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Welcome to StephenBarkley.com. This is where I post all the stuff I've been thinking, praying, speaking, and writing about. Thanks for reading.
The Canterbury Tales © 2011 Bloomsbury 143 pages After thoroughly enjoying Chwast’s take on Dante, I was excited to snag a review copy of his Cantebury Tales. Unfortunately, expectations exceeded reality. Chwast’s simple graphic style seemed too simplistic here. That leaves you with the story to carry the book. While The Divine Comedy seemed suited [...]
The Christian Writer’s Market Guide – 2012 © 2011 Tyndale House Publishers xix+552 pages This book is pure motivation. Every time I flip through the pages, I think of something new to write about. Here’s how this 500+ page book breaks down: A list of Book Publishers. This section is organized by category, so you [...]
The Pastor: A Memoir © 2011 HarperOne 317 pages In my personal hierarchy of “Most Important Books I’ve Ever Read”, two always rise to the top: Mere Christianity (C. S. Lewis), and A Celebration of Discipline (Richard Foster). Everything else suffers by comparison . . . until now. Meet the most important book I’ve read [...]
Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence © 2004 Brazos Press: Baker 252 pages Hauerwas is always challenging and thought-provoking. This work on Bonhoeffer is no different. In Performing the Faith, Hauerwas uses Bonhoeffer’s life to show how Christians can be creative in their practice of non-violence (of course, that’s an extremely reductive [...]
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us © 2009 Riverhead (2011) 272 pages I’m torn about how to write this review. I think I’ll have to proceed with two perspectives: 1. The Idea. Despite the mild hyperbole in the subtitle (“The Surprising Truth”), the thesis of Pink’s book is inspirational and well-grounded. Motivating people [...]
For the Love of Physics: From the End of the Rainbow to the Edge Of Time – A Journey Through the Wonders of Physics © 2011 Free Press: Simon & Schuster xvi+302 pages Like a lot of people, I was introduced to Walter Lewin through his compelling physics lectures from MIT, which are freely available [...]
Web © 1979 Penguin (1980) 141 pages Web is a posthumously published novel by one of the last century’s greatest science fiction writers: John Wyndham. Like his more famous works (i.e. The Chrysalids, The Day of the Triffids), Web rides the line between science fiction and horror—this time swerving more towards horror. Lord Foxfield was [...]
Colossians and Philemon © 1986 Tyndale New Testament Commentaries Eerdmans 192 pages Long before the massive Christian Origins and the Question of God, long before “The Right Reverend Father in God, by Divine Providence Lord Bishop of Durham”, we had N. T. Wright, Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey. While some the later themes of Wright’s [...]
Interpreting Martin Luther: An Introduction to His Life and Thought © 2008 Regent College Publishing 345 pages Interpreting Martin Luther is a seminary course converted into a book. Each of the twelve chapters correspond to the twelve classroom lectures in the semester. Having taken the course from the author a little less than a decade [...]
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen © 2009 Vintage: Random House 287 pages “It simply makes you want to run.” I bought this book because of that blurb from Outside Magazine on the inside of the cover. They’re absolutely right. After all the chapters are [...]
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