Posts about books that I’ve read.
Walker Percy is one of my favorite authors, and this book was given to me by Professor Michael DeBow, one of my favorite people, who picked it up in St. Francisville, Louisiana, at the annual Walker Percy Weekend there. Percy is a Southern Catholic existentialist — an interesting combination. This book devotes a chapter each … [Read more…]
I generally like N.T. Wright — I have favorable posts on other books he’s written on this blogsite — and I enjoyed his biography here of St. Paul. The book is readable and of manageable length (432 pages plus notes). It’s straightforward in its organization, basically following Paul’s life, and necessarily discusses Paul’s letters and … [Read more…]
As Robert Lamberton writes in his introduction to this translation, “The Theogony and Works and Days stand alongside the Iliad and Odyssey at the beginning of the European literary tradition.” And there are instances in which each prompts some comparison with the Bible. For Works and Days: In his introduction, Lamberton notes that this poem … [Read more…]
I read this 1912 novel after reading Michael Dirda’s somewhat tardy but glowing review of it 106 years later in the March 29 Washington Post (“G.K. Chesterton, our guardian angel of foolery and faith”). Dirda noted that April Fool’s Day and Easter fell on the same day this year, making it appropriate to write about Chesterton, … [Read more…]
This is another fine translation by Professor Alter, about whom I wrote on this site in posts of his Psalms and Wisdom books translations. With regard to I and II Samuel, he thinks they shared a common author, who was a genius and who gives an unflinching portrait of a complex David (ruthless, shrewd, self-possessed). … [Read more…]
I have an (also favorable) post on this author’s translation of the Psalms, the relevant part of which post reads: The secondary title is “A Translation with Commentary,” and that’s what it is: You read the translated psalm, and then the author’s footnotes explicate the psalm and also explain some of his translation decisions. The … [Read more…]
The author is a former Cambridge professor of mathematical physics and a Fellow of the Royal Society, as well as an ordained priest and member of the General Synod of the Church of England. The book is pretty dense in spots, and he does not believe that Scripture is inerrant (8, 119), but it’s worthwhile. … [Read more…]
The author is a journalist (U.S. News & World Report, PBS) and a Christian (apparently Protestant, see page 3). The book has a 1999 copyright and no index. The only part of the book I just skimmed was part V, “The Bible Code and Prophecy,” since of course that is silly (I wonder if the … [Read more…]
This book takes the usual Lee Strobel approach — which I find very persuasive — of him interviewing a series of experts, in this case to refute the various, most prominent objections to Christianity lately, namely that it was copied from pagan religions, that the early church tampered with texts or rejected texts that were … [Read more…]
This is a nicely written distillation of the Roman mindset, drawing on a variety of classical works by the author of The Greek Way (which I think is more famous). The “Roman way” versus the “Greek way” is pretty much what you would expect: the brilliant but sleazy Greeks versus the solid but unimaginative Romans. There’s … [Read more…]