|
On the Meaning of Sex |
Only the brave and the foolish attempt a book about sex, but J. Bud (as we, his faithful readers, refer to him) serenely avoids the usual pitfalls in this lucid and blessedly concise overview. No forced jocularity here, no prissiness, no muddle. Working on common ground, he doesn't assume the transcendent but rather leads up to it: "Nature points beyond herself," he writes in the last chapter, and "ultimately, human love only makes sense in the light of divine love. The point is not that divine love means something and human love doesn't. Human love means so much, because divine love means still more."
The Dickens Dictionary: An A-Z of England's Greatest Novelist |
How are you celebrating the Dickens bicentennial? So many books by and about him (not to mention all those adaptations for movies and TV), so little time. You can't go wrong with this gloriously idiosyncratic guide by John Sutherland, with entries running from "Amuthement" to "Zoo Horrors." And if there's someone in the family you'd like to entice to read Dickens for the first time (or the first time since high school, at least), simply leave a copy of Sutherland's book lying around. That will do the trick.
Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit |
The African American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937) was profoundly Christian in a way that wasn't congenial to the art history lawgivers of the past century. By contrast, this splendid catalogue, which accompanies a major exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, takes Tanner on his own terms. See, for example, among several outstanding essays, Marc Simpson on Tanner's The Resurrection of Lazarus and Robert Cozzolino's "'I Invited the Christ Spirit to Manifest in Me.'"
Related Elsewhere:
On the Meaning of Sex, The Dickens Dictionary, and Henry Ossawa Tanner are available from Amazon.com and other retailers.
John Wilson is editor of Books & Culture, a Christianity Today sister publication.
CT also has more books, film, and music reviews.
Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.
Annual & Monthly subscriptions available.
- Print & Digital Issues of CT magazine
- Complete access to every article on ChristianityToday.com
- Unlimited access to 65+ years of CT’s online archives
- Member-only special issues
- Learn more
More from this Issue
Read These Next
- TrendingAmerican Christians Should Stand with Israel under AttackWhile we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
- From the MagazineEmpty Streets to the Empty GraveWhile reporting in Israel, photographer Michael Winters captures an unusually vacant experience at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
- Editor's PickA Theologian’s Vision of ‘Peasant’ Politics Is Surprisingly Lordly in ScopeEphraim Radner’s “narrow” concern for protecting the mundane goods of earthly life isn’t so narrow after all.