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Summary: A virus kills nearly everyone, society collapses, but some survive.

Station Eleven has had a lot of hype. It has been short listed for a ton of awards, John Wilson (from Books and Culture) loved it, a lot of people that I know really liked it.

And I thought it was ok. A solid, but not earth-shattering end of the world novel.

There are a lot of characters and none of them are really the main character. Station Eleven moves back and forth between characters and from before the fall of civilization to after the fall. By the end, there is at least the hint of a complete story, connecting all the various characters and times.

The fall is caused by a swine flu variant called ‘The Georgian Flu’. In a matter of hours from contamination, with basic flu symptoms, 199 out of 200 people die. Within a few days complete panic has hit. Within a few weeks civilization has completely collapsed. The electric grid goes down, transportation stops because no one can get gas (and what gas is available goes bad in a few years.) The sheer size of the devastation (and the fear of a reoccurrence of the outbreak) keeps people in small groups and afraid of strangers.

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Summary: An extension of Walton’s earlier work to Genesis 2 and 3.

I wish I could say everything that is important is also interesting. But I cannot. There are a ton of interesting books that have no importance whatsoever. And there are also a ton of important books that are as dull as dirt.

John Walton is doing important work. In his earlier book The Lost World of Genesis 1, Walton laid out a case for the creation story being focused not on physical creation (the how) but on functional creation (the why). But possibly even more important, he made a case for Genesis 1 being primarily concerned with the creation story being actually about the dedication of the earth as a temple to God, and the placement of us humans as God’s priests in that temple.

The main weakness of that earlier book is that Genesis 2 has a second creation story and even if Walton is right about Genesis 1, Genesis 3, the story of the fall is theologically seen as just as important to many Christians.

The Lost World of Adam and Eve is the next step in that puzzle. Walton’s method, in this book and the last, is to make a proposition and the defend that proposition and then move to the next. So in the earlier book he had 19 chapters slowly making the case bit by bit for why so many have misread Genesis 1 for so long.

In this book there are 21 propositions about the purpose and meaning of Genesis 2 and 3 and how they theologically matter to Christians today. One of those chapters is largely written by NT Wright about how Paul understood Adam. And while that is not one of Wright’s clearer works, it really stands out in the book because Walton can be so dull. I don’t want to harp on boringness of the book too much, but it is a real problem.

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Summary: Two pamphlet length articles joined together for a short book.

Spiritual Direction has been an interest of mine for the past several years. With the rise of renewed interest in liturgical and sacramental expressions of faith, the historic practice of spiritual direction has also come back into awareness.

As a number of friends and internet-only acquaintances are becoming Anglican/Episcopal or Catholic I keep hearing of more and more that have been going to spiritual directors. (And a number that have not been converting are also going to spiritual directors.)

Many of those spiritual directors are Catholic (or at least were trained by Catholic spiritual directors.) I have been going to a Spiritual Director for nearly two years now. My own spiritual director is protestant, but goes to a Catholic spiritual director himself and was formally trained in spiritual direction with mostly Catholic instructors.

Spiritual direction has a long and varied history. But it was originally the practice of monks and nuns. Thomas Merton, one of the most recognizable monks of the 20th century was writing primarily to the monastics here but intending to be overheard by those that were not living a monastic life.

Spiritual direction is not about finding the wise guru and learning from them. Nor is it about counseling. According to Merton:

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Summary: A previously hidden order of monks calls on Gamache when their Prior is murdered.

Louise Penny has frequently hinted at religious issues in the previous books. But with Beautiful Mystery, set in a monastery, religious thoughts are on full display.

Penny is playing with the recent popularity of Gregorian Chant. In her fictional world, the rise of interest about Gregorian Chant is the responsibility of a previously hidden order of monks from rural Canada.

This order was among the earliest settlers of Quebec to escape potential investigation by the Inquisition. And once established, they fell off the radar of the church and intentionally hid.

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Summary: Culture and assumptions matter. And when reading scripture, something written to a different culture, time and place, those considerations are important.

Misreading Scripture With Western Eyes I think will become my new recommendation for the place to start when thinking about how we read and understand scripture.

I have made a pretty concerted effort as a lay person to understand hermeneutics (the science and art of reading and understanding scripture) over the past half dozen years. Much of what I have read is oriented toward the academic, the theologian or the pastor. And I am glad I have read it. But books like that are not easy to recommend to an average reader that wants an overview, and doesn’t have a good background in theology, biblical languages or history or linguistics.

Misreading Scripture With Western Eyes is an introduction to cultural anthropology as much as it is an introduction to scripture. And this is really important. Some conservative Christians in their reaction against liberal cultural values also react against understanding different cultures and perspectives as ‘post-modern’. This often occurs not only in an attempt to uphold Christian values, but because some conservatives are also somewhat insular and have only been exposed to US American Culture.

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Summary: Clara is finally getting her art show, but someone is murdered at the party.

Series fiction is a tricky thing. Veer too far from what made the stories popular and fans will complain. Stick with what made the series popular too closely and even the fans will get bored.

So Louise Penny has been wise to approximately every other book move the crime away from Three Pines while still keeping the character development and the threaded storyline that runs through the series going.

A Trick of the Light returns the story to Three Pines. Clara, the most important of the Three Pines characters to the series is finally getting her first real gallery show to showcase her art. Nearly 50 years old, she has worked in obscurity on the edge of the art world and thought of as a lesser artist in comparison to her husband Peter. But the series has always understood that Clara is the better artist, just not recognized.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed on April 9, 1945.  In honor of that date I wanted to post about the best books I have read on Bonhoeffer.  I waited later in the day to post this because in the past several of his books went on sale in honor of this anniversary.  Unfortunately that does not seem to be the case today. (This is edited of a post from a couple years ago.)

Biographies

If you read just one biography of Bonhoeffer, I think it should be:

Dietrich Bonhoffer: 1906-1945 by Ferdinand Schlingensiepen

(Bookwi.se Review)

This biography was published in English in June 2010.  Schlingersiepen was a close friend of Eberhard Bethge and is one of the founders of the International Bonhoeffer Society.  This biography was first published in German in 2005 and was the first modern biography that was the result of the completion of Bonhoeffer’s complete papers that were published in 16 volumes.  This is the best modern biography of Bonhoeffer.  But it is also very expensive.  Right now is it $14.39 on Kindle and out of print in English.  If you do not want to spend that much, then you should read:

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas

(Bookwi.se Review)

Metaxas has written the first really popular level biography of Bonhoeffer.  And it has sold very well which means that you can easily find it and it is relatively cheap.  I picked up my copy for $1.99 on kindle a couple years ago.  Right now the Kindle version is $12.99 and the paperback is $15.05 (but there are lots of used copies).

The strength of Metaxas is that it feels like a novel.  It is very fast paced and written in a very accessible prose.  The negative is that Metaxas is not a Bonhoeffer scholar, makes mistakes on the history (mostly minor) and like to use creative language.  In the end Bonhoeffer ends up looking like a modern American Evangelical in many areas.

or

Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Charles Marsh 

I picked up the audiobook of this earlier this week but have not started it yet. It is the most recent of the full biographies and has been very well reviewed.  But like much about Bonhoeffer, it is not cheap.  The Kindle Edition is $16.14 but the paperback which will be released at the end of the month is $13.46 for pre-order.  If you want the kindle edition, I would advise waiting for a couple weeks because it is likely to drop to at least the paperback price.  (I get a lot of these expensive books on audio, both because I like to listen to audiobooks, but also because I buy credits to purchase audiobook in bulk at Audible, so each credit ends up being just over $9).

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