May Reading Log

It's a short one this month thanks to a few busy weeks and some laziness on my part. Take a look!

4 Articles I Like This Month

"78 Minutes" by Elizabeth Bruenig, The Atlantic. 4 minutes.

In this piece, which was written after the revelation that the police in Uvalde waited over an hour before making an attempt to confront the shooter, writer Elizabeth Bruenig wrestles with what it means to be a parent of small children in a country that is unwilling to protect them.

"A Culture That Kills Its Children Has No Future" by Elizabeth Bruenig, The Atlantic. 4 minutes.

Another post-Uvalde piece by Elizabeth Bruenig, this one zooms out and asks what our country's ineffectual response to mass shootings says about us. Ultimately what she concludes is as disturbing as it is convincing: ours is a country that has stopped hoping for a better future.

"America's Human Sacrifices" by Maureen Dowd, The New York Times. 5 minutes.

Maureen Dowd, once the most revered newspaper columnist in America, is long past her prime, but she can still hit a home run every now and then. This column, which blisteringly condemns those who refuse to even talk about gun control, is one of those home runs.

"How Politics Poisoned the Evangelical Church" by Tim Alberta, The Atlantic. 40 minutes.

One church profiled in this article has exploded numerically since its pastor started injecting right-wing talking points into his sermons on a weekly basis, making Sundays more like political rallies than worship services. Another church has begun to decline since its pastor, a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, began regularly preaching against the kinds of conspiracy theories he was seeing his members embrace. Both pastors have something in common: they believe they have no choice but to talk about politics in church. And both, in their own ways, are evidence of how the evangelical church has lost its way. 

Reading Through the Fantastic Four- #301-323, Annual #20-21

The post-John Byrne years of Fantastic Four were weird, a time to throw things at the wall and see what stuck. After a legendary, lengthy run like Byrne's, Marvel had little choice but to shake things up if they wanted readers to stay engaged following the writer-artist's departure.

With Marvel mainstay Steve Englehart at the helm accompanied by workaday artists like Keith Pollard, little time was wasted turning things on their head. Reed and Sue left the team to spend more time with their son Franklin (or at least that was the plan...they joined the Avengers almost immediately.) In their place were Inhuman and onetime FF member Crystal and a friend of the Thing's, Ms. Marvel (Sharon Ventura, not Carol Danvers). Within only a few issues, Ms. Marvel and the Thing were mutated by another encounter with the same cosmic rays that gave the original FF their powers, resulting in Ms. Marvel taking on an appearance much like Ben's (she would soon start calling herself 'She-Thing') and Ben himself acquiring a new, spiky look and enhanced strength. So within only a few issues of the Englehart run, the team was virtually indistinguishable from the familiar foursome who'd been around since 1961.

Does it work? Eh. Kind of.

It was definitely a smart move to go bold after the Byrne run, and having four members learning how to be a team makes for interesting character moments and soap opera shenanigans. But the actual superhero-ing is pretty run-of-the-mill. Englehart seems far more interested in the characters' personal lives than in each issue's fight scene, and the result is that half of every issue winds up being a pretty lackluster read.

Mediocre and inconsistent art doesn't help matters either, especially when the book's predecessor was arguably the most famous artist in comics at that time. Stalwarts like Keith Pollard and Sal Buscema are fine, but never particularly exciting.

All in all, this era feels like a transition to the next big run...which is what it winds up being. Next month we see the reins handed off to another writer-artist, Walt Simonson of Thor fame. Check back in to see what I think!

TEMPERED RESILIENCE: HOW LEADERS ARE FORMED IN THE CRUCIBLE OF CHANGE by Tod Bolsinger

This is a book I received as part of Truett Seminary's Pastors Conference back in January, a conference where author Tod Bolsinger was the featured speaker. I found Bolsinger to be an engaging and insightful thinker, but for whatever reason just now got around to actually reading the book that the conference was based on. I was not disappointed.

As its subtitle indicates, Tempered Resilience is a leadership book that deals specifically with how to lead people into when it's needed, even if and when they are resistant. Using the metaphor of blacksmithing as a foundation, Bolsinger talks about the basics of self-awareness, vision casting, persuasion, and more.

But what sets this book apart from others like it, at least for me, is Bolsinger's generosity of spirit. Where many leadership books approach the reader as though he (such books are almost always written by men for men) is a messianic figure, the only one who can fix the mess these poor dopes have gotten themselves into. Bolsinger instead approaches the reader as a flawed human in need of some help and the leader's people as flawed humans in need of some help. Instead of using the language of strength, charisma, and intelligence, Bolsinger advocates for thoughtfulness, patience, and wisdom—traits that rely less on inherent talent than love and discipline.

This is an excellent book for pastors (who are largely the target audience), and I was helped greatly by it. An enlightening read.

LEONARDO DA VINCI by Walter Isaacson

When my family went to Italy last month, I didn't buy any books to come home with. But if I had, it would have been this one, a biography of the ultimate Renaissance man by the biographers of other innovators like Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and Steve Jobs.

Most people think of Leonardo da Vinci as an artist first, the painter of Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. To that effect, certain chapters of this book function almost as an elementary art textbook, focusing on the tiniest details of some of Leonardo's most notable paintings. For a novice like me, I found these chapters as fascinating as they were enlightening, and they really did help me understand what sets Leonardo apart from his contemporaries.

But, as Isaacson is quick to point out, Leonardo was more than just an artist—he was a scientist, inventor, and engineer as well. Referring constantly to the notebooks where Leonardo dutifully wrote his ideas, plans, and scattered thoughts, Isaacson convincingly shows that Leonardo's great power was not so much a genius mind as a boundless imagination and keen eye for detail. Leonardo never let a question go unasked, and was always ready to think outside the box to find the answer.

Leonardo da Vinci is one of those men like Theodore Roosevelt or Muhammad Ali, so much larger than life that it's impossible not to be captivated by them. In Walter Isaacson's biography of the man, you walk away with a better sense of why we still remember him today—and, at least in my case, you walk away inspired to make your own mark on the world.

PAX ROMANA by Jonathan Hickman

One of the things I love about Jonathan Hickman is his ability to build complex, intricate frameworks for his stories, full of imaginative ideas, elaborate conspiracies, and plot twists. One of the things I find extremely frustrating about Jonathan Hickman is how, left to his own devices, he allows the complexity to overwhelm the story, building a world so complicated you can no longer navigate it.

Pax Romana, a creator-owned miniseries which Hickman wrote and drew in 2007, is what happens when he has to work with the short leash of four issues. And it. Is. Glorious.

The story begins with the discovery of time travel by scientists for the Roman Catholic Church and the subsequent decision by the pope and his closest advisors to send a team of loyal, capable soldiers back to the days of Constantine to alter history in small but significant ways to benefit the church. However, the plan quickly goes awry when the soldiers murder the cardinal who is supposed to be overseeing their mission, resulting in a past—and a future—that is nearly unrecognizable.

The book is a thrill ride from start to finish, a delightful mix of history, action, and conspiracy. With little time to waste, Hickman propels the plot forward at breakneck speed, but as a reader you never feel rushed or lost by what's going on. Questions you ask in the book's first few pages (what is a "gene pope?" why is the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire a child? what is the Holy Roman Empire???) are actually answered by the book's conclusion, a nice change of pace from more recent Hickman projects.

Essentially, this is all the good parts of Hickman without the self-indulgence. And, for what it's worth, he's a good artist too! I definitely recommend Pax Romana.