January Reading Log

  

After a couple months when my morning reading routine kind of went to pot, I came in January ready to turn over a new leaf (or, rather, turn back to my old leaf) and get back to more regular reading. Here are the books my nose was buried in over the last month!

Reading Through the Fantastic Four- #60 (v. 3 numbering)—532 (vo.1 numbering)

My FF reading for January consisted almost exclusively of the Mark Waid-Mike Weiringo run, a period beloved by fans for its imagination, heart, and irreverence. In their hands, the book resembles a Saturday morning superhero cartoon in the all the right ways—there's action, there's comedy, there's drama, and you never forget that the point is to have fun.

In Waid's hands, the FF literally travel from heaven to hell. In one of his first arcs as the book's writer, Doctor Doom makes a deal with a demon lord to increase his powers as a sorcerer and manages to psychologically and physically torture Marvel's First Family before Reed Richards, his archnemesis, finally manages to topple Doom with the aid of Doctor Strange. In the wake of that arc, an angry, psychologically battered Reed takes the team to Latveria, where Doom had reigned as absolute monarch, and essentially takes over the country himself. It's a way-too-on-the-nose commentary on the Iraq War that ends in tragedy, with Ben Grimm, the Thing, perishing. So from there Reed devises a machine that winds up taking the FF to the literal gates of heaven, where God (drawn, in a stroke of genius, as FF co-creator Jack "the King" Kirby) serves a literal deus ex machina and resurrects Ben.

Weiringo is the perfect artist for Waid's stories, with a colorful, cartoony style that makes the comedy sing but still manages to work in the stories' darker moments. While hard to explain, his style is all heart, which is what this book is truly about in its best moments. He and Waid make the perfect team, arguably the best this book had seen since Lee and Kirby. After a long creative lull, this is the run that made the FF relevant again—can't recommend it highly enough.

HOW TO REVIVE EVANGELISM by Craig Springer

Evangelism is tricky business these days. Some view it unfavorably because of its historic ties to colonization in the 'glory days' of Christendom, when conversion often came about at the end of a spear. Others hear the word and think of street preachers and panhandlers holding carboard signs proclaiming the end is near. And still others simply view it as unethical—it's fine to believe what you want, but trying to persuade others to believe it too is pushy to the point of manipulative.

And yet for Christians, we can't get away from the Great Commission: Jesus told us to make disciples of all nations, he gave us a mission to proclaim his Good News to the world. So how do we do that in 2023?

In this slim volume, Craig Springer seeks to offer effective evangelism strategies for our day and time, ways of sharing Jesus that honor the honest concerns about evangelism without being ashamed of the mission. He advocates for a patient, sincere, community-oriented approach where you listen more than you talk and allow space for questions without condemnation. It's an approach that intuitively makes sense in a post-Christian society.

One thing readers will have to understand about such an approach (which I find persuasive) is that yields a lot more depth than width—you'll get a lot fewer converts this way than with the old days of Billy Graham crusades and tent revivals. But those who do come to faith are much more likely to stay, to be actual disciples instead of one-day converts who walked an aisle in a swell of emotion only to wake up with a spiritual hangover the next day.

Most of the information in this book was stuff I'd read elsewhere, but it was helpful to have it all laid out here so clearly and concisely. If some of these concepts are new to you, this is a good place to start.

MORNINGS ON HORSEBACK by David McCullough

What turned Theodore Roosevelt, an asthmatic patrician's son, into the Rough Rider who would change the American presidency forever? In Mornings on Horseback, David McCullough's award winning biography of Roosevelt, the answer comes less from Roosevelt's experiences or inner drive than from his family and friends, the people who inspired, taught, confounded, and drove him to greatness.

McCullough, it is clear, is not so interested in Roosevelt's accomplishments as his origin story—the book ends with his engagement to Edith Carrow, 15 years before he became president. As such, a tremendous amount of time is spent on the stories of people like Roosevelt's grandfather, Cornelius Van Schaack (C.V.S) Roosevelt; his father, Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.; his mother, Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch; and his brother, Elliot Roosevelt. Indeed, at times T.R. seems like a side character in his own story. For those interested in family systems, it is fascinating to see how Theodore's upbringing shaped who he became—what he accepted from his upbringing and what he cast aside.

This book surprised me a bit; I expected a standard biography and got something different. Nevertheless, McCullough's reputation as one of America's preeminent historians is based on books like this one. Well written and carefully researched, this book sets out to explain how Theodore Roosevelt's early years shaped him, and it does just that.

THE RIVER OF DOUBT by Candice Millard

There are times when history is so compelling it might as well be an action-adventure novel. Those times happened a lot where Theodore Roosevelt was concerned. Having read about his early years in Mornings on Horseback, I turned next to his life post-presidency, specifically to a journey he took following his unsuccessful "Bull Moose" third-party campaign for president. Accompanied by an experienced crew and his son Kermit, Roosevelt descended an unmapped portion of the Amazon River, a region so treacherous some believed it was impossible.

The trip almost killed Roosevelt; indeed, he contemplated suicide at one point. Everything from shipwreck to malaria to a murder within the crew threatened to make this journey one without a happy ending. But in Millard's telling, the trip instead became Roosevelt's final, most dangerous adventure.

Candace Millard presents the story with an eye for detail and an ear for storytelling that ensure it never presents as dry history. Instead, she tells the story so cinematically you can easily imagine seeing it on the big screen. For those wanting a survival story that just so happens to be about somebody on Mount Rushmore, this is a great beach read!

LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL by Martin Luther King, Jr.

I make a point to read this American epistle every MLK Day, and this year was no exception. Addressed to a collection of white, moderate pastors who were concerned with Dr. King's protest-centered approach to social change, its central theme can be summarized by its most famous quote: "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Drawing from Scripture, American history, and outright common sense, King systematically dismantles the concerns of his fellow pastors, showing how both his faith and his heritage demand that he remain outspoken on the subject of civil rights, and how the methodology of the movement is not only effective, but moral. Furthermore, King respectfully but forcefully decries the caution of his fellow pastors, convincingly arguing that there are times when God calls his children to boldness, not moderation.

For someone who proudly identifies as a moderate on social and political issues, Letter from Birmingham Jail challenges me on an annual basis. I consider it to be right up there with the Gettysburg Address among the greatest works of American political writing—if you've never taken the time to read it in its entirety, do it now.

THE FLAG, THE CROSS, AND THE STATION WAGON by Bill McKibben

Part memoir, part sociology text, part political manifesto, The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon is environmentalist Bill McKibben's take on how the 1970s, the decade in which he grew up, represented the moment when America shifted from patriotic idealism to nationalistic nihilism. A Baby Boomer himself, McKibben is firmly of the opinion that Boomers abdicated their responsibility to leave the nation better than they found it, and this book is his attempt to diagnose the problems and advocate for solutions.

As the title suggests, McKibben frames our national decline around three things: the partisan sclerosis of our government, the gradual decline of faith (specifically, the mainline church), and the rise of the suburbs, which effectively reversed the tide of integration the Civil Rights Movement had begun. Mixing personal experience with historical fact with sociological analysis, McKibben makes an occasionally compelling, albeit predictable case that basically boils down to, "Liberal ideas good, conservative and moderate ideas bad."

This book was one I grabbed impulsively at the library one day; it's the sort of thing I typically read online or in magazines, not as a full book. I liked it fine, but can't say I learned much that I didn't already know. If you're politically plugged in, you've probably heard these arguments before, but if you're a more casual watcher of the news, this book makes some arguments worth considering.