Books

Reynolds Price says that Hemingway yearned for “sanctity.” I’m not sure what to make of that, but Hemingway’s general yearning is clear.

Our spring books issue includes the following annotated lists of top new titles: Old Testament, theology and ethics.

Wendy Farley formulates a theology of Wisdom incarnate--unleashed by divine desire, found in ordinary life and born in a manger.

Fred Gaiser offers a sober, accessible review of the biblical materials pertinent to our thinking about healing.

Jeffrey C. Pugh and Tripp York are Facebook friends. Both teach religion at southern institutions of higher learning. Last year, each wrote a good-natured book about Satan.

The Census Bureau avoids collecting data about religion. So most of what we know is based on what people reveal to independent researchers.

In Suzanne Collins's trilogy, and the recent movie adaptation of the first book, the Hunger Games are a nationally-televised spectacle in which 24 randomly chosen teenagers are forced to fight to the death in a man-made arena. The annual Hunger Games are an instrument of oppression by the Capitol--the center of totalitarian power that survived a rebellion--to remind the 12 districts under its power just how powerless they are. The citizens of the Capitol love the Hunger Games. To them it is pure entertainment. To the citizens of the 12 subservient districts, it is a form of torture. Their children and neighbors become murderers or victims, and they are forced to watch (literally--viewing is mandatory). There is a paradox at the heart of The Hunger Games' appeal.

My wife and I used to visit a bookstore at least once a week. We can’t anymore, unless we drive 20 minutes to the now nearest one.

Jay Rubenstein offers a lively and well-researched history of the First Crusade. He has a gift for making thousand-year-old history both exciting and relevant.

The Common English Bible boasts that 120 scholars worked on it. The Kingdom New Testament was written by one (brilliant) guy.

While Suzanne Collins’s trilogy does not have overt Christian themes, it does offer a social vision familiar to Christians.

A cynical little demon perched on my shoulder as I began reading Philip Jenkins's Laying Down the Sword, which is more Old Testament exegesis and hermeneutics than anything else.

Ralph Wood, who calls himself a Bapto-Catholic, is certainly qualified to write on the militant Catholic Chester­ton, who seldom withheld his fire and fury except when he settled for expressing disdain for Protestantism and other "unorthodox" versions of Christianity.

More books have been published about Stanley Cavell than he has written himself. Why?