October Reading Log

The end of the month was too busy for a lot of reading, but I had time in the first few weeks to get in some good books. Check out what I enjoyed!

Reading Through the Fantastic Four- #1-18 (v. 3)

From 1974 to 1991, Chris Claremont was the main creative force behind the most popular characters in comics, the X-Men. For better and for worse, that universe's never-ending soap opera was directed by maestro Claremont, who send them through time and space more times than anyone could count and created an ecosystem populated by so many characters you needed a scorecard to keep up. 

Unfortunately for Claremont, by the time he sought greener pastures post-X-Men, his reputation had taken something of a hit, with his verbose, melodramatic style not necessarily seen as a good fit for the oncoming 21st century. He was looking to make a name for himself all over again in a different corner of the Marvel Universe.

He would get that opportunity with the Fantastic Four coming out of the yearlong Heroes Reborn experiment that had crashed and burned. And while Claremont's FF relaunch isn't technically an X-Men book, it sure feels like one around the edges.

Lots of time travel, multiple guest stars from the X-universe, and so many word balloons you start to wonder if Claremont had some dirt on his editor...it all feels pretty run-of-the-mill for Claremont. The changes and new characters he introduces to the book feel destined to be ignored after his departure (they were), and Salvador Larocca's art is a perfect match for the time...not a compliment.

Claremont would continue on the book for nearly 30 more issues, so you'll get a fuller review next month. But for now, let's just say I'm not very impressed.

THE CARE OF SOULS: CULTIVATING A PASTOR'S HEART by Harold L. Senkbeil

To read most books about pastoring nowadays, you would think that the job isn't that different from being a CEO—all about leadership, fundraising, and growth strategies. And in its modern manifestation in the evangelical church, that's not entirely wrong. But what about pastoring, the role of shepherding the flock God has given you? How do you do that?

That's what Harold L. Senkbeil seeks to address in his helpful corrective, The Care of Souls, a book that wades as deeply into theological waters as most pastoral leadership books do in practical matters. In Senkbeil's understanding, the pastor is first and foremost a spiritual director, a teacher of God's Word whose responsibility it is to guide church members toward lives of discipleship. Pastoring, he would say, is not about marketing, it's about sanctification.

As a corrective to intensely practical church growth books like The Purpose-Driven Church and basically everything by Thom Rainer, which I've been known to accuse of being customer service manuals rather than biblical models, The Care of Souls is helpful counterweight. However, if those alternatives are heavy on practicality at the expense of theology, this one runs the opposite risk. After lengthy discursions on sanctification and discipleship, I often found myself wondering, "Ok, but how do you actually do that?"

Furthermore, while Senkbeil is upfront about it in his preface, this book is very Lutheran, to a degree that occasionally becomes distracting to those of us who don't share that background. He has an extremely high church understanding of the pastoral role (not to mention of communion), and that understanding occasionally colors the wisdom he offers—I'm not sure a lot of evangelical pastors could adopt some of his recommendations in their environments without getting run out of the church for being too uppity.

Overall, this was a somewhat confounding book, helpful in its aim but lacking in its execution. The pastorate should be understood from a more biblical and theological place—but I'm not sure this is the book that will start that revolution in thinking.

EX LIBRIS: 100 BOOKS TO READ AND REREAD by Michiko Kakutani

I do love a book about books. This one sees Michiko Kakutani, a longtime reviewer for the New York Times Book Review, offering up brief essays—usually three pages or so—about 100 books across the spectrum of fiction and nonfiction, the literary canon and recent favorites. What it largely ends up amounting to is a giant to-read list for any book lover—and there are worse things out there!

I read this book in large chunks, usually an hour at a time, and I can tell you from personal experience that is the wrong way to read it. This book is best consumed slowly, one chapter at a time over a period of a few months. I rushed through it, swallowing when I should have savored, and my reading experience was the poorer for it. Put it on your nightstand, read a chapter every night before bed, and you'll finish it in no time.

My poor reading strategy aside, this isn't the best version of this kind of book I've ever read. Kakutani, a prolific and talented writer, just scratches the surface with the snippets she gives on each book; I would have liked more, especially on literary behemoths like Moby Dick or Great Expectations. And while the variety of different books she chooses gives the book some unpredictability and diversity, it also makes you wonder what binds the list together. Are these her favorite 100 books? The best 100 books? The first 100 she thought of? Or, as seems to be the case, a list of 100 books carefully curated to help sell this book?

One final word: the design of this book, from its binding to the illustrations within to the layout, is gorgeous. That's not something I normally notice or care about, but you can't ignore ii in this case. It's clear a lot of thought and effort was put into making this a book you'd want to own, not just copy and paste the list.

A scattered, seemingly random review, I know...but hopefully an enjoyable one. And in all those ways, entirely appropriate for this book.

GOD SAVE TEXAS: A JOURNEY INTO THE SOUL OF THE LONE STAR STATE by Lawrence Wright

What is it exactly that makes Texas so irresistible?

That's the basic question motivating God Save Texas, a wide-ranging exploration of the state's cities, politics, and culture by award-winning writer Lawrence Wright. Written from a remove of healthy skepticism but a foundation of deep, almost unexplainable love, Wright seems almost confounded by the state he calls home, a place he just can't quit despite all the reasons he should. An unabashed liberal, Wright indicates several times that he's heard the siren songs of Hollywood and Manhattan and even answered them a time or two—he's a longtime contributor to the New Yorker and has written several screenplays—but nevertheless always feels like an outsider in those distant lands. He always comes home; he can't seem to help himself. Texas, like Thanos, is inevitable.

Reading less like a sequential nonfiction book than a series of related articles, Wright spends some chapters diving into Texas' most notable cities—Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Marfa—and others giving overviews of obvious Texas subjects (its presidents, its oil, its music). Throughout the book, Wright is both narrating and investigating the state's inconsistent identity and trying to figure out where it's going. Is Texas really going to turn blue one of these days, or is conservatism so deeply ingrained that its big cities will forever be islands of liberalism in a sea of red? Is Texas a rural frontier for cowboys or the gleaming home of astronauts and Elon Musk? If Texas is a law-and-order state, why is unabashed pothead Willie Nelson beloved by all?

It's undoubtedly a book with more questions than answers, but by asking the questions, Wright gives a vivid portrait of the state in all its shame and all its glory. Most importantly, for all his journalistic bona fides, it is written from a place of deep love for a state that doesn't always love him back. For anyone who loves this beautiful, glorious, maddening state, God Save Texas is a crucial read.

ESSENTIAL PUNISHER VOL. 2 by Mike Baron, Klaus Janson, Whilce Portacio, et. al

Following his introduction in Amazing Spider-Man #129, a string of guest appearances, and an initial miniseries, the post-Dark Knight Returns demand for grim-and-gritty comics led to the Punisher's first ongoing series, which would stretch for 104 issues before its eventual cancellation in 1995. With writer at the helm Mike Baron for all 20 of the initial issues, this is a straight crime comic, with almost no indication it exists in a Marvel Universe of superheroes, aliens, and the like.

Baron is a capable writer, though his staccato, noir-influenced pacing works better with some artists than others. He wears his law-and-order politics on his sleeve, but given that he was writing in 1987, those politics are of their time and a good fit for the character. Most importantly, he introduces the "guy in the chair" character of Microchip, the Punisher's trusty weapons procurer, computer hacker, and mechanic.

The stories in this volume are typically one or two-parters, with the notable exception of one lengthy arc in which the Punisher unsuccessfully tries to bring down the Kingpin. Seeing Frank Castle go up against a worthy adversary like this makes for a nice change of pace; I hope we'll see more confrontations between the two in future issues.

If you like crime books, this comic is probably a good fit for you. I'm on record as saying it's not for me, but I can see the appeal. Two more volumes to go!