Books

"In 2010 we decided to do a quarterly print magazine," says Englewood Review of Books editor C. Christopher Smith. "We felt like we were moving against the cultural tide."

The Century asked Thomas G. Long, Barbara Brown Taylor, Scott Cairns and Kathleen Norris to describe their daily routines with the written word.

Kevin Brockmeier’s characters ignore the divine fabric of the universe even when they are shaping it. Lauren Groff takes an opposite tack.

For the last three decades, Lamin Sanneh has been a reliable and perceptive guide for those of us trying to think through interfaith issues, rethink missions and understand Christianity in its global reach. When I discovered Sanneh, I found his angle on Islamic/Christian conversation to be a provocative and refreshing relief from some of the fluff we were getting on that topic. Sanneh’s was also the first voice I heard to renovate the commonly accepted negative view of Christian missions.

Reading fiction has done more to baptize my imagination, inform my faith and strengthen my courage than any prayer technique has.

My writing life has become increasingly dependent upon my reading life, so much so that I generally begin my writing day by reading a new or newish volume of poetry (or the occasional richly textured work of fiction).

"Isn’t that an off-brand religion?” One of my son’s soon-to-be-relatives asked this question when he was introduced as having grown up in a Mennonite family. If Mennonites are off-brand to many Americans, then Pentecostals might be known as firebrands. The average person knows very little about either faith. Rhoda Janzen, who has moved from the former to the latter, brings awareness to both.

My daily reading is tethered to the rhythms of the sun. In the evening, there is the slow burn of the substantial book beside the easy chair, which I savor in small portions. Early mornings are marked by a different pattern.

Here’s the thing about Jürgen Moltmann. Almost everything he says, you feel you’ve read somewhere before. Now there could be two explanations for this. One, that he’s a creature of fashion: that, like everyone, he speaks out on the environment; on the analogy between the discourse on human rights and the relation to soil, sea and sky; on justice for the oppressed; on God’s coming future. Or two, that he’s a creator of fashion.

Burrell’s memoir is driven by Jung’s observation that the story of our lives is the story of our times, and it is our task to see how that is the case.

I have lately been reading stories of the desert monastics, collected by the monk John Moschos in the seventh century. I don’t think I get it. My pattern has been to feel slightly offended—sometimes even disgusted—by a story, and then walk away from it, wander around for awhile and finally realize that the story was probably a joke. In its own context, the main thing it elicited was probably laughter. But for me the humor is so strange, so wry, so unexpected that I don’t perceive it for hours.

"Noise is not the most important problem in the world," Garret Keizer begins. But he makes a robust case for noise's far-reaching effects.

In The Clash Within, Martha Nussbaum explored the capacity to entertain the other as key to a democratic society. Now she considers angry resistance to the other, bringing her usual erudite analysis and intense moral passion.