Books

Right now I'm reading In the Garden of Beasts, by master storyteller Erik Larson. It is the captivating story of William E. Dodd, U.S. ambassador to Germany during Hitler's rise to power. Dodd's young adult daughter Martha, a socialite who had affairs with the head of the Gestapo and a Russian spy, steals the show. Next I plan to read Stephen Ozment's sweeping survey A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People.

A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness. I'm a fan of the Twilight series and early Anne Rice. This promises to be a good read in the same vein. For some reason, the title brings to mind a murder of crows.

I began my first call to ministry 15 years ago. I wish that tucked into the moving boxes had been this slim volume by Kathleen Cahalan.

The Chatelet Apprentice, by Jean-François Parot. I've been re-invigorating my French with the mystery novels of  French diplomat Jean-François Parot. (Several titles are available in English.) As police commissioner Nicolas Le Floch works to solves crimes in 18th-century Paris, author Parot expands the plot with descriptions of the era's culture, political intrigues and haute cuisine.

Woody Guthrie: American Radical, by Will Kaufman. I love musician biographies; Humphrey Carpenter’s of Benjamin Britten is the most fascinating book I’ve read in years. I also love Guthrie’s music--he’s so much funnier and sharper-edged than the earnest troubadours who mimicked him in the 60s--and I’ll read anything about politics.

The term "summer reading" conjures up leisurely days immersed in fiction. I have a few items in that pile.

Up until now, my ideas about summer reading were driven largely by guilt. My bookshelf is packed to the gills with books that I "should" read:  books people have given me and I need to return, or books that have been sitting there so long, I have given myself ultimatums--either read this or get rid of it.

Does Jeffrey Stout's church have a god? One might say his god is democracy. But surely democracy is an ethic rather than a theology.

David Tracy once distinguished three audiences for the theologian: the church, the general public and the academic community. Joseph Ratzinger has spoken powerfully to all three.

Musicophilia, by Oliver Sacks. This promises to be a fascinating, in-depth account of the physiological/psychological/emotive effects music has on us.

For a majority of mainline Christians, the NRSV is the biblical translation of choice. But the KJV is the English-language Bible on which all others stand.