August Reading Log

  

These intros are basically always the same, right? "I did some reading this month, not as much as I'd have liked, blah blah blah." What do you say we skip it this month? Here's what I read!

2 Articles I Like This Month

"Before Uvalde, a Year of 'Protecting Children' in Texas" by Christopher Hooks, Texas Monthly. 12 minutes.

Over the last year, Texas' top politicians have spent their time banning library books, decrying COVID mandates, and targeting transgender children, all in the name of protecting innocent children. And then, when 19 children were murdered in their Uvalde classroom, those same politicians shrugged their shoulders. Just the cost of doing business in America in 2022.

"Book Bans Are a Symbol of Our Communal Poverty" by Joshua Whitfield, The Dallas Morning News. 4 minutes.

The roiling debate in our state and our country over book banning in school districts is ultimately not really about free speech or moral standards, argues columnist Joshua Whitfield. It's about our distrust of authority, our societal fear of those curating our information.

Reading Through the Fantastic Four- #371-400

The mid-to-late-1990s are considered by virtually all comics fans to be the period in which the industry ran off the rails, fueled by a massive boom of speculators convinced the latest issue of Spider-Man's adventures was going to be worth a million bucks someday. It was an era of holographic covers, crossover events, and soap operatic shenanigans designed to get you to buy next month's issue—or better yet, 10 copies of next month's issue.

Sadly, the World's Greatest Comics Magazine was not immune to the times, and these thirty issues signal the beginning of the end of 400+ issues of unbroken storytelling, which would come crashing down in 1997 (check in next month to see what I'm talking about.) After a promising start, the team of writer (and, for 7 years, Marvel's Editor-in-Chief) Tom DeFalco and artist Paul Ryan overwhelmed readers with too many characters, too much time travel, and too much spectacle, all leading to a 400th issue that lands with a thud.

Was it the introduction of Nathaniel Richards, Mister Fantastic's sinister time-traveling father? The convoluted time travel story with the oh-so-1990s title "Nobody Gets Alive"? The aging up of Franklin through (you guessed it) a trip forward in time? The transparently temporary 'deaths' of Reed and Doctor Doom? The 'look how grim and gritty we are' scarring of the Thing's face in a brawl with Wolverine?

All of this and more. 1994 marks the beginning of a period when this didn't really feel like the FF of old anymore, more like an X-Men knockoff. And who knows, maybe that sold well in its time. But as we'll see next month, eventually somebody was bound to figure out they weren't reading something precious—just fool's gold.

COMEBACK CHURCHES: HOW 300 CHURCHES TURNED AROUND AND YOURS CAN TOO by Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson

At least every other month, I try to read a book about church growth. By now you’re probably as familiar with my criticisms of the genre as I am of its tropes. Church growth books are too often focused on megachurches even though the overwhelming majority of American churches have fewer than 200 members. Church growth books tend to read more like customer service manuals than spiritual guides. Church growth books oversimplify what works and what doesn’t, to the exclusion of a local church’s context. Nevertheless, I keep reading these books because there’s still gold in them hills, and I’m determined to dig it out. And, to the credit of Comeback Churches, it’s one of the better offerings in the genre.

While many of the principles that authors Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson espouse in this book are no different from what you’ll read elsewhere, they have the benefit of actual research—a survey of 300 churches of various sizes—to draw from. Indeed, my favorite part of the book was the stories and direct quotes from some of these churches’ pastors. What all had in common was that they were declining or plateaued churches which made some changes and saw growth—they were examples of the titular ‘comeback church.’

What did it take for these churches to grow? Prayer, leadership, focusing on the little things, all the usual stuff. I confess, after all the church growth books I’ve read from folks like Thom Rainer and others, I could write some of these chapters myself at this point. Nevertheless, Stetzer and Dodson do a good job telling the stories of these comeback churches and synthesizing what worked for them.

This book is not a game-changer; there’s nothing particularly earth-shattering here. But sometimes the best way to learn is by repetition, and Stetzer and Dodson do an effective job reminding pastors what it takes to move their church from good to great. The how-to instructions are pretty clear at this point—all that’s left is the application.

TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY IN SEARCH OF AMERICA by John Steinbeck

One of the great American storytelling genres is the road trip memoir. One of the great American authors is John Steinbeck. Put it together and you get Travels with Charley in Search of America, which turns out, unsurprisingly to be a great book.

One of Steinbeck’s final contributions to the American canon, it tells the story of his trek across the country, accompanied only by his poodle, the titular Charley. Making his way from the Northeast to the Pacific Northwest, down to California, through Texas and the South, and then back home, Steinbeck encounters all manners of American-ness, from friendly strangers to natural beauty to the kind of casual racism that makes modern readers blanche.

What permeates the book is a palpable sadness, perhaps fueled by his isolation, as he makes his way through the country. As Steinbeck barrels down the interstate, stops at diners, and even visits old friends in San Francisco, the reader gets the sense that he is watching the country he loves drift away. It’s not so much a nostalgia for a past golden age—some of the modern wonders he sees amaze him—but a recognition that things are changing, and that as much as the nation is gaining things, it is losing some of its innocent too. Modernity, in Steinbeck’s telling, is a tradeoff—what you gain in convenience and connectedness you lose in distinctiveness.

For those interested in seeing America through the eyes of a writer, you can hardly do better than Travels with Charley in Search of America, which ably mixes hopeful love with mournful memory. Strap in with Steinbeck and, unlike Charley, keep your eyes open—who knows what you’ll see.

ESSENTIAL SAVAGE SHE-HULK VOL. 1 by David Anthony Kraft, Mike Vosberg, et al.

For reasons that, honestly, I can’t explain, I was pretty excited when Marvel’s latest TV show, She-Hulk: Attorney-at-Law started airing a few weeks ago. Maybe it was the bombardment of advertising on social media, maybe it was the episode length (I demand more 22 minute shows!), maybe it was because She-Hulk was once a replacement member of the Fantastic Four. I don’t know. I just know I watched the premiere hours after it went up on Disney+, enthusiastic to find out what was in store.

The result? It was…fine. Not terrible. Not great. Just kind of…meh.

I suppose that in that respect it’s living up to its original source material, the 25 issue Savage She-Hulk which is collected in this Essential volume. Unlike later series by John Byrne in the 1980s and Dan Slott in the early 2000s, this Bronze Age comic lacks the joie de vivre a solo title needs to stand out. This She-Hulk’s enemies are…the L.A. mob. Yawn. Her supporting characters are her sheriff father, a recycled loser named Richard Rory who’d originally shown up in Man-Thing, and a would-be boyfriend with a nickname I’ve already forgotten. And as for her famous cousin with the anger problem, don’t expect to see him after the first issue.

The long and short of it is that this is a prime example of an I.P. in search of a character, a spin-off with no reason for being other than the chance to cash in on the popularity of the ‘real’ series. With second-tier writing and art and little story direction, there’s just not much reason for Savage She-Hulk to exist. Which is why, after 25 issues, it didn’t, with Shulkie making her way over to New York to join the Avengers and finally acquire a personality.

 Years later, Jen would get another chance at her own title, with John Byrne at the helm of her fourth wall-breaking action-drama series. That’s a series I’d love to read sometime. But as for Savage She-Hulk, it’s as middling as they come.