Rev. Dr. Jeff Garrison
As today is Martin Luther King, Jr. day (and a day of digging out of a heavy snow that had a layer of ice on top), I thought I would repost a review from a former blog of mine. This is a good biography of the first nine years of Dr. King’s professional life. Taylor … Read more Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr
Below is a list to books I read in 2021, along with links to books which I reviewed (Often, I reviewed several books in the same post, so you may have to look down to find the book in question). In 2021, I read 54 books. 41 were non-fiction, 8 were fiction, and 5 were … Read more Reading summary for 2021
John Hassell Yeatts, A Long and Winding Road (1989), 120 pages. The long and winding road referred to in the title is the Blue Ridge Parkway which divided the little community of Mayberry in the mid-1930s. This was at the time when the author was becoming a man. He began working at the Dan River dam project … Read more Four Books: Memories, Poetry, and a Novel
Over the past few years, I have been concerned on the lack of civility in our public lives. We see it in politics, in grocery stores, and on the highways. Before COVID, I was activity attempting to foster conversation about civility. It’s needed in our world. Because of my interest, a parishioner in one of … Read more The Death of Politics, A Review
Philip Yancey, Where the Light Fell: A Memoir (Random House Audio, 2021), unabridged, 11 hours, 17 minutes. Back in the late 1990s, I read several of Philip Yancey’s book. Twenty some years later, I find myself going back to his books for inspiration. This is especially true for What’s So Amazing About Grace? While Yancey often drew from personal … Read more Where the Light Fell: A Memoir
Richard Lischer, Open Secrets: A Memoir of Faith and Discovery (NY: Random House, 2001), 242 pages, no illustrations. A delightful collection of essays that describes Lischer’s first three years as a pastor in Southern Illinois, just east of St. Louis, Missouri. He arrives driving a Ford Pinto. Fresh out of school, he finds his church in … Read more Two Books: Poetry and Ministry
Michelle Layer Rahal, Straining Forward: Minh Phuong Towner’s Story (Maitland, FL: Xulon Press, 2018), 355 pages, 10 pages of photos. I was introduced to Minh in 2011. I was preparing a sabbatical after leading First Presbyterian Church of Hastings (Michigan) through a building and relocation program. As I was going to be traveling overland from … Read more Straining Forward: Minh Phuong Towner’s Story
Chet Raymo, The Soul of the Night: An Astronomical Pilgrimage (1985, Cambridge, MA: Cowley, 1992), 209 pages, each chapter illustrated with a woodblock print. This may go down as the best book I’ve read all year. Raymo describes himself as a “pilgrim of darkness.” The journey and the night sky seem to provide him with joy. … Read more At Home in the Dark: two book reviews about night
In the past two months, I’ve read a dozen books, but haven’t published any reviews. While I don’t review every book, I am way behind. Part of my reason for such much reading comes from my two weeks in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, when I had lots of time to immerse myself into books. Here’s … Read more Three Books: Baseball, Africa, and a Theologian
I am away, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, for two weeks. One of the weeks is vacation and the other I set aside for study. During this time, I have been reading a lot! The Bible and commentaries on the book of Daniel, the new biography of Karl Barth by Christiane Tietz, Howard Thurman’s Jesus … Read more An update and two book reviews about walking