While opening a carton of books from Zondervan Publishing today in the bookstore, a question occurred to me:
“Who was this man Zonderv, and what were his teachings? And who are his followers, these Zondervans? What do they really believe?”
Inquiring minds want to know.
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.
Conversational Reading is now at conversationalreading.com. Accept no imitations.
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.”
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.
NPR’s Morning Edition has a nice spot on these authors, praising Parker for recreating the detective novel.
This will be a mini-review. I’ve reviewed one of Stephen J. Cannell’s novels already, and will doubtless review more (I’ve become a fan). Final Victim isn’t a world-changing novel, but I thought it very well crafted, and I just wanted to meditate on its virtues.
Cannell, as you likely know, is one of the most successful television producers in the industry. He’s also a prolific script writer (though, interestingly, he’s dyslexic). As a professional, he knows how to tell a story, seizing the viewer’s (or reader’s) attention with a wrestler’s grip, and never letting go. Continue reading Mini-review: Final Victim, Stephen J. Cannell
WORLD Magazine reports that two prominent authors died recently–Robert B. Parker, author of the Spenser and Jesse Stone detective series, and Erich Segal, best known as the author of Love Story.
I never read any Segal that I’m aware of, but I was a big fan of Spenser in the early years. I lost my enthusiasm with time, but Parker was an excellent storyteller.
Katrina and Ole Olsen Kvalevaag
It’s been a while since I shared one of my translations of the letters from my great-great grandfather to my great-grandfather. (The first three are posted here, here, and here, and here.) This one is the most dramatic of them all. I’ll give it to you in two parts, but this section is the meat of it. Five years have passed since the last preserved letter, and John has moved from Illinois to Iowa.
[Envelope postmarked 7 IV 97, addressed to Mr. John Walker, Radcliffe, Harding co., Jova, North Amerika]
Kvalevaag, the 7 April 1897
Mr. Jan H. Olson,
Dear children of my heart,
I received your very welcome letter this afternoon, and re-read it with tears, and I want to answer it right away if I get the strength from the Lord to manage a letter to you at this time. I saw and heard from your letter to me that all was well with you when you wrote to me, which was precious to me to hear from you.
Ja, dear son and daughter and children, I have another piece of news to tell you today, and that is that the Lord has called your mother from me to Himself; and now, God help me, I am left here forsaken and alone as a wild bird, and have no one to cling to. Ja, God must now be my comforter and helper both now and preferably forever. Continue reading Olsen letter #4a
For some time, “higher critics” of the Bible have assured us that the biblical text can’t be older than the 6th century B.C., “because the Hebrews didn’t know how to write before that.”
“It indicates that the Kingdom of Israel already existed in the 10th century BCE and that at least some of the biblical texts were written hundreds of years before the dates presented in current research,” said Gershon Galil, a professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa in Israel, who deciphered the ancient text.
As an added bonus, the inscription itself (not an actual biblical text) is a rather lovely one, calling on the reader to show kindness to widows, orphans, the poor and slaves.
Tip: Mere Comments.
