The Flight: A Monthly Book Sampler (October 2020)

Board member Andrea Humphries’ book review column is back for 2020! Here’s her summary of what she read in October:

I had a couple weeks off in October and the result is that I read a LOT of books, even by my standards. Of the nineteen I finished, here are the ones worth checking out. 

I’ve been following Jemar Tisby on social media and periodically listening to Pass the Mic, the podcast he co-hosts, for years now. I was excited when I saw that he was writing a book about the history of racism in the American church. I recommended it to all kinds of people, including my parents. But until this month, I hadn’t actually read it myself. What can I say? Sometimes I’m a doofus. The Color of Compromise is well-written, factual, and for those not yet familiar with the history it recounts, extremely difficult to read. Tisby lays bare the multitude of ways that the church in America, across the denominational spectrum, has been complicit in and actively promoted racism. He’s unflinching in calling out centuries of theology, doctrines, action, and in-action that have actively harmed Black people. He’s equally unsparing in addressing the passivity and dismissiveness that resulted so frequently in Black Americans being harmed while white Christians stood by and did nothing. But he also issues a call to repentance and restorative action. The picture painted by the first 10 chapters of the book is bleak, but with the final chapter, Tisby offers a plan, a way forward for the church, a starting point for the anti-racism work that needs to be done. I’ll continue recommending The Color of Compromise, and I look forward to reading Tisby’s next book, How to Fight Racism, when it comes out in February 2021.

I’m still not entirely sure what I think about Pete Enns’ book How the Bible Actually Works. I’ve heard Enns - a professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University - referenced repeatedly over the last several years; progressives praised him and conservatives cautioned against him. But after recently listening to a talk he gave at the Evolving Faith conference in 2018, I wanted to actually read his work for myself. Except that I could only get the audiobook of How the Bible Actually Works through my library, so technically I listened to him read it to me. The thesis of the book is summed up in it’s subtitle: “In Which I Explain How An Ancient, Ambiguous, and Diverse Book Leads Us to Wisdom Rather Than Answers―and Why That's Great News”. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when I hit play, but Enns’ very dry, snarky sense of humour was not something I anticipated. He had me actually laughing out loud a few times. Overall, I thought he posed a lot of good questions and made some good arguments. I don’t agree with all his conclusions, but he has got me considering some perspectives that I hadn’t previously and that’s almost always a worthwhile endeavour. 

After a few years of seeing/hearing her work referenced by other authors and speakers I love, I finally picked up Barbara Brown Taylor’s books in 2018. Almost instantly, I added her to my “read everything they’ve written” list. Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others has been on my TBR since I found out that it was going to be published, so I was excited to discover that the audiobook is available through Hoopla. Taylor, an Episcopal priest, spent 20 years teaching World Religions 101 at Piedmont College in Georgia and in this book, as the official blurb says, “she contemplates the myriad ways other people and traditions encounter the Transcendent, both by digging deeper into those traditions herself and by seeing them through her students’ eyes as she sets off with them on field trips to monasteries, temples, and mosques.” It’s a fascinating exploration of what she learned about and from Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism as she taught them. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a Christian leader speak so charitably about other religions and those who practice them. Taylor makes a lot of good points and perhaps more importantly, asks a lot of good questions. She frequently doesn’t have the answers, but invites her readers to join her in the asking and there’s both a refreshing level of intellectual honesty and a real beauty in that. I do wish that she had delved more into the particularities of each religion and shared a little more of why they believe what they believe.

After finishing Holy Envy, I was extremely fortunate to receive an advance copy of Barbara Brown Taylor’s newest book. It should come as no surprise that a collection of sermons and stories (or should that be sermon-stories and story-sermons?) from Barbara Brown Taylor, who's repeatedly been recognized as one of the best preachers in America, is powerful. Always a Guest is also challenging, moving, illuminating, and delightful. In my opinion, "Mariam the Magnificent", a sermon about Mary, the mother of Jesus, is worth the entire price of the book. “Bathing Deep”, about the practice of foot-washing made me tear up. “Follow the Bread” had me sending a screenshot to my friend Kendall, the baker. Taylor’s ability to turn a biblical story with which most Christians are almost too familiar so that a new facet is revealed is almost unparalleled and certainly invaluable. As a whole, the collection depicts a Jesus who was firmly grounded in his first century Jewish culture, who cared deeply for the physical bodies and realities of his followers (not just their spiritual lives), and who loved us unto death. 

I think the last time I heard of a book that revolved around a single prayer, it was the prayer of Jabez and that was a *whole thing* in the evangelical/charismatic world 20 years ago. So I’ll admit to being a little unsure when Tish Harrison Warren, whose Liturgy of the Ordinary I loved, announced that her next book would be about a prayer from Compline, the bedtime prayer service of the Anglican/Episcopal church. Prayer in the Night (which comes out January 26, 2021) is poignant and beautiful and I expect that it will quickly become a devotional classic, in the best possible sense of that phrase. I’ve been familiar with the prayer Warren built the book around for a while and I’ve always been struck by its beauty, but I didn’t know how she could pull it off. For those of you not familiar with it, this is the prayer:

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, 

and give your angels charge over those who sleep. 

Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, 

soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; 

and all for your love’s sake. Amen.

Warren spends a chapter on each clause (more or less), exploring what it means to her, what it’s meant to the church, historically, and why it still means so much to pray those words. The result is a beautiful book, a companion for the dark hours. I was struck over and over again by her gift with words, her ways of phrasing things. If you’ve ever been told that there’s no power, no feeling, no presence of the Spirit in these old, written prayers of the church, this is the book to show you how wrongheaded those assumptions are. I do want to provide a content warning for miscarriage and pregnancy loss though, because Warren tells the story of the two miscarriages she suffered that drover her back to praying Compline.

Rhythm of Prayer, edited by Sarah Bessey, was supposed to be released in September, but because COVID-19 has screwed absolutely everything up, even aspects of the publishing industry, its release has been pushed back to February 2021. The upside of this is that it will arrive just in time for Lent; the downside is that that’s still several months away. I was granted an advance copy and all I can say is, what a gift. This is a book for those who find themselves in the wilderness, far from the traditions they once knew, far from the ways of prayer that once held them, who no longer know how to pray or feel that they can. Sarah Bessey has gathered a beautifully diverse group of fellow wanderers and together, they've written a prayer book with the emotional and experiential range of the Psalms. These prayers and stories are filled with grit and beauty; pain and delight; anger and joy; but most importantly, they're filled with belief in a God who is with us, who hears us, and who listens when we pour out our very selves. I’m deeply grateful for the honesty and vulnerability that each woman so generously demonstrates in her contribution. There are several that I may have to print and frame to hang on my walls because I want to be reminded of the beauty and truth they contain and declare. Most of the contributors are women I’ve been familiar with or following on social media for years and it was wonderful to see their words side by side.

I don’t remember exactly how old I was when my mom first handed me a copy of A Wrinkle in Time, but I do remember my original copy getting befouled by a classmate’s science fair project in fourth grade. So when I say I’ve been a fan of Madeleine L’Engle for most of my life, I mean that very literally. Madeleine L’Engle, Herself is a collection of quotes and excerpts from L’Engle’s books and workshops put together by Carole Chase, a friend, fan, and student of L’Engle’s. She compiled L’Engle’s thoughts and wisdom on the craft of writing; the power of words and language, of story and myth; the lives of characters; and everything else she’d learned through a lifetime of writing. It’s delightful to read her insights.

I also read L’Engle’s Penguins & Golden Calves, which is her exploration of icons and idols. I really love the way she expands the definition of “icon” beyond the classic images of the Orthodox church: “an icon...is an open window to God. An icon is something I can look through and get a wider glimpse of God…” She spends the book exploring twelve different personal icons and the ways that they could become idols. It’s fascinating and challenging. L’Engle was writing in the mid-nineties and her objections to inclusive language and some other ways language was changing are difficult to read twenty-five years later. I think most readers would agree that for all her wisdom, she missed the mark there. But those uncomfortable sections are fairly brief and should not be allowed to detract from the overall beauty of the book and the valuable insights L’Engle shares.

I went for a trifecta and read L’Engle’s Bright Evening Star, as well. It’s about the incarnation, the power and importance of the fact that the second person of the Trinity came to Earth as one of us, to dwell among His fallen creation. It’s a beautiful book, one that embraces mystery and love. The more I read of Madeleine L'Engle, the more I'm convinced that she was somehow, wonderfully and oddly, a very practical mystic. It makes her work deeply comforting to read, even when you disagree with her. There’s something about her writing that feels like curling up with a blanket in front of a fire. 

Battle Ground is the second of the two Dresden Files novels released this year. By the time the next one comes out - Jim Butcher hasn’t started writing it yet - I may have both recovered emotionally and forgiven him. Late on Christmas Eve 2018, Butcher published a short story to his website, set after the events of Battle Ground. The fans who managed to read the story before the website crashed (it happened repeatedly all through Christmas Day) spent Christmas Day cussing Butcher out on social media, and justifiably. In one scene, Harry is handed a cheque for a very large amount to cover the medical bills and funeral expenses for an indeterminately large group of people. He also makes reference to several personal losses. And that was all we had for 21 months. Hence the entirely-deserved cussing out that Butcher appears to have delighted in. Battle Ground picks up right where Peace Talks left off and we finally find out exactly how so many people were injured or killed and who that money was for. I ugly cried through about three chapters and tears streaked down my face through several others. (I believe I’ve mentioned that I get overly emotionally attached to fictional characters. I was not ok.) Then, of course, Butcher couldn’t just leave it at that, having devastated his fans as much as his main character; he had to throw in a couple completely bonkers plot twists after the titular battle for good measure. Things that raise all kinds of questions about what on God’s green and verdant Earth is going to happen next. The only upside is that he’s confirmed in several recent virtual events that he’s got eight more books planned. So at least I know I’ll be stressing out about Harry Dresden for roughly the next decade.

I wasn't sure, after the first few chapters, whether I was actually enjoying The Jane Austen Society. There’s a fair amount of backstory to get all the characters to the point where the plot really kicks off. But it's a slow burn of a book and by the end I was utterly delighted by it and sad that it was, indeed, coming to a conclusion. The characters are wonderful, each of them distinct and distinctly flawed in their own way. Natalie Jenner has managed to write a book in celebration of Jane Austen that feels rather like a Jane Austen novel. With the world the way it is right now, (and I may have said this recently) I’m particularly feeling the need for books that meet Oscar Wilde’s definition of fiction: the good end happily and the bad end unhappily. The Jane Austen Society is just that kind of novel. It's the perfect book to curl up with in a patch of sunlight on a fall day. (I know that, because that’s exactly how I read it.) 

I loved Hard Time, the second Time Police novel from Jodi Taylor. The continuing antics of Team Weird are extremely entertaining and I really appreciated the way the stakes were ramped up for everyone. A career is destroyed, people get shot, fingers are lost, world-destroying-type threats are levelled, disturbing discoveries are made. There’s great character development, not just of the three main characters, but of several of the secondary characters as well. As always, Taylor had me laughing out loud throughout the book. The cameo from my favourite St. Mary’s disaster magnets was absurd and a ton of fun. It’ll be very interesting to see how the fallout from this novel plays out in the next one. 

I read the first book in The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club series in January and I finally got around to the second and third books this month. European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman adds Dracula and Irene Adler to the 19th century monster-lit mish-mash. The members of the Athena Club (the “daughters” of Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, Victor Frankenstein, Dr. Moreau, and Dr. Rappaccini) head over to the continent to rescue Professor Van Helsing’s daughter at the request of Mina Murray. I really love the way Theodora Goss has more or less turned all these great novels on their heads and decided to just have fun with the characters. The inclusion of Carmilla as a character and the multiple references to Varney the Vampire and Lord Ruthven were lots of fun because so few people (ie., those without English literature degrees specialising in the 19th century) know much about the pre-Dracula vampire tales.

The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl picks up right where European Travel left off, with the Club racing back to London to search for Alice, their kitchen maid, who’s been kidnapped. The remainder of the cast of Dracula, whose murderous misadventures were detailed in the second book, join the fray, along with Professor Moriarty because obviously the bad guys need a new evil genius to take over. Dorian Gray also makes a couple appearances, which, as a huge fan of Oscar Wilde, I found delightful.

I somehow stumbled across What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe a couple years ago when looking for Christmas presents for my science-loving dad. We were huge fans of Mythbusters back when it was on tv and since the audiobook is narrated by Wil Wheaton, I figured it would be right up his alley. I listened to a bit of the book with him on a drive, but until this month, hadn’t gotten around to listening to the whole thing myself. If you’re not familiar with Munroe, he’s the former NASA physicist behind xkcd: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language. Being a huge fan of sarcasm and language, xkcd regularly cracks me up. What If? is exactly what it says on the tin: a collection of the absurd hypothetical questions submitted to Munroe’s website and his serious scientific answers to them. You can find a lot of the material on the website, but it’s fun having it all collected in a book. The answers are hilarious and weird and grizzly (don’t say I didn’t warn you about the mole of moles) and fascinating. There are ridiculous questions about pointing lasers at the moon, sticking a submarine in low-Earth orbit, using guns to fly, the aforementioned moles, the consequences of draining the oceans, and all manner of other entertaining nonsense.