Adam Shields

Summary: A broad overview of the history of Black Christianity, with a second volume that is a collection of writing from Black Christianity.

Black Christianity in the United States is unquestionably tied to the (racial) history of the United States. That is a very basic statement but I think it is a good place to start when thinking about Walter Strickland’s new history of Black Christianity, Swing Low. Certainly good histories are contextually aware of the broader history while telling a narrower story. But it is not really possible to tell the story of Black Christianity without grappling with the racial history of the US because Black Christians in the US have always been subjected to that history.

I grappled with how to write that last line, because “subjected to” is a passive framing, and the Black Church has been anything but passive. At the same time, another incorrect framing would be to suggest that anti-Black racism in the US is a “Black problem”. James Baldwin was asked by Dick Cavett a variety of questions about that the “Black problem” in the United States. Baldwin answered Cavett’s questions about hope and frustration, but Baldwin also reframed the question to center racism as not a Black problem but a White problem. The problem of racism is not about the subject of the discrimination but the ones doing the discrimination. Part of what Strickland is doing in Swing Low is to show how Black Christians responded to racism by forming their own institutions and communities and theological beliefs and practices, but also that not everything in the Black church is a response to racism.

I have read several histories of the Black Church, most recently Anthony Pinn’s Black Church History, Henry Louis Gates’ companion book to his documentary This is Our Story, This is Our Song, Isaiah Robinson’s Black Church Empowered and Raphael Warnock’s The Divided Mind of the Black Church. These are four different approaches to telling the story of the black church. Of those four books Swing Low is most similar to Isaiah Robinson’s Black Church Empowered. Strickland is an academics historian and theologian, while Isaiah Robinson is a local church pastor. But they are telling the story as Black churchmen.

Esau McCaulley in Reading While Black talks about (and expands in a number of interviews later) the difficulty of who gets to tell the story of the Black church. Generally, the academy has prioritized Black Liberation theologians in the more liberal academic world. And those few Black professors in the predominately White Evangelical seminaries are similarly narrow. McCaulley suggests that the third group, the Black church pastors and preacher (like Isaiah Robinson) are rarely invited to the academy. Swing Low I think oriented toward that third group. Strickland is a professor at Southeastern Baptist Seminary, one of only a handful of Black professors at SBC seminaries. But the story here is framed to center the middle of the Black church and prioritizes theological orthodoxy in his five pillars of the Black church. Claude Acho details those five pillars in his review, so I won’t detail them here.

The last pillar is deliverance or liberation. And it is exactly in that last pillar that much of the controversy rests. Warnock suggests that Black theology must center liberation and the parts of the Black church which do not prioritize all forms of liberation are rejecting Black theology. Strickland is less polemical and more descriptive in his approach. The final five chapters of the book are split between telling the story of Black Evangelicals and Black Liberation Theology since the 1950-60s. As McCaulley talks about in Reading While Black, there has been a choice on whether to pursue higher education in more liberal schools where liberal and liberation theology is centered, which is often contrary to Black church orthodoxy or going to predominately white conservative seminaries that tend to be more conservative and orthodox, but are often more overtly opposed to the black church. That racism within the white evangelical world, one which has tended to spiritualize and individualize liberation has created significant frustration as well as organizations like the National Black Evangelical Association and The Witness.

The liberation theology side of the story starts with James Cone and J Deotis Roberts among others in the first generation and then continues with the following generations of womanist theologians and the second and third generation of liberation theologians. It is clear that Strickland places himself and most Black Christians in the Black Evangelical camp, but I do think he is pretty fair in his presentation of the liberation theology side. There are weaknesses every approach to theology and I think that Strickland is trying to present those weaknesses while maintaining his evangelical convictions. Strickland was called to be fired just for talking about Cone in his seminary classes when it was mentioned in a NYT article in 2019. The calls for his firing are a good example of the problems of staying in predominately white seminaries as a Black Evangelicals that he details in the three chapters on Black evangelicalism. But Strickland is also pointing out that there are many areas where liberation theology strays from his conception of orthodoxy, not just in the embrace of sexual minorities as Warnock details, but in what Christ did on the cross and the role of suffering among other areas.

Part of what I appreciate about this project is the second volume which I have not picked up yet. That second volume is a collection of writings from the whole history and tradition of Black Christianity in the US. I have previously read significant parts of Plain Theology for Plain People by Charles Octavius Boothe, which Strickland wrote a new introduction to and republished. Reclaiming older works by Black Christians in the US is part of the work of reclaiming the black church’s role in US Christianity. Swing Low is a project not just about telling the history of the black church, but also about recovering the voices of the Black church for a new audience so that they can tell their own story.

(links work on my blog where this was originally posted at https://bookwi.se/swing-low/ )

Summary: An overview of the book of Acts, paying particular attention to the temple and how the early church integrated gentiles into it while maintaining integration with its Jewish background.

I may not have picked up The Challenge of Acts if I had not watched the last 15 minutes of an episode of the Holy Postwhere Skye Jehani was interviewing NT Wright about The Challenge of Acts. Skye asked about what NT Wright would say in response to churches who pragmatically say that you should narrow-cast to a narrow cultural group and not seek to be more inclusive because churches grow more quickly that way. (This has been the argument from the church growth movement who advocated for the Homogenous Unit Principle, which I have written about before here.)

NT Wright suggests in that video that part of the message of Acts is that the church is not really the church if it isn't grappling with the integration of the entire body of Christ. To narrow cast to a homogeneous cultural group is to distort the idea of the church so much that it ceases to be the church.

Other commentaries on Acts like Amos Yong's have suggested that much of the action of the book of Acts is the expansion of the church to a larger and larger group of people and each expansion had a sense of conflict that had to be dealt with. And Willie James Jenning's commentary on Acts spent a lot of time grappling with the role of empire, violence and prison.

NT Wright has several main points he is communicating with his book on Acts. First, he raises attention to temple motifs in Acts. That attention to temple motifs is part of what Wright's larger project with the New Perspectives on Paul movement is doing in trying to pay attention to Paul's Jewishness and not make Paul into an antisemite as some commenters on Paul have done historically. Wright instead suggests that Paul is trying to integrate Jew and gentile into the body of Christ, not as s replacement of the Jewish religious practice (supersessionism) but as an integrated reality.

Something I have not heard before that I do think is an interesting point is that Wright is suggesting that part of why Paul is seen in Acts as going first to Jewish synagogues is that he is trying to appropriate the Roman exception to communal idol worship that Jewish people had to Christians. Generally all people who were under the subjection of Rome had to come together to offer sacrifices together to appease the gods. Jews had been given an exception to that requirement. Wright suggests that Paul was trying to use that exemption, but he wanted to use it in a way that violated Jewish self-understanding.

Paul says that the gentile Christians did not need to be circumcised. If Paul had asked gentile Christians to be circumcised then it would have been easy to say to Roman officials that these gentile Christians were Jewish coverts and therefore not subject to Roman idol worship requirements. But Paul wanted to claim the exception while not making the gentile Christians live under full Jewish religious requirements. That both endangered Jewish exemptions from Roman law, and didn't given enough attachment for the gentile Christians to make them recognizably Jewish. This framing makes a lot of sense of the way Luke structures Acts' storytelling.

The Challenge of Acts was based on a series of lectures in 2022. The last book I read by NT Wright was Into the Heart of Romans, which was a whole book focused on a single chapter of Romans. The Challenge of Acts is the opposite approach, it is a broad overview of a whole book of the Bible, drawing connections to both Old Testament references, New Testament self understanding and the second temple culture of the era. Generally, Wright is taking about four chapters of Acts at a time. He gives quick overview of how Luke is structuring the story in the section and then highlights several points more thoroughly before moving on to the next section.

There are a couple of exceptions to this general approach. The introduction of the book of Acts takes a little more time as you might expect. And then Wright spends a whole chapter on Paul's sermon in Athens at the Areopagus. Wright suggests that this sermon has largely been misunderstood because it has been presented as if the Areopagus was a debating society and not a trial. Where Wright is often very helpful is drawing cultural connections that the average reader would not see, but the original readers would have assumed were clear. In this case, Luke seems to be referencing Socrates. Both Paul and Socrates were on trial for sacrilege or impiety. This is a connection that I have never heard before, but makes a lot of sense to the text. Paul was not simply using the altar to the unknown God as a way to build a bridge between them, but as a defense to show that Paul was not an atheist or impious person.

Much of the focus on The Challenge of Acts is on Paul as you might expect from a scholar who has specialized in Pauline studies. Wright suggests that the book of Acts may have been written as part of Paul's defense in Rome, which may be part of the reason that there are so many court scenes in it. Even before Paul, Peter and the other disciples were brought before officials to get them to stop preaching. And while John and Stephen were put to death, those deaths are shown as unjust punishments. The other courts scenes were largely showing that the officials did not find the early church guilty of sedition or impiety, even if the people continue to misunderstand them and kept bringing them before the local officials and courts.

Like pretty much all of Wright's books, this is one that I listened to on first pass. (And unusually, Wright narrates the audiobook himself.) I tend to pick up the print version later and take a slower second pass. I have read well over a dozen of Wright's books, many of them two or three times. Wright's strength and weakness is that he keeps coming back to similar themes over and over again. Part of the strength here is that in discussing Acts, he moves outside of his main areas of work on the Pauline letters and shows how the implications of his work in Paul matters to other aspects of New Testament study. The weakness is that some of these themes have been well covered in other books. But I think that is less of a problem here than in some other books because while there are overlapping themes here with Wright's other books, the setting of the book of Acts and the method of a quicker overview of an entire book, brings a lot of new insight into why Wright's traditional themes of study matter in new ways.

This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/the-challenge-of-acts/

<strong>Summary: An exploration of what could have been had evangelical history gone other ways.</strong>

I have always enjoyed history. But it has mostly been a reading hobby, not something I studied. Over the past decade, I have been more intentional about reading history to fill in gaps in my knowledge, but I have also read more about the study of history. I think it was John Fea’s podcast where I first heard about the 5 Cs of the study of history. Those five Cs are: change over time, causality, context, complexity, and contingency. All five are important to understanding history.

Isaac Sharp’s The Other Evangelicals does approach all five Cs in his exploration of five groups of people who have been marginalized in evangelical history, but in many ways I read this as a book primarily thinking about contingency, the “what could have been” had evangelical history gone other ways.

As with any recent history, my own story influences how I read. I grew up American Baptist. Traditionally American Baptists are considered a mainline denomination and would be included in the “liberal” part of Christianity. I didn’t really understand how liberal the denomination was as I was growing up in part because I was in an evangelical wing of the denomination. I do very much remember going to the only national youth gathering I attended as an American Baptist and one day of the youth conference primarily used feminine references for God. There was no explanation for it and it raised all kinds of questions for other students I was with. I spend a good bit of time that day talking to others about how there were feminine images of God in scripture and how God is not gendered as we traditionally consider gender in humans. I was mostly irritated by the poor presentation, but not at all bothered by the presentation of somewhat liberal theology.

In college I spent a year going to an intentionally interracial church (I only went one year because I didn’t have a car and it was a 35 minute drive into Chicago to go to the church. I never considered going to the Black baptist church that was within walking distance of campus for some reason.) I was aware of the problems of race within evangelicalism during college and explored the development of NBEA and Tom Skinner and John Perkins and other Black leaders within the evangelical world. I was hired to work by the SBC association in Chicago right out of college as I was going to grad school. That association at the time was one of three associations (of about 1200) in the country that was predominately made up of minority churches. I mostly worked with Black churches developing church-based non-profits and spent a lot more time in Black churches, some of whom identified as Evangelical, but most did not.

Part of my grad school was a Masters of Social Service Administration (an administrative focused equivalent to an MSW). I have always been on the progressive side of the evangelical works and have followed the work of Tony Campolo and Ron Sider and others since high school. Social justice and progressive causes were are always a significant focus of my work as a Christian.

It wasn’t until I was in college that I started to understand compmentarianism. The term was only coined a few years before I started college. I knew American Baptists ordained women and that not every evangelical denomination did. But I knew women pastors and just never really considered male only pastorate as a viable option. Another church that I went to for a little while in college was a very conservative church that had a large college contingent. Again, I went in part because I didn’t have a car and friends who did have cars went there. For several months the college ministry Sunday school class studied gender, including why that church was complementarian. I stuck it out through the whole study, but was completely unpersuaded. So I had context for the book in the feminist section as well as the liberal, progressive, and Black evangelicals sections. It was only the history of gay evangelicals that I really had no historical experience with.

One last point, I took two classes with Mark Noll in college and audited another when he was guest lecturer at University of Chicago Divinity School. Noll’s approach to rooting mid 20th century neo-evangelicals as part of a longer tradition of evangelical Protestants was my dominate way of thinking of evangelicalism until fairly recently. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jaar/article/92/1/37/7733057?guestAccessKey=f548926f-1249-4013-b4fd-9f3598c2ae09&amp;login=false&amp;utm_source=authortollfreelink&amp;utm_campaign=jaar&amp;utm_medium=email">Matthew Avery Sutton’s essay about evangelical historiography</a> gave language to not just my concern about the use and definition of evangelical, but also to the method of thinking about evangelicalism as historically rooted group of people that arose out of the English reformation. I still strongly appreciate Noll, Marsden and other evangelical historians, but I am now going be reading their history with more nuance than I did previously. That is a very long introduction to a fairly straight forward book.

The Other Evangelicals looks at the history of the Evangelical movement that arose in the late 1940s and early 1950s and the ways that his five areas of self-identified evangelicals who were liberal, progressive, Black, feminist and gay. In most of these sections there were fairly clear lines of who was in and who was out regardless of self-identification. In the chapter on liberal evangelicals, the main focus was on biblical studies and the fight over inerrancy. The Chicago Statement on Inerrancy was not the first fight to define what an Evangelical understanding of the Bible was, but by the time it was written in the late 1970s, it was clear that there was little tolerance for a more liberal stream of evangelicals who were less concerned with plenary inspiration and an error free bible.

The main illustration in the liberal chapter was Bela Vassady, a Hungarian WWII refugee who was one of the early professors at Fuller Seminary starting in 1949. Vassady was a European who identified as evangelical, but his stream of evangelicalism did not match up with Fuller’s understanding of biblical orthodoxy because he was too sympathetic to Barth and did not reject German methods of biblical theology outright. Vassady had helped to found the World Council of Churches and understood his role to be ecumenical. The story of opposition to Vassady was a good reminder that Christian colleges and seminaries have been accused of being “liberal” for a very long time. The influence of donors concerned about the mission of school and liberal drift has always been present.

The chapter of Black Evangelicals I think was important (although not new by any means) because evangelicals tend to think of themselves as theologically defined. The traditional definitions of evangelical by NAE or Bebbington are rooted in theological statements. But the chapter on Black Evangelicals makes clear that theology was never enough. Billy Graham opposed the methods of the civil rights movement, speaking against the 1963 March on Washington and MLK Jr explicitly on a number of occasions. Sharp quotes Graham, “There is only one possible solution to the race problem and that is vital personal experience with Jesus Christ on the part of both races…any man who has a genuine conversion experience will find his racial attitudes greatly changed.” (p127)

While the chapter on Black evangelicals includes a variety of people, the story is often similar to William Bentley’s. Evangelicalism was a theological tradition that took scripture seriously and at least claimed to value intellectually serious study. Bentley was exposed to white evangelicalism in the 1940s and was attracted to the theology, but was concerned that it “..could be doctrinally correct and, at the same time, hold backward attitudes toward such and important issue as race in America.” Bentley evangelically formed the National Black Evangelical Association in 1963 at a time when Wheaton and many other evangelical schools officially or unofficially still prohibited interracial dating on campus.

Much of the tension beyond explicit racism was rooted in different approaches toward evangelism and ministry. While many members of the NBEA agreed with Graham about the priority of personal conversion as the main method of solving social issues, the Black church historically had been more open to social action as a legitimate role of the church. (Although the National Baptist and the Progressive Baptists split in the 1960s along similar lines.)

The issues raised by Black evangelicals were not confined to just Black evangelicals, white progressives evangelicals also pushed the broader evangelical movement to think more clearly about social action as a role of the church. The 1960s protest movements, racism, war, and poverty were driving forces for progressive evangelicals who championed the working in marginalized communities as a central role of the church. But as the chapter concluded, the requirement for theological conservatism and the social requirement for individualism in approaching social issues like race, meant that progressive evangelicals had an uphill battle to draw attention to social conditions and social ministries that addressed the systemic causes of social problems.

The feminist story of evangelicalism is often assumed to be different than the actual history. The term complementarian wasn’t coined until 1988. While evangelicals were socially and theologically conservative, there were hundreds of women ordained within the SBC in the 1970 and the later orientation toward conservative gender roles was really a backlash to an earlier egalitarian movement.

Again, the concluding chapter on gay evangelicals prioritizes how evangelicals handling of scripture led to the cracks in the approach toward gay evangelicals. In many cases, those who were more inclusive rooted their inclusion on their reading of scripture. There was also a pragmatism that came to the fore as it became clear that changing orientation was not easy.

One of the problems of evangelicalism is a lack of imagination for any other contingency. In many cases, there are and have been many other paths that have been explored, but without knowledge of those paths, it is difficult to not make some of the same mistakes that have already been made.

The Other Evangelicals is very readable history. It is a history that I both knew a lot about but also had details and streams of evangelicalism that I was completely unaware of. I have been skeptical of the label evangelical since the early 90s when I was at Wheaton. The theological definitions of evangelicalism always seem to be less important than the social or cultural identity. The Other Evangelicals was far less political than I thought it would be. The progressive and liberal chapters were more about approach than particular content. And the chapters about feminists and gay evangelicals while they were more about content of those two areas again, came down to largely being about approach.

Evangelicalism grew out of a desire to be less fundamentalist than the early 20th century fundamentalism, but in many ways the evangelical movement never had a full break from fundamentalism. As fundamentalists of the early 20th century became less comfortable self identifying as fundamentalists and increasingly used the term evangelical, the fight over the approach that evangelicalism has toward culture has continued to be largely the same fight.

<strong>The Other Evangelicals: A Story of Liberal, Black, Progressive, Feminist, and Gay Christians―and the Movement That Pushed Them Out by Isaac B Sharp Purchase Links: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Other-Evangelicals-Progressive-Feminist-Christians_and/dp/0802881750/">Paperback</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Other-Evangelicals-Progressive-Feminist-Christians-ebook/dp/B0B831VVZ6/">Kindle Edition</a></strong>

This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/the-other-evangelicals/

Summary: Discussion of how understanding the Medieval world and its books help to understand CS Lewis. 

Over the years, I have read an enormous amount by or about CS Lewis. I am not Lewis scholar, I have not been systemically enough and I certainly haven't read enough to know what the academy thinks of Lewis, but I have read read about 25-30 books by or about Lewis since starting this blog.

One of my complaints about the biographies of Lewis is that they say very little about Lewis' discipleship, including Devin Brown's which is about the spiritual life of Lewis. Part of what Baxter is doing in The Medieval Mind of CS Lewis is suggesting that a significant part of Lewis' discipleship was the result of reading old books. That makes sense to me, although I do think that Lewis' work with a spiritual director likely mattered to making that real.

What is helpful about The Medieval Mind of CS Lewis is the explanations of the references that are missed when we don't know about them. I have read a bit of Dante, but I don't know Dante well. I have never read Boethius and many others referenced here. What I love about reading young adult writer, KB Hoyle, is that she always has references and hints in her books. You can read her books without knowing any of the references and you get a good story. But as an adult reading her books, I get a lot more because I get the references. There is depth to the stories and the depth encourages rereading. That just isn't the case for a lot of current pop fiction. A lot of pop fiction assumes that the reader isn't paying attention, doesn't care about reference and is simply looking for an escape. Reading for escape isn't bad, I read for escape all the time. But I don't want to always read for escape. (It is not surprising that KB Hoyle taught at a Classical school before becoming a full time writer and publisher.)

I found The Medieval Mind of CS Lewis very helpful and if you like CS Lewis and want to understand more, you likely will like it as well. But I do have a concern, not about the book as much as the way that classical education is sometimes used. Recently a number of atheist or agnostics have been calling themselves cultural Christians, this trend seems to not be about Christianity as much as it is about shared culture. I get very wary of arguments for shared culture. I think there is real value in retelling fairy tales and old stories and finding traditional archetypes in those stories. That is part of what a good education should include.

But too often that encouragement to understanding western classics is not about understanding history, but to encourage a particular view of western cultural superiority. Doug Wilson is one of the biggest proponents of the Christian Classical school movement and the publishing company that he started and which publishes a good bit of curriculum for the Christian Classical School movement also published Stephen Wolfe's The Case for Christian Nationalism. Wilson and Wolfe and many others have been strongly influenced by Rushdooney (Christian Reconstructionist movement) and Robert Lewis Dabney (a proponent of white racial superiority as a requirement for being Christian.) The Christian Classical School movement does not need to promote western superiority, and people like Jessica Hooten Wilson (first link in this paragraph) are actively trying to promote a vision for Christian classical schools that is not rooted in western cultural superiority. But people like Thomas Achord are common in the Christian Classical School movement.

My second concern with the way that understanding references to classics goes wrong is when they are stripped of their history and context. Jordan Peterson's new book, We Who Wrestle With God, was reviewed by Rowan Williams and Brad East. I have not read Peterson's books so I am relying on their reviews for context. Peterson's book is about reading the Torah. But his Torah reading is about finding the archetypal stories and reinterpreting them for meaning. East's review suggests that he does that by stripping them of their Jewish context and interplay, which even as a non-christian, ends up promoting a type of supersessionism. Rowan Williams (retired Archbishop of Canterbury), mentions similar concerns, but is more concerned about the way that divinity is stripped from the stories. God is simply a concept for Peterson, not a being. That makes sense since Peterson does not claim to be a Christian or Jewish. However, the result of that is that it is simply stories which we place meaning on. And that meaning is limited by our perspective. Williams' central critique is

“there is a risk of losing the specificity of the narratives, of ironing out aspects that don't fit the template. Every story gets pushed towards a set of Petersonian morals – single-minded individual rectitude, tough love, clear demarcations between the different kinds of moral excellence that men and women are called to embody, and so on.”

Summary: The Wild Robot discovers not just new animal friends, but also new roles for her life.

I still have not seen the new Wild Robot movie, but I am a fan of the book series. This is an early middle grade series, so I am not going to worry about spoilers here. People reading reviews are likely reading to understand what their kids are reading, not because they are reading themselves. (I read it myself, my 9 year old has already read the first book and my 11 year old was not interested.)

The first book, The Wild Robot, was a book about self-discovery, vocation, and meaning. The Robot is lost at sea, washed ashore on remote island without people and learns to communicate with animals while learning from them about how to survive. She adopts an orphaned goose and that care for her son both helps her to see her role as a protector and allows the animals to see her as safe. The meaning from caring for her son and others drives her to continue to learn and see the world with different eyes.

The second book, The Wild Robot Escapes, is thematically about home. At the end of the first book, Roz, the robot, leaves the island to be repaired. Roz is repaired but because her memories are not damaged, she continues to remember her life on the island and her son. She is sent to work on a farm with a human family. Roz see the value in helping the human family. She learns to communicate with the humans, farm animals and different wild animals that she finds as she escapes from her work on the farm. In process of escaping from the farm, she is again captured, but this time is interviewed by the creator of her type of robot. That creator understands the unique reality of Roz and works to help her get back to the island, but again has repaired and upgraded her body to make life on the island easier.

The third book opens with Roz back on the island, but the island is in danger from an unknown pollutant. Roz has previously been programmed to not be able to fight or harm anyone. But as she explores, trying to find the source of the pollutant that is harming her friends, she discovers that she can defend herself. There is a mix of themes. The role of nonviolent solutions that benefit all and the interconnectedness of all things are the two main themes. Because Roz can fight, does not mean that she thinks she should fight. Throughout the books it is known that some animals must eat other animals. Roz became an adoptive mother because of an accident where her son's parents were killed. Roz was the proximate cause of the accident, but did not intend harm. That distance is how animal death for food is also handled. Animal death for food is a necessity, but not celebrated as a positive good.

The interconnectedness of the environment is part of that animal death cycle. When one part of the animal world is harmed, it hurts other parts indirectly. When a water pollutant starts killing off fish that impacts animals who live on land. Birds fly away, some of those birds ate bugs, so there is an increase of bugs as a result of the water pollution.

Socially, Roz's son, Brightbill, has grown up and now leads the geese's migration. When he returns he also has found a new mate. Because Roz no longer is needed to care for her son, she is now free to care for others. And because she was upgraded in the last books, she can now get wet and swim, and so she starts to look for the source of the pollution.

It is not surprising for adults reading to see that the pollution is from human mining operations. The mining is for rare minerals that are necessary to build robots. Which is a nice touch of both reality and interconnectedness that is part of the book's theme. There are humans on the mining vessel and they are humanized and contextualized well. They are not evil, but are unaware of the harm they are causing. They also are not sure what to do with a robot who talks to animals and who tells them of the harm they are doing.

This is a middle grade book, so it is a happily ever after book. The pollution is cleaned up. The humans learn how to mine with less harm. The animals are able to return to their habitats after robots clean the environment. And Roz returns to the island to find a new role as grandmother.

I think there are areas for complaint about how environmental problems are handled. Robots are not simply going to be able to clean up pollution. And environments which were devastated and species who are extinct because of pollution are not going to be restored. But there is a hopefulness to the book that I do think is good even if it is too simple. Humans want to care for their families just like the animal parents want to care for their families. It is just a matter of gaining understanding. This is a reasonable theme for a middle grade book, but simple awareness is not enough.

I remember reading memoirs of James Cone and Howard Thurman back to back. And both had sections where they discussed their early assumptions that white people must not understand the harm that segregation and racial hierarchy causes. They both thought that what was needed was to explain the harm of racism, which would cause white Christians to repent and work to change systems. Both books grappled with the way they came to understand that knowledge is a necessary but not sufficient step toward change. Change requires that we do something with the knowledge that we have.

The Wild Robot Protects has a good ending, but it is one that is open for future books.

This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/wild-robot-protects/

Summary: A books about discernment. 

Anyone who is a regular reader of my book reviews probably knows that I have been on a long-term reading project about discernment. I listened to an interview with Emily Freeman on the Gravity Commons podcast, and then a couple of days later, Audible had a sale on How to Walk Into a Room, and I picked it up.

One of my convictions about discernment (you can read my most recent summary of what I think about discernment here), is that while discernment includes decision-making, I am more interested in formational discernment, how we are formed toward Christ so that we both intuitively follow Christ's lead as well as how we consciously make decisions. I think both parts are important, but How to Walk Into a Room is mostly about the consciously deciding aspect of discernment.

Over the past decade there has been a near constant discussion about the rise of the ‘Nones”, those who no longer identify as part of a specific religious community. Those nones are not necessarily leaving Christian faith, but they are leaving a religious community for one reason or another. One of the findings of the research study that was detailed in The Great Dechurching, is that most people stop going to church when they move. It is less an intentional withdrawal from church than a lack of motivation to find a new church. Another large group of people stopped going to church during Covid and never found their way back. But Freeman is talking about a third group of people, those who are intentionally trying to discern whether to continue in a church or leave because of specific reasons. Those reasons can be different, spiritual harm or abuse, differences in theology or practices, personality conflicts, etc., but there is conscious intention to ask God if they should continue or leave. In many cases, these people are not leaving faith, they are leaving a specific community and intend to go to a new faith community.

Freeman walks through a four-part process of discernment that would apply to a number of different decision making steps. She includes other examples like work/vocation or continuing education, but her main example is her own process of deciding to leave her congregation.

The four parts are the acronym PRAY: Point & call; Remember your path; Acknowledge presence; and Yield to arrows. Point and call is easily remembered because it is probably the most tangible. Started by Japanese rail workers, point and call is a safety practices of naming out loud the simple steps of a process so that both the person naming and those around them know and can see the steps of the process. This is one of the main benefits of spiritual direction, specifically naming areas where you see God at work or where you have questions so that you can have a second person walk with you in seeking God.

Remember your path is somewhat like a calling/vocation/rule of life. I have been in a group with Jonathan Walton who has completed a book on building a rule of life (it will be published 2025) and he is leading us through the content of the book in a shortened form. While Freeman doesn't exactly mean a rule of life in her “remember your path” there is a significant overlap because the remember your path is partially about calling/vocation and partially about the guardrails we have.

Acknowledge presence is about acknowledging the presence of God in the process. This is part of the Prayer of Examen and is what is meant when there is a call to worship or invocation in a worship service. God is always with us, but there is reason to specifically remember God's presence.

The fourth part is what we most commonly think of as discernment, identifying the arrows (red, green, yellow) that we see around us with the help of the Holy Spirit. Where does God seem to be leading? Is that an open door? The value of a book like this is in the illustrations and the illumination of wisdom about how we can get the process of discernment wrong. Not every seemingly closed door is closed. Not every seemingly open door is open. Our history, emotional and relational make up, our personality and intellect all matter to this process. Having a community around us can help us to discern whether we are seeing rightly. But especially when the question is about whether we should be leaving the community of faith we are in can be difficult because we do not always trust the advice and wisdom of people who might be making a different decision.

I read this alongside Jenai Auman's Othered: Finding Belonging with the God Who Pursues the Hurt, Harmed, and Marginalized. Othered is particularly about ways that the church can traumatize or further injure those who are traumatized. How to Walk Into a Room has good discussion about the role of trauma on discernment and that is helpful, but there are many ways that discernment is impacted beyond trauma. Our culture, and theology, our experience, and personality all impact our discernment in various ways.

As I skimmed through reviews on Goodreads before writing this, I found two main complaints that were common among the negative reviews. The first was complaining that this was “not biblical' or that it was simply a self-help book. I think much of this type of complaint is from a stream of Christianity that distrusts that individuals are led by God. At the end of the book Freeman talks about how she and her husband have found a place in a local Friends (Quaker) congregation. The original heresy that Quakers were charge with was believing that the Holy Spirit directly guided them. But it wasn't only Quakers that have had this charge. Ignatius, the founder of the Catholic Jesuit order, also in his Rules of Discernment, assumes specific individual direction by the Holy Spirit in his Spiritual Exercises. How To Walk Into a Room was not specifically making the case for individual and corporate direction by the Holy Spirit, it mostly assumes that the reader already believes this. But much of the negative reviews specifically name this as why they rated the book poorly.

Most of the rest of the review that are negative are about the specific reason why Freeman and her family eventually decide to leave their church. The reason is somewhat obscured because Freeman is careful not to directly share the story of her child. But something about that child's sexuality causes Freeman and her husband to reevaluate their understanding of the theology of sexuality. It isn't only her child, but also other relationships. But the most proximate cause for leaving the church is her changing ideas that come about because of her child.

There are obviously many Christians who believe strongly one way or another about LGBTQ+ issues. But several reviews I read about How to Walk Into a Room specifically condemned Freeman for changing her mind because of experience or proximity. And I do think this is an area where there is a lot of misunderstanding. Experience and proximity is one way that God can use us to change our mind. The apostle Thomas changes his mind about the possibility of Christ's resurrection because he sees and touches Jesus. Peter changes his mind about whether Gentiles should be part of the church because of his experience of a vision of God. Paul changes his mind about whether Jesus was the messiah because of his experience of being blinded and healed. Post-biblical era, there are many other similar examples. Many abolitionists became abolitionists after experience with slavery. John Wesley and Richard Allen both resisted the ordination or licensing of women to preach until they directly experienced women who they identified as called by God. And many changed their mind about the sin of usury because of their experience with the rise of capitalism. That doesn't mean we always accept something as a result of experience. How to Walk Into a Room explores the role of experience on discernment. But experience and proximity are influences on our understanding of discernment.

The broader “room” metaphor I thought was less helpful than the PRAY acronym. But there is truth to the metaphor that we are called into and out of spaces and that God is with us regardless.

Part of the difficulty of discernment is that we will not come to a single universal conclusion that applies to all people at all times. To think we will is to misunderstand what discernment is. And that is really the problem with the way that many people understand Christianity. It is not that we can do anything and ignore the bible and the creeds, but that everything about Christianity is in part an interpretive process of discernment. All interpretation of scripture is an interpretation. All application of scripture is an exercise in discernment based on that interpretation. All of the discernment and interpretation is fallibly guided by our understanding of the direction of the holy spirit as part of the universal body of Christ. If you have not picked up How to Walk Into a Room and do not believe in the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people into the body of Christ, I want you to know that the subject is here. But I also would encourage you to still be willing to listen to the process that Freeman walks through here because that process is not just her conclusion, it is a process that can have more than one conclusion.

This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/how-to-walk-into-a-room/

Summary: A discussion of how churches can harm, paraticularly those who have been previouly traumaized. 

I think one of the reasons that people resist hearing about abuse is that trauma and harm are reception events. In other words, they are not universalized objective realities but subjective realities. Two people can experience the same events and be from similar backgrounds, and they can perceive those events differently. And in the research into trauma, it is not that one person is “right” and another person is “wrong” but that both have their own perception.

We have also had other people misunderstand us. We said something, and the other person either misheard what we said or what we said was accurately heard, but its meaning was still misunderstood. I think this is a universal experience, but moving that universal experience of misunderstanding to discussions of abuse and trauma is still difficult. I distinctly remember having a conversation with some guy friends about parenting and how we can't just assume that what was helpful with one child will work with another. We lamented that children need different things from us because they are different. It makes any relational connection difficult because it takes work to monitor the relationship and seek to understand differences.

Author Jenai Auman uses her own experience as an illustration of the process of “othering.” This is not a memoir as much as an exploration of a topic where the author discloses her connection to it. The book opens with her very first day on the job, when she came to work an hour early to participate in a Bible study (unpaid) and was berated for being five minutes late. (She had just dropped her child off at daycare for the very first time.) I know some will read that description as not being abusive but simply a misunderstanding. But this is an important section because it sets up her discussion of definitions, and part of what is important about those definitions is that she is naming that the reception is what makes the harm harmful.

Leaders, in particular, seem to have a difficulty seeing that other's perceptions are their perceptions, not a direct attack on them. Othered spends a lot of time talking about leaders and narcissism because narcissism so often is connected to abuse and harm precisely because the narcissist does not perceive or care about the harm.

I spent way too long working through Othered because I just kept needing to put it down and pick up something else for a while. I very much want to understand trauma and how it works and learn from those who are in some place of healing, but I have a low tolerance for it in my reading. I find it easier to be with people who have a trauma background in person or in my spiritual direction work than I do reading about it. I am not completely sure why that is, but it is something that I keep running into as I read. I spent nearly 2 months slowly reading Othered, a fairly short book.

There is a lot that I appreciate. Jenai Auman has done good work to understand the current state of trauma research. And she explains it well. She connects her personal harm and the harm of others well to how churches work. And I think one of the ideas she articulated well and I just had not explicitly thought out was that part of why churches need to work to understand trauma isn't just so that they do not harm, but that so they can respond well to those who have been harmed in other spaces. As I said above when talking about parenting, something that isn't harmful to one person who does not have a trauma background, very well may be highly damaging to another person who does have a trauma background. (Again all that caveats about not all people who are traumatized will react or respond in the same ways.)

If we as the church are called to love and accept all and work to incorporate them into the body of Christ well, that means we need to do the work to understand and respond. It is not unlike the problem many churches have with disability. In a theoretical way, most Christians believe that the church should be inclusive of disability, but disability it comes to actually making their buildings and programming inclusive for people with disabilities, and the costs and work that it takes, many churches do not actually complete the work that is required.


This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/othered/

Summary: A look at the process of change as we age and mature.

I am in a Tuesday morning book group at my local Ignatius retreat house. The group meets for about 8 to 10 weeks twice a year. There are about 20 people who are involved, usually about 15-16 people a week are present. Because the group meets at 10:15 AM on a Tuesday, it is mostly people who are retirement age. The group is primarily Catholic and female, although not entirely. I very much value the group and I will continue to read whatever the group picks. But I was not looking forward to reading Falling Upward. I have previously read it twice in 2011 and in 2016. I liked it less each time I read it. But there is something helpful about reading a book in a group because you gain the perspective of others as you read it. I tend to like books less if I previously liked them when rereading them in a group. But I also tend to like books more when rereading with a group if I didn't like them previously. In both cases, it is because different perspectives give me insight into aspects of the book that I did not have when reading alone.

Part of what I found interesting is that about a third of the group was new to the book. But most of the group had read it two or three times previously. Almost everyone who found the book valuable had read it multiple times. I continue to think that Rohr is less clear than he should be. And I continue to think he is trying to read too large of an audience. I both found the book more helpful and more limited with this reading.

On the negative side, I think that his use of the archetype narrative (The Oddesy and other similar stories) has the problem of orienting the discussion of the second half of life in a male-oriented way. I know Rohr is a Catholic priest and a man, but over and over again, I found his illustrations and framing to be overly limited. One of the main themes of the book is how part of maturity is rejecting false dualism and embracing the Both/And. But then he would create evaluative dualism between the first and second half of life. I probably can't be Rohr, but I would like to see someone else write about archetypal narrative in a similar way, but add in many more illustrations that are rooted in female archetypes.

On the positive side, I do think that reading this nearly 15 years after the first reading I have more life experience and maturity and I can see areas where I can make sense of his point in ways that I couldn't before. But I also think that there are many areas where he will continue to be misunderstood either because he was not clear or because the audience that is reading isn't who he was addressing. Over and over again, I ran into comments or advice or illustrations where it made sense, but there was a level of health that is assumed that may not be present. This is similar to my complaints about A Loving Life by Paul Miller. Miller calls on people to tolerate suffering and abuse to lead others toward repentance but does not spend nearly enough time talking about the reality of abuse and the harm that comes about because of abuse. There were many places where the advice or illustration works in one setting, but not in another. That discernment of how to apply wisdom like this requires a level of maturity that I am not sure applies to everyone reading the book.

I am glad I read it again, at least I was glad that I read it with the group. I do not think it is an essential book.

I originally posted my review on my blog at https://bookwi.se/falling-upward-2/

Summary: Inspector Gamache is back at the job but corruption and murder are still present and it is up to Gamache to save everyone.

I am a huge fan of the Inspector Gamache series. I reread the whole series a couple of years ago and participated in a group blogging project by a number of book reviewers who also love Gamache and Louise Penny. I definitely pre-order all books by Louise Penny and read them immediately. I have both read the print versions and listened to the audiobooks. There is a new audiobook narrator for this 19th book, bringing the series to three narrators now. The new narrator is Jean Brassard, who is from the area where the books are set. He does a good job with the narration and feels pretty similar to the previous narrators in the style and tone of the narration.

I did enjoy The Grey Wolf, but it feels like the story has been told already. Gamache is the head of homicide he is back in Quebec and splitting his time between Three Pines and Montreal. While in Three Pines he gets notice that the sensor of his apartment in Montreal indicates that it has been broken into. Beauvoir checks it out, but can't see anything missing or wrong, so they chalk it up to a bad sensor. The next day, Gamache's coat is delivered to the police headquarters with two notes inside. And that starts a long thread that leads to an investigation of corruption and murder.

The book is well written if the thread of corruption had not already been done a couple of times. I noticed that Armond is again described as being in his late 50s, which is exactly how he was described in the early books. Since that time Beauvoir has married Annie and both of the Gamache children have children. No less than 10 years have passed, but Gamache is still in his late 50s and at the top of his game. I don't think that Penny makes Gamache into the near superhero that he has been in some of the books, but still, a number of the choices seem forced or go over the same ground as other books

I do love this series and this book ends, but also has a cliffhanger. So there is another book coming. But I wonder whether the series should be wrapped up. Some characters from the previous books show up and we have to decide if they are good or bad. Part of the reason for the title is a discussion about whether a character is the good wolf (grey) or the bad wolf (black) and the cover designer just drew two grey wolves. It is a sign of laziness with the whole project.

As I have said many times, I love this series because of the characters more than the mystery. This book got a little too complicated trying to throw up red herrings to keep the reader interested. I was pretty sure I knew what was going on long before Gamache did. But I also tend to just let the story happen because I know that Penny regularly tries to mislead the reader. I think Penny is trying to be too clever with the plot and not focused enough on the characters.

But I am going to be contributing to the problem with the weakness of this book because I will keep pre-ordering and keep reading. The Grey Wolf was not a bad novel. But it wasn't as good as I thought it should have been. Maybe that is unfair, but it is a series that I love. So I am holding it to pretty high standards.


Previously posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/the-grey-wolf/

Summary: A book of wisdom.

I am a fan of memoirs, especially memoirs written toward the end of life that evaluate life and what is important. This isn't a memoir, but it has the feel of a memoir. Why Everything that Doesn't Matter, Matters So Much is a series of essays. Some of this retrods ground that has been trod before. I love Charlie's thoughts on music and art and what it means to be an artist as a Christian, but I have heard those parts before.

What I haven't heard is anything from Andi, Charlie Peacock's wife. From the book it is clear that I just haven't been paying attention, because she is the better writer. It is not that Charlie is a bad writer. I think he has important things to say and I think that his role as musical mentor and sage is important, but she has grappled with life and her thoughts in a way that I think shine brighter.

Part of what is important here is that they are both showing the struggle of the Christian life even as relatively successful people. Part of what she ends the book with is a discussion of success. They emphasize that their view of success isn't money or records sold or influence, but the deeper things of life. And I appreciate that they share vulnerably and appropriately about struggles with health and marriage and vocation and trauma.

Charlie clearly says he was not the husband and father he should have been. Andi held things together while Charlie toured and made records and dreamed dreams. Dreams are important, but as Charlie says at one point, there is no possible way to fulfill every dream. Good dreams get passed by all the time because we just can't do it all. Especially because we can't do it all, we need to prioritize the people around us not just how much good we can do.

It is very clear that Charlie has done a lot of soul searching and emotional and relational work over the past decade and beyond. A chapter talks about his health and how his body revolted about a decade ago because he has subjected it to abuse and trauma without attention. And that forced him to grapple with many areas of his life that he had been reluctant to grapple with. Part of what I think is important in that discussion is that he and she both said that things got much worse before they started to get any better. Grappling with trauma and our limitations and weaknesses and the harm we have done to others often causes pain. But the options are to work through the pain and suffering toward healing or to resist that invitation to a more abundant life.

I do think that Christians have a lot of magical thinkings. “If you believe in Jesus everything will work out” is magical thinking. We need more stories like this where everything is not magically better. I can read between the lines and see where growth has happened; and where there is still more room for growth.

Personally, I was drawn to Andi's chapters on hospitality, self care, vocation and marriage. These are people who have lived through struggle and who do not have it all together in all areas, but they have live through difficult times and are continuing on. I thought the book probably could have been trimmed a bit, but it is always hard to know what needs to be trimmed and what just wasn't what I needed to hear, but was good to have in it for others.

This is a book of essays and I treated it like a books of essays. I dipped in and out in the midst of other reading. Most chapters were in the 15-20 page range. There were a few that were significantly longer. I think I read almost all of the chapters in a single sitting so that I would not have the ideas split up. But this is more a book about wisdom than a book about ideas. And that is part of what I loved about it.

Originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/why-everything-that-doesnt-matter-matters-so-much/

Summary: A very special Solstice (Christmas) edition.

I am of an age where we lived through “very special episodes” not just made fun of them. After a TV show had a hundred episodes and could go to syndication, then it would have a couple of seasonal episodes that would always be shown out of season during syndication. I kept waiting for this the purpose of this book and I never really found it.

The book is overshadowed by recovery from “the war.” But the war was really a couple of battles. We know from previous discussions that 500 years ago there was a war that had lasted for years. And we know that the Rhys and others had been captured for nearly 50 years. I am not asking for more war narrative, but three battles without a real peace settlement doesn't feel to me like the end of the war is here. So the whole premise of the book, Feyre and others trying to come to terms with the trauma of the war, seems off.

Most of the story revolves around the solstice celebration and buying or gifting presents. And people hanging out and being a bit overcrowded in the townhouse and there still being tension between Feyre and her sisters. In the end, Feyre find some purpose and vocation in helping other with her art. And not everyone else has started healing their trauma. But nothing else really moved.

This is a forgettable book that didn't add to the story and feels like an add on after the previous trilogy. And nothing about it makes me want to bother picking up the next book.

originally posed on my blog at https://bookwi.se/a-court-of-frost-and-starlight/

Summary: Princess Aurelia is forced to ask James for help. A curse complicates everything.

Son of Gold and Sorrow is the third in KB Hoyle's series of fairy tale retellings. Each book can be read independently, but for this third book in the series, it helps to have read them in order. In the first book Son of the Deep (a gender swap retelling of the Little Mermaid), James was a side character. In the second book, Son of Bitter Glass (a retelling of Hans Christian Anderson's Snow Queen), James joins the book midway through as a partner on the quest. But in this third book, Son of Gold and Sorrow, James, along with Aurelia, is the protagonist. You do not need to have read the previous books to read this book, they can be read in any order, but you will have more understanding about James as a character if you have read the others.

Son of Gold and Glass is a retelling of The Pretty Goldilocks (not Goldilocks and the Three Bears). Like the Snow Queen, I was familiar with elements of the story because it has been retold in other formats, but I had not read the original fairy tale. Again, like the last book, about half way through the book I started searching to figure out what the original fairly tale was and read a few summaries so I could see the elements and get and idea of what had been changed in this retelling. None of that is required to read the book.

Hoyle wrote an article a few years ago about the value of modern authors retelling fairy tales and I have come to appreciate the value of the classic fairy tale more over time. There are different ways to retell a story just like there are different ways to remake a movie. Some people want a movie remake to be shot for shot, but that is far less satisfying method for a book. I am almost finished with an adult fiction series that used the broad premise of the beauty and the beast as a basis for the book, but did not keep any of the main elements of the story. KB Hoyle's Fairy Tale Collection has told the stories in a modern way with more female agency and some modern sensibilities of justice, but maintaining the idea of stories that are formative to character and virtue.

Many fairy tales are almost parable-like in their message and can be heavy handed in their message and far more brutal in result than what modern readers are interested in. (The original Little Mermaid didn't live happily ever after with the prince in Hans Christian Anderson's story, she became sea foam.) I think Hoyle strikes the right balance of updating the feel of the story and not feeling beholden to the “shot by shot” elements of the older stories, but still keeping many of the themes and discussion of character, without feeling heavy handed in the message.

I am going to try to avoid too many spoilers, but if you do not want to know anything about the book, go ahead and hear that I strongly recommend the book and hope that it is widely read. There will be a few spoilers below.

One of the problems of modern romance is figuring out how to tell a story so that the couple gets to know one another naturally without just falling into bed. This is a book written for teen and it is chaste, but there is a challenge in that story element being natural. Here, Aurelia, has been cursed. Her father pledged her in marriage to a much older man. Both her father and the other man are cruel and controlling. Her father, being a wizard as well as a king, used magic to tie Aurelia to her betrothed. And so Aurelia used magic to slightly alter the curse so that her betrothed would have to complete three impossible tasks before she would marry him. But the implication of her father's curse was that any man who attempted to touch her in love would die. This includes attempting to using force to make her kiss them. This means that Aurelia is safe from rape or other sexual assault, but it also means that she avoids all touch with men because of her history at seeing the result of that curse.

The full extent of her curse and the cruelty of her father and betrothed comes out slowly, but as a plot point to give a natural reason for James and Aurelia to get to know one another and become friends through their quest, it is a perfect solution.

Having now read every book and novella that KB Hoyle has written, what I look forward to most is the subtle references and depth of the books. The only problem is that because so much is intentional, I think I might occasionally see more than what was intended. But here are a couple of subtle discussions or references that I think I saw.

Part of what I think is important and I have seen frequently in modern fiction is female autonomy and choice being emphasized. I think it is important, especially in YA fiction, to show that women should not be obligated to to accept help, or if they have accepted help, to feel obligated to to respond in a particular way “out of gratitude.” About a third of the way into the book, James and Aurelia have helped one another multiple times but they are on a quest for Aurelia and there is a line from James. “So, if you need me, then I will stay. And if you need me to go, then I will go. Wherever you send, I will go. My...indifference for you demands nothing less.” I think the top level reading is James assuring her that she has the primary choice.

But underneath that, I think that there is a subtle nod to the biblical book of Ruth and the line where Ruth pledges to stay with her mother in law, “For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.” (Ruth 1:16) Even though that is a frequent biblical text in marriage ceremonies, it was not between romantic partners. In this case, we know that both James and Aurelia are in love with one another, but they can't express that love because of the curse. So they start using the word “indifferent” to mean love. I get the hint of the Princess Bride “as you wish” to mean love, but again I may be reading into the book my own references and connections.

A third level connection that I do not think any young adult reader will make is that Ignatius, the 16th century founder of the Jesuit order, writes about the role of indifference to following the will of God in discernment. I have been doing long term reading project on discernment and throughout the book there is a discussion of what it means to have made a choice voluntarily. James and Aurelia both love one another. Their love seeks what is best for each other, even if that endangers themselves. In Ignatius' sense, he writes about indifference as essential to discerning the path before us not in the sense of not caring what happens, but in the sense of being open to the result of any of the choices. James and Aurelia can only really express their love to one another in the sense that they become indifferent to the benefit that love has for themselves and only care about what that love can mean to the other.

Later toward the end of the book, James talks about finally being free. She does not see him as free because he has been constrained by the choice to stay with her. But he tells her that he is finally free in a way that he never could have been when he was wandering the world, because now he has purpose. The purpose constrain his choices, but there is greater freedom in the constraint than there was in purposelessness that he was running away from. In a sense, this is the idea of vocation. Someone who identifies their vocation and then finds meaning in that vocation has purpose in their work that is different from someone who just does what happens to be in front of them.

There are two additional lines that I want to call out. About half way through the book, James and Aurelia have to make a choice. She again tries to talk him into leaving even though she thinks that him accompanying her is her only choice of breaking her curse. He again pledges to her in a line that seems to be a wedding vow. It is a wedding vow not in the sense of being in front of friends and family and pledging together, but in the sense of pledging himself to her good. “From death into life. I am yours—forever. I am your man. As long as it is in my power, I will serve you for the rest of my life.”

The final line I am going to reference I think was intended to be a referential joke. “Where is the priest so I can free myself of this betrothal curse?” I think is referencing the line attributed to Henry the VIII, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” It is unclear historically if Henry was actually calling for someone to kill Thomas Beckett or if he was expressing frustration that several of his knights decided to fix on their own without forcing the king or order Beckett's death. But it works as a joke her because Aurelia knows that the only way that she can be free of the curse if if is married (which she views as a type of death) or if she or her betrothed die. It is a dark joke, but one that I laughed at.

I have already given away too much of the plot, but only in rough outlines. The rough outlines are from a story that is over 200 years old and that was based on a fairy tale that is even older. As I read through the book I was reminded of how important fiction is to presenting the “why” to character and virtue formation. I frequently read non-fiction books about character, virtue, and spiritual formation. Those can be important to thinking about character, but traditionally the “why” of character and virtue has been presented through parables and fairy tales because fiction does a better job of framing character than straight non-fiction description.

Throughout the book both Aurelia and James come to see their weaknesses rightly as they are forced to confront themselves in the struggle of the events of the book. Their character is truly revealed as they make choices. Both James and Aurelia can see the character development in the other, but they have a hard time seeing their own character development. At the end of the book there is a section where this is made more explicit in a magical way. Character is both about choices and about developing slowly over time so that those choices become natural to use. We understand this in sports or music. Musicians and athletes practice small steps over and over again so that when those small steps are combined together it is a natural progression not specific individual conscious choices. I am not saying that character is only revealed as pre-conscious choices, because sometimes character is revealed when we consciously are making choices. But I do think that part of development of character is the movement of at least part of our actions to pre-conscious responses.

This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/son-of-gold-and-sorrow/

Summary: A single story arc split between two books.

I am behind on writing about my reading and while I have enjoyed this series enough to keep reading it (I am in the middle of the fourth right now), this if far from a perfect series. I have read pretty widely in the more classical fantasy world. And I have read some romance. The recent trend to Romantasy isn't completely new, but this series seems to have contributed to the movement.

There are some irritating distractions in this version of fantasy. Some are silly things like flush toilets and hot water bathtubs and the level of technology constantly shifting from medieval to 19th-century references. And there is the more common fantasy issues like magic being used to bridge plot points in ways that do not make sense internally to the system.

The series has a sharp turn at the start of the second book (spoilers for the first book and these two books follow), Feyre saved Tamlin and all other Farie courts by breaking the curse. In the process knowingly killed several innocents and herself was killed. But she was brought back to life by the combined work of the seven High Lords who were all gathered together in captivity and who had just been released because of Feyre's work. She is resurrected and becomes the “Curse Breaker”.

The second book starts with Fryre having a very clear trauma response to both her actions (especially killing the innocents) and her captivity which lead eventually to her death. She can't be in a confined place because it reminds her of her cell. She can't paint or do other previously enjoyable things because of the trauma response. The story turns because while there was previous evidence of Tamlin's character in the first book, the second book starts to show Tamlin having his own trauma responses, which are expressed in abusive and controlling ways.

As part of the deal with Rhys, that saved her at the end of the last book, she has to go live with Rhys one week a month. Rhys is aware of her trauma responses and works to care for her and over time she starts to have some healing. Feyre also never really learned to read because her mother died when she was young. So a significant part of how Rhys addresses her trauma is by teaching her to read and understand her new Farie powers.

It happens fairly early in the second book, but Tamlin understands that their relationship is not going well. His response is to try to control her more. Feyre reacts to that attempt to control by becoming more insistent on resisting control. Tamlin eventually tries to force a marriage, and that is the breaking point for Feyre. A bond was created when Rhys saved Feyre under the mountain and he can sense her emotions. When she is breaking down before the wedding ceremony he arranges for Feyre to be rescued/kidnapped.

And it is at this point there is a shift in the book toward Feyre starting to heal and then fall in love with Rhys. Internally that does make some sense, but looking at it from the end of the three-book arc, there is a tension between an abusive initial relationship and a probably too good healthy relationship. Real people fall in love with problematic people all the time. There is a trope about the attraction that women have to bad guys. But what this series relies on entirely too heavily is bad characters actually being good characters who do bad seemingly bad things for hidden reasons. And those hidden reasons make sense once you gain understanding.

I don't remember where I read it initially, but I read an article a few years ago about how many Western children's movies are stories of good overcoming evil. While many Eastern children's movies are about the conflict of the story not being rooted in overcoming evil but overcoming misunderstanding. Frozen 2 and Encanto are both stories where the idea of overcoming misunderstanding is more central to the plot than overcoming a specific evil character. There are still evil characters in this series, but many of those evil characters are good guys who were forced to work with the evil characters for a time but were trying to weaken the evil forces from the inside. I like this as a story possibility, but that story possibility is less interesting when it is overused, as it is here.

In this two-book story arc, Feyre has to heal from her trauma, and find faith in herself and her abilities, many of which are new as a result of her resurrection, but many of which were developments of her character and upbringing and doing what it takes to care for those around her. She is unfamiliar with the Faerie world but quickly learns. I am not going to reveal more plot points, but the two books are about 1300 pages overall and are a single-story arc. The fourth book is a pretty short addition. And the fifth book of the series appears to focus on side characters.

Because I was not interested in purchasing I listened to the Graphic Audio versions of these two books from my library. Graphic Audio is an audiobook production company that is making full-cast radio drama adaptations. Although they don't call them radio dramas, they use the tagline, “a movie in your mind.” I don't know how much of the story was cut but the Graphic Audio versions are about 20 percent shorter than the unabridged versions. I did not feel like there were holes in the story but I do not know what I missed so there may be plot points that were cut that would have made the overall story better.

On the whole, these felt like young adult books with a couple of sex scenes added in. The actual sex scenes could easily have been edited out without any loss to the story. I know others will disagree but that does seem important to me that the books are not written primarily around sex as plot points, but include sex. I understand the argument that this makes the sex gratuitous and not central to the story and that may be true. I don't think that the scenes made the books better. And I do understand the critique that these are written as young adult books with sex in ways that would make young adult readers feel comfortable reading them.

Right now I am sort of listening to the fourth book as an audiobook but I have started reading the most recent KB Hoyle book. I have read every KB Hoyle book and this series has reminded me why good writing matters. It is not that Maas is a bad writer as much as she is not a deep writer, everything is on the surface. The first book in this series is a retelling of the Beauty and the Beast. But by the middle of A Court of Mist and Fury we understand that while the curse against Tamlin was lifted, he is still a beast internally. She leaves because he is abusive and she eventually finds a good healthy relationship.

KB Hoyle has a series based on a retelling of classic fairy tales that starts with a gender swap Little Mermaid. And then moves to a fairy tale that I didn't know in A Son of Bitter Glass. This third book is Son of Gold and Sorrow and continues with James, the side character in the first book, the helper character in the second book, and the main character in the third book. I bring this up because there is a difference between fluffy writing that keeps me interested (Maas' books) and really good writing that made me stay up a couple of hours past my bedtime last night reading half the book.

KB Hoyle is writing a young adult fairy tale romance that doesn't fit in the romantasy genre but has some of those elements. I think many who are drawn to Maas, would enjoy this series because depth of writing matters. It is not that I am opposed to sex in books. While I picked up this series because it was banned by my local school district because of the sex, the quality of the books matters far more to my perception than the sex. I wasn't offended by the sex. In 1800 pages of the three Maas books, it was only about 20-30 pages, so I just can't get worked up about it.

What I do get a little worked up about is that Maas' books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and a far superior series by KB Hoyle won't. If you haven't already, I think you should read Holye, I would recommend her Gateway Chronicles, which are early teen fantasy. She has a post-apocalyptic series that is pitched a bit older. She has started a middle-grade series that is pitch a bit younger. She has a stand-alone novella and the Fairy Tale series that I linked above.

Originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/a-court/

Summary: Theological account of Christianity as a way of living, not simply as an intellectual system.

In an overly simplified sense, the point of the book is to move Christianity from a series of propositional belief statements (thin) to a “thick” belief system where those beliefs matter to not just how we see the world, but what we do in the world.

I appreciate academic books because they often interact well with not just the ideas being discussed but the alternatives to those ideas. A good academic book should grapple with the best arguments which disagree. What I don't always appreciate about academic books is that in general, academic books tend to have really long chapters because they are making a sustained argument that pays attention to not just their point, but everything around that point as well. Long chapters require a level of sustained attention that I do not always have.

I picked this up initially as an audiobook because it was cheater for me that way. But about half way through the book I broke down and bought the (very expensive) kindle edition. There are a number of really good quotes and I know I need to read the book again because there is nuance that I need to pay attention to. To try to keep the whole idea together, I tried to mostly listen to whole chapters while I was on a walk. Which meant that I was not taking notes, but it did mean that I was listening without a lot of distraction.

So much of theology is about framing. Not in the sense of there is nothing beneath the facade, but that the way you look at something matters. Hector's framing takes seriously Christianity as an ethical system that calls us to action. His thin/thick metaphor that is common in theological discussion, assumes that while there is not perfection within the church, that the church will be recognizable as doing church. Part of the problem with some of the discussion around Christian nationalism or cultural Christianity is that what is being held up as Christian doesn't look like Christianity any longer. The following quote I think does a great job at illustrating that there is some point where what we are doing ceases to accurately reflect Christ.

“On the other hand, if a group of people did not embody Christ's agency to some significant extent, it would no longer be recognizable as a church or even as trying to be a church. Think here of an anthropologist who is trying to understand the game of soccer by watching a couple of bad teams play. If the teams are so completely inept that the anthropologist cannot distinguish between intention and error, then the anthropologist will not be able to figure out what sort of game these teams mean to be playing just by watching them—the teams do not sufficiently embody the game, in other words. In the same way, there is an important difference between embodying Christ's agency imperfectly and failing to embody that agency; if a church is so bad at bearing witness to Christ that it can no longer be said to embody his agency (albeit imperfectly), then it is fair to say that it would no longer merit the title of church.” p219

Summary: Roz becomes a farm robot and wants to find her son and make her way home to the island.

At the end of the first book of the series, The Wild Robot, Roz had been damaged trying to protect her adopted son (a wild goose) and her friends (the other animals on the island where she lives) from the robots that had been sent to retrieve her. Those robots were Those robots were all destroyed, but Roz had no choice but to turn herself in so that she could be repaired.

Roz was refurbished but she maintained her memories and personality. After refurbishment, she was sold to a disabled farmer. As Roz works the farm, she becomes friends with the farm animals and the two children on the farm.

She is good at farming. She understands how to work with the animals and the other farm machines. She can see that there is real value in the work, not just because the work is enjoyable, but because the work she does serves the family and Roz likes the family.

It is not a surprise, based on the name of the book, but she grapples with whether she should escape (the farm does run better with her), but she misses her son. It is a spoiler to say she does decide to escape, but that seemed clear from the beginning, and from the title and about half of the book is the story of her escape and trying to find her way back to the island.

I wrote a long post about the importance of depth to a story. Children's books and young adult books are improved by writing depth into the story. Yes kids will only get the surface the first time they read them. But kids generally like to revisit stories. And I do think these are short enough books and simple enough reading level that many kids will revisit them. I don't think there is as much depth to this story as KB Hoyle's writing, but there are good philosophical questions embedded in the story. Ideas of vocation and family and what we were meant to become are natural questions for a learning robot.

There is a twist toward the end of the book that I look forward to understanding more about when I read the third book. My son read the first book on his own last year when he was in third grade. He enjoyed the Wild Robot but did not keep reading the series. I picked these first two up on sale because of the movie, but I do think they are worth reading. I tend to like young adult books more than middle grade books because I like more complex stories. But this series has had good characters and an engaging enough story that I have read them on my own without kids and enjoyed them.

This was originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/the-wild-robot-escapes/

Summary: A new robot is lost, and as attempts to survive, it learns from the animals around it and becomes a “wild robot.”

My son read and enjoyed The Wild Robot last year when he was eight. He is a pretty good reader and likes to read books on his own. I have been interested in reading the book myself since I saw that it was being made into a movie.

This is a classic late elementary book. There are tons of very short chapters, rarely more than a couple of pages each. This makes the book both easy to engage for 3-5th graders to read by themselves and easy to read to them at that age or slightly younger.

I appreciate that this is a book that admits hard things. This book is mostly about a robot trying to understand the world around “her” and about animals. The reality of the wild world is that animals will die. Some will be eaten by others, some will die from elements or accidents. The fact that there is grief and sorrow in that loss is not glossed over.

The Wild Robot is a self-contained book. I am nearly done with the second book, The Wild Robot Escapes. That book builds on the first but is a complete story as well. I will read the third soon.

I have avoided reading any reviews of the movie at this point, so I am not sure if the movie is just the first book or if it is the whole trilogy. But I am going to finish the whole trilogy before I watch it to be sure.

There is a nice gentleness to the books. Most of the plot conflict is based on misunderstanding. I think this is a good model of plot development for this age. Children are seeking to understand. That doesn't mean that I am opposed to “good/evil” stories, but stories rooted in misunderstanding I think help grow empathy and seek to give alternative perspectives which should be part of a children's book diet.

Based on what I have read so far, I really do think this is an excellent addition to the middle elementary literature.

I read this on Kindle because I saw it on sale, but I think it likely would be a good audiobook as well. I listened to the 5 minute preview and that short excerpt was pretty good. I read it in two sittings, but I wouldn't expect most kids to read it that quickly.


This was originally published on my blog at https://bookwi.se/the-wild-robot-by-peter-brown/

Summary: A single story arc split between two books.

I am behind on writing about my reading and while I have enjoyed this series enough to keep reading it (I am in the middle of the fourth right now), this if far from a perfect series. I have read pretty widely in the more classical fantasy world. And I have read some romance. The recent trend to Romantasy isn't completely new, but this series seems to have contributed to the movement.

There are some irritating distractions in this version of fantasy. Some are silly things like flush toilets and hot water bathtubs and the level of technology constantly shifting from medieval to 19th-century references. And there is the more common fantasy issues like magic being used to bridge plot points in ways that do not make sense internally to the system.

The series has a sharp turn at the start of the second book (spoilers for the first book and these two books follow), Feyre saved Tamlin and all other Farie courts by breaking the curse. In the process knowingly killed several innocents and herself was killed. But she was brought back to life by the combined work of the seven High Lords who were all gathered together in captivity and who had just been released because of Feyre's work. She is resurrected and becomes the “Curse Breaker”.

The second book starts with Fryre having a very clear trauma response to both her actions (especially killing the innocents) and her captivity which lead eventually to her death. She can't be in a confined place because it reminds her of her cell. She can't paint or do other previously enjoyable things because of the trauma response. The story turns because while there was previous evidence of Tamlin's character in the first book, the second book starts to show Tamlin having his own trauma responses, which are expressed in abusive and controlling ways.

As part of the deal with Rhys, that saved her at the end of the last book, she has to go live with Rhys one week a month. Rhys is aware of her trauma responses and works to care for her and over time she starts to have some healing. Feyre also never really learned to read because her mother died when she was young. So a significant part of how Rhys addresses her trauma is by teaching her to read and understand her new Farie powers.

It happens fairly early in the second book, but Tamlin understands that their relationship is not going well. His response is to try to control her more. Feyre reacts to that attempt to control by becoming more insistent on resisting control. Tamlin eventually tries to force a marriage, and that is the breaking point for Feyre. A bond was created when Rhys saved Feyre under the mountain and he can sense her emotions. When she is breaking down before the wedding ceremony he arranges for Feyre to be rescued/kidnapped.

And it is at this point there is a shift in the book toward Feyre starting to heal and then fall in love with Rhys. Internally that does make some sense, but looking at it from the end of the three-book arc, there is a tension between an abusive initial relationship and a probably too good healthy relationship. Real people fall in love with problematic people all the time. There is a trope about the attraction that women have to bad guys. But what this series relies on entirely too heavily is bad characters actually being good characters who do bad seemingly bad things for hidden reasons. And those hidden reasons make sense once you gain understanding.

I don't remember where I read it initially, but I read an article a few years ago about how many Western children's movies are stories of good overcoming evil. While many Eastern children's movies are about the conflict of the story not being rooted in overcoming evil but overcoming misunderstanding. Frozen 2 and Encanto are both stories where the idea of overcoming misunderstanding is more central to the plot than overcoming a specific evil character. There are still evil characters in this series, but many of those evil characters are good guys who were forced to work with the evil characters for a time but were trying to weaken the evil forces from the inside. I like this as a story possibility, but that story possibility is less interesting when it is overused, as it is here.

In this two-book story arc, Feyre has to heal from her trauma, and find faith in herself and her abilities, many of which are new as a result of her resurrection, but many of which were developments of her character and upbringing and doing what it takes to care for those around her. She is unfamiliar with the Faerie world but quickly learns. I am not going to reveal more plot points, but the two books are about 1300 pages overall and are a single-story arc. The fourth book is a pretty short addition. And the fifth book of the series appears to focus on side characters.

Because I was not interested in purchasing I listened to the Graphic Audio versions of these two books from my library. Graphic Audio is an audiobook production company that is making full-cast radio drama adaptations. Although they don't call them radio dramas, they use the tagline, “a movie in your mind.” I don't know how much of the story was cut but the Graphic Audio versions are about 20 percent shorter than the unabridged versions. I did not feel like there were holes in the story but I do not know what I missed so there may be plot points that were cut that would have made the overall story better.

On the whole, these felt like young adult books with a couple of sex scenes added in. The actual sex scenes could easily have been edited out without any loss to the story. I know others will disagree but that does seem important to me that the books are not written primarily around sex as plot points, but include sex. I understand the argument that this makes the sex gratuitous and not central to the story and that may be true. I don't think that the scenes made the books better. And I do understand the critique that these are written as young adult books with sex in ways that would make young adult readers feel comfortable reading them.

Right now I am sort of listening to the fourth book as an audiobook but I have started reading the most recent KB Hoyle book. I have read every KB Hoyle book and this series has reminded me why good writing matters. It is not that Maas is a bad writer as much as she is not a deep writer, everything is on the surface. The first book in this series is a retelling of the Beauty and the Beast. But by the middle of A Court of Mist and Fury we understand that while the curse against Tamlin was lifted, he is still a beast internally. She leaves because he is abusive and she eventually finds a good healthy relationship.

KB Hoyle has a series based on a retelling of classic fairy tales that starts with a gender swap Little Mermaid. And then moves to a fairy tale that I didn't know in A Son of Bitter Glass. This third book is Son of Gold and Sorrow and continues with James, the side character in the first book, the helper character in the second book, and the main character in the third book. I bring this up because there is a difference between fluffy writing that keeps me interested (Maas' books) and really good writing that made me stay up a couple of hours past my bedtime last night reading half the book.

KB Hoyle is writing a young adult fairy tale romance that doesn't fit in the romantasy genre but has some of those elements. I think many who are drawn to Maas, would enjoy this series because depth of writing matters. It is not that I am opposed to sex in books. While I picked up this series because it was banned by my local school district because of the sex, the quality of the books matters far more to my perception than the sex. I wasn't offended by the sex. In 1800 pages of the three Maas books, it was only about 20-30 pages, so I just can't get worked up about it.

What I do get a little worked up about is that Maas' books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and a far superior series by KB Hoyle won't. If you haven't already, I think you should read Holye, I would recommend her Gateway Chronicles, which are early teen fantasy. She has a post-apocalyptic series that is pitched a bit older. She has started a middle-grade series that is pitch a bit younger. She has a stand-alone novella and the Fairy Tale series that I linked above.

Originally posted on my blog at https://bookwi.se/a-court/

Summary: Peter discovers a new duty that his role of Duke brings. It leads him to a mystery and eventually to several deaths.

I have enjoyed this series of four books that grew out of Dorothy Sayers writing. The first was the draft of a novel written by Dorothy Sayers that Jill Paton Walsh finished. The next three were mostly Jill Paton Walsh using Sayers characters. I have enjoyed the books and I am glad that I read them. But I also haven't loved them.

I still like Peter and Harriet as characters and I appreciate seeing them as they age. Their children are young adults. At the end of the last book, Peter had assumed the role of Duke after his brother died. His nephew was killed in action during WWII. Harriet still is writing, but the work of Duchess takes time. And there is a lingering of her earlier reputation as an accused murderer that does pop up in this book several times. Bunter is the ever present assistant who wants to keep the social boundaries in place, but who acquiesces to the increasing informality of the 1950s.

The mystery always felt a bit under developed. There is an ancient manuscript in one of the college of Oxford. Because of a long ago bequest, Peter has the role of “visitor” to help settle disputes within the college. In part because of money problems within the college, there is a disagreement about whether the manuscript should be sold and the money invested or if the manuscript should be kept and financial changes made in other ways.

Peter was unaware of the role until he started hearing from members of the faculty seeking to persuade him of their position. Eventually Peter goes to investigate, in part to get away. There he discovers a couple of accidental deaths that he suspects were murders and several more potential attempted homicides and a missing person.

I like that Walsh makes both Peter and Harriet joint figures in the mystery. She operates within a community that still is pretty sexist and I think Walsh over does that in some ways. It isn't that the era was not sexist, but there was already a history of the female writer and detective.

I was glad to read the book overall, but I think there is a reason that the series did not go further. It has been just over a decade since this book came out. I like the characters more than I like the series and it feels like Walsh didn't really have anywhere to go. There is only so many references to real life mysteries being different from books. I think Walsh has done a good job maintaining the feel of the characters, but the mystery of the last two has felt pretty flat.

Summary: A retelling of Beauty and the Beast in a modern (spicy) romance/fantasy format.

Recently my local school district removed A Court of Thorns and Roses and the rest of the series from all of the school libraries. I was unfamiliar with the series and so I looked it up. I saw that the first book is a loose retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I read the original short story about fifteen years ago and was very familiar with the Disney movie and the live-action remake. As I was looking up information about it I saw that the audiobook was free to me in the Audible lending library for members. So I picked it up and fairly quickly decided to just buy the Kindle edition.

There is a good discussion in the YA author community about the role and purpose of young adult and middle-grade fiction. I think KB Hoyle, cofounder of Owl's Nest Press has done the best at discussing the changes to the category “Young Adult Literature”. There are a variety of podcasts and articles where she has done that. But I will highlight this article and this podcast about the need for a real middle grade and YA category and this post about why retellings of classics are useful. To summarize her point, with the rise of adult interest in young adult stories (Twilight, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Divergent, etc), there has been a shift to writing coming-of-age stories for adults and it is included in the category of “young adult books.” There are a number of reasons for this, but the coming of age story is a popular format. The rise of the internet seems to have pushed interest toward simpler stories. Then these books sold well. And then there was the mega-success of Fifty Shades of Gray, a type of coming-of-age story that included sex as a central theme.

KB Hoyle started Owl's Nest Press particularly to address the ways that middle-grade children and young adults were getting ignored in their own category of literature. I have read every one of KB Hoyle's books, many of them more than once, so I definitely think that books written for pre-teen or teen readers can still be read by adults with great enjoyment. But that category of books, the adult-oriented coming-of-age novel which includes sex is still being written and remains popular. And it is one type of book that is being targeted for school book bans. I am not particularly in favor of school book bans, in large part because the act of banning draws attention to the books. My local library now has over 100 people in line for the ebook of A Court of Thorns and Roses and that doesn't include the print or audiobook waits. When I looked the estimated wait time was 18 weeks.

I am not going to give away significant spoilers but I did read the whole book in two days and it was good enough that I started the second book. But the quickness of the read and my shift from audiobook to print was in part because this was a simply written book. It read quickly because there was not a lot of subtlety and complexity.

But there were two sex scenes. The later books likely have more sex because this first book is about the meeting of the couple who you know are going to end up together by the end. Previous books banned by my district have largely been queer-affirming books, so I did think it was interesting that a fairly tame heteronormative book was banned. I also can say that I think that the two scenes were far less problematic than many of the male-oriented sci-fi or fantasy oriented sex scenes that I read as a teen from authors like Piers Anthony and Robert Heinlein. Here there was consent and love. The male character was an immortal Farie who was about 500 years old and the female character was a human who was 19, so there was a difference in age and experience, but the book was clear that this was not the first sexual experience of either character.

I don't think there is a way to write about sex that doesn't have some sense of cringe to it. And clearly, since the books were banned and the ban was for sexual content, someone was offended. But there are many other books that were not banned which have more pages devoted to sex (this might have been six to ten pages total) and more problematic views of sex (rape, violence, coercion, sexual objectification, etc.) While the book didn't need the sex scene as a necessary plot point, it also wasn't completely out of left field or just gratuitous. On the other hand, I do think there was a choice to include the sex scenes so that the book could be considered a “spicy” fantasy.

Again, I am not saying that books NEED sex in them. I am of the opinion that there needs to be more books that have the more traditional coming of age as a growing awareness of the need for selflessness and considering of others and the complexity of the world instead of reducing coming of age to simply first sexual experiences. I think this book was mostly about the right kind of coming-of-age maturity even if it did also include sex.

Instead, my concern here is that what is driving book bans like this are concerns by some adults that teens should not have any access to material about sexuality. The district superintendent is on the record suggesting that people opposing book bans are trying to sexualize children and groom them and he uses the stark language of good and evil to suggest that anyone opposing book bans are evil adults trying to harm children.

I have mostly been writing about the bans and not the book. This is a retelling of the story of Beauty and the Beast. There are a couple of interesting tweaks to the story. They might be considered spoilers, but the original story is almost two hundred years old and the Disney movie is nearly 40 years old. We do not know until nearly the end, but the curse in the original story is based on the Prince being unkind. That is not the case here. The Prince was cursed because of an evil character, not because he brought on the curse as judgment for negative actions.

In the Disney movie, the beauty's father is incompetent, scatterbrained, and loving. Here, the beauty became the protector and provider of the family but there was a sort of curse on her that came about as a result of her actions. For most of the book, we do not know about how her family was reacting and whether or not they really were loving toward her.

These types of fantasy/romance stories almost always have a plot driven by poor communication and misunderstanding. In this case, there is a curse that prevents the beast and others in the household from talking, but also the Beast character uses magic to protect the beauty from being scared by fairie world, which does cause problems. Similar to current “princess story” trends, Beauty is capable and can often save herself and in the end, she is the one who needs to save the prince. Also part of the trope of these types of stories, belief in herself is part of what has to change within herself.

I like the fact that the Beast points out to her that she has a history of doing what it takes to care for those around her. She loves those around her, but she also somewhat resents that she has to be the one who does the hard things to care for those around her. That seems like a valid point of conflict in the book and becomes a plot point at the climax of the story.

I don't think this was the best written book. There is little nuance or subtlety here. I like the fact that I can read any of KB Hoyle's books and find references to other books or subtle foreshadowing and depth that encourage rereading. I do not think that is the case here. There are a couple of annoying writing crutches beyond the sex scenes. She uses variations of the line “My bowels turned watery” five times and a good editor should not have allowed that.

More positively I did appreciate that there was some discussion of meaning and vocation. When Beauty comes to the castle, she doesn't know what to do with herself because she no longer needs to care for her own family at every waking moment. Connected to that, beauty and goodness have a role in healing. There is a good in beautiful music and paintings and life that I think points to goodness as something intrinsically good and helpful not just as decoration.

I originally posted this on my blog at https://bookwi.se/court-of-thorns-and-roses/

Summary: How do you summarize a life like John Lewis'?

I am not new to the story of John Lewis, but this was the first full-length biography I have read about John Lewis. I have previously read the graphic novels (The March Trilogy and Run) and the short biography by Jon Meacham, as well as watching the documentary Good Trouble. And Lewis figures prominently in many biographies, memoirs, and Civil Rights era histories. But I had not read a full-length biography.

David Greenberg has previously written biographies of Nixon and Coolidge and two books about the presidency. This is a biography that used hundreds of interviews and personal papers. And I think perhaps most interesting to me is that the biography was only half finished when  Lewis was ousted from SNCC. The main difference is that everything I have previously watched or read primarily focused on Lewis' early civil rights work prior to leaving SNCC.

“Lews found himself, at age 26, with no job, unmarried and unsure what to do with his life. The movement to which he had devoted his adult life was veering away from the ideals that had animated it. To remain in the struggle, he would have to find another path.”

Summary: A variety of essays or talks about Merton and how his life and work can impact people today.

Engaging Thomas Merton is a book you can dip in and out of because while the book is thematically about Thomas Merton, you can easily skip around chapters based on your interest or read it slowly over time. I spent about six or so weeks slowly working through the book.

Because of my interests, I think the most engaging chapters were chapter 6 (using Merton's work on the true and the false self to engage ideas of how we are embodied and digital selves) and then the three chapters about Merton's engagement with the civil rights movement.

Overall, I think the digital self chapter is probably both the best chapter of the book and worth the price of the book for me. Horan makes the case that Merton would have seen that one of the realities of the digital age is that identity is “almost infinitely negotiable.” As a means of engaging with Merton in a situation that Merton didn't experience, Horton takes Merton's understanding of the false self and engages those insights. The clearest summary of Horton's thesis here is, “The true self only appears elusive because we are too concerned with our false self (selves) to turn toward God.” (p93)

But that simple statement doesn't get us to a point where we can do something about working toward our true selves. Knowing the truth doesn't help us move toward the truth, especially when we are tempted to believe that methods of instant gratification might work. Jacque Ellul argued against “techniques” that solve our spiritual problems. Similarly to how Ellul argued against technique, Merton approached the true and false self not as a problem to be solved, but as an “entire lifestyle shift.” As Horton summarizes, “Precisely because this focus on the need for instant gratification is so deeply ingrained in the false self, Merton explains that real and substantial changes in the way one relates to others and sees the work must become priority. And this takes time.” (p99)

I think one of the most helpful turns of the Digital Self essay is an exploration of vocation as a solution to the false self.

“Merton explains what a vocation means: Each one of us has some kind of vocation. We are all called by God to share in His life and in His Kingdom. Each one of us is called to a special place in the Kingdom. If we find that place we will be happy. If we do not find it, we can never be completely happy. For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God's will, to be what God wants us to be.63 In other words, what Merton is saying to us is that we are not created simply to fabricate a future shaped by our fantasies or to go forward in life unaided by the Creator. He intends quite the opposite. Through prayer and discernment one comes to recognize that God has given each person certain gifts, including skills, talents, dispositions, interpersonal abilities, intellect, personality, emotional and other forms of intelligence, and the like. Merton asserts that we are most happy when we deploy those God-given gifts within the state of life we find ourselves and come to live our true self in community. This is certainly a challenge for digital natives, who have been reared in a context in which identity is so unstable. Today's young adults look around and see a context that encourages ways of going about the world that are far from the image of self-understanding and spirituality present in Merton's explanation of what it means for everyone to have a vocation given by God.” (p 101)

The other chapters that I was particularly interested in were the chapters on race. I think the juxtaposition of the chapters is helpful. Two of the chapters explore some of the ways that Merton's thinking about race prefigured the later developments of thinking about race, especially critical race theory. Horan suggests that Merton's understanding of racism is ultimately a white problem, and that change would not happen until white people choose to allow changes in a similar way to how Derek Bell understood interest convergence. And that Merton understood race as a social construct, not a biological reality as Bell and other critical race theorists have posited were interesting suppositions of how Merton may have developed his thought had he lived past 1968. (It was enough that I picked up but have not read Merton's Faith And Violence, the last book he had ready for publication before his death.) And Merton thought of racism as a type of violence, which again is language that was developed more fully in the decades since Merton's death.

But the last chapter on race primarily looks at areas of weakness for Merton on racial issues. Merton did approach racial issues in a more helpful direction than many of his white Catholic contemporaries. However, he was still shaped by his culture and had areas of sin, and where change was necessary.

There are other areas of the books that I think were helpful, longer discussions of vocation, of environmentalism, of engaging other religions. But I also think that most people will not be interested in a whole book on the modern use of Merton. Some of these essays are available in digital formats outside of the book. But if you can find the book in the library or for cheap, I think many people will find at least a couple of the essays engaging and helpful.

Summary: Stories of resistance.

This is a natural next book for Jemar Tisby. His first book was a survey of the ways that the church in the US has been complicit with racism. The second book was a response to the question, “What should we do now” that he kept getting from people who read the first book. And this third book is designed as inspiration for continuing to work for justice.

I am fairly well-read in civil rights history and there were both well-known figures and people I did not know here. The balance between the known and the unknown (or lesser known) was good. You can't ignore major figures like Martin Luther King Jr, but in some ways, those figures are less inspiring because they have become “saints” of the movement. The lesser-known figures I think are more inspiring because they worked toward justice without becoming well-known.

That isn't to say those lesser-known people are less important. Part of what Tisby is doing is bringing balance to the story. There is a whole chapter on women of the civil rights movement, not because they were completely unknown but because the sexism of the time impacted how we tell stories today. And many behind-the-scenes figures were essential to the organizational and movement-building work that allowed the well-known people to become well-known.

Immediately after finishing The Spirit of Justice, I picked up a new biography of John Lewis. Lewis was well known by his death, but part of what the biography illustrated was the long arc of that fame. Lewis spoke at the 1963 March on Washington, but that was after having led the Nashville student movement and then SNCC. But when he left SNCC leadership, he was only 26. He had several completely separate careers after that. He headed the Voter Education Project for 7 years, and under his leadership VEP registered an estimated 4 million people. He also spent several years working for the federal government in the Carter administration, six years on the Atlanta city council, and 34 years in Congress.

I bring up John Lewis because as well known as he is today, had he done any one of the many things (Freedom Rider, Nashville sit-in movement, SNCC leadership, SCLS board member, voting rights advocate, Selma Marcher, and a main mover of the remembrance of the Selma March, he may not be well-known. But whether he was well-known or not, his contributions mattered.

And that is why The Spirit of Justice matters. This is a book of inspiration to know those who have done the work to bring about the progress toward justice that has been accomplished thus far. While not every person is primarily known as a Christian, the reality is that justice, especially around racial issues in the US has been historically rooted in the Black Church. Most of the figures in The Spirit of Justice were themselves shaped by and a member of the Black Church. There were a lot of complaints about the Color of Compromise not telling the stories of how the church worked toward justice. Those complaints missed the point of the book in highlighting how the church was compromised. The Spirit of Justice now highlights the stories of those who worked for justice. And I think contextually important, it records how often those stories of justice were opposed by other members of the church in the United States.

This post was originally on my blog at https://bookwi.se/spirit-of-justice/

Summary: After the war, Lord Peter starts telling Harriet about his first case, and that telling leads to a new case. 

One of the ongoing themes of this set of four books is that there is a play between what is real as a mystery and how mysteries can be written about to be believable. As a setup for the rest of the book, Lord Peter describes to Harriet his first case and how he started as a detective. Throughout this early section, Harriet and Lord Peter talk about whether something would be believable if it were in one of Harriet's novels vs in one of Peter's cases. This is a running gag in the series because Peter is often asking Harriet what he should do or if she were writing the story what the perpetrator would do at that point. It is both a running gag, but also a serious discussion about the nature of reality and how the nature of writing works. You can't just write a story, you have to fall within the set of conventions that seem believable unless you are intentionally subverting the conventions to suggest that the conventions themselves are not believable.

Part of the thread of the book is that the Attenbury Emeralds, which is what his initial case was about, has continued to come up again and again over the years. That is improbable, but it is improbable because there is more to the story than what it initially seems.

There are definitely different types of thriller/mystery stories. Some stories invite the reader to figure out what the story is as the clues are dropped. Some stories do not really give clues as much as narrate the story so that the mystery is slowly revealed. And some stories are thrillers where the point is the thrill, not the mystery. (And there are other types as well.) The reader doesn't know what the reader doesn't know, so as Walsh is playing with the conventions here, the improbable becomes the only option as time goes on.

Personally, I tend to like mystery series more for the character development than the specific mystery. The end of the book brings about something that was hinted at in the previous book and is more fully developed in the fourth book of the series.


This was originally published on my blog at https://bookwi.se/the-attenbury-emeralds/

Summary: In the early days of World War 2, Harriet is managing children while Peter and others are in the war effort. 

A normal for me, I keep getting caught up in information and forget about fiction. And then I return to it to remember again why fiction is a necessary part of a healthy reading diet. I have been reading a long joint biography of Dorothy Day, Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Merton, and Walker Percy. As much as the book has been worth reading, I remember why reading about fiction is not the same as reading fiction.

I read the Thrones, Dominations, the first book of the series where Jill Paton Walsh continues Dorothy Sayers' mystery series last year. I saw A Presumption of Death on Kindle Unlimited and needed a fiction series to work on. It has been several years since the events of the first book. Peter and Harriet have several children, and she and her staff are watching several more children because of concerns about the bombing of London and so that their parents can work in the war effort.

There are many discussions about the refugees from London or other countries in this book. Harriet and the children are living at Tallboys, their country home. The limitations of the war, from the lack of food to the danger, are constantly constantly present. Peter is gone and there is also the worry for his safety.

I understand the point, Harriet needs to not be overconfident as a character or that overconfidence would be off-putting, but I do think that the continues to be a problem with Harriet being too unsure of herself at this point in the series. That has been a problem for many books. Harriet is doing war work by caring for the extra children and supporting the community projects, but she doesn't think that her efforts are as helpful as her sister-in-law's or Peter's. But then a young woman is murdered and the head of the local police asks her to look into the murder because he is understaffed and has no leads.

I am not going to give away more of the plot. There are twists as any good mystery should have. I think Walsh did capture the characters well, and did a good job with the feelings of impending danger at this point in the war effort. My only complaint is one with Harriet's lack of confidence and that isn't Walsh's fault as much as it was the character that Sayers presented in Busmans' Holiday and the other books at the end of the series that Walsh needed to stay true to.

There is a subtle change in writing that you can tell it is Walsh not Sayers doing the writing. But I did enjoy the book and I quickly went to the next book in the series.

This was originally published on my blog at https://bookwi.se/a-presumption-of-death/

Summary: A brief book about the problems of education reform.

I picked this up because it was by Jonathan Kozol. I read several of his books in the 1990s and was a bit surprised that he had a new book out. Kozol turns 88 in Sept 2024 and his work on social justice and education should be celebrated. I am glad I read this because it was by Jonathan Kozol, but at the same time, if you are interested in the problems of education reform and especially how it negatively impacts Black or other racial minorities or poor students of all races, I would recommend Bettina Love's recent book Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal. I read it last year but did not write up my thoughts at the time because I was in a busy season. But it is a very helpful book that I think should be more widely read, not just among educators, but also among politically active people of all types of backgrounds.

An End to Inequality covers a number of different problems with public education from the physical environment (lead in water or paint, poor air circulation, heating, air, etc.) to curriculum to problematic reforms. I think one of the main themes of Bettina Love's book is handled well here. Generally, testing of educational reform programs is done at poor or minority schools. Any testing of educational reform at predominately white and higher income public schools are reforms that give students more options or freedom. While the reforms at lower-income and minority schools are reforms that are focused on more highly structured teaching models, narrower academic ranges of subjects, or economic efficiencies. Said another way, reforms at predominantly white and upper-income schools are designed to help students have more enjoyment at learning and reforms at lower-income and predominately minority schools tend to reduce educational enjoyment.

The main problem with this first third of the book is that the examples are presented anecdotally, not systemically. I completely believe that everything that he reports happened, but there isn't a structure to tell the reader how widespread these problems are or if they really are disproportionately impacting low-income and minority students. I think they are, I think there is plenty of evidence available in other sources to show that they are, but Kozol's standard format is to tell stories of particular students or teachers and that story-oriented structure tends to lack statistical underpinnings.

As he moves toward the policy prescriptions I think he blames administration (which deserves a lot of blame) too much. Toward the end of chapter five (Models of the Possible), he suggests that it isn't parents who oppose integration but administrators. This chapter largely recounts his time teaching in an optional school integration program in the 1970s. He had a supportive administrator who gave him flexibility with the curriculum and encouraged him to develop a love of learning. He describes what today would be called problem-based learning.

But I do think he is wrong about parents. While there are administrators who retrograde racial attitudes, I think the evidence is that parents play a significant role in maintaining segregation. School choice widens segregation. Parents' perception of school quality impacts housing values, and those perceptions are significantly impacted by how many minority students are in the school. Kozol notes that diverse schools are known to have better overall learning outcomes than segregated education, but that isn't the perception of parents. I think educators are likely to know that more than parents. However, like homework for elementary students, parents push for having elementary homework even as educators know it isn't helpful and can be harmful.

I agree with Kozol that the movement toward educational integration has largely stalled and that continuing school segregation, regardless of the cause, does harm to students. I think his comments about reparations are under-supported but still important. I am a regular listener to Advisory Opinions, a legal podcast that primarily focuses on Supreme Court and higher-level judicial opinions. Over the past few years that I have been listening, there have been a number of cases that impact school integration or affirmative action cases. And the two (pretty conservative) podcasters agree that racial issues are real within education and other segments of society. But that affirmative action and desegregation systems were designed mostly around fairness in access, not reparations. And current movements to reduce affirmative action or desegregation system are based on raw fairness now, not on historic reparations due to harm. The legal system understands repair, but that is not how affirmative action was largely framed as it came into being. I think Kozol is right that we need to reframe education reform around reparations and repair rather than fairness, but that is an underdeveloped topic in the book that I wish he had addressed more fully.

I listened to the audiobook and it was just over three hours with a Q & A at the end. If it were longer I probably would not have finished it. Again, if you are interested in school reform and willing to read about the problems of school reform, especially in how the reform movement can negatively impact students, read Punished for Dreaming instead.

This was originally posted to my blog at https://bookwi.se/an-end-to-inequality/