Josh Malerman’s recent book Incidents Around the House is an interesting one for a lot of reasons. Not only does it check a lot of the boxes I discussed in my recent series on horror, it is an interesting plot written from a unique perspective. The perspective is straightforward: the book is written from the perspective of Bela, the little girl. This means both that we have a very limited view of what’s happening (which adds to the horror), but it also... Read more
Okay, maybe you won’t be reading all of these books today. (If it weren’t for ebooks you wouldn’t have the option to read any of these books today, since this post is dropping on the 4th.) But if you’re looking for a place to start thinking about being a Christian and an American (or for you from around the world, a snapshot of the ways Americans approach the intersection of faith, politics, and history), here are a few starters for you: Did... Read more
Crossway’s “on the Christian life” series continues to be excellent with the addition of Drew Martin’s volume Grimke on the Christian Life: Christian Vitality for the Church and World. Francis Grimke is having a moment, and this is a good thing for the church. Born a slave before the Civil War, Francis Grimke became a Presbyterian Pastor in Washington DC, and kept up a running commentary on religion, culture, and politics along with his regular preaching. Clearly, this is a moment... Read more
This is the final part of a series on the cultural moment of horror I’ve mentioned in a previous post that horror is a flexible genre, that can be melded with any other genre you like. This is one of the reasons horror is having a moment. In this final post on the topic, I want to think a bit about why horror fits so well with any thing else. Old Country, the book that has been our companion through... Read more
Okay, he’s not really 41 (the internet tells me he was born in 1950, so as of now he’d be seventy five years old). But The Hunt for Red October was published in 1984. Now, if you’re anything like me, you’ve got two feet of Tom Clancy books taking up shelf space. And every time you notice that you wonder “are these as good today as I thought they were in the late 1990s?” And the answer of course requires a... Read more
This is the sixth part of a series on the cultural moment of horror Horror can be used politically in any way you want. In a time when shoehorning in political statements is all the rage (even at the expense of things like plot, consistency, and profitability), horror is a genre that uniquely lends itself to political grandstanding–or refusing to politically grandstand. This makes sense when we remember, as I said in an earlier post, the core of horror is... Read more
What do you believe? That can be a surprisingly hard question if it’s sprung on you. Fortunately, Christians have been thinking about the answer to that question for two thousand years now, and you can read about one of the best answers we’ve given in Kevin DeYoung’s new book The Nicene Creed: What you need to know about the most important Creed ever written (a book with a title nearly as long as the text itself). This short little book is... Read more
This is the fifth part of a series on the cultural moment of horror Horror is a genre that anyone can write. Wait, what? I mean, that–of all the genres of fiction (and we could have a long conversation about what counts as a “genre” and what fits where), horror is arguably the simplest to write and/or film. In an era when the quality of writing coming out of Hollywood is… questionable… to be generous, horror is a genre of fiction that the... Read more
This is the fourth part of a series on the cultural moment of horror Horror is a genre that lends itself to whatever length the artist and consumer want. What do I mean by that? Well, in a world where Percy Jackson is still fighting gods (or whatever–I’ve not read the series) after seven books, maybe you want to just read a single book and be done with the story. If looking at the MCU is overwhelming, maybe you just... Read more
Let’s start with some confusion. The book under review here is called Tim Keller on the Christian Life: The Transforming Power of the Gospel (by Matt Smethurst). This book is excellent, so there’s no confusion there. And it’s helpful whether you’re familiar with Keller’s ministry or not, so no confusion about that either. It’s clearly divided into distinct topic chapters–all good there as well! Overall, Tim Keller on the Christian Life is an excellent, useful, and devotional work that should absolutely be... Read more
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