I found this epistolary novel through the Christianity Today 2022 book awards, where it received honorable mention for fiction. The glowing reviews on Amazon countered my usual reluctance to order a book sight unseen. As a very casual birdwatcher (and keeper of pigeons), the idea of bird-watching nuns intrigued me. As the author of an unpublished epistolary novel, the format hooked me. And references to coffee, cancer, and marriage reeled me in.
Tag Archives: Christianity
Winter Reading Roundup, Part III: Influential Firsts
Phantastes, by George MacDonald
The influence of this Scottish author and minister is most famously cited in connection with C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia as well as other works of fiction and nonfiction. But George MacDonald (1824-1905) is often described as the father of modern fantasy and credited with inspiring a host of other early- and mid-twentieth century authors.
I have blogged elsewhere about the suitability of fairy stories for winter reading (click here for the post). December seemed a good time to commence my long-intended re-reading of MacDonald’s classic. When I first read Phantastes some thirty years ago, it left me, in the main, puzzled. Last fall I waded through The Faerie Queen (or rather, let all sixty hours of the audiobook wash over me). Despite my lamentable inattention to Spenser’s meandering masterpiece, familiarity with The Faerie Queen did enhance my appreciation for MacDonald’s imagery and the protagonist’s journey through faerieland.
Filed under book review
Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis
I first read Till We Have Faces in high school, thirty-plus years ago. Most of it went over my head, and my overall impression was rather dull and dismal–a conception not entirely off the mark, as much of the internal life of Orual, the main character, amounts to that.
But my faith in Lewis, along with a recent renewed interest in fairy stories and Greek mythology, inspired me to try again. I was not disappointed in my expectations of a deeper, richer experience this time around. Lewis considered Till We Have Faces, his final novel, to be his best work.
Filed under book review
Everything Sad Is Untrue, by Daniel Nayeri
I can’t remember the last time a book hijacked my day. Middle school, maybe? That was quite some time ago. Once, shortly after we were married, my husband came home from work and we started reading The Last Battle together aloud. We didn’t stop until we’d finished it. But that was only one evening.
Nayeri’s memoir exerted its magnetism on me through multiple channels–my personal interest in Nayeri’s home country of Iran; the myths and legends he seeds throughout the narrative; and the meandering nature of the storytelling, enticing the reader on, if for no other reason than to find out, “Where is he going with this?”
Filed under book review, children's literature, young adult
The Shattering of Loneliness: On Christian Remembrance, by Erik Varden
I read this short volume a month or so ago, but Holy Week strikes me as an appropriate time to review it. The title is a trifle misleading, in that Varden (b. 1974), a Benedictine monk from Norway, writes not so much about loneliness as about the whole of the Christian life. Loneliness, nevertheless, provides an apt starting point from which to approach theology; the basis of Christianity is God’s drawing near to us and, thus, drawing believers into fellowship with one another.
Loneliness is also uniquely relevant during these weeks and months in which people all over the world have intentionally, and largely voluntarily, isolated themselves as a precaution against COVID 19. Nevertheless, viewed from another perspective, not since WWII have people around the globe been united in their vulnerability and response to a single crisis. Continue reading
Filed under Bible, book review
Forty Women and Me: Musings on Loss and The Wonder Years, edited by Leslie Leyland Fields
In this season in which I and my home are being inundated with belongings, it is loss that I feel most keenly: the house that was my husband’s childhood home and mother-in-law’s abode for 55+ years; family history in the form of heirlooms, papers, books, and embroidered linens; and the woman who has been slowly slipping away from us for the past three years.
Me
In the shuffle of moving, bringing home, and sending away, countless things have been lost, overlooked, or misplaced. Keys, library books, homework, Benjamins, memories (literally), sick chickens, broken mirrors, spilled milk, burnt rice, “the Alaska Letters,” and the book Leslie Leyland Fields gave me to review just before this whirlwind of relocation descended upon us. Continue reading
Filed under book review, Uncategorized
Girl at Arms, by Jaye Bennett
Notwithstanding the remarkable youth of the historical Joan of Arc, I wouldn’t have automatically assumed her a ready subject for a middle grade novel. Of course it’s impossible not to admire her courage and determination, and I recognize that she must be considered in the context of her times. But let’s just say that her story has the potential to be a little … troubling.
For starters there are the voices. Not that I don’t believe in visions, but the question of whether God would employ them for the defense of a European monarch has always raised doubts in my mind. Then there’s the fact that Joan was leading armies into battle, which inevitably involves violence. And then there’s the ending: she gets burned at the stake. That alone was enough to make me a reluctant reader. Continue reading
Filed under book review, history, young adult
Unapologetic, by Francis Spufford
Francis Spufford’s Unapologetic is a witty, engaging defense of Christian faith from a respected British writer. For this reason alone I wanted to like it. It is directed toward those whose a priori assumption is that there is no place for God in modern society–that intellect, education, and science have rendered belief in Him obsolete and irrational. Another reason I wanted to be able to endorse it. And I did, to all and sundry, throughout my reading of the first two-thirds of the book.
Spufford’s graphic descriptions of the reality of sin and its consequences effectively illustrate our dire need for grace–not just for those who have tragically destroyed their lives, but all of us. It is all well and good, he says, for atheists to urge us to relax, forget about God, and enjoy life. But to do so presupposes that our default state is peace, love, and joy. Anyone who is honest will admit that these are states that we have to work at and that we achieve, if at all, very temporarily and in part.
Filed under Bible, book review, Uncategorized
Conservative Bookseller
Fantasy/sci-fi author Ursula LeGuin (The Telling, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Dispossessed) spoke on censorship at the Eugene (Oregon) library in March of this year. She made the comment that “Any belief, any unbelief, is dangerous if it is adopted, enforced, accepted as the only acceptable ideology” (Register Guard, March 25, 2012, p. B4). I appreciate her acknowledgement (as a sometimes object of conservative censorship) that “theism and atheism can be equally dangerous.” But I have a slightly different perspective on the reason that censorship is a risky undertaking. Continue reading
Filed under Bible