The Whole Bible Story
by Dr. William H. Marty. This book was sent to me by the publisher (Bethany House... thanks!) and is a chronologically arranged retelling of all the narrative sections of the Bible. Basically, imagine someone sitting down and telling you, well, the whole Bible story.
Mama's Got a Fake I.D.
by Caryn Dahlstrand Rivadeneira. This book was sent to me by the author, whose new book is coming out from my publisher (Tyndale House). As it turns out, Caryn and my wife Krista and I have a mutual and much beloved friend named Barb, which is cool. Caryn is a great writer whose books have a fun sense of humor and a lot of common sense answers to sticky questions. I haven't read this one completely yet, although the parts I've read are great. I have, however, read Caryn's next book, Grumble Hallelujah
and it was excellent. 
The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight
by Gina Oschner. I met Gina this year at the Portland Faith and Writer's conference and I really, really enjoyed our brief interactions. So of course I ran out and bought her book. I've just started it, but it's wonderful. Instead of trying to describe it, here's what Publisher Weekly had to say about it:At the center of Flannery O'Conner Award–winning Ochsner's debut novel (after collection People I Wanted to Be) is a decaying five-story building in a Khrushchev-era slum whose residents navigate the absurdities of post-Soviet life by immersing themselves in dreams. There's Olga, a translator and sometimes censor at the Red Star; her idiot son, Yuri, who represses his memories of Chechnya with a perpetually worn Cosmonaut helmet; the bathroom-attendant Azade, who knows the dreams of others by the scent of their leavings; and Tanya, a hat-check girl at the All-Russia All-Cosmopolitan Museum of Art, who records her dreams of clouds and air travel in a notebook. When news arrives that the museum may be eligible for a grant, Tanya and Yuri are charged with forging works of art, like Peter the Great's fetus collection and a saintly halo. Meanwhile, Olga fears her son will be forced to fight again in Chechnya. Though Ochsner struggles in places to expand and sustain the energy of her short stories, the novel benefits from its relative plotlessness by granting a rare glimpse of buoyant inner worlds that flourish through the frost.
The Fifth Witness
by Michael Connelly. Any long time readers of the blog will know that I'm a big Connelly fan, and I can't stop myself from buying his books. I can't wait for paperback. He's one of two authors whose books I advance order in hardback and then torture myself by trying to decide when to read them after they arrive. This is another of Connelly's "Lincoln Lawyer" novels. In The Fifth Witness, the main character, Mickey Haller is back to his old tricks, getting called in as a defense lawyer on a case involving the murder of a crooked (?) mortgage banker.
Homemade Haunting
by Rob Stennett. Homemade Haunting is the story of a washed up writer who wants to write a horror novel and discovers that he is a "method writer." He can't write about something he hasn't experienced. So he sets up shop in a "haunted" house and tries to do everything he can to come in contact with scary supernatural forces. I suspect he is going to succeed. The author and I have exchanged a few emails here and there, and Rob has graciously agreed to do an interview here at BHR once I read the book and send him some questions. If you'd like to send some questions, read the book and send them along.
Citizen Vince
by Jess Walter. I'm always looking for some new, quality crime or hard boiled detective fiction. Someone suggested this book, and I blindly obeyed. It appears that this book is a love letter to Spokane (?!), a thriller about a guy getting chased by the cops, a mob boss and a hit man, and an exploration of the all-American tradition of trying to figure out who one should vote for in the Presidential election. So... that's what's piled up in a tower on my bedside table. How about you? What are you reading? What's on the list for the near future?
Let's be honest. There are plenty of legitimate reasons not to be a fan of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I completely understand that there are people who will find 
boring. I don't see any need to pick on them. I get it that some people will find the songs and poems and familial histories intrusive. Likewise, I have no gripes with them. I even extend grace to those who say, for instance, that there is "no characterization." I don't expect them to understand that Tolkien was creating his own epic, and that epics aren't meant to be character pieces, but rather stories about what it means to be a hero. And yes, Tolkien did something no one at the time was doing, and he is the Father of Modern Fantasy and yes, absolutely, it is a powerful and wonderful trilogy that I love. I love how he subtly subverts the epic genre not by changing anything in a massive way, but by making the hero a little nobody from the middle of nowhere who has no great power or skill or history in fact no greatness at all other than a desire to do what is right. I love the unflinching boldness to call evil what it is and to focus on the good, and I love the imagination and the deeply textured world that makes you believe it might, just might really exist. I love the books. But I can see where certain readers wouldn't care for it.
Once a month my valiant friends in the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy tour group read a book and write interesting reviews, interviews, and various blog posts about that book and whatever it might light off in the powder kegs of their minds. This month they are reading 
by author 
to interested students.
![To Kill a Mockingbird [Mass Market Paperback]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sERzDtQID6FwLKmmZgPy027Mm_qX81AHGbAC_bLcuEMOB2R71Up9k0l3PpWSTg0C1nF-hxFX8SdtiN6MBYYkwQHTy9kAIM0HSB8e7y8AlanRroa3WiK4sis82M4cA5gidy7jrXDfQEJNfWgC5EWHpUE_JFV0fi39wAX8na2YvnioW2cfsgfJ70AYS7j7z7Gfn6UfC3WBMhbL4wtVWf2sc-oUTIQyQejDlJQTF7YP4-=s0-d)
To Kill a Mockingbird
together with its regular shelf buddy, 
by
notice when you start looking at reviewers on Amazon, is that every book, even the most lauded and beloved books of all time, have a coterie of people who gang up to give it negative reviews and one star. Now, subtract the people who are complaining about the fact that it hurt their feelings, that the cover is too garish and who accidentally bought that book instead of another and want to blame the author for it, and what remains is a bizarre population that not only dislike an amazing book, but who feel compelled to tell the whole world about it.
, for instance. But given the number of people who think it's a mind-blowingly excellent book, I'm not going to go write a vicious screed about it on Amazon.
is, perhaps, my favorite novel of all time. It's the story of three generations of a farming family called the Trasks, and it plays out (over and over) the story of Cain and Abel. It deals with family ties, the struggle to overcome one's sinful nature, the reality of love and the difficulties and complications brought on by successive generations of sinful people living in a family together. It probably has the clearest picture of the human condition of any book I've read, and it has a hopeful, life-affirming message about choosing to overcome who and what we are to be something (someone) better. It takes place in the early days of the settling of California, and as such pretty much all the characters are farmers and people somehow connected to farm life. I've read this novel probably ten times in the last twelve years, and I'm about to pick it up again. It continually holds something new and fresh for me, and if you haven't read it, I think you should give it a try. In my opinion, it's a better, more powerful work than 
or 
(both of which are excellent).
