Books & Literature

From now until the New Year, Spence Publishing is having a huge book sale. All hardbacks are only $10. I’m not a paid advertiser for Spence, but I have benefited from a number of their books like J. Budziszewski’s The Revenge of Conscience: Politics and the Fall of Man; F. Carolyn Craglia’s Domestic Tranquility:A Brief … Read more

Here’s a debate I’m curious about: do you think that listening to an audiobook (book on tape, CD, etc.) can be considered “reading” a book? Usually on long road trips, like the ones we have planned for upcoming holidays, my wife and I like to listen to audiobooks while we drive. I started doing this, … Read more

There’s a film out now called Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, which I have not seen, but it reminds me a bit of my favorite cartoon, “The Far Side.” “The Far Side,” by Gary Larson ran in syndication from 1980-1994. Even if you weren’t reading newspapers back then, if you’ve been … Read more

I’ve written briefly on this before, but the importance of the written word to the Christian faith cannot be overstressed. Very helpful in adding stress to this point is a new WORLD magazine feature by Gene Edward Veith. In the article, Veith aptly defends the necessity of reading for Christians—after all, we are a people … Read more

Here’s a pretty helpful list of the “10 MISTAKES WRITERS DON’T SEE (BUT CAN EASILY FIX WHEN THEY DO).” This is for reference only, and may not be applied to this blog (I wouldn’t want you to waste your time sorting through all my old posts only to find nothing…).

Jon Krakauer’s new book, Under the Banner of Heaven, is slightly different fare for the author of Into Thin Air and Into the Wild, but that doesn’t stop his superb storytelling ability and thorough investigative skills from making this book a very interesting story. My wife and I listened to the audio version of the … Read more

A recent USA Today article explores the astonishingly large number of films which are based on books (there are reportedly 20 such films debuting this fall). It’s easy to make these films because the story is already there, and often the prestige of the book is there as well. In my 20+ years of watching … Read more

Literature is vastly underappreciated in our day. This doesn’t mean people have forsaken reading—a mere look at the number of stores such as Barnes & Noble and Borders shows that people must be reading something. Sadly, much of the reading that passes across our eyes doesn’t fall into the category of literature. Books like Tom … Read more

I skipped NBC’s airing of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy last night to finish reading Tom Clancy’s The Teeth of the Tiger. Sorry NBC, it’s rather queer how I always seem to miss that show. Anyway, the book was OK, but definitely not one of Clancy’s best. It was quite predictable in places, even … Read more

I would love to visit this town.