Andy Unedited
Exploring Books, Life, and Writing
One measure of how much I like a book is by how much I keep talking about it. In one way or another it has captured me, provoked me, stayed with me. Here are twelve, in no particular order, that I’ve read in the last two years which I keep thinking about. As they range …
Matt Ruff’s fun supernatural novel, Lovecraft Country, is an homage to H. P. Lovecraft and his spooky, weird pulp fiction of the last century. Yet it is also an incisive critique of Lovecraft’s bigotry. Set in Chicago in 1954, the novel follows a series of exploits of an extended family and their friends as they …
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is famous for its albatross and for “Water, water, every where,/Nor any drop to drink.” In Mariner, Malcolm Guite gives us so much more in this first-rate biography of Coleridge combined with a masterful analysis of the work’s compelling story, vivid images, and powerful poetry. In …
Books are better sources of information and insight than tweets or headlines. Two years ago I reviewed here The Myth of Equality, a book that gives more help and understanding than anything you will hear or read in the news today. Ken Wytsma was talking with a young man running his own landscaping firm who …
For those like me who are steeped in Western individualism, the honor-shame dynamics of the Bible are hiding in plain sight. Honor abounds in the Bible as seen in words like glory, name, blessing, praise, clean, renown, glorify, beloved. Shame words are equally plentiful—ashamed, accursed, humiliation, wretched, forgotten, reproach, despised, mocking, crushed, reviled, cursed. The …
For many of my generation, my world of type was proscribed by Courier, the almost universal typeface of the typewriter era. I did notice, though, in the 1960s when the Minneapolis Star and Tribune started using a san serif face for their headlines. Now that was pretty cool. Not as cool, however, as the psychedelic …
When widespread coronavirus restrictions first began to take effect last month, I was in an airport. I suddenly became acutely aware of people around me serving food, cleaning tables, maintaining equipment, and many more. Clearly, I thought, I have not appreciated such people enough or sufficiently expressed my thanks. They (along with other more obvious …
The center of Christianity is the cross. But how are we to understand the crucifixion? How is it that in the death of Christ we find salvation, forgiveness, new creation, justice, victory over the powers, and hope for the future? And why in particular was such a gruesome, publicly humiliating execution required? This Lent, to …
One of the main problems writers have is that we keep getting in the way of our own work. We fret if our ideas are any good, if our writing is stale, if anyone will enjoy it or be moved by it. Thinking about ourselves in this way can bring our work to full stop. …
“Be an adult. Quit your whining. Grow up.” Jordan Peterson is the crusty, old coach who does not tolerate excuses, lack of effort, or stupid choices. He expects the best from you and won’t settle for anything less—not because he needs another victory but because he wants the best for you. Listening to him read …