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Her.meneutics is edited by associate editor Katelyn Beaty and online editor Sarah Pulliam Bailey.

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August 17, 2009

So, How Are Those Summer Reading Lists Coming?

How to read the Bible in an age of anxiety; plus three book reviews from Christine A. Scheller.

Alicia Cohn and Christine A. Scheller

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With the end of summer in sight, your summer reading list is probably still untouched. If so, you are not alone. Los Angeles Times book editor David L. Ulin wrote last week on “the lost art of reading,” in which he muses on his past as an avid lover of the printed word and wonders what happened to his craving for books.

Our attention-deficit-inducing era of video games, multi-tab browsers, and YouTube videos hasn’t been around that long. If you’re like Ulin, you might have grown up devouring books only to find yourself now reading this, wondering, When was the last time I didn’t have to remind myself to sit down and read? Ulin admits that “some nights it takes 20 pages to settle down,” and only then by forcing himself to stay focused. He writes:

Today, it seems it is not contemplation we seek but an odd sort of distraction masquerading as being in the know. Why? Because of the illusion that illumination is based on speed, that it is more important to react than to think, that we live in a culture in which something is attached to every bit of time.

Ulin raises another question when he writes, “There is the fixity of the text, which doesn't change whether written yesterday or a thousand years ago." When Ulin writes that “reading has become an act of meditation,” he is talking about text itself — any text. But as Christians, perhaps we ought to consider this as a matter of biblical importance. As Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever,” and so is the Bible as the written revelation of him. How difficult is it for Christians in the digital age to sit still and allow the unchanging Word of God to permeate what Ulin calls “the buzz . . . a series of disconnected riffs and fragments that add up to the anxiety of the age”? Or, as Ulin put it, “How do we immerse in something (an idea, an emotion, a decision) when we are no longer willing to give ourselves the space to reflect?”

Alicia Cohn is an intern at Christianity Today magazine. She has written previous blog posts for Her.meneutics on marriage in Florida, the Breast Cancer Bible, and The Stoning of Soraya M.

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I’ve finished three of the six books on my summer reading list. Before Prozac: The Troubled History of Mood Disorders in Psychiatry will probably most interest those who either take psychotropic drugs themselves or have loved ones who do.

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The author, Edward Shorter, is a medical historian at the University of Toronto, but his book reads like investigative journalism. He explains how effective psychiatric medications were driven out of drugstores as the FDA asserted its power in the 1960s, and as concerns about “addiction” gained cultural dominance. This second point reminded me of renowned pain specialist Kathleen M. Foley's work, in which she has dispelled misconceptions about pain management within the same cultural context. Shorter also explores how the diagnosis of depression came to replace anxiety as a primary description of general malaise. He says this change has less to do with science than with politics and expired patents. What he’d like to see is a revival in psychiatric research that leads to diagnosis and therapeutics shaped less by external pressures and more by intellectual rigor and precision. Here, here!

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The second book I read this summer is Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, by renowned religion sociologist Robert Bellah. This book, his most famous, nicely complemented Beyond Prozac in tracing and analyzing the advent of a therapeutic, individualistic approach to life in the U.S. Reading the self-perceptions of various interview subjects, I felt as if I was reading my own thoughts and those of my family and friends. Of these subjects, the authors generously conclude, “If there are vast numbers of a selfish, narcisstic ‘me’ generation in America, we did not find them, but we certainly did find that the language of individualism, the primary American language of self-understanding, limits the ways in which people think.” This meme verges on passe at this point, but it bears reminding how we got where we are.

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The third book is an antidote of sorts to the first two. So Brave, Young, and Handsome is veteran NPR reporter Leif Enger's sophomore effort. Having enjoyed the characters, redemptive themes, and surprising supernatural elements in Peace Like a River, I hoped, if not for more of the same, at least for as much creativity. While this novel employs similar themes, it’s a slower, more subtly imaginative story. Enger uses the occasion of following up his first triumph as a wry framing tool in this work. Anticipating that readers like me will be hungry for particular scenes, Enger tips a hat to us, but doesn’t feed our hunger. This reveals both skill and humor, I think. Again, there’s a flight from the law, with salvation coming not only to the criminal but to other characters as well. It’ll be fun to see to how Enger uses his spare journalistic prose and rich storytelling in the future.

As to the other three books on my list, Honoring the Body by Stephanie Paulsell is on my nightstand, but I haven’t even ordered Simon Chan’s Liturgical Theology and Spiritual Theology yet. With the end of summer fast approaching, I doubt I’ll get to these anytime soon. I’m really in the mood for another work of fiction. What suggestions do you have for a rich, engaging novel that I could find at a public library?

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty on August 17, 2009 10:59 AM

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Finished reading aloud with my wife:
unChristian
The Myth Of A Christian Religion by Greg Boyd

I've read:
NonViolence by Mark Kurlansky
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
Myths America Lives By by Richard Hughes
The Sacredness Of Questioning Everything by David Dark
In The Land Of Invented Languages by Arika Okrent
Devil On The Cross by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Muslims, Christians & Jesus by Carl Medearis
Seeing by Jose Saramago
And the Ass Saw The Angel by Nick Cave
Sophia journal vol. 14
Making Disciples Of Oral Learners by Avery Willis
House Of Mystery Vol. 1 by Matthew Sturges
Northlanders Vol. 1 by Brian Wood
50 Reasons People Give for Believing In A God by Guy Harrison

Currently Reading:
Radical Christian Writings (A Reader)
The Violence Of Love by Oscar Romero
War 6 & Other Stories by Anton Chekhov
The Five Books Of Moses (Translation & Commentary) by Robert Alter

This list may be a bit buffered with some May (and possibly even April) readings, but it's mostly my summer '09 list.

I'd have to say that *none* of the above are not worth the read...if you have not read Devil On The Cross or The Satanic Verses, I strongly recommend them for fiction.

Posted By: Jordan Peacock | August 17, 2009 12:38 PM

Wow Jordan, I'd be working on that list for months! I'll check out your two fiction recommenations to start. Thanks!

Posted By: cas | August 17, 2009 12:57 PM

Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry and Willa Cather's My Antonia.

Posted By: dana m. | August 17, 2009 2:08 PM

I love reading. There is just something about picking up a good book and burrying yourself in it. It can be relaxing and enjoyable at the same time it is thought provoking and convicting. I wish I had more time to do it.
These are some of the books I've read this summer:

Non-Fiction:
With Justice for All: A strategy for Community Development by John Perkins

Not For Sale: The Return of The Global Slave Trade and How We Can Fight It

A Crime So Monstrous- Face to Face with Modern Day Slavery
Just Courage: God's Great Expedition for the Restless Christian

Good News About Injustice- A Witness of Courage in a Hurting World

Submerge: Living Deep in a Shallow World: Service, Justice and Contemplation Among the World's Poor

Profiles in Murder: An FBI Legend Dissects Killers and Their Crimes

The Case for the Real Jesus: A Journalist Investigates Current Attacks on the Identity of Christ

Mindhunters by John Douglas

The Cases the Haunt Us by John Douglas
Russia: The Once and Future Empire From Pre-History to Putin

Russia and the Russians: A History

The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God's Call to Justice

Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God

Fiction:
I reread all 7 Harry Potter books in wait for the new movie

Wizards First Rule and Blood of the Fold by Terry Goodkind

So Say We All: An Unauthorized Collection of Thoughts and Opinions on Battlestar Galactica

And Then There Were None and Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

I am kind of random when it comes to what I read. I don't actually really stick to any reading list I create. I pick up a book that looks interesting or has a theme I want to explore.

Posted By: Anna | August 17, 2009 2:26 PM

Dana,

My Antonia is an all-time favorite.

Anna, That's quite a list too. Glad to hear you're random. I think of my self as eclectic, but random is probably a better word. I don't think I've read anything on your list, so thanks : )

Posted By: Christine A. Scheller | August 17, 2009 3:21 PM

Thanks Christine. I've been blessed with the ability to read really fast, so I can get through a book in a few hours, depending on how long it is. I love reading.

My favorite two were Good News About Injustice- A Witness of Courage in a Hurting World and Just Courage: God's Great Expedition for the Restless Christian. I highly recommend them for those who want to be challenged to think beyond themselves.

Posted By: Anna | August 17, 2009 4:01 PM

How could I forget my new fav, Home by Marilynne Robinson. I've read it twice already. Marvelous. I enjoyed Peace Like a River too and plan to read his other. Thanks for this fun post.

Posted By: dana m. | August 18, 2009 8:10 AM

I also read Nancy Guthrie's Hearing Jesus Speak Into Your Sorrow and Churched by Matthew Paul Turner this summer.

I found Nancy's book helpful until the chapter on God's sovereignty. I cannot embrace the idea that God ordained my son to take his own life. I'm more comfortable thinking that there is mystery to where his sovereignty begins and ends. So, haven't finished it yet.

Churched is a memoir of growing up "fundamentalist." Amusing, but the author doesn't tell us how & why he came to leave his childhood conception of faith and the characters (other than his own family members) begin to feel like charicatures as the book goes on.

Dana, I think I might pick up Home. It's gotten good review, except I believe, from my co-blogger LaVonne Neff who wrote about it on her own blog, Lively Dust. I also bought my mom Pat Conroy's new novel, South of Broad, which I may confiscate if she doesn't start reading soon.

Posted By: Christine A. Scheller | August 18, 2009 8:53 AM

Nancy's view on sovereignty makes me cringe. I've been reading Christopher Wright's The God i Don't Understand and have found it helpful and balanced.

The best and most hopeful I've ever read on this subject is The Doors of the Sea by David Bentley Hart. He takes on some really bad theology and comes out a winner in my eyes. "...when I see the death of a child, I do not see the face of God but the face of his enemy."

Posted By: dana m. | August 18, 2009 10:10 AM

I would rather read than do just about anything else in the world. Sadly, having a 3 year old, plus morning sickness pretty much limits my reading time. So sad. I did find the time to recently finish one of my childhood favorites by Louisa May Alcott, Rose in Bloom. Oh, for more reading time!

Posted By: Robyn | August 18, 2009 11:17 AM

thanks for that dana. i appreciate dbh. commenting from the beach w/ new phone. should be reading a book!

Posted By: christine a. scheller | August 18, 2009 1:18 PM

Robyn, I need to read that book. I loved Louisa May Alcott as a child. Little Women was my favorite book, and I enjoyed the sequels as well. I have not read Rose in Bloom, though. I will hunt for it in the library.

Posted By: Anna | August 18, 2009 1:57 PM

Comcast’s On Demand service has a Movie Collection called “Summer Reading List” running until 9/4. It’s under Top Picks/Movie Collections. They have a lot of great classics - “The Great Gatsby ” was one of my favorites. Could really help kids who have been procrastinating this summer!

Posted By: barbiejstar | August 19, 2009 3:06 PM

I think I may be an addict, because I get twitchy when I don't have a book on hand. :D

I don't read as much non-fiction as I'd like these days, save the National Post every morning, because the good stuff is usually hard to read in small interrupted spurts on the bus - I got some Alvin Plantinga for my birthday two months ago; fantastic, but bus reading it is not, so it's been novels lately. A handful of titles I've read or re-read in the past weeks or months include Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series, Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers, Alastair Reynolds' The Prefect, C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower series (except Admiral Hornblower), Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander, Steven R. Lawhead's Scarlet and Tuck, and Will Eisner's The Spirit. Good uses of time, all of them. But the recent book that's touched and surprised me more deeply than the average work of fiction? Mike Mignola's Hellboy (Volume 2, library edition).

It would be ironic indeed to dismiss Hellboy on the basis of its title alone, because it is a story largely about the relationship (or lack thereof) between name and identity. It's a strange and beautiful redemption story about a fallen creature born that way who makes a daily habit of rejecting that nature and living as something better (sound familiar to you? It's the story of my life, though I'm not so good at the 'daily' part). It's an oddity of its genre, a supernatural fantasy that is mature and respectful of its supernatural subject matter, and is on good terms with the Church. Mignola uses short story format to tell his tales, each of them taking their cue from existing Old World folk stories, so although there is an overarching story arc, most Hellboy stories can be read as stand-alones. With interesting characters, thoughtful explorations of nature, choice, destiny, and hope, a sense of humour alternately whimsical and morbid, and a main character who more or less defines the phrase "loveable curmudgeon" and is an oddly charming mixture of difficult child and grumpy old man, Mike Mignola's Hellboy is not only groundbreaking art - it's a great adult read.

To get a sense of what Hellboy's all about, look up the stories "Pancakes" and "Box Full of Evil" (coincidentally, the first and final stories in the collection I read. They really sum it up, so good editing!). Both reduce me to tears, both for different reasons. Both say a lot about the goodness of God, in their own way. I also wrote something even more long-winded than this about it on my blog; as I said, Hellboy's touched me deeply.

Though I must stress, if you're going to read it, only read the stuff directly written by Mike Mignola. He lets other writers and artists publish Hellboy stories, but they tend to miss the point and veer into emo "it's cool to be hopeless!" or "demons are cool!" territory - both of which are antithetical to Mignola's story, and the exact opposite of what makes it good.

Posted By: elly | August 20, 2009 1:00 PM

Elly, are you me? We both seem to share an affinity for science fiction and fantasy. I grew up reading Heinlein. I haven't read those two by Lawhead yet. I will have to check them out because I've loved his other books.

I agree with you on Hellboy. It is one of the most beautiful comic book series' out there in terms of message.

Posted By: Anna | August 20, 2009 2:08 PM

Okay, my hyper-literate commenting friends! You've put me to serious shame. I need to take notes on this thread!

Was just going to say that I finished Nancy Guthrie's Hearing Jesus Speak into My Sorrow and liked it overall. The chapter I did not care for inspired a good family discussion last night about whether God allows or ordains suffering & evil. One for ordains. Two for allows or some combination. One abstention (watching Sci-Fi on TV instead).

Also ordered Spiritual Theology and Liturgical Theology by Simon Chan from IVPress.com yesterday. They are offering 40% off your entire order through today (Friday 8/21) using the coupon code: SOC-2. Advertised on Twitter. With the discount, the price was cheaper than Amazon.

Posted By: Christine A. Scheller | August 21, 2009 8:49 AM

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