Andy Unedited
Exploring Books, Life, and Writing
We the Fallen People 2
Many think something is very wrong with the U.S. political system. In Robert Tracy McKenzie’s excellent book We the Fallen People, he contends that one problem lies with how we have wandered from the way the Framers of the Constitution understood human nature. As we saw in my last post, the Framers were realists who …
(We the Fallen People 1)
Complaining about political gridlock is our new national pastime. Congress seems to get barely anything done. What would the Founding Fathers of the United States think about all this? They’d be delighted. Why? Because it would mean that the Constitution was working as intended—making change difficult and slow. How did they achieve this? By spreading …
Once I was the editor for an author whose book I didn’t understand. I liked him personally but found his manuscript vague. He employed specialized vocabulary, using words to mean things they didn’t normally mean. I had no idea why the book was organized the way it was and couldn’t figure out what other structure …
Like many book lovers, you have probably enjoyed certain authors so much that you keep reading their books. At some point, though, you may get tired of them. It may begin to feel like they are writing the same book over and over, especially if they have hit on a successful formula. We can see …
Maybe you’ve noticed that a lot of Christmas music is in a minor key. Even many of our favorites. What Child Is This? O Come, O Come Immanuel I Wonder as I Wander Mary Did You Know Every key has its own distinct color and mood. But since Christmas is a joyful time of year, …
Everyone who has tried to get a book published recently knows the question every publisher will eventually ask: “What’s your platform?” That is, how well known are you? Will you be able to let lots of people know about your book once it’s published? Do you speak to groups regularly, and if so, how many? …
As an executive at a publishing house for decades I read dozens of business books. Some I read for my own interest. Others were assigned to me by my boss for our team to read. Too many of these were filled with abstract ideas, gave few examples of how to put the theory into practice, …
The story of Christian publishing in the last hundred years is one of spunky start-ups and massive conglomerates, of individual faith and social movements, of passing fads and foundational convictions. It is also a story little told. Helping fill that gap is Chasing Paper edited by independent scholar Stephanie Derrick. With forewords by Mark Noll …
“The art of prophecy is very difficult, especially with respect to the future.”* That is no less true in the world of writing and publishing than in politics or business. What will be the hot topics of the next year or decade? Few predicted two years ago that we’d see a huge resurgence of such …
I long to be creative and fresh, offering new ideas and new ways of saying things that are arresting and stimulating. When I see a painting that is startling in the new perspective it offers, when I watch a movie that exudes inventiveness, when I read a book that is original and captivating—I am invigorated, …