Rev. Dr. Jeff Garrison
Anne Applebaum, The Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism (2020: New York: Anchor Books, 2021), 206 pages including notes. No index or bibliography. This is an important book for understanding much of what is happening in our world. However, at first, I wondered what I was getting into as Applebaum describes a party she … Read more Three reviews: Democracy, Beza, & Tides
Hannah Anderson, Humble Roots: How Humility Grounds and Nourishes Your Soul (Chicago: Moody Publishing, 2016), 206 pages. I heard Anderson at the HopeWords Writers Conference I attended in April in Bluefield West Virginia. Another speaker referred this book of hers for its ability to create a sense of place, which is why I chose it as the … Read more Gardener Spirituality and Olmstead the Gardner: Book Reviews
Billy Beasley, Home (Abbeyville, SC: Moonshine Press, 2022), 234 pages. Things just don’t seem to go Trent Mullins way. Never able to please his father, he has stopped trying. Two different women have broken his heart (and one of them twice). Depression has set in. To break out of the depression, without pills, Trent finishes up his … Read more Where is Home?
Mark Jarman, Dailiness: Essays on Poetry (Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2020), 177 pages. I became acquainted with Jarman’s poetry through poems published in the Reformed Journal. Dailiness consists of a series of long essays on various aspects of poetry. Originally, I thought I would use this as evening reading, but the essays were too long and deep … Read more Books on Poetry and Writing and a Poem
It looks like we’ll have a baseball season this year. Why are there so many good baseball books? I don’t know of any other sport who produces as many good writers as baseball. In anticipation of the season, I listened to Robert Creamer’s Baseball in ’41, which I’m reviewing below. I’m also attaching a review of another … Read more In Preparation for the Baseball Season: Book reviews
Anne Applebaum, Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine (2017), 17 hours and 46 minutes I read reviews of this book when it first came out. It looked intriguing, but I never got around to read it. When Russia invaded Ukraine, I decided I needed to read something to get myself up to speed on what is happening … Read more Red Famine (some background on the conflict between Ukraine and Russia)
I recently read Heretical Fictions, which I am reviewing here. I am also reposting another review that I wrote seven years ago on Mark Twain and Orion Clemens, which looked at the relationship between Twain and his older brother. That review will enlighten us on the first review. I hope to soon find a way to post an article … Read more Two Books about Mark Twain
Our Frightening World We’re living in a scary time with what is going on in Ukraine and Putin’s disregard for the rule of law as he orders Russia to invade a sovereign nation. In 2011, I took the Trans-Mongolian railroad from Beijing to Moscow and then an elegant overnight train on to St. Petersburg. It … Read more Learning more about Russia
Story 1: Like a lot of kids, I don’t look back fondly on my Junior High. But the one exciting thing about those years occurred shortly after sundown, especially in the winter. I would wait with excitement as the sky darkened, turning on my receiver and listening as I prepared my transmitter which was tied … Read more Two stories of mine and two related book reviews
I’m reading a lot in this new year but am way behind on my book reviews (but then I never review all the books I read. Here is one I finished in late December, one I finished in January, and a third finished in February: Makota Fujimura, Art and Faith: A Theology of Making (New Haven, … Read more Book Reviews: Theology, Memoir, & Devotion