Creating a Humane Vision for Our Places.

A Review of

The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry

Mark T. Mitchell and Nathan Schleuter, eds.

Hardback: ISI Books, 2011.
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Reviewed by Scot F. Martin

What a wild ride it has been these past couple of years.  First, Wendell Berry was appointed as special counsel to Department of Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack, and convinced him that soil conservation should be the number one U.S. agricultural goal.  Then following the advice contained in a white paper authored by Mr. Berry the State and Defense Departments have begun shuttering numerous U.S. military bases overseas and we are moving from a bellicose foreign policy to one more in line with George Washington’s non-interventionist stance toward most world events.  Lastly, nearly every state capital has created infrastructure to assist interdependence between urban and rural citizens.  Not only have farmer’s markets displaced many large regional and national grocery store chains, but there are multiple sustainable economies developing in rural areas and small towns across America.  This is due, in no small part to the stumping of Wendell Berry.  We still have problems in 2012, but thanks to this veritable Berry-palooza we are nurturing healthier communities along with cleaner ecosystems.

…And then I woke up.

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Sustainability in the Valley of the Sun

A Review of

Bird on Fire:

Lessons from the World’s Least Sustainable City.

Andrew Ross.

Hardback: Oxford UP, 2011.
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Reviewed by Tim Høiland.

When Andrew Ross first came to the Phoenix, he was interested in learning what local artists were doing to revitalize downtown, a desert city with an urban core that, to many urbanists, leaves much to be desired. No city exists in a vacuum, however, and Ross soon came to the conclusion that to understand Phoenix he had to understand the story of the other cities and sprawling suburbs throughout the valley. It was through this research that he concluded that the Phoenix metro area — which includes nine cities with populations of 100,000 or more — was, as he puts it in the subtitle, “the world’s least sustainable city.”

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A Life Focused on Christ

Catherine of Siena:

A Passionate Life

Don Brophy

Paperback: BlueBridge, 2011.
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Reviewed by Steve Taylor.

Without question this new book is one of the most gratifying biographies of a saint that I have ever read.  Don Brophy, former managing editor of Paulist Press, and author of One Hundred Great Catholic Books, and The Story of Catholics in America, show us the real Catherine of Siena, and not one painted in the rosy hues of hagiography.  In thirteen chapters, Brophy guides us through the life of St. Catherine including four pages of bibliography, and thirty-nine pages of notes.

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Are We Missing Our Lives?

Streams of Contentment:

Lessons I Learned on My Uncle’s Farm

Robert J. Wicks

Hardback: Sorin Books, 2011.
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Reviewed by Karen Beattie

About 80 percent of the U.S. population lives in cities or suburbs. Yet as most of us flock to crowded, fast-paced urban areas, there’s a longing for nature and the simplicity of rural life.

All around us, we see signs of this longing – from the popularity of magazines like Real Simple, to well-known blogs such as The Pioneer Woman, which depicts life on an Oklahoma ranch, and A Holy Experience, the blog of farm wife and best-selling author Ann Voskamp [Editor's Note: Click here to read our review of Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts].

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Into Engagement
with the World and With God.

A Review of

Be Not Afraid:  Facing Fear with Faith

Samuel Wells

Paperback: Brazos Press, 2011.
Buy now:
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Reviewed by Jennifer Burns Lewis

Sam Wells’ new book, Be Not Afraid, is a powerful antidote to the fear-based news and views so prevalent in our time.  These short essays read like sermons – very good sermons – grounded in scripture and bringing to life some important insights and reminders about courage, authenticity and candor.  A person seemingly acquainted with despair and fear, Wells writes from a heart-felt place of deep reflection that would invite even the most intractable soul to reconsider what it means to live in the world today as a person of faith.
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The Life that Comes from God.

A Review of

Broken Hallelujahs:

Why Popular Music Matters

to Those Seeking God

Christian Scharen.
Paperback: Brazos Press, 2011.
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Reviewed by Sam Edgin

There is a dark chasm between the sacred and the secular within culture, or did you not know? The Christian sub-culture insists it must exist, because culture is full of evil and we are not to associate; and the secular culture is content with that assertion, because Christian popular culture is usually terrible anyway. However, a full 78 percent of Americans at this point in history identify as Christian[1]. If popular culture – the secular kind, that is – can rightly be called “popular,” then a fair sample of these American Christians, a massive majority of the population, are immersing themselves on the other side of the chasm.

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The Center of the World

A Review of

Jerusalem: The Biography

By Simon Sebag Montefiore
Hardback: Knopf, 2011
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Reviewed by Alex Joyner

“Everybody has two cities – his own and Jerusalem” – Teddy Kollek, Jerusalem’s mayor 1965-1993

“No country will more quickly dissipate romantic expectations than Palestine, particularly Jerusalem.  To some the disappointment is heartsickening” – Herman Melville

There were times, as I wandered the streets of Jerusalem on my first visit last year, that I wondered whether I could have become a believer if my impressions of faith were formed solely on an encounter with the city.  The contemporary scene is so dominated by conflict and religious fanaticism that Melville’s disillusionment seems entirely warranted.  The news of late reports Christian monks fighting one another with brooms in nearby Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity.  Orthodox Jews spit on Jewish girls on their way to school for their alleged immodesty.  And shadowing everything are the apocalyptic expectations of Muslims, Jews, and Christians, which seem to justify all manner of cruelties and intransigence.

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A Dinner Date

Review of

Words to Eat By:
Five Foods and
the Culinary History
of the English Language
By Ina Lipkowitz
Hardback: St. Martins, 2011.
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Reviewed by Laura Tokie

When I read a book, it’s as if I’m on a date. Some dates go well. We discover common ground, and the book and I stay together into the wee small hours of the morning. Other dates are like early scenes from a Hollywood romantic comedy, where the evening twists and turns and misunderstandings create distance.

Words to Eat By: Five Foods and the Culinary History of the English Language by Ina Lipkowitz made a great first impression. The book promised to explore our Jekyll and Hyde attitude about what is good to eat by examining the history of five types of food: fruit, vegetables, dairy, meat, and bread. It would explore human history, church history, the Bible, linguistics and modern examples to make its case.

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Using Plato to Gain a Vision
for Living an Sustainable Life?

A Review of

Eco-Republic :
What the Ancients Can
Teach Us About Ethics, Virtue
and Sustainable Living.
Melissa Lane.
Hardback: Princeton U Press, 2011.
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Reviewed by Eric Judge.

It’s a bad sign when I have to read the dust jacket description of a book and the endorsements on the back in an attempt to help myself understand a book that I have just finished.  I say this only slightly in jest.  I have followed my fair share of long, difficult, and dense arguments in academic books, whether because of grad school assignments and research or from a vague sense of “If I just read this book then I will be a hip intellectual”.  Reading Eco-Republic by Melissa Lane, was an exercise in . . . well let’s just call it exercise. And if exercise is often both difficult and rewarding, this book is decidedly on the difficult side of the equation, though not without its rewards.  Classical philosophy is in a great gap in my education and so much of Lane’s discussion of both classical thought in general and Plato in particular was new to me and this has colored my reading and enjoyment of this book.

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Immersing ourselves Deeper
into God’s Mission of
Reconciling Creation

A Review of

The Cross and the Lynching Tree.
James Cone.
Hardback: Orbis Books, 2011.
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Reviewed by Chris Smith.

I have long had a deep respect for the work of James Cone.  I don’t always agree with him, but even when I don’t I find his work compelling and engaging.  Although I am sympathetic to his emphasis on liberation theology, I don’t agree with the way in which he leaves the door open for the use of violent means in pursuit of liberation. Similarly, I’ve never been able to accept his embrace of both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, as “advocating different methods that corrected and complemented each other, as they worked for the same goal – the liberation of black people from white supremacy.”  Despite my disagreements with other parts of his work, I am convinced that in his newest book The Cross and the Lynching Tree, he is spot on.

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