Caleb Land reviews Douglas Wilson’s book Five Cities that Ruled the World. Wilson is a reformed pastor in Idaho who has written many books and taken many strong stands, so you will find he has many opponents.
All posts by philwade
The New Conversational
Conversational Reading is now at conversationalreading.com. Accept no imitations.
Scandinavian Mysteries
Scandinavian crime fiction is popular these days, for example, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Laura Miller writes about it for the Wall Street Journal.
“Counterintuitive as it may seem, the Scandinavian brand of moroseness can be soothing in hard times. Its roots lie deep in the ancient, pagan literature of the region, preserved in sagas that were first written down in medieval Iceland. The sagas, created by and for people who led supremely difficult lives, are about love, death and war, like all great stories, but above all, they’re about fate.”
The Answer to an Important Question
What cereal should I eat? According to this chart, which recommends Cinnamon Life or Golden Grahams as the best cereal ever, if I am not in Australia, am not Marty Mcfly, and care about the roof of my mouth; if it isn’t October, I’m under 50, I don’t want chocolate milk with my cereal, but I do chew on gravel, then I should pick Grape Nuts. I had Grape Nuts with my ice cream last night. Maybe I should try gravel.
Parker and Segal
NPR’s Morning Edition has a nice spot on these authors, praising Parker for recreating the detective novel.
A Haitian Relief Project
Mr. Overstreet tells us about a friend who taught photojournalism to Haitian teenagers last year and produced a book of their photos with them. Buying that book now will both encourage those young people and send $10 to earthquake relief efforts.
Overstreet Book Contest
Jeffrey Overstreet has a contest promoting his new book, Raven’s Ladder. The first two books, Auralia’s Colors and Cyndere’s Midnight, are quite good.
Android Karenina from Quirk Books
It’s the 100th year anniversary of Tolstoy’s death, so Quirk Books plans to revamp one of his great novels with robots and stuff.
“Why Faith Is Not a Private Matter”
Brit Hume suggested on air that Tiger Woods seek the Lord Jesus Christ for answers to his current problems, and people started talking. Selwyn Duke says the religious and the political are closely tied and always have been, so certain folk can reevaluate their offense to religious or specifically Christian evangelism when political evangelism goes on all the time. He writes, “I mean, could you imagine, let’s say, Jay Bookman stating, ‘You know, I like universal health care, but, hey, dude, whatever works for you’?”
"Why Faith Is Not a Private Matter"
Brit Hume suggested on air that Tiger Woods seek the Lord Jesus Christ for answers to his current problems, and people started talking. Selwyn Duke says the religious and the political are closely tied and always have been, so certain folk can reevaluate their offense to religious or specifically Christian evangelism when political evangelism goes on all the time. He writes, “I mean, could you imagine, let’s say, Jay Bookman stating, ‘You know, I like universal health care, but, hey, dude, whatever works for you’?”