Wendell Berry on the Radio

I was pleasantly surprised to hear sickle swinging novelist, poet, and essayist Wendell Berry on the radio this morning. Berry joined Diane Rehm to discuss his new book, Leavings: Poems (Counterpoint, 2009). The podcast is about 50 minutes long and you can get it via iTunes here.

Life Before Kindle

“In the tenth century…the Grand Vizier of Persia, Abdul Kassem Ismael, in order not to part with his collection of 117,000 volumes when traveling, had them carried by a caravan of four hundred camels trained to walk in alphabetical order.” [Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading (Penguin, 1996), p. 193]

Poetry Schmoetry

Between 2002 and 2008 the number of American adults who read poetry declined 31% (from 12.1% to 8.3% of the population). This according to the National Endowment for the Arts.

Said C.S. Lewis nearly 50 years ago: “Poetry confines itself more and more to what only poetry can do; but this turns out to be something which not many people want done.” [An Experiment in Criticism (Canto, 1961) p. 98]

Snow Boot Swim [roadtrip ipics]

Name that Novelist [games]

Before you Google it, try to name the novelist:

“___________ is to me both the greatest novelist, as such, and the greatest Christian storyteller, in particular, of all time. His plots and characters pinpoint the sublimity, perversity, meanness, and misery of fallen human adulthood in an archetypal way matched only by Aeschylus and Shakespeare, while his dramatic vision of God’s amazing grace and of the agonies, Christ’s and ours, that accompany salvation, has a range and depth that only Dante and Bunyan come anywhere near. … his constant theme is the nightmare quality of unredeemed existence and the heartbreaking glory of the incarnation, whereby all human hurts came to find their place in the living and dying of Christ the risen Redeemer. ”

–J.I. Packer, The Gospel in ___________: Selections from His Works, (Orbis, 2004) vii.

Family Update Letter 2009

So you mailed the family update letter for 2009. You laid out a few color pictures of the kids and typed out some short updates, wrote it all from the voice of the family dog, and printed the letter from your cartridge-hungry home printer on some special Christmas paper with a green holly banner across the top.

I’ve done that.

I’ve never tried this:

For 2009 were mailing photo postcards. Note the future tense.

Magazine 2.0

Below is an 8-minute conceptual video of how the e-magazines of the future may operate. Recently Sports Illustrated launched a demo of a tablet e-reader device. Others will soon follow as the scramble has begun to produce the first widely accepted electronic reading device in the colorful world of magazines.

Which brings me to a question that I’ve been waiting to ask you rabid readers. For those of you who are familiar with reading books or magazines through an e-reader (like a Kindle), what have you noticed about your personal reading habits and experiences as you compare how you read the printed page with how you read digital text? What differences have you noticed? What similarities are you aware of? Which helps you retain more information? Which, if either, do you tend to read faster or more slowly or more analytically? I’d be very interested to know how the devices compare with printed materials, and especially books. Drop me a comment.

And have a blessed Christmas week!

Mag+ by Bonnier on Vimeo

Bethlehem and Golgotha

“The whole life of Christ was a continuall Passion; others die Martyrs, but Christ was born a Martyr… His birth and his death were but one continuall act, and his Christmas-day and his Good Friday, are but the evening and morning of one and the same day.”

—John Donne, opening his Christmas sermon (Dec 25, 1626).

Weake enough to suffer woe

…And Iacob came cloth’d in vile harsh attire
But to supplant, and with gainfull intent
God cloth’d himselfe in vile mans flesh, that so
Hee might be weake enough to suffer woe.

—John Donne, Holy Sonnets, closing lines of No. 7.

Christmas Gift Book Idears

A book makes a natural and meaningful Christmas gift, but finding the right one is not always an easy task. Here are a few suggestions, a list of a few of my favorite wee books. These books are each short, affordable, and likely to appeal to a broad audience. Listed in no particular order:

The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith by Tim Keller. A wonderful book that articulates the free grace of God and exposes legalism in the sinner’s heart. $11.57 each or 24 for $239.40 (WTSB).

The Loveliness of Christ by Samuel Rutherford. Christ’s beauty displayed in this collection of choice descriptions of Christ taken from the writings of the noted Puritan. $8.40 (WTSB).

Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy by Paul Tripp. One of my favorite books on grace. Tripp uses diverse writing styles to communicate the many features of God’s forgiving grace. $9 (WTSB).

Heaven: A World of Love by Jonathan Edwards. A glimpse of heaven so large you will be amazed it fits into a book you can slide into your pocket. $4.20 (WTSB).

Living Faith by Samuel Ward. Another book that you can carry in your pocket. For about 2 months I carried this little book on my travels and read it over and over. Few books have more built my faith. $4.20 (WTSB).

The Cross Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney. Perhaps the best of all my boss’s books. Transforming look at how the cross alters the way we live. $7 (WTSB).

Caleb’s Lamb by Helen Santos. A family favorite book. The fictional book centers on a little boy, his spotless lamb, and the news that God is coming to deliver him and his family from the bondage of Egypt. A wonderful cross-centered book for family reading time. It’s available only from the publisher for $7.50 (RHB).

Children of the Living God by Sinclair Ferguson. On the doctrine of our spiritual adoption into God’s family, this little book is one of the best. $5 (WTSB).

The Heidelberg Catechism. Perhaps the warmest and most devotional of all the catechisms. This little version is my favorite. $5.50 (Amazon).

Chequebook of the Bank of Faith: Daily Readings by C.H. Spurgeon. A wonderful collection of faith-building promises from God expounded by the prince of preachers. Take these divine promises to the bank! $14 (WTSB).

Morning by Morning and Evening by Evening (two volumes) by C.H. Spurgeon. Spurgeon’s classic devotional [Morning and Evening] updated into more contemporary language and divided into two volumes. One of the richest devotionals available. $26 for the set (WTSB).

The Cross: The Pulpit of God’s Love by Iain Murray. A brief meditation on the centrality and importance of the work of Christ. $2.80 (WTSB).

Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace (3rd Edition), by Joseph Williams. Figured I would throw one book into the list for the writer in your life. One of the most helpful little guides for those who seek to improve the clarity of their writing. $16 (Amazon).

Need a specific recommendation? Leave a comment and let us know what you are looking for. Our team of book lovers will jump in with recommendations.