Books
A poet’s quarrel with herself
Danielle Chapman’s lustrous memoir is at its best when she holds her family’s Confederate history up to the light.
For love of Dante
Angela Alaimo O’Donnell writes, in 39 poems, a charmingly backhanded love letter to the Italian poet.
Piercing the veil
Zach Williams’s stories of everyday life are propelled by strange turns of events, like a dad discovering his son’s sixth toe in the bath.
Does Nathan Hill wink at us in Wellness?
Why are non-White characters so absent from this urban/suburban narrative?
A Lincoln parable
Civil War historian Allen Guelzo documents Lincoln’s faith—not in God but in the American experiment.
Dear God, you can do better
Two Episcopal priests tell God exactly how they feel about being seriously ill.
The prophetic ministry of the pulpit
Jonathan Augustine makes a strong case for preaching that is both divinely inspired and socially determined.
The forgotten victims of Nazi genocide
Jewish historian Ari Joskowicz tells the story of Hitler’s attempt to wipe out the Roma people.
Was Paul disabled?
Isaac Soon employs a sociocultural model of disability as a lens for reading the apostle’s letters.
Illuminating Qohelet through art and philosophy
Debra Band and Menachem Fisch’s beautiful creation is not your typical Ecclesiastes commentary.
A different kind of poverty memoir
Dana Trent’s heartbreaking and hilarious book eschews the conventional American rags-to-riches arc.
Inside a church’s implosion
Eliza Griswold profiles a progressive evangelical church that sought to do things differently but fell prey to the usual problems.
Written by the oppressor, sung by the oppressed
James Walvin traces a beloved American hymn on its winding journey across racial divisions through the centuries.
Finding ourselves in a Nigerian war novel
Chigozie Obioma offers a narrative that transcends bullets and politics.
A novel about (not) writing an essay
Rosalind Brown’s debut novel could be understood as a midrash on Montaigne’s metaphor of the mind as runaway horse.
The strengths and limitations of Saul Alinsky’s approach
Mark Santow’s intellectual biography of the influential organizer explores how his Chicago coalitions wrestled with the challenges of race.
Debating the nature of Jesus
A thoughtful book that includes a lively conversation between New Testament scholars Bart Ehrman and Michael Bird
The puzzle at the heart of Mormonism
Historian Richard Lyman Bushman investigates his own tradition’s most mysterious miracle.
The gender phantasm
Judith Butler seeks to understand how and why the word gender has taken on such apocalyptic proportions, including among Christians.
The humanity of human smugglers
Anthropologist Jason De León charts the desperation, grief, and friendships of the Central American guías who bring migrants across borders.