I thought I would return to this series of posts, having left it for a few years; I’ve just closed out 1399, so the new century is open before me!

  • The Crossing—This, and the book below, form something of a comedy of errors. I had wanted to read Blood Meridian, but was under the mistaken impression that that book was the third of the Border Trilogy. I certainly find McCarthy engaging, so it was a happy mistake—albeit it became a rather dark time in my literary life.
  • Cities of the Plain
  • The Dark Tower and Other Stories—Not totally devoid of value I suppose, but this book also serves as a warning to destroy anything you don’t want published.
  • Blood Meridian—This is a book you read and then need to recover from. I think it would bear another reading, because it’s one of those books where I caught enough to know that I was missing quite a lot. The violence is revolting, but historically accurate.
  • Letters to Malcolm
  • Romans (Moo)
  • Romans (Wright)
  • Japanese Fairy Tales — These were really delightful, entertaining and with vivid settings and characters. The boys loved them, and I did too.
  • [Redacted]
  • [Redacted]
  • Habits of the Mind (Sire) — Edifying but not groundbreaking.
  • A Captain’s Duty — Your guess is as good as mine; the movie wasn’t bad, I guess (dramatically).
  • The Elements of Style
  • Interpreting the Historical Books
  • Reflections on the Psalms
  • Hearing the New Testament
  • Grimm’s Fairy Tales — So dark.
  • Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 — Years back a friend recommended Max Hastings by saying, “Anything by Hastings is good.” And that was true.
  • Blink
  • Making Friends Among the Taliban
  • Hymns to the Night — It’s disappointing when books that speak to people I appreciate (George MacDonald) are enthralled by people who do not move me (Novalis).
  • The Problem of Pain
  • Alec Forbes of Howglen
  • Catastrophe 1914 — Hastings again.
  • A Tale of Two Cities — I believe this marked my serious entry into Dickens (after this I began to read in publication order). Oddly, my most vivid recollection is that there was some quirk with the Kindle book that made the book seem twice as long as it really was. So at 40% I was seriously confused about the pacing of the book, and at 48% I realized the nature of the problem.
  • Twelve Years A Slave — Only after I’d watched the movie, which is… better than nothing.
  • A Time of Gifts — Commended by a BBC story on the posthumous publication of the third book in the series. I believe the author of the introduction observed that this is a book where a mature man projects that maturity onto his younger self; which I think is correct. Very poignant. (I also remember this book because the only time Amazon managed to recommend a book I might conceivably read was when it recommended the next book in the series.)
  • The Weight of Glory
  • Fixing Failed States — I can’t explain the logic, but somehow the singular has proved more daunting than the plural.
  • Discourse Features of New Testament Greek
  • Cracking Old Testament Codes
  • The Writings of the New Testament
  • The Four Feathers
  • From Exegesis to Exposition
  • The Comedy of Errors
  • Kim
  • I’m a Stranger Here Myself
  • David and Goliath
  • A Theology of the New Testament
  • Walking with the Poor—Here and here. (Believe it or not I don’t work in development anymore!)
  • Interpreting the Old Testament: A guide for exegesis
  • The Divine Comedy — Another disappointing classic. I am more than prepared to admit the problem may lie with me. I read a prose translation, and I might be better off with a new verse translation instead.
  • The Grapes of Wrath — Or as I had it, The Grapes of Heavy-Handed Moralizing. And yet not entirely unproductive. What made me sad in reading this book was to see how heavily Paton drew on it in Cry, the Beloved Country, which moves me deeply. Let it be, the disciple surpasses the master.
  • A Graded Reader of Biblical Hebrew
  • A Long Obedience in the Same Direction — I owe Peterson a debut, because this meditation on the Psalms of Ascent suggested to me a way to get into the Hebrew Psalter, which has been profoundly formative for me.
  • The Lost World of Scripture
  • Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns — I was so delighted to find this book on a giveaway table. I started it Advent of this year and then read slowly through it. If you had told me I wouldn’t pick it up again in the next six years I would have been disappointed in myself.