Blog

Book: What about Hitler? Wrestling with Jesus’s Call to Nonviolence in an Evil World, by Robert W. Brimlow Grade: B- Disclaimer: This may be an unfair grade, since this is my first venture [...]

You guys are good. The painting is by Jules Laure (1806-1861). It shows Charlemagne receiving manuscripts from his tutor, the monk Alcuin, around 781. Charlemagne is a good choice for the cover [...]

I should probably update you on the progress of the second book in the series. My editor has sent back the first 200 pages with his comments written in. It’s sitting on my desk…I have [...]

As of this week, you can plan on reading the History of the Ancient World on the Kindle. It’s a lot of pages for an ebook, isn’t it? I have a Kindle but haven’t used it as much [...]

Books: Various Collective Grade: Hmmm… I’m actually a chapter or so into next week’s book, a set of theological essays on God and genocide called Show Them No Mercy, and [...]

Seven degrees. That was the temperature this morning. Seven degrees. And this is tidewater Virginia. Seven degrees. Yesterday it didn’t get above freezing, and everything is ice this [...]

Book: The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick Grade: A- Why: The first fully successful alternative history. Japan and Germany triumph in World War II, but a novelist living in [...]

This past week, we finished off the old year by finally having Christmas with my parents, who have been in Seattle with my brother and his family. We kept their presents under the tree until they [...]

Book: How Fiction Works, by James Wood Grade: C Why: Too much micro-analysis, too little attention to the whole; too much scorn for the “popular,” too much delight in his own prose [...]

Today was my first back-at-work day since the holidays; we took the week of New Year’s as a holiday, and Monday is our family day, so Tuesday is my Monday as far as work goes. So I thought [...]