what Shea has managed to do in all of his projects: make you feel less alone. I can think of few things so valuable in 2020.

ESSENTIAL DOCTOR STRANGE VOL. 4 by Roger Stern, Gene Colan, Marshall Rogers, et al.

Doctor Strange is a tough character to write. For one thing, he's never been given much personality—he's got an arrogant and stubborn streak, but beyond that there's not much there. For another, his supporting cast (primarily Clea, Wong, and the Ancient One) exist primarily to further his adventures, rather than as characters in their own right. But maybe most significantly, he's a sorcerer—and any fantasy author will tell you that magic is tough to write.

So over the decades, writers have taken a number of approaches to telling the adventures of the good doctor. The best among them have embraced the weirdness and psychedelic possibilities presented by the Sorcerer Supreme and made him more of an adventurer than a superhero, someone who's constantly running into new cosmic entities and strange new worlds and dimensions. Less imaginative writers have tried to make him a conventional superhero whose power happens to be magic and whose villains happen to share that power.

Unfortunately, Essential Doctor Strange Vol. 4, which chronicles Stephen Strange's adventures from the late 1970s, takes the latter approach, which results in stories that wind up being A) boring or B) confusing. Most issues end with Doctor Strange firing vague energy bolts out of his fingers at familiar enemies who are firing similarly vague energy bolts at him. It's pretty by-the-numbers superhero fare, but when your protagonist isn't blessed with a charismatic personality, it leaves you wanting something to pop off the page.

Roger Stern is a capable writer, one of the leading lights for Marvel in the 1970s and 1980s. And both Marshall Rogers and legend Gene Colan (who had a fantastic run on Doctor Strange in the late 1960s) are fine too. But by the end of the book I felt more strongly than ever that Doctor Strange is a character who works best as a guest star instead of as the protagonist. If you want some classic Doctor Strange stories, the first three volumes of this series are worth the read. You can skip volume 4.

SHOWCASE PRESENTS WORLD'S FINEST VOL. 1 by Curt Swan, Dick Sprang, Edmond Hamilton, Bill Finger, Jerry Coleman, et al.

Comic books aren't for children, not anymore. Comics today are written largely for the 40 to 50-year-olds who have been buying them since they were teenagers, along with anybody over the age of 13 who happens to get pulled into the genre. But all it will take is a few pages of a modern comic book for you to see that comics are no longer written for little kids.

But once upon a time they were. From the 1940s through at least the 1960s, comics were kid lit, the paper equivalent of Saturday morning cartoons. And especially at DC Comics, home of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, the campier and the more kid-friendly, the better.

Showcase Presents: World's Finest Vol. 1 is a collection of comics from that era, packed full of 12-page stories about Batman, Robin, and Superman teaming up for madcap adventures. Sometimes they take on a pair of foes (such as when Luthor and Joker combine forces), but far more often their adventures are akin to screwball comedies, with the heroes swapping identities for the day or trying to figure out why one has seemingly abandoned the partnership in favor of a new hero (who secretly turns out to be a robot!)

It's all silly, unmemorable fun, the kind of disposable entertainment for kids that comics once proudly embraced. For this adult reader, the issues were occasionally charming, occasionally tedious, but always something I'd be happy to hand my kids. Someday I hope Andrew and Katherine decide to give comics a try; if and when that day comes, this is probably where I'll suggest they start.

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THE FLASH: REBIRTH by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver

The introduction of Barry Allen, a.k.a. The Flash, in Showcase #4 marked the beginning of the Silver Age of Comics, a period which launched basically every notable DC character except Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman and every Marvel character except Captain America. As such, Barry Allen was always not just a hero but a symbol. Thus his death in 1987's Crisis on Infinite Earths carried with it some symbolic import; this was a statement by DC Comics that the company was embarking upon a new era.

In 2009, with DC eying a return to form after a few years spent in the creative wilderness, writer Geoff Johns was enlisted to do with Barry Allen what he'd previously done with Hal Jordan, a.k.a. Green Lantern: bring the character back from the dead and restore his stature in the DC Universe. The result is a story that is beloved by hardcore Flash fans, entertaining for casual fans, and likely incomprehensible for first-time readers. I count myself in the middle category.

Barry's return, having already been foreshadowed in the line-wide event Final Crisis, draws upon and redefines the concept of the Speed Force, the source of power for all the speedsters in the DC Universe. In the story, it is revealed that Barry doesn't just draw upon the Speed Force like his peers, but that he is actually the source of the Speed Force—in a meta sense, he is the Flash, all other speedsters depend upon him. 

The series also reintroduces and reimagines Eobard Thawne, the time-traveling Reverse-Flash, as Barry's archenemy, revealing that he is behind every tragedy in Barry's life. While it does make him a little deux ex machina-y, it also lends a new aura of menace to a character whose look and name are otherwise pretty silly.

In the end, the series reestablishes Barry as the Flash while still acknowledging and paying respects to the events which had happened since the character's death. It's a story that threatens to get lost in its characters' own mythology at times, but one I still managed to hang with and enjoy. Worth a read for DC fans.