august in books

things I read and would recommend this month

Reading Material
1. Jonathan Rodgers, The Way of the Wilderking (fiction—kids)
2. Ralph Enlow, Servant of All (theology)
3. Anthony Everitt, Cicero (biography)
4. David James Duncan, Sun House (fiction)
5. Paul David Tripp, Awe (theology)
6. Jason Baxter, The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis (literary criticism)
7. Michael Ward, The Narnia Code (literary criticism)
8. Donald Fairbairn, The Trinity (theology)

Listening Material
1. David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed (history)
2. Erik Larson, The Demon of Unrest (history)
3. Noah Hawley, Before the Fall (fiction)
4. Peter Heller, Burn (fiction)

In Media Res
1. Charles Taylor, Cosmic Connections (philosophy)
2. Wilson Rawls, Where the Red Fern Grows (fiction—Beckett)
3. Mark Helprin, The Oceans and the Stars (fiction)
4. Jonathan Rogers, The Secrets of the Swamp King (fiction—kids)
5. Alan Noble, You Are Not Your Own (theology—teaching)
6. Daniel Gordis, Israel (history—audiobook)
7. Blake Crouch, Pines (fiction—audiobook)

Book of the Month

I almost have to choose Sun House. It was a beautiful, insightful, incredibly deep, and frustrating book. I love David James Duncan. The Brothers K is one of my all-time favorite novels. Sun House is much more expansive in some way; Duncan is trying to do more than he did in The Brothers K or The River Why. Some of his characters suffered from the Dumbledore problem: they were just too perfect; too ahead of the game. I am thinking in particular of Mu, a young child channeling his inner Buddhist philosopher at all times and who speaks more like a 60-year-old shaman than a prepubescent boy. However, it is still a novel I am glad to have read. And, some of Duncan’s idealistic characters are sketched that way because he is trying to construct an idealistic response to the utter morass of our culture. In a West that watches hundreds of thousands of acres burn each summer, it is good to have a bit of ecological hope.

The Wilderking Trilogy is absolutely perfect. This is our third read-through as a family. Apart from Narnia, we have no series more beloved in our home. A novelistic retelling of the life of King David, the book is set in a sort of England meets the deep South called Corenwald and follows the adventures of Aidan Errolson, the foretold wilderking of prophetic lore. We are halfway through the second book right now. If you have kids, buy this and read it to them. If you don’t have kids, buy this and read it to yourself.

Alright, I didn’t listen to Albion’s Seed at the most propitious time. I was knee-deep in my summer and didn’t have the time to properly digest an 800-page book of British-American history. That being said, this book was awesome. Fischer tracks the four major British migrations to the United States and how each effected the culture of that region. The East Anglian Puritans populated Massachusetts and brought more than their severe religion; Charles I’s Cavaliers from England’s south populated Virginia and brought with them plantation culture and a strict honor code; the East Midlands Quakers settled the Delaware Valley; the crazies from the Scottish border (and Scots and Irish themselves) settled the American backcountry on the western and southern fringes and gave us things like feuding and ranching culture. Fischer examines how each “folkway” still animates American culture. Incredibly interesting stuff. I should read it again when I have the time to give it its due.