What I’ve been Reading: Spring Edition
Once upon a time…
I worked at a conservative magazine. I had the opportunity to write almost every day and as poor as those efforts were at times, I enjoyed it. One item I wrote was a ‘what I’m reading column.’ These things can seem like humble brags and perhaps they are, but they also forced me to reflect on what I’ve read. Thus, I’m continuing the tradition here. With that, here’s what I’ve been reading over the past 6 months.
Dune
by Frank Herbert
Dune is a sci-fi/fantasy novel of some renown. I came across it on Patrick Rothfuss’ list of top fantasy novels. I had heard of Dune and vaguely knew it was about a desert planet, but that was about it. It was an enjoyable read and I got through it quickly. A young prince finds himself the subject of an ancient philosophy and with a doomed father, must grow in cunning and skill in order to survive. In this way, it mirrors so many other of these novels, but what Dune does differently is it’s world building. So often, fantasy authors spend massive amounts of time and effort in acclimating the reader to the fantasy world. Herbert doesn’t do that nearly as much. He gives the reader context clues and allows the reader to piece together the mythos on his own. I appreciated that. However, I found the ending weak. Hundreds of pages are invested in telling the protagonist’s story and when the climax of action occurs, details are scant and resolution comes quickly. Additionally, characters who had no previous development play large roles in the resolution of the story.
The Last Unicorn
by Peter S. Beagle
This was another recommendation by Patrick Rothfuss, an author I really enjoy, he named it the first or second best book he had ever read. I couldn’t follow him in that high of praise. I thought the story was rich and deep and avoided cliches. It also mirrored Dune in that it didn’t spend a lot of time explaining the world or giving intricate details on how things work. The strongest points of the work is it’s mirroring of elements of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth (or the Gospel if you’re a believer)However, in the end, there wasn’t much to it. It was a relatively straight-forward story with little surprises.
The Doctrine of Repentance
by Thomas Watson
I’m working on a separate post detailing what I pulled from this short work of the Puritan Thomas Watson. In short, it brings clarity to a surprisingly under-discussed element of the Christian life, repentance.
The Last Lion: Visions of Glory, Alone, Defender of the Realm
by William Manchester and Paul Reid
It is hard to capture the sheer breadth of effort and historical research that Manchester (with a post-mortem assist from Reid) completed in these works. Churchill is a fascinating figure and any attempt on my part to capture him in a paragraph is doomed to failure. In short, here was a man who fought in colonial wars, escaped from a prison camp, found himself in His Majesty’s cabinet in World War 1, toiled in obscurity after that conflict, all the while shouting that Hitler was a menace years before anyone else. This was all before his turn as the greatest statesman of World War II. And oh yeah, FDR is super overrated. Read these books.
The Imperfect Pastor
by Zack Eswine
Zack Eswine has a pastor’s heart. From the opening chapter, it bleeds through the pages. He cares deeply for people and desperately wants to care for them. He also carries the scars that come from years in pastoral ministry. He’s preached funerals, he’s seen what sin can do to individuals, to church leaders, to marriages (including his own). For this reason, Eswine’s book is bittersweet, but as he rightly points out, with Christ, the sweet is always so much greater than the bitter. And this is where his hope for pastors lays. He recognizes how the desire to be a hero for Christ, a grand visionary, a thought leader, and all the other lies we tell ourselves to feed our pride only serves to remove our reliance on Christ. And thus, we remove the power from our ministries. Eswine’s call is a return to simple life in simple places that is supernaturally powered by the Holy Spirit and our love for Jesus. Amen.
