• Reamde: A Novel © 2011
• William Morrow: HarperCollinsPublishers
• 1044 pages

There’s a curious juxtaposition here. Thrillers are, by nature, fast-pace adventure stories. Neal Stephenson’s latest thriller is a 1000+ page behemoth! Stephenson managed to insert deep characterization into his thrill ride in such a way that a 5 minute gun-fight can span 100 gripping pages.

This story covers everything from Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games to Islamic Terrorists, American survivalists hosting gun-toting family reunions to Asian hackers, Russian Organized crime syndicates to MI6, with a weed trafficker thrown in for good measure. You won’t run out of plot lines to consider!

The role of fate or luck in Reamde was particularly interesting. Stephenson managed to wrangle unbelievably improbable events into line without the reader feeling the effects of deus ex machina. It’s spectacular to see how he ties every thread together in one epic conclusion.

There were a few moments in the book where the sense of urgency departed and the thought of 1000+ pages wore on me. In hindsight, that’s probably because the action sequences are that well written.

My previous experience with Stephenson was his Cryptonomicon. After Reamde, I’m hooked.

• The Politics of Jesus © 1994
• Eerdmans
• 257 pages

If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know that I’ve summarized and reflected on each of the 12 chapters that make up The Politics of Jesus. Since all the details have been covered, I’ll offer a few final thoughts here.

The Politics of Jesus was a landmark book. It was first published in 1972 in a world that didn’t take the ethical-social stance of Jesus seriously. In this right-place-at-the-right-time book, Yoder defended his belief that Jesus’ teaching has direct ethical implications today. The book was updated with additional material in 1994 to review the theological and sociological landscape since the first printing.

The book is 40 year old, and it shows its age. We miss the revolutionary impact today that it had in the 1970s because the main battle has been won. Yoder’s passionate defense of Jesus’ ethical-social relevance feels almost quaint in an age where that point has become a given. It’s akin to hearing arguments for the importance of wearing seat-belts. The war’s over.

Even though the main point’s commonplace now, the book is still worth reading for the wide variety of angles Yoder takes to support his thesis. When I read Hauerwas I’m amazed at the seemingly random conversion of stand-alone essays into chapters. Now I know where he got that style from! In one chapter, Yoder’s summarizing evidence for political relevance of Jesus throughout the Gospel of Luke. A few chapters later, he’s delving into the Stoic antecedents for the Haustafeln. This style might excite or terrify you, depending on how your brain’s wired.

I have to admit that Yoder stretches the exegetical evidence at times to strengthen his case. In the end, though, we’re left with a groundbreaking study on the political relevance of the Messiah.

• Life Is Mostly Edges: A Memoir © 2008
• Thomas Nelson
• xvi+318 pages

I judged this book by its cover and it paid off. Before picking up this memoir all I had was a recommendation from a colleague and the beautiful cover to go by. I knew that Miller had written a famous Christian fantasy trilogy, but I have never got around to reading it.

Miller hooked me from the first page. This is the sort of prose you’ll encounter:

Memory arrives sometime after we get here, and generally abandons us long before we leave here. So the umbilical trot that squirts us into the world is unremembered, and the EKG we need to keep it all going is likely to abandon us too suddenly to allow us to write it all down before our passing. (xiii)

Miller wrote his life story with the pen of a poet through the eyes of a story-teller. He discovers meaning in each chapter of his life.

I do wish he spent less time writing about his childhood and more about his life as a pastor, but that’s a selfish wish. In the end, each chapter is well worth reading and reflecting upon.

The final chapter is particularly fruitful for reflection. He asked himself what he would do differently if he had his life to live over again. His conclusions near the end of his life have certainly given me cause to think during the middle of mine.

• An Introduction to the Old Testament © 1994
  (Note: I read and reviewed the first edition. The link above connects to the second.)
• Zondervan
• 473 pages

While I don’t often read reference books cover-to-cover, I made an exception with this volume. I treated this book as a supplement to my regular Bible reading. Every time I read a different book in the Old Testament, I read the introduction to that book as well. For the last year or so, Dillard and Longman have been my dialogue partners as I read through the Hebrew Bible.

The book is laid out simply. After a brief introduction there is a chapter on every book in the Old Testament. This makes it a great work to jump in to and out of as needed. Each chapter follows the same form:

1. Historical Background: Who wrote the book in what setting?
2. Literary Analysis: What genre is the book and what is its literary merit?
3. Theological Message: What is the book trying to say?
4. Approaching the New Testament: How is this book used in the New Testament?

A few things set this work apart from the scores of Old Testament primers out there. Dillard and Longman are evangelical in perspective yet they have no problem interacting and dealing honestly with historical-critical perspectives. This is refreshing to see. I also appreciate the broader canonical perspective of the authors.

If you’re a thoughtful evangelical Christian looking to expand your understanding of the Old Testament as you read through it, I would encourage you to read this book.

• As One Devil to Another: A Fiendish Correspondence in the Tradition of C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters © 2012
• Tyndale House Publishers
• xi+192 pages

[At the end of this review, you'll have an opportunity to win a copy of the book.]

In 1941, The Guardian magazine published a series of letters from Senior Devil Screwtape to his student Wormwood. These were published as The Screwtape Letters (a book I’ve read numerous times) the following year.

At first, the technique seems gimmicky: instead of hierarchy, there’s lowerarchy; instead of Lord, there’s the Adversary. Once you wrap your head around the change of perspective, though, the genre really shines. In C. S. Lewis’ hands, this shift in perspective allowed him to dig deep into the nature of temptation and reveal the Enemy’s (ours, not Wormwood’s) sinister techniques.

I was nervous when I heard about Platt’s foray into the genre. To my surprise and delight, there was nothing to worry about. Lewis biographer Walter Hooper is right to say, “it reads as if C. S. Lewis himself had written it.”

It reads like Lewis on a couple different levels. First, consider the voice of the devils. Both Wormwood and Slashreap convey a demonic mix of arrogance, pride, academia, and bureaucracy. Mix in some dry British humour and you have some entertaining-yet-vaguely-terrifying imps.

As clever as the style of the work is, it is still just the wrapping on the gift. This book shines because of Platt’s insight into the human mind and the nature of temptation. Here are a few of my favourite examples:

On the Internet:

Now, every fool—and the most predatory corporations—has a voice equal in volume, and thus equal in value, to anyone else’s. Genuine expertise is silenced in the cacophony of opinion. No single voice, however sane and informed, is of any value at all. This takes the Man-in-the-Street Interview to even greater heights of absurdity. After all, when did the Man in the Street ever possess the thoughtfulness, education, perspective, patience, time for reflection, emotional depth, and reasoning skills to contribute anything? Once again, the Age of Narcissism brings Subjectivity to our aid. (126)

On Cellphones:

With them, … we separate each human from every other, and from their common humanity, by allowing them to ‘keep in touch’ (how does one not laugh?), maintaining their endless chatter at a conversational level of minimal sentience and maximum banality, feeding their narcissism while allowing them to be rude to two people simultaneously: the person to whom they are speaking and the other directly in front of them. (127-8)

On Modern Art:

The client listened in slack-jawed astonishment to the minx’s admiring assessment of the jewel-encrusted rhinoceros dung, which she proclaimed as Art. … With the elimination of objective standards of every kind, the very concept of Art will become as much a smudge and blur as our Philological Department has made of language. When all works of art finally have equal value, no work of art will have any value whatever. (93)

Platt’s book is stylistically delightful and piercingly incisive. This is a must-read for any fan of The Screwtape Letters or anyone interested in pulling the curtain back on the Devil’s strategy sessions.

Disclaimer: A review copy of this book was provided to me free of cost by Tyndale House Publishers.

…

I love the names Platt comes up with for his devils: Scardagger, Slashreap, Driptweak, Sneakweasel, etc. To win your own copy of this book, leave a comment with your best idea for a Devil’s name. I’ll pick the winner later this week with a random number generator and mail you a certificate for a free copy of your own.

• Killarney Provincial Park La Cloche Silhouette Trail Guide © 2006
• Friends of Killarney Park
• x+150 pages

This spring I’ll complete my third circuit of the 73 km hiking trail through Killarney Provincial Park. I already know the trail well. I was hoping that this guide might provide a little extra inspiration for late-winter training. I was disappointed.

The booklet covers what you’d expect: brief write-ups on hiking etiquette, short sections on wildlife and geology, and a description of every section of the trail. I was disappointed for a couple reasons:

1. The booklet is aimed at people with no hiking experience. I understand that you need to cover the basics, but this guide made me feel foolish for having read it (I get it, pine needles on rocks are slippery). If you need that sort of coaching, you should probably hike an easier trail before tackling the La Cloche Silhouette.
2. McCulloch could have used an experienced editor. There were enough exclamation marks in there to make me wonder whether this was an email conversation. (!) There were also major proof-reading mistakes like missing spaces between words. This just detracted from the majesty of the trail it was describing.

That said, the descriptions of the trail are accurate. I could picture many of the sites, sections, and hills I’ve hiked from reading McCulloch’s description. I suppose that’s what I bought it for after all.

• The Light Princess and Other Stories © 1980
• Eerdmans
• 171 pages

This is the third of four volumes Eerdmans put together in 1980 to collect all the short fantasy works of George MacDonald. I have been pleasantly surprised to discover that MacDonald, whose Victorian novels span six to eight hundred pages, is able to develop a compelling story in such a short number of words.

This volume contains five stories:

• “The Light Princess” (1864 from Adela Cathcart)
• “The Giant’s Heart” (1863 from Illustrated London News)
• “The Carasoyn” (1866, 1871 from Argosy, then expanded in Works)
• “Port in a Storm” (1866 from Argosy)
• “Papa’s Story” (1865 from Illustrated London News)

The collection is very strong. The title story manages to use quite a bit of humour to tell what turns out to be an intense story. “The Giant’s Heart” is a children’s story about two kids who stumble into giant country, but you don’t have to be a child to enjoy it. In it, MacDonald makes some brilliant sarcastic jabs against Sunday Morning legalism. “The Carasoyn” is another of MacDonald’s fairy stories that use traditional motifs to spin a compelling tale.

The last two stories are not fantasy stories at all. “Port in a Storm” is the story of how a husband and wife got together. (Who knew you could buy a wife with a case of Port?) This is probably the weakest story of the lot. The final story is deeply moving, especially if you’ve spent any time reflecting on the parable of the Prodigal Son.

Like the first two collections I’ve read in this series, MacDonald’s stories are always worth the time to track down and read.

• The Golden Key and Other Stories © 1980
• Eerdmans
• 165 pages

Eerdmans has done the modern world a fine service by collecting the short fantasy stories of George MacDonald into four volumes. The Golden Key and Other Fantasy Stories is the second of the four I’ve read (Here’s my review of The Wise Woman and Other Fantasy Stories).

This volume was a bit more of a mixed bag. The good stories were very good while the weak stories simply had to be endured. Here are the stories:

• “The Golden Key” (1867 from Dealings With Fairies)
• “The History of Photogen and Nycteris” (1879 from Graphic)
• “The Shadows” (1864 from Adela Cathcart)
• “The Gifts of the Child Christ” (1882 from The Gifts of the Child Christ, and Other Tales)

The title story is strong. It’s as a classic quest tale that evokes that sense of otherness MacDonald is so good at. “The History of Photogen and Nycteris” is another fine story. What happens when a young woman who has only ever known night meets a young man who has only ever known daylight? I can’t help but think that some of MacDonald’s descriptions of the woman encountering daylight for the first time informed C. S. Lewis’ short story, “The Man Born Blind”.

“The Shadows,” while interesting in concept, failed to sustain my interest. The last story is not even a work of fantasy, but a morality tale about an irritating servant.

All that said, I would re-buy this book in a heartbeat on the strength of either of the first two longer stories.

• Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons © 2006
• Harper Collins: HarperOne
• xvi+303 pages

Buechner’s writing is just plan beautiful. At times it has the potential to take your breath away. He combines deep spiritual insight—something only acquired through years of living with God—with a poet’s flair for prose.

Secrets in the Dark is a collection of sermons (with a couple addresses thrown in for good measure) spoken over the course of his life. As you read through them, you can see how God has led his life.

Here’s an example of the sort of beautiful insight I mentioned:

If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to be born both within ourselves and within the world; we would know that the Kingdom of God is what we all of us hunger for above all other things even when we don’t know its name or realize that it’s what we’re starving to death for. (“The Church” 149)

As a pastor, I don’t get to sit and take in many sermons. When I do have the opportunity, I have a tendency to pick apart the homily to see how it was constructed and what I would change. It’s been very healthy for me to hear these sermons. They’ve cut through my professional defenses and left a mark.

• The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives © 2008
• Vintage (Random House)
• xi+252

The Drunkard’s Walk is science writing at its best.

You start with someone who knows what their talking about. Mlodinow has a PhD in physics from the Berkeley and teaches at Caltech. If that’s not enough for you, he co-wrote A Briefer History of Time with Stephen Hawking.

The second element in good science writing is an interesting topic. Randomness fits the bill perfectly since it permeates every area of our lives. This allows Mlodinow to tell interesting stories about everything from Let’s Make A Deal to the track record of investment bankers.

This book is well structured, too. Rather than follow some text-book method of teaching, Mlodinow has organized the chapters around the history of this field of study. As you continue through the chapters, you encounter all the major theorists who have led the study of randomness.

The last element in a good science book is simply good writing. The quality of Mlodinow’s prose is excellent. Don’t expect flat technical writing here—he composes his sentences artfully.

This was the first book I’ve read by Mlodinow but it won’t be the last.