The Intellectual Devotional

I never buy new hardcovers because they're too expensive, but I made an exception yesterday and bought two: The Intellectual Devotional and Made to Stick. At first I was a bit worried when I saw the title for The Intellectual Devotional, thinking it was going to be a kind of anti-prayer book for atheists, pitting faith against reason or science against religion. As I thumbed through the pages, though, it doesn't appear to be any such thing. Like a devotional, it consists of daily readings, but rather than meditations, these are readings in different intellectual areas: History on Mondays, Literature on Tuesdays, Visual Arts on Wednesdays, Science on Thursdays, Music on Fridays, Philosophy on Saturdays, and Religion on Sundays. I like these "daily reading"-type books, and I had some money burning a hole in my pocket (a rare thing), so I decided to pick it up and give it a try. Today's reading was all about cloning, and it doesn't take any kind of moral stance on the issue, it simply recounts what cloning is and focuses on the story of Dolly the sheep. As I peek at this Sunday's topic, I see that the subject is the Torah. A quick browse through the rest of book reveals readings on Dickens, the Last Supper, Chemical Bonds, Real Numbers, the Manhatten Project, Rainbows, Verdi, the Battle of Midway, and Confucianism. It does bother me a bit to see the word "devotional" in the title, since it implies religious enthusiasm towards something non-religious, but the book doesn't appear to be anti-religious. In fact, the Sunday readings in religion appear to be respectful and informative, more like a survey of world religions. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it, and if my opinion changes I'll let you know. As for the other book, Made to Stick, I'll talk about that another day.

Making Sense Out of Suffering

I got to thinking about suffering this morning. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because Holy Week is about to start, or maybe it's just one of those random thoughts that just kind of bubbles to the surface every so often. Whatever the reason, I went to my shelf of influential books--you know, the few books that have changed my life (I hope everyone has a shelf like that)--and I took down the one book that was able to help me get through the darkest period of my life. A few years ago our daughter became frighteningly sick (you can read her story here), and I suddenly found myself facing the most inexplicable of phenomena: the suffering of an innocent. My five-year-old daughter was sick and I wanted to know why. It was then that I chanced across Peter Kreeft's Making Sense Out of Suffering. That single book helped me make it through all the pain, anger and doubt. It didn't provide quick and easy answers, which is one reason I trusted it. As Westley says in The Princess Bride, "Life is pain...Anyone who says otherwise is selling something." Kreeft's book gave me the mind-set I needed to navigate through the pain, the questions and the despair. Anyway, I thought someone out there might need a book like this today so that's why I'm writing this. Peter Kreeft changed my life, and maybe he can help you. As he himself says, "This book is for everyone who has wept and wondered. That includes everyone who has ever been born."

Video Book Talk: Philosophy and Plato

Where should you begin if you want to read philosophy? How about by reading The Last Days of Socrates, a collection of dialogues by Plato? Check out the video for more:

Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog

Here's a new title from Ignatius Press that looks terrific: Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog: "Lucy Beckett's In the Light of Christ is remarkable in depth and scope, a highly learned excursion through twenty-five centuries of writings, beginning with Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Plato, and ending with Czeslaw Milosz and Pope John Paul II. Along the way, Beckett reflects on the deeper meanings and purposes of works written by Augustine, Benedict, Anselm, Dante, Shakespeare, Donne, Pascal, Johnson, Coleridge, Newman, Hopkins, Santayana, Eliot, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Beckett, Weil, and Bellow, as well as many others. Her goal is to elucidate these texts--even those written before Christ or by non-believers--in the light of Christ, and to show how they reflect not just literary greatness, but goodness, truth, and beauty, and thus bring readers into contact with God. 'There is no need for a Christian to have any idea of the work of Dante or Dostoyevsky,' she contends, 'But there is surely a need for those who are drawn to Dante or Dostoyevsky to have some idea of Christianity.'"

Video Book Talk: How to Think About the Great Ideas

Here is my first attempt at a video book talk, an informal introduction to Mortimer Adler's How to Think About the Great Ideas: