Books

Spring books: Reviews

Our spring books issue includes the following reviews:

 

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove: Evicted, by Matthew Desmond. In poor communities like the one where I live and work, evictions are not the exception. They’re the norm.

Rachel Marie Stone: The Givenness of Things, by Marilynne Robinson. To meet others as God meets us—prickly and imprecise and difficult though we may sometimes be—is a kind of grace.

Samuel Wells: The Soul of Doubt, by Dominic Erdozain. Christians fail to realize that the responsibility for rebellion against the faith lies invariably at their own door.

Jacob J. Erickson: Poetics of the Flesh, by Mayra Rivera. Flesh is indeterminate. It flows, changes over time, and is consumed and transformed. It becomes the reality of rich spiritual encounter.

Lawrence Wood: This Is Why I Came, by Mary Rakow. The lines between sacred history and contemporary life are wonderfully, miraculously blurred.

Ryan T. O'Leary: For the Love of All Creatures, by William Greenway and Belonging in Genesis, by Amanda Beckenstein Mbuvi. The ancient stories of Genesis bear witness to a created world that is interconnected and has value in God’s eyes.

Anya Krugovoy Silver: The Book of Hulga, by Rita Mae Reese. This collection is suffused with one of poetry’s most fundamental aims: making meaning out of suffering and loss.

Sandhya Jha: Trouble I've Seen, by Drew G. I. Hart. Why does the church participate in modern-day lynching, or at most turn a blind eye, rather than protesting as our faith would dictate?

Walter Brueggemann: A Just and Generous Nation, by Harold Holzer and Norton Garfinkle. Lincoln understood that the dream of well-being, if not radically democratized, would for some people only be a nightmare.

Kristel Clayville: Rosalie Lightning, by Tom Hart. We grieve always alone while at the same time needing community. Surely there is a role for the church in this paradox.