reading
Christians should read books
Jessica Hooten Wilson helps us to see reading as a form of holy play.
Underlined words
As it tells the story of our time, the Century makes readers and writers of us all.
A path back together through reading contemplative classics
My students and I are finding our way into the world again with Evagrius, Teresa of Ávila, and Howard Thurman.
Grab a book. It’s good for your health.
That’s one good thing about sheltering in place.
Children’s books for tough conversations
We asked 11 writers to tell us about a book that opens up space for adults and children to discuss important questions.
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The Century and the forgetting curve
We read, forget, and are formed anyway.
Carried by a song of words
I read a book of poems straight through without stopping. I couldn't help it.
When Jane Tompkins couldn’t move, she read
Confined by illness, the feminist literary scholar dove into the complete works of V.S. Naipaul and Paul Theroux.
Read and left unread
A tall stack of books on the floor of my bedroom greets me each morning. Its very presence is exhausting.
The literary pastor
One pastor in New Orleans would end every examination by asking, “What is your favorite work of fiction?” The other ministers collectively groaned. But I applauded the question. To be in South Louisiana meant being in a land of stories. As this NYT article observed, South Louisiana is “a place that produces writers the way that France produces cheese—prodigiously, and with world-class excellence.”
Shelf space
Recently my wife and I moved, and the time came to decide which books I could live without. I dreaded it.
Praying Jane Eyre
My student hasn’t allegorized Jane Eyre as Origen did the Bible. But she wrestles with passages until the text gives her a blessing.
Reading habits: Fall books
The Century asked Thomas G. Long, Barbara Brown Taylor, Scott Cairns and Kathleen Norris to describe their daily routines with the written word.
Saved by fiction: Reading as a Christian practice
Reading fiction has done more to baptize my imagination, inform my faith and strengthen my courage than any prayer technique has.
How our minds have changed
Computers are changing the way we think. "Calm, focused,
undistracted, the linear mind is being pushed aside by a new kind of
mind that wants and needs to take in and dole out information in short,
disjointed, often overlapping bursts—the faster, the better." This is
probably not a good thing, says Nicholas Carr.
Time for poetry
When I am blessed with a little more leisure time than usual, I like to spend some of it with poetry.