Book Notes: "The Lifegiving Home," by Sally & Sarah Clarkson

"The Lifegiving Home" is a book about homemaking, written by mother-daughter writing pair Sally and Sarah Clarkson. After a fairly short introductory section, the rest of the book is divided up into twelve chapters, one for each month of the year, wherein the Clarksons discuss things like "Days to Commemorate: Marking Growth with Celebration" and "Creating a Framework for Home: Rhythms, Routines, and Rituals."

When I first picked it up, I assumed that this book was primarily written for wives and mothers, but it turns out that one of the authors is a single woman, and it became clear as I read on that "The Lifegiving Home" is aimed at all Christian women, which was a really nice surprise.

(The other surprise was that I ended up liking the chapters written by Sarah--the daughter of the team--better than those written by Sally. I was surprised by this because Sally is the writer I'd heard of--and read--before. But having read her, I'm pretty sure she's the sort of mom who's delighted by the fact that her daughter is starting to lap her.)

The main thrust of this book is that our homes are a tool and a staging area for loving the Lord by loving other people. It's absolutely a theme I resonate with. Here's a quotation that sums up the best of the book, for me:

When you understand the reality of incarnation, the way that the physical trappings of our lives and our use of time and space are places where God either comes in His creative presence or remains at bay, you understand that nothing is neutral. Nothing. You can't just waste an hour on the Internet. You can't just miss one sunrise in its beauty. No room is just space. No hour is meaningless. No meal is mere sustenance. Every rhythm and atom of existence are spaces in which the Kingdom can come, in which the story of God's love can be told anew, in which the stuff of life can be marvelously turned into love.

What I liked best about the book was also, weirdly, what I also liked the least: the authors did a beautiful job of describing what a "lifegiving home" might look like. The most inspiring part of the book was simply being reminded that our everyday work in our homes is important, and then being shown, in concrete examples from the authors' own lives, what that might look like. But those same reminders and examples eventually, for me, grew a bit weary-making. For example, the idea of playing "lilting Celtic music" to promote a beautiful atmosphere was lovely the first time I heard it ... but by the end of a long book, I never wanted to hear about "lilting Celtic music" ever again.

To be fair, I think that kind of repetition is hard to avoid in a book like this, and I appreciate the authors' willing vulnerability in using their own lives as examples of the principles they were talking about. Most of their examples were beautiful, encouraging, and refreshing. But I think the book probably could have been a bit shorter, had a few fewer lists of ideas, a little less repetition, and not really suffered for the loss.  (Note: if you read a chapter each month, instead of reading the whole book at once, the repetition probably wouldn't be much of an issue.)

But, I'd be remiss not to also talk about why the concrete reminders were the best part of the book, too. The pictures Sarah and Sally painted of ordinary, good family life were inspiring, and they were inspiring because they were reminders both that all of this quotidian labor matters, and also that all of this quotidian labor really can be done well. It's not an impossible task. It's a good thing, it matters, and it can be done well.

That's a reminder I can stand to hear most days.

And, finally, because I am a Christian-church-year nerd, I have to say how much I enjoyed Sarah's December chapter, where she geeked out about the glories of Advent and all twelve days of Christmas.  I loved it.  The whole thing was awesome, and if I tried to copy out all of my favorite quotations from that chapter, this review would probably be twice as long as it already is. So, let it suffice for me to type out my favorite sentence, which comes in the context of Sarah explaining that the feasting part of the Christian cycle of feasts-and-fasts isn't about hedonistic over-indulgence, but, rather:

The point is to put flesh and expression to joy.

Yes. Exactly this.

In fact, I think you could safely say that the point of this entire book is that homemaking can be one way to put flesh and expression to love.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

This post contains Amazon affiliate links; if you purchase a book from this link, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.  (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Book Notes: TERMS OF ENLISTMENT, by Marko Kloos

TERMS OF ENLISTMENT, by Marko Kloos, is a military sci-fi novel that follows the adventures of one Andrew Grayson, a young man from an impoverished welfare city, who signs up with the armed forces in hopes of escaping his dreary, dead-end surroundings.

The military has offered hope of social and economic advancement time out of mind. It still does today, even though we Americans all like to think of ourselves as middle class. But the military offers its rewards along with a clearly delineated set of risks, and it's that tension of risk-and-reward that carries along the plot of most of this novel (though there's a sharp left turn in the tension at the end, but not an inappropriate or unwelcome one).

I gulped down this novel in just a few days and it's only now, as I sit down to write this review, that I'm forced to ask, Why? I know that I liked it and found it completely absorbing, but now I'm trying to analyze, What was it that engrossed me so thoroughly?

I have a few answers:

1. Voice. Kloos gives his hero, Grayson, an engaging voice. Grayson's not a deep philosophical kind of guy (for instance, after he kills his first opponents in combat, Grayson spends some time thinking about how that makes him feel, and how he might have easily been in their shoes--but he doesn't spend a LOT of time thinking about it), but Grayson IS an intelligent guy. He's a good observer of his circumstances and of the people around him. Which leads me to,

2. World. At least half of the fun of sci-fi is the world-building, and Kloos knocks it out of the park there. His futuristic military is similar enough to the militaries of our world to feel believable, but the differences are different enough to be fascinating.

I also liked how the dreary welfare cities were an important enough part of the plot to drive our hero's action, but also normal enough to the hero (and despised enough by the hero) that he didn't spend a long, long time talking about them. I have the feeling that the political and social structure of the government will be an issue in the rest of the series (I don't see how it couldn't be--by the end of the novel it's clear that there's a serious war coming, and how a country is run has a huge impact on how it fights its wars), but the ways in which Grayson did--and didn't--care about where he came from added to the realism of the story for me.

3. Journey. Lastly, MOST of the book is spent watching Grayson learn how to be a soldier. It's clear that there's going to be more to his story than this, but this first book was all about that personal journey. Once I realized that's what we were doing, I settled in for the ride. Watching a likeable, smart Everyman character explore a new-to-him world, and grow and change in the process, is one of my favorite story structures to experience.


I do hope that at some point in the series, Grayson does become a little more philosophical. I hope the plot brings him to the place where  he's forced to think more about his world, how it's structured, and what his role in bettering it might be. But this book was about him escaping far enough away from the trap he was born into for there to be a hope for him ever doing something about the trap itself, and I found the ride from Here to There very satisfying.



Normal content warning cautions apply: this is a military sci-fi with a fair amount of violence and language and sex (though that last is implied, and not so much described). Reader discretion is, as always, advised.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

This post contains Amazon affiliate links; if you purchase a book from this link, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.  (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Book Notes: "Mysterion"

It’s always at least a little hard to review an anthology, because it’s the work of so many different people, and you can love some of the stories and really hate others. But despite that, every anthology has its own flavor, thanks to the hand of the editor(s), and Mysterion, edited by Donald S. Crankshaw and Kristin Janz, is no different.

So, I’m going to start this review with my impressions of Mysterion as a whole, and then go on to talk a bit about the stories I really disliked, the ones that intrigued me but maybe didn’t quite work for me, and then the ones I really enjoyed (happily, the last two categories are MUCH larger than the first).

General Impressions
Like many anthologies, Mysterion is centered around a theme. Like very few other anthologies, Mysterion’s theme is “speculative fiction that interacts somehow with Christianity”. What makes Mysterion even more unique is that the authors of its stories were not forced to make any concession to the usual CBA content guidelines that limit profanity, sexual content, theological orthodoxy, etc.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I just love that this anthology exists. I’m not a reader who goes for extreme content for the sake of extreme content (as you'll see in my review), but I do think that when you’re a Christian author writing about a fallen world, artificial limitations about content can really  make your story ring false. And so I deeply appreciate the editors’ aims here.

But did it work for me? The answer is…mostly. It was more heterodox than I would have liked, and there was at least one story I regret reading because of the extreme ugliness of its images. But I also found, in this anthology's pages, Christian science fiction that actually felt like legitimate science fiction—there were worlds in this book that were as fascinating and enthralling as the worlds I’ve found in books edited by the best secular presses. I loved that.

The Stories That Didn’t Work for Me
While there were several stories that just weren’t my thing, or that I had trifling disagreements with, there were only two I heartily disliked.

Let me stop here and say: I know that sounds harsh. But two important points:

1. That’s a MUCH smaller percentage than I usually find in sci-fi anthologies.

2. I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review, and so honest is what I’m going to be!

Well, and—okay, I guess I have one more point:

3. Since I’m a writer myself, I always want to cringe away from negative reviews. In fact, I rarely post them—I don’t lie, but I just avoid reviewing the book if I didn’t like it. But since I can’t do that in this case, I do want to say that my criticism is criticism of the stories, and not of the authors as people. Also, I want to say: I could be wrong. I could be totally missing the value of these stories. So please, dear authors of the stories I didn’t like, feel free to ignore my review. Don’t hate me. Thanks.

Right, the two stories I really disliked were “A Lack of Charity” and “Golgotha”. The first was simply ugly. It was horror that was very, very horrific. It gave me images in my head that I sincerely don’t want there. However, if the author wanted to give a great picture of total depravity, I congratulate him, because it worked as that.

“Golgotha”, on the other hand, was horrific in a much less visceral way (though it had a bit of that, too). Instead, what I disliked here was…well, the conclusion felt like blasphemy, to be frank. HOWEVER (see, I’m really terrible at negative reviews), that conclusion came in the mouth of a character who you might have reason to disbelieve. So…again, this might be one that was just not for me. If it meant what I think it did, I hate it. If I missed the point completely…well, I still don’t like it, but it might be a much better story than I realized.

The Stories that Really Worked for Me
Yes, I’m skipping all the stories that were somewhere in the middle. There were many (the majority!) that I enjoyed while I was reading them, but that weren’t (for me!) those unique jewels that you read anthologies to find. But there were a few that were just joys.

Here are the ones that really stuck with me:

-"The Monastic”, by Daniel Southwell. This one had something to its atmosphere that reminded me, in a good way, of Lars Walker’s writing. And this exchange, where our priest protagonist is trying much too hard to be culturally sensitive to the Ojibwe man who is helping him, made me laugh out loud:

Father Kyle looked the little stone hermitage up and down, looked the ragged hillside up and down, and suddenly decided that he was happy. He liked this silent, ludicrous little church house. 

“It’s beautiful,” he said. But he didn’t want to offend his only human contact, so he added, “I’m sure your places of worship are beautiful, too.” 

John shrugged. “I’m a Methodist.”

Gotta watch those assumptions!

-"A Good Hoard”, by Pauline J. Alama. Very much a fairy-tale sort of a story. Predictable, yes, but that’s fine, because it was told well and that’s really the important part. It did strike me as more of a children’s story than anything else, but it seemed like a children’s story I’d enjoy reading to my own kids, and so that’s a plus in my book.

-"Cutio”, by F. R. Michaels. This was another predictable one, but again, it was well-told. It was a creepy story, but creepy in a really fun way, if that makes sense. A professor discovers an ancient automaton, but doesn’t pay enough attention to the signs that it might be a bad idea to make it functional again…this one was also told entirely through emails and text messages, and that structure really worked well with this particular plot.

-"This Far Gethsemane”, by G. Scott Huggins. This story was the one in the anthology that most made me think, This is just good sci-fi, period. I’ll be honest: I’m still not sure you can extrapolate Christianity out onto alien worlds and alien races with any kind of theological integrity. But if you can, then it’s going to look like this. Also? Just a good setting, a compelling narrative driven by interpersonal conflict, and aliens that felt really, truly alien. I liked it.

-"Ascension”, by Laurel Amberdine. This one had just a slim, slightly-supernatural thread (both literally and figuratively, actually). I really liked Amberdine’s light touch in this story. She doesn’t have her main character go overboard on speculation, but instead keeps the whole miraculous element subtle and unexplained…and interesting. A lovely little story.


In all, I recommend picking up a copy of Mysterion (but, honestly, skipping “A Lack of Charity”, because you truly don’t want those pictures in your head).  Some of the stories have questionable theology, some are better than others, but the mix on the whole is quite good, and it has that sharp, strange, interesting energy that, real life has, and I really appreciate finding Christian fiction where that is true. It's good stuff.

And that’s my review! I want to thank the publisher of Mysterion for providing me with a review copy. All opinions here are my own. And I’ll be watching with interest to see what Enigmatic Mirror Press does next!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell









This post contains Amazon affiliate links; if you purchase a book from this link, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.  (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Book Notes: "2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love", by Rachel Aaron

"2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love", by Rachel Aaron, is a book I bought after I'd already devoured a good deal of the writing posts she has up for free on her blog (look to the sidebar to find her most popular posts).

And yes, even though I knew this book repeated a lot of the information she had up for free, I was still willing to pay for it. Why?

1) Because the stuff I'd read for free was just that good, and
2) If there was more she had to say on the subject, I knew I wanted to hear it, and,
3) I'm in favor of paying writers for their work. :)

The "writing faster" aspect of Rachel's work is probably what attracts most of her writer-readers, and it's good stuff, but my favorite part of this book came when she started talking about the "writing better" and the "writing more of what you love" parts of the process.

Here is a quotation that particularly resonated with me:

I’d spent so long blaming my bad writing days on my own imagined lack of discipline, I’d completely ignored the fact that maybe the reason I didn’t want to write was because I was writing something I didn’t like. Maybe the characters were off or the tension was lacking. Hell, maybe the scene was just boring, and instead of forcing myself to keep trudging through it, I should be ripping it out. 

Now, instead of treating bad writing days as random, unavoidable disasters to be weathered, like thunderstorms, I started treating them as red flags. 

I stopped roughing myself up and started asking Why? Why don’t you want to write? What’s wrong? And while the answers were never pleasant (because really, it’s no fun to realize you messed up and now you have to rewrite a scene, or a chapter, or half a book), they were progress, and they were necessary. 

So the next time you don’t want to write, don’t waste time beating yourself up. Instead, stop and ask yourself why. Why do you not want to do this fundamentally enjoyable thing? What’s really going on?

After giving that really stellar advice on diagnosing your own writing malaise, Rachel goes on to give excellent, practical advice on how to fix the problem.

I just can't say enough about how valuable it is to be given practical advice on how to fix the boring parts. Because the truth is, there shouldn't be any boring parts in a novel. The reader paid her money in order to be entertained. (Enlightened too, maybe, but the chance to enlighten can only be earned after you've proved that your story is interesting.) If she's bored, the reader has every right to put the book down.

And does Rachel's advice work? In my experience, yes. I was able to take her advice and fix some really sticky bits in my work-in-progress. Especially helpful was her observation that bad writing days aren't just something that happen to you, but instead they're likely signs that something about your story isn't working, and it's okay to stop and evaluate what it is, so that you can FIX it, and turn your work-in-progress back into that awesome, intense, thrilling read that it really, really wants to be. In other words: don't ignore that writerly instinct when it says, "I'm bored," or "I'm unhappy." Listen to it, and ask it, "Why? Why are you bored? What would make this exciting instead of boring?" And listen to the answer.

And then do allllllllllllllllllllllllllll of the work. Because it really is work. But at least you will be doing work that makes a book that you, the writer, actually like. (And if you actually like it, maybe the readers will like it, too.)

This is a cheap e-book, and a fast read, but very valuable nonetheless. It was the help I needed when I needed it, and I've found myself going back and rereading the potent bits of her advice more than once. Recommended.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

This post contains Amazon affiliate links; if you purchase a book from this link, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.  (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Book Notes: "The Subversive Copy Editor", by Carol Fisher Saller

The Subversive Copy Editor, by Carol Fisher Saller, was a lovely read. Not a textbook, nor yet a memoir, this book is nonetheless both educational and personable. It's about the life of a copy-editor, and even though Saller works at the prestigious University of Chicago Press (home of the Chicago Manual of Style), her book contains great advice for the lonely freelance copy editor, as well as for the copy editor who is working for a big business.

I enjoyed the basic business sense of this book, the funny anecdotes, the shrewd editing advice, and, honestly, the way Saller's lovely and winsome writing voice just carried me along through the text. Highly recommended for anyone who works on getting books to press. 

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

This post contains an Amazon affiliate link; if you purchase a book from this link, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.  (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Book Notes: "Wreck of the Nebula Dream", by Veronica Scott

Yes, the cover, I know. Never mind that.

"Wreck of the Nebula Dream" is billed as "the Titanic disaster in space" and, honestly, it does a pretty good job of being that.

It's also billed as being a sci-fi romance, and I thought it did a not-as-good job of being that. Let me explain...

Our story begins with Special Forces Captain Nick Jameson grabbing a ride home on the Nebula Dream, a newly-commissioned luxury liner that's about to go on its maiden voyage and which is aiming to beat the galaxy's current speed record. Across a crowded shuttle cabin, he catches a glimpse of businesswoman Mara Lyrae, and is smitten.

Nothing much comes of it for awhile, though. We follow Nick as he tries to divert himself with the supposedly state-of-the-art appointments of the Nebula Dream and instead finds himself noticing all the places where the corporate builders apparently cut corners.

The pace of the story picks up as the Nebula Dream's engines falter, the ship hits a field of asteroids, and disaster encompasses the entire ship. Nick springs into action, trying to save everyone he can, and from there on out ... well, actually, from there on out, it reads like your basic action movie.

And I liked that! I really did. It really felt like I was reading something like Lethal Weapon crossed with The Fifth Element (maybe not quite so well-produced), and I was entertained throughout the rest of the adventure.

It didn't feel like much of a romance, though. I mean, there was a romantic subplot, but that subplot felt like a pencil-sketch, whereas the action plot felt like it was painted in competent watercolors.

What I liked and what I didn't...
I appreciated how our hero, Nick, just couldn't help himself when it came to saving every person possible. I was puzzled when a religious/mystical (maybe? or maybe it was just aliens?) thread became plot-important in the last quarter of the book. I appreciated that even though there was violence, the author didn't seem to revel in it: she portrayed it matter-of-factly, as obstacles our heroes had to overcome, and didn't seem interested (as some thriller writers are) in making her readers wallow in depravity. And I enjoyed the setting a lot: the space-faring luxury-liner felt real and intriguing. I wished the romance felt a little more real. I wish I had been pulled in a little sooner (the first few chapters felt a bit vague and wander-y).

In all: I enjoyed it for what it was. I read most of it down the long, long stretch of the 5 interstate, and it was the perfect diversion for that boring drive. It, again, really truly reminded me of an action movie. It's that kind of uncomplicated*, fun, whizzbang ride.

Content warning for some vulgar language, for violence (though, as I said, it's not excessive or gratuitous), and for one attempted rape scene (again, not gratuitous).

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

*I know this might sound like like condescension, but I don't mean it that way at all: writing something that's uncomplicated fun for the reader is hard work for the writer, and my hat's off to Ms. Scott for doing it.

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Book Notes: "Atonement: A Guide for the Perplexed", by Adam Johnson

Yesterday I shared some quotations from Adam J. Johnson's "Atonement: A Guide for the Perplexed", and today I wanted to share a proper review of the book.

(First, for full disclosure: I went to college with Adam, and he and his wife have been friends of ours for many years now. Most of what that means for this review is that now you know how I heard about this book!)

The first paragraph of "Atonement" gives a good feel for how Johnson approaches the doctrine of the atonement:

As I told my veteran pastor of my plans to do graduate studies in the doctrine of the atonement, a wry smile creased his face as he asked: 'So . . . which theory of the atonement do you believe in?' I responded: 'All of them!' The purpose of this book is to offer a more expansive answer to this question ...

In fact, this book takes on all the classical theories of the atonement and, rather than dismissing any of them, tries to mine the riches from all of them. In some ways, it reminded me of the way my kids eat ice cream on a hot day, licking up every last bit of goodness from the bowl: Johnson doesn't want any good thing that is ours in Christ to escape our grateful notice.

I appreciated the first several chapters of the book, which examine the lay of the land and remind me of all the theological classics I last read (too long ago!) in college, but the book really came alive for me in the middle chapters, which turn to examining the atonement in the light of:

-the Trinity
-the divine attributes,
  and,
-the life of Christ

These sections were golden. Books of hard theology (i.e., not lay-level theology) are, well, hard. But these middle chapters reminded me of why it's worth it for me, as a layperson, to read hard theology: because I am reminded of how good God is, and how much he has done for us, and how truly amazing his acts of mercy and grace really are.

By examining the doctrine of the atonement in light of the Trinity, I was reminded that only a triune God could have accomplished our deliverance. It was because of who God is - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - that the Redeemer could be sent by the Father, could live a life of obedience, and could come to be present within us through his Spirit. And only by God becoming man could humanity actually be reunited with God.

Johnson reminds us that we are not just saved from our sins, but we are saved "into the life and pattern of Christ" and that Jesus' life is "not merely an example to inspire us, but ... the reality into which we are swept ... Jesus had to live this life for it is our incorporation or assumption into this life by the Spirit which is our at-one-ment with God, which constitutes our salvation."

I also appreciated his understanding of God's wrath, in light of the cross. Johnson writes:

Much of our work in this book has emphasized the life-giving creative nature of Christ's atonement. But this cannot be at the expense of the destruction, judgement, wrath and death included within this same event - for while in the work of Christ God says 'YES' to humankind in Christ, he simultaneously says 'NO' to sin, evil and death. The Old Testament consistently holds the compassion of God for his people and his creatures in tension with his righteous anger against them...

And then, after observing that God passed over the sins of humankind not to overlook them, but to deal with them "in the right time and in the right way", Johnson makes this truly terrifying observation:

To be sure, he did not pass over these sins completely. Adam and Eve were sent from the garden, Israel was exiled, and many sins were punished - but God's response was always mingled with grace and patience, always giving room and making space for his sinful creatures, always seeking to bring them back to himself. The judgement, the punishment and the wrath were always muted, always a witness and testimony to that which would one day be fully released without restraint.

Which makes me pray with the words of the Te Deum, "We believe that thou shalt come to be our Judge ... we therefore pray thee, HELP THY SERVANTS ..."

And, I suppose a good place to end this review would be to say, in this book I am reminded: God has answered that plea. Definitively.


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

This post contains Amazon affiliate links; if you purchase a book from this link, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.  (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Book Notes: In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton

"In Defense of Sanity: the Best Essays of G. K. Chesterton" is by - who else? - the immortal Gilbert Keith Chesterton.

I read this slowly, but not because I didn't like it. Rather the reverse.

And, much like my book notes on Boethius, I have trouble knowing how to review this other than to just quote from it. As Boethius' words are better than mine, so are Chesterton's.

So, here are a few (a very few) quotations from this almost 400-page long tome. May it do nothing more than convince you to read the great man's work for yourself:


On believing your beliefs:

“Don’t say, ‘There is no true creed; for each creed believes itself right and the others wrong.’ Probably one of the creeds is right and the others wrong. Diversity does show that most of the views must be wrong. It does not by the faintest logic show that they all must be wrong . . .”

On belief and the book of Job:

“The modern habit of saying, ‘This is my opinion, but I may be wrong,’ is entirely irrational. If I say that it may be wrong I say that it is not my opinion . . . A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.

“The first of the intellectual beauties of the book of Job is that it is all concerned with this desire to know the actuality, the desire to know what is, and not merely what seems . . . If wishing to be happy and being quite ready to be happy constitute an optimist, Job is an optimist; he is an outraged and insulted optimist. He wishes the universe to justify itself, not because he wishes it to be caught out, but because he really wishes it to be justified . . . He remonstrates with his Maker because he is proud of his Maker. He even speaks of the Almighty as his enemy, but he never doubts, at the back of his mind, that his enemy has some kind of case which he does not understand. In a fine and famous blasphemy he says, ‘Oh, that my adversary had written a book!’ It never really occurs to him that it could possibly be a bad book. He is anxious to be convinced, that is, he thinks that God could convince him. In short, we may say again that if the world optimist means anything (which I doubt) Job is an optimist. He shakes the pillars of the world and strikes insanely at the heavens; he lashes at the stars, but it is not to silence them, it is to make them speak.”

On the bravery of aiming true:

“But the splendor of the furrowed fields is this: that like all brave things they are made straight, and therefore they bend. In everything that bows gracefully there must be an effort of stiffness. Bows are beautiful when they bend only because they try to remain rigid; and sword-blades can curl like silver ribbons only because they are certain to spring straight again. But the same is true of every tough curve of the tree-trunk, of every strong-backed bend of the bough; there is hardly any such thing in Nature as a mere droop of weakness. Rigidity yielding a little, like justice swayed with mercy, is the whole beauty of the earth. The cosmos is a diagram just bent beautifully out of shape. Everything tries to be straight; and everything just fortunately fails.

“The foil may curve in the lunge; but there is nothing beautiful about beginning the battle with a crooked foil. So the strict aim, the strong doctrine, may give a little in the actual fight with facts; but that is no reason for beginning with a  weak doctrine or a twisted aim. Do not be an opportunist; try to be theoretic at all the opportunities; fate can be trusted to do the opportunistic part of it. Do not try to bend, any more than the trees try to bend. Try to grow straight, and life will bend you.”

On great minds taking on a project not their own:

“The book originated in the suggestion of a publisher; as many more good books have done than the arrogance of the man of letters is commonly included to admit. Very much is said in our time about Apollo adn Admetus, and the impossibility of asking genius to work within prescribed limits or assist and alien design. But after all, as a matter of fact, some of the greatest geniuses have done it, from Shakespeare botching up bad comedies and dramatizing bad novels down to Dickens writing a masterpiece as the mere framework for a Mr. Seymour’s sketches. Nor is the true explanation irrelevant to the spirit and power of Dickens. Very delicate, slender, and bizarre talents indeed incapable of being used for an outside purpose, whether of public good or of private gain. But about very great and rich talent there goes a certain disdainful generosity which can turn its hand to anything. Minor poets cannot write to order; but very great poets can write to order. The larger the man’s mind, the wider his scope of vision, the more likely it will be that anything suggested to him will seem very significant and promising.”

On modern fantasy:

“There is no reason within reason, why literature should not describe the demonic as well as the divine aspect of mystery or myth. What is really remarkable is that in modern fiction, in an age accused of frivolity, in an age perhaps only too headlong in its pursuit of happiness, or at least of hedonism, the only popular sort of fantasy is the unhappy fantasy. There is a certain amount of fantasy that is avowedly fantastic, in the sense of unreal; mostly in the form of fairy-tales ostensibly written for children. But, on the whole, when the serious modern novel has dealt with preternatural agency, it has not only been serious but sad . . .”

On magical tales:

“But in any case I am convinced that every deep and delicate treatment of the magical theme . . . will always be found to imply an indirect relation to the ancient blessing and cursing; and it is almost as vital that it should be moral as that it should not be moralizing. Magic for magic’s sake, like art for art’s sake, is found in fact to be too shallow, and to be unable to live without drawing upon things deeper than itself. To say that all real art is in black and white is but another way of saying that it is in light and darkness; and there is no fantasy so irresponsible as really to escape from the alternative.”

On the unity of the sexes in marriage:

“To put the matter in one metaphor, the sexes are two stubborn pieces of iron; if they are to be welded together, it must be while they are red-hot. Every woman has to find out her husband is a selfish beast, because every man is a selfish beast by the standard of a woman. But let her find out the beast while they are both still in the story of ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ Every man has to find out that his wife is cross—that is to say, sensitive to the point of madness: for every woman is mad by the masculine standard. But let him find out that she is mad while her madness is more worth considering than anyone else’s sanity.” 

On true sportsmanship:

“…healthy people will agree that you never enjoy a game till you enjoy being beaten at a game.” 

Yes, there are parts of this book that show their age (not in a good way), but most parts of this book that feel aged give that impression just because they hit on eternal truth. Occasionally I felt, "Hmm, he's trying to hit his word count here."  Or page count, or however daily allotment of effort from a journalist was calculated in those days. 

But those slow bits are a definite minority. On the whole, this collection is a delight. I can't imagine you'd regret diving into it.


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

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Book Notes: "The Winner's Curse", by Marie Rutkoski

"The Winner's Curse", by Marie Rutkoski is a YA fantasy: the story of  Kestrel, the daughter of an important general, and Arin, a slave who becomes a revolutionary.  The setting reminded me a bit of Sparta, with all the young people expected to either marry and produce children for the empire, or to sign up and become soldiers in order to spread the empire across yet more territories.

The title refers to the idea that winning can come at a steep - and unexpected - cost. Which is what Kestrel discovers when she wins Arin at a slave auction. That inadvertent victory changes her life and is the engine that starts the plot running through its paces.

I enjoyed this one. (I know: shocker! I pretty much only review books I enjoy - Twilight, you, as always, are the great exception.)

Kestrel made sense as a 17-year-old who is smart, but in over her head. I figured things out ahead of her, but that weirdly didn't bother me. Usually, running too far ahead of the main character is annoying in a book, but here, somehow, it just made Kestrel feel more real. I mean, how many times in real life have you looked back and thought, How in the world didn't I realize that sooner? In this book, the author was able to make Kestrel's slow realizations sympathetic, not annoying.

My favorite part was probably the setting: Kestrel's city used to belong to the people her general-father had a hand in conquering and the layering of the two cultures - conquered/rebelling and conquerer/defending - made for a fascinating world.

I appreciated that Rutkoski didn't gloss over the violence of the war as much as YA sometimes does. It's a sparkling, dream-like world, yes, but her characters' decisions have costs, and that makes for a good story.


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell


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Book Notes: "Lizzy & Jane", by Katherine Reay

"Lizzy and Jane", by Katherine Reay, is the author's second novel. (You can read my review of her first book, "Dear Mr. Knightley", here.)

Her first novel was a delightful take on Jean Webster's Daddy Long Legs. (And not so much Austen, as you might suppose. But that was fine with me - there are so many Austen tributes, and rather fewer Webster tributes - and I love Webster.)

"Lizzy and Jane" was harder for me to get into than "Dear Mr. Knightley", but not because the writing was worse. Far from it: the writing was just as wonderful.

It's just that the subject was so very sad.

Cancer is a hard subject. On Saturday, I participated in a cancer fundraising walk, and watching all the survivors list their diagnoses was so moving. One of those survivors is my father. Another is my husband.

Who hasn't been touched by this horrible disease?

And Reay's writing is so good that it felt way too much like real life.

It was hard to make myself want to read about cancer.

And on top of that, I had trouble connecting with the main character.

But I'm glad I kept going, because each of those problems I had with the manuscript ended up being part of the point. Cancer is horrible, and a novel about it would be a bad novel if it didn't get some of that horror across.

And it turned out that the reason the main character was hard to connect with precisely because she was a person who'd cut herself off emotionally, due to her mother's death (from breast cancer) when she was so young.

It was realistic, and in the best of ways.

Properly, the book really came alive in the second half, as the main character herself came alive again: reconnecting with the family, rediscovering her love of making food, and (of course!) falling in love.

Speaking of the romance, one of the things I liked about it was that it wasn't the point of the book. It wasn't even in the book.

And then it was.

And then it was everything.

And I loved that! It's so real life: at one moment, you are just yourself. And the next? You are you-and-him, and then it is just so forevermore.

I liked that a lot.


And now I find I've written almost an entire book review without telling you much about plot or genre. But I hope I've said enough to let you know if you want to read this or not - and I'd lean towards read this.

Because I love reading Christian fiction that doesn't feel fake - even if it feels a little more beautiful than real life. Beauty is something we can all do with having a bit more of.

"Lizzy and Jane", by Katherine Reay? Recommended.



Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

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Book Notes: "Glamorous Powers", by Susan Howatch

So, after I read "Glittering Images", by Susan Howatch, of course I had to go on to the next in the series: "Glamorous Powers".*

In "Glamorous Powers" our protagonist is Jon Darrow, the spiritual director who came to the rescue of the protagonist in the last book. At the beginning of "Glamorous Powers", Darrow is the abbot of an Anglican monastery and well-known for his excellence as a leader, a pastor of souls, and (bizarrely) as a gifted psychic.

You have to take Darrow's gifts as a given if you're going to enjoy this novel. Howatch does her best to position Darrow's abilities as a normal human trait that some people just happen to have, like perfect pitch or 20/20 vision. I don't know how much Howatch herself believes in this sort of gift, but I'll admit that she does a good job of integrating this whiff of the fantastical into the reality of her character's life: psychic phenomena are just part of the bushel of things Darrow has to deal with, right in line with his psychological hang-ups and his troubled relationships with his children.

At the beginning of the story, Darrow has been a monk for 17 years, and he receives what he believes is a call from God to leave the monastery. After he wrestles with this call and its implications (and with his monastic superior, the Abbot General), he begins the adventure of venturing back out into the secular world that he'd so happily put behind him.

One of my favorite parts of the book was the way Howatch skillfully conveyed the culture shock of a man who'd been cloistered for so long. In some ways, it reminded me of the many stories I've heard from ex-pat and missionary friends when they've returned to the States: what once was normal is now foreign, and readjustment is work.

This volume was just as enthralling as its predecessor, though perhaps a little less likeable. Darrow is, in many ways, a hard man to like, although he does have some traits that are very easy to admire. As always, I love the way Howatch shows through her stories that life is complex, and that the human heart is unfathomable, sinful, but also shot through with longing for goodness, truth, and beauty.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell


*I should have mentioned in my review, as Sherry does so well in her review here, that this series does have sexual content. Not any that's meant to titillate, as far as I can tell, but Howatch's characters are very well-drawn, and so their sexuality is described with the same sort of care that she uses to describe their spirituality and their physicality.

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Book Notes: "Glittering Images", by Susan Howatch

I can't remember when I first read Susan Howatch's series on the Anglican Church, but the last time I read them was, I think, when I was on a retreat with my mother at a convent right before my wedding, oh, twelve years ago now?

So they've faded from my memory a fair bit.

But I've been happy to make my re-acquaintance of this fabulous series.

In fact, I've been rather gorging on them this summer.

"Glittering Images", by Susan Howatch, is the first book of her Church of England series. There are six books in the series proper, though there are a few spin-offs that she wrote afterwards.

"Glittering Images" is the story of Charles Ashworth, a clergyman who's well-off, happy in his academic ivory tower, but who is suddenly called away into a slightly seamy mission by the Archbishop of Canterbury: there's a bishop, Jardine, who has been making a lot of noise about the legality of compassionate divorce (have I mentioned this is set in the 1930's?), and the Archbishop wants to make sure there's nothing suspicious about Jardine's private life, so that he can be sure the gutter-press of the day won't be able to find any scandal in Jardine's private life while they're busy making hay of Jardine's daring public opinions on the ending of bad marriages.

So Charles hares off to Starbridge - "glittering, glamorous Starbridge" - a cathedral town pretty clearly patterned off of Salisbury - and stays as a guest with the Bishop of Starbridge, Jardine, ostensibly to study a manuscript in the cathedral library.

During his stay in Starbridge, Charles encounters not just wisps and hints of scandal, but the dark side of his own "glittering image", the public self he's so carefully cultivated, and has to face the more private self he's ruthlessly hidden in pursuit of his own high-minded clerical career.

The wonder of Howatch's novels is that they are so very suspenseful. But none of the suspense comes because you're afraid the main character is going to die or that terrorists are going to complete their doomsday weapon and destroy the world or anything far-fetched like that.

No, the suspense comes because of the protagonist's unavoidable collision with the worst, most hidden, most suppressed, most terrifying parts of his own psyche. We all have bits of ourselves that we don't really want to look at - and sometimes "bits" is generous. "Lots and lots" might be more true, most of the time.

Howatch, amazingly, is able to write about those depths in a way you believe. And not only do you believe it, but you're captivated by the mystery of it.

And also captivated by the drama of all the characters around it - by the drama, by the history, by the theology of the day - by all of the setting and the plot and everything else.

I love these books. Reading them again, I'm still in complete bafflement as to how she plotted something so intricate and so enthralling.

I love these books.


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

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Book Notes: "Lunar Activity", by Elizabeth Moon

"Lunar Activity", by Elizabeth Moon, was a book I picked up at a used book store. I thought it'd make a good distraction during some upcoming plane flights.

It did.


Elizabeth Moon is an old favorite.  And so stumbling across some of her short fiction was a real treat.

This was a funny collection, because many of the stories were written about 20 years ago, and so in some cases, real technology has leap-frogged Moon's authorly imagination. But that almost makes it better: it's fun to see how and why history progressed differently (and how the same).

The short story about embryology was especially interesting; I didn't like where it went, but I did appreciate that she took the ethics of it seriously.

As always, Moon's work is compulsively readable, and even though I was running on very little sleep, her fiction kept me awake through all my connecting flights (which was what I wanted).


I also picked up her book "Phases", which had some of the same stories, but also some new ones. I'm not through it yet, but I'm enjoying it just as much.


Good stuff. Old stuff, but still good stuff.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell


(This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you buy anything through those links, I get a very small percentage of the purchase price.)

Book Notes: "The Living", by Matt de la Peña

I picked up "The Living" by Matt de la Peña because I'd enjoyed a short story of his that I read in "My True Love Gave to Me".

"The Living" starts off as an ordinary contemporary YA, about a young man named "Shy" who's working on a ritzy cruise ship in order to earn enough money to help out his family back home (in Otay Mesa, near San Diego, by the US/Mexico border).

But soon Shy's ordinary routine becomes something else, after he's the closest witness to a passenger who commits suicide and then he finds he's being stalked by a mysterious man in a suit. Weird becomes worse when "the Big One" finally hits Los Angeles, generating a series of gigantic tsunamis that overtake the cruise ship and kill almost everyone on board.

Shy manages to survive the initial disaster, but it's clear he's not out of danger yet, and worse becomes worser and worsest . . . annnnnnnnnnnnnnd, no spoilers from me. The journey's too good to spoil it. I will say: this is an adventure book, a post-apocalyptic book, and if being lost at sea is your personal nightmare, well, you'll find plenty of terrifying fodder here.

This is clearly a YA book, with a bit of romance and a ton of action, but nothing too graphic. However, I've come to genuinely enjoy YA: without the easy out of simply bludgeoning the reader over the head with either sex or violence, what you're often left with is just a good story, full of compelling characters.

Shy's outlook is pretty bleak, when you get down to it. His musings as he's pretty sure he's dying aren't exactly full of hope or any kind of surety of eternal meaning. But in action, he's a decent sort who looks out for his friends and often puts their well-being above his own.

In other words, he's a guy you can root for.

In one of his Goodreads blog entries, author de la Peña says:

The Living is a different book for me. It's an action-driven disaster novel. I wanted to take my usual mixed-race, working class characters and put them in a bigger context. Why? I want to reveal to a wider audience the heart and dignity (as well as the flaws) of kids growing up on the "wrong side of the tracks." My dream is for The Living to reach suburban folks, too, this time. And kids in private schools. And middle class adult readers who dig YA. So instead of bringing story conflict to my characters and letting them fight it out on their own turf (rough southern California neighborhoods), I brought my characters to the conflict, in this case a luxury cruise ship bound for Hawaii.

And I have to say: boy, he succeeded. I love de la Peña's voice, and now I want to go and find his earlier books, set in those rough southern California neighborhoods he mentions. Voice is the thing that carries you through a book; it's the thing that makes the book easy to read, no matter how much hard territory the author wants to carry you over.

De la Peña has a voice I'm willing to listen to, even if it's in genres that aren't usually my favorites. That's a rare thing, and I'm so happy to find a new author I like that much.

Some content warnings for violence, mayhem, a tiny bit of sexual content, and a mildly hopeless worldview. Probably appropriate for older teenagers, but parents give it a look first.


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

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Book Notes: "Attachments", by Rainbow Rowell

I am a sucker for epistolatory novels. I have been ever since I read the classics "Daddy Long Legs" and "Dear Enemy".

So, when my sister-in-law recommended Rainbow Rowell, and I saw that Rainbow Rowell had written an epistolatory novel, I signed right up.

I didn't even care when, a few chapters into Attachments, the epistles in question turned incredibly (and I mean that: I didn't credit it anymore) narrative.

I was already hooked on the story.

"Attachments" is a novel that alternates between the point of view of Lincoln, the technician hired to monitor a large newspaper's staff email system, and the emails of Jennifer and Beth, who both work at said newspaper.

Lincoln slowly falls in love with Beth, solely through reading her emails. Meanwhile, Beth is slowly developing a crush on the guy she occasionally sees around the office - but has never actually met.

Basically, it's a romantic comedy - and I mean the comedy part: I laughed out loud frequently. Not heartily, but frequently. :)

I really enjoyed this. Cautions for a bit of language, and secular sexual ethics. But it reallyis  a lovely little read.


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell


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Book Notes: "The Sword Bearer" by John White

I've written about the other Anthropos books by John White here and here.

This one is a little different. The Anthropos books are Christian children's fantasy. And if the first few are a sort of allegories of the New Testament, this one is definitely an allegory of the old.

And as such, it's darker. Darker, and harder to read.

Nonetheless, despite the darkness, and despite the frustrating obtuseness of John, our protagonist, who is constantly choosing to be stubborn and wrong and stupid in the face of choices for goodness and mercy and right, this is a good book. (In fact, the truth is that John's stupid stubborness is all-too-recognizable-and-familiar, at least to this reader.)

I've been reading this book to my children in the evening, before our prayer and Bible reading. They draw or play with magnet sets while they listen to the story. And this book has inspired a lot of drawings. It's that kind of very visual fantasy world - easy to picture and to sink into.

And I guess I have to go back on what I said a bit: it's not all Old Testament allegory. A big part of the plot, especially in the beginning of the book, revolves around "the wine of free pardon".   I loved the inclusion of this simple analogy to the Eucharist. It means even more to me now than it did as a kid.

I guess the highest praise I can offer to this book is this: my son, Gamgee, swears that he dislikes this book when we're not in the middle of reading it, yet every time I picked it up and read another chapter, he was open-mouthed, caught up in the suspense of what's-going-to-happen-next, and eager as any of his sisters to hear how things would go for Jon, and Mab, and everyone else on the island.

This is a great read-aloud. I loved it when I was young, and I'm happy to say that now, as an adult, my kids love it too.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell


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Why I review the books I do

Recently, the Writing Excuses cast talked about how they choose which books to review on their blogs. And they all basically said that, being writers themselves, they chose to only review books they actually liked.

And I thought, Cool. I do the exact same thing.

Because I do. The truth is, being a writer makes you slow to want to publicly criticize other writers. Partly because it might look like sour grapes. Partly because you understand well that not all books are for all audiences.

And partly because you know that there's a difference between providing a helpful critique for a friend, and providing public criticism to someone you might not even know.  It's all about context. The helpful critique for a friend might be even harsher than the public criticism, but that happens in a context where you know your friend wants the real deal, where maybe even you expect the same thing from that friend in return. Because you're both committed to making your work better.

The weird thing is, I'm really grateful for good book reviewers who honestly take on books they like and books they don't. But I think that's a hard post to hold if you're an author yourself.

And I don't write dishonest book reviews. I honestly like the ones I say I like.

And you can't even tell that I don't like a book by the fact that I choose not to review it. For instance, I just finished John Scalzi's Lock In and enjoyed it. Stayed up late to finish it, even.

I just don't feel like reviewing it. I read it for fun, had fun, and don't feel like turning it into work.

The funny thing is, the closer the book is to the stuff I write myself, the easier it is to critique it. I know the field, and I know what I like and what I don't and why.

But the further the book is from the stuff I like myself, the easier is to be public about what I don't like about the book. Probably because in that case, I'm speaking much more as a reader than as a writer.

And, in the end, it's as a reader that you need to write your book reviews.

Other writers - when they are thinking like writers - are not your end audience.

Readers are.

And in the end, it's how your book appears to the readers that really matters.


Which is why I only review books I like.  :)


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell


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