Fiction, Reviews

‘One Bright Star to Guide Them,’ by John C. Wright

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“Innocence and faith are the weapons children bring to bear against open evils; wisdom is required to deal with evils better disguised.”

You might be tempted, on the basis of its description, to think John C. Wright’s novella, One Bright Star to Guide Them, is simple Narnia fanfic. A story of four adults, who were once children who entered a magical land peopled by magicians and talking animals.

But it’s more than that. This story is a transposition of Narnia. Author Wright moves the whole concept onto a different level. It’s a meditation on the most terrible line in all the Narnia books – “Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia.” Thomas, the protagonist, is summoned to take up a new fight against a revived evil. But when he contacts his childhood companions, he finds that – for one reason or another – they are not willing to join him. So he has to test his faith alone, except for the help of their old guide, a mystical kitten called Tybalt.

One Bright Star to Guide Them is a quick read, but entirely worthy of the material that inspired it. Beautiful in places. Highly recommended.

Authors, Writing

Starr endorsement

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Author Rachel Starr Thompson takes up valuable space in an interview to say nice things about my work.

I could never do the grit Lars Walker does, but I kind of wish I had written The Year of the Warrior. Wolf Time is amazing too. Actually, I love all of Lars’s books. – See more here

Non-fiction, Religion

New Book on George Whitefield

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Thomas Kidd has a new biography on one of America’s great evangelists, George Whitefield.

Although I deeply respect and appreciate him, my Whitefield is not a perfect man. As Whitefield readily admitted, he struggled with the temptations of fame, and I also show his besetting difficulties in relating to other evangelical leaders such as the Wesleys. Most disappointing (as Dallimore noted too) was Whitefield’s advocacy for slavery, and his personal owning of slaves.

I thought I had read that he opposed slavery and got into trouble with some Georgian businessmen for saying so.

Coffee, Tea, Drinks

DIY Coffee for Blue Collar Workers

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When Edward Samudro started his Yellow Truck coffeeshop, affordable coffee was not available in his city Bandung, West Java, Indosesia. If students or blue collar workers had a taste for good coffee, they would have to spend half a day’s pay (if they had an income) on one cup. At Yellow Truck, customers can work the coffeemaker themselves. Samudro “wants them to know that coffee ‘actually has taste;’ it doesn’t have to be bitter.”

As a roaster who sources the beans from local farmers, he also has a social mission: to improve the welfare of the families that make their living from selling coffee. That means educating coffee drinkers to demand the flavor that comes from good beans. Mr. Samudro says it’s a long term investment that he hopes will pay off eventually. In the meantime, he’s creating a no fuss, bare bones hangout that epitomizes the Indonesian art of nongkrong – essentially sitting around and chatting for hours.

Non-fiction, Reviews

Unbelievable, True-to-Life Hollywood Mystery

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When director William Desmond Taylor was murdered, no one in 1922 Los Angeles knew who did it. William Mann spins all the details into a wild noir that “seems far too cinematic to be credible. Yet every word of it is true,” writes Stefan Kanfer.

… the author spins a terrific yarn, though he frequently goes into overdrive, with staccato, machine gun-style sentences, as if to keep his readers’ attention from wandering: “Three long blond hairs. Clearly not Taylor’s. With a tweezers, the detective removed the hairs and placed them in an envelope. Now he just needed to match them to someone’s head.”

(via Prufrock)

Authors, Fiction

Child on ‘Day of the Jackal’

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From this interview in England last September, author Lee Child mentions Fredrick Forsyth.

I think that Without Fail [2002] would actually be my homage to Day of the Jackal, because it explicitly references Forsyth’s book. The emphasis there is placed upon the assassins planning for escape, as opposed to the [1993] Clint Eastwood/Wolfgang Peterson film, In the Line of Fire, in which the assassin knows he won’t be able to escape. As I said at the CWA Diamond Daggers ceremony, The Day of the Jackal … was Year Zero for the current generation of thriller writers; it was different, and re-set the clock, and we’ve all had to deal with it ever since. So, I didn’t mean it as a direct homage but acknowledged–for all of us, readers and writers–that Fredrick Forsyth is a giant figure, and his debut novel casts a giant shadow over the genre.

Uncategorized

Lessons Learned by Reading Book Inscriptions

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In Theodore Dalrymple’s essay “Eternal Youth, Eternal Kitsch,” we learn of the dangers of inscribing a book to just about anyone. Of course, the reason a book has been discarded and subsequently found in a second-hand shop isn’t necessarily singular, so you might dedicate a copy of Love Everlasting to “My Dearest Wife without whom I could not live” and find that you no longer have the space for it in your library (or that the story was pretty awful) and, despite the love note, discard it. I find the book in a second-hand shop, I am not forced to conclude that your love did not last. But there are other lessons. (via Anecdotal Evidence)

One of the lessons it teaches is that one should never inscribe a book intended as a gift with a poem of one’s own, for it is sure to be bad and probably pretentious, ridiculous in the eyes of anyone other than the person one wishes to impress with it. Bad poetry fulfils a social function, of course, for reading bad poetry is an easy way to learn to appreciate good poetry; but still the rule holds that if you feel a compulsion to inscribe a gift with poetry, it is best to quote someone else’s.

Fiction, Reviews

The Jimmy “Soldier” Riley mysteries, by Michael Lister

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For a little while, while I was reading the first Jimmy “Soldier” Riley mystery, I thought I’d found something wonderful to recommend to you. Alas, the execution did not live up to the promise.

Jimmy Riley’s nickname is “Soldier,” which embarrasses him a little. World War II is raging, but he never actually served in it. He’s missing his right arm, but he lost that in a gun fight in his capacity as a cop. Now he’s a private detective in Panama City, Florida.

But his mind isn’t on his work these days. He’s desperately in love – with the wife of a rich banker. He thought she felt the same way about him, but she broke their affair off one day, without explanation. Now he’s mooning around the office, and his partner is worried about him.

But one day Lauren, the Woman He Loves, comes to his office to ask if he’s been following her (he hasn’t). She refuses to hire him to investigate, but he starts looking on his own initiatve.

That’s the promising set-up of The Big Goodbye, the first book in a trilogy. Unfortunately, the following books, The Big Beyond and The Big Hello, don’t live up to expectations. Continue reading The Jimmy “Soldier” Riley mysteries, by Michael Lister →

Goofing, Religion

Your Reformation Day Treat: A treasury of insults

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“Your words are so foolishly and ignorantly composed that I cannot believe you understand them.”

The Luther Insult Generator may be found here. Hours of innocent fun for you and your family.

Reading, Religion

Why Read Calvin’s Institutes?

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Justin Taylor quotes J.I. Packer on how great and necessary reading Calvin’s Institutes is for modern believers.

Packer explains that Calvin’s magnum opus is one of the great wonders of the world:

Calvin’s Institutes (5th edition, 1559) is one of the wonders of the literary world—the world, that is, of writers and writing, of digesting and arranging heaps of diverse materials, of skillful proportioning and gripping presentation; the world . . . of the Idea, the Word, and the Power. . . .

The Institutio is also one of the wonders of the spiritual world—the world of doxology and devotion, of discipleship and discipline, of Word-through-Spirit illumination and transformation of individuals, of the Christ-centered mind and the Christ-honoring heart. . . .

Calvin’s Institutio is one of the wonders of the theological world, too—that is, the world of truth, faithfulness, and coherence in the mind regarding God; of combat, regrettable but inescapable, with intellectual insufficiency and error in believers and unbelievers alike; and of vision, valuation, and vindication of God as he presents himself through his Word to our fallen and disordered minds. . . .