Monthly Archives: February 2024

Book Stacks: A Never Ending Journey of Discovery, Collecting and Reading

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I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Some of you may know I’m currently reading, Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World by Eric Metaxas and I’m enjoying the biography so much, I’m taking my time and reading slowly through the pages. I’ve already marked quite a few passages for my annotating. Metaxas’s detailed account of Martin’s life and the period is exceptionally written. As I have been reading this book, I decided I must read all his works and shortly after, I remembered I have a paperback copy of, Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery! I will be reading that story next! I’ve had that book a few years and I know the history through other sources. I do remember leafing through its pages and reading a bit here and there. I had intended to read it straight away and I’m not sure what happened! No time like the present, I say. Maybe it was meant to be. Regardless, I’m delighted to already own two of Metaxas’s works.

After reading both books mentioned above, there are two other books I’ve already chosen to read. I discovered and Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy and Letter to the American Church on YouTube. Metaxas’s channel and his guest appearance at churches and various interviews suddenly appeared this past Tuesday on my feed. Algorithms are useful at times, interesting and a bit unsettling all at the same time.

Stephanie

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

Who better to face the greatest evil of the 20th century than a humble man of faith?

As Adolf Hitler and the Nazis seduced a nation, bullied a continent, and attempted to exterminate the Jews of Europe, a small number of dissidents and saboteurs worked to dismantle the Third Reich from the inside. One of these was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor and author.

In this New York Times bestselling biography, Eric Metaxas takes both strands of Bonhoeffer’s life–the theologian and the spy–and draws them together to tell a searing story of incredible moral courage in the face of monstrous evil.

In Bonhoeffer, Metaxas presents the fullest account of Bonhoeffer’s life, including his:

  • heart-wrenching decision to leave the safe haven of America to return to Hitler’s Germany
  • involvement in the famous Valkyrie plot and in “Operation 7,” the effort to smuggle Jews into neutral Switzerland
  • lifelong dedication to sharing the tenets of his faith

This edition, revised and with a new introduction from the author, shares the deeply moving story through previously unavailable documents, including personal letters, detailed journal entries, and firsthand personal accounts to reveal never-before-seen dimensions of Bonhoeffer’s life and work.

Letter to the American Church

In an earnest and searing wake-up call, the author of the bestseller Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy warns of the haunting similarities between today’s American church and the German church of the 1930s. Echoing Bonhoeffer’s prophetic call, Eric Metaxas exhorts his fellow Christians to repent of their silence in the face of evil before it is too late.

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil.

Not to speak is to speak.

Not to act is to act.

God will not hold us guiltless.”

Can it really be God’s will that His children be silent at a time like this? Decrying the cowardice that masquerades as godly meekness, Eric Metaxas summons the Church to battle.

The author of a bestselling biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Metaxas reveals the haunting similarities between today’s American Church and the German Church of the 1930s. Echoing the German martyr’s prophetic call, he exhorts his fellow Christians to repent of their silence in the face of evil.

An attenuated and unbiblical “faith” based on what Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace” has sapped the spiritual vitality of millions of Americans. Paying lip service to an insipid “evangelism,” they shrink from combating the evils of our time. Metaxas refutes the pernicious lie that fighting evil politicizes Christianity. As Bonhoeffer and other heroes of the faith insisted, the Church has an irreplaceable role in the culture of a nation. It is our duty to fight the powers of darkness, especially on behalf of the weak and vulnerable.

Silence is not an option. God calls us to defend the unborn, to confront the lies of cultural Marxism, and to battle the globalist tyranny that crushes human freedom. Confident that this is His fight, the Church must overcome fear and enter the fray, armed with the spiritual weapons of prayer, self-sacrifice, and love.

About the Author:

Eric Metaxas is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther, If You Can Keep It, Miracles, Seven Women, Seven Men, and Amazing Grace. His books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the New Yorker, and Metaxas has appeared as a cultural commentator on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. He is the host of The Eric Metaxas Radio Show, a daily nationally syndicated show aired in 120 U.S. cities and on TBN. Metaxas is also the founder of Socrates in the City, the acclaimed series of conversations on “life, God, and other small topics,” featuring Malcolm Gladwell, Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, Baroness Caroline Cox, and Dick Cavett, among many others. He is a senior fellow and lecturer at large at the King’s College in Manhattan, where he lives with his wife and daughter.

Fabric Yarn Snippet Roll Bowl: Part I

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I am thrilled to be sharing pictures of this bowl I made for a dear friend. Her yarn looks great in the bowl! This is the first fabric bowl of the year I’ve finished and have quite a few more coming up. I share free tutorials on my YouTube channel on how to make fabric snippet bowls. They are a blast to make and you can get really creative with how to make the bowls. I hope you check it out!

Last year, I made quite a few scrappy ones with raw edges. This particular bowl does have raw edges but they are sewn a bit closer together. I have also explored with using yarn by couching the yarn to the bowl and creating a design. My journey is hand stitching so except that method in the tutorials. I do give tips on what part of the bowls you can machine sew.

Sometime this week, I will be sharing an intro video to the next bowl. Each tutorial includes tips and ideas in how to make them. This year, I’m exploring new designs with the bowls. A must watch because they will be unique and I will be expanding on a few methods I’ve already taught.

Stephanie

The name of my YouTube Channel is, “Stephanie’s Art Studio” or you can click on the link provided above to go straight to the channel. I hope you grab your fabric scraps, needle, threads, yarn-optional-and join me on this journey! You’ll love it!

Biographies & Memoirs

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On January 19th I posted about a few selected non-fiction books I have added to my wish-list. There are too many to count and not enough time in the hours of a day that direct our attention elsewhere! A bibliophile’s struggle one might often say. This topic is an enjoyable pastime to discuss among fellow book lovers and I’m delighted to be sharing this book blog entry with you.

This past weekend I began reading Martin Luther by Eric Metaxas and I’m enjoying his telling of Luther a great deal. I wanted to read a highly regarded biography on Luther and was delighted to find a copy at Half Price Books. I was fortunate to obtain a hardback that is in excellent condition. Below you will find the description of the Luther book and a few other titles that may pique your interest.

Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World by Eric Metaxas

 Description

On All Hallow’s Eve in 1517, a young monk named Martin Luther posted a document he hoped would spark an academic debate, but that instead ignited a conflagration that would forever destroy the world he knew. Five hundred years after Luther’s now famous Ninety-five Theses appeared, Eric Metaxas, acclaimed biographer of the bestselling Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy and Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, paints a startling portrait of the wild figure whose adamantine faith cracked the edifice of Western Christendom and dragged medieval Europe into the future. Written in riveting prose and impeccably researched, Martin Luther tells the searing tale of a humble man who, by bringing ugly truths to the highest seats of power, caused the explosion whose sound is still ringing in our ears. Luther’s monumental faith and courage gave birth to the ideals of liberty, equality, and individualism that today lie at the heart of all modern life.

Ben & Me

In Search of a Founder’s Formula for a Long and Useful Life by Eric Weiner

Pub Date 11 Jun 2024 

Description

New York Times bestselling author Eric Weiner follows in the footsteps of Benjamin Franklin, mining his life for inspiring and practical lessons in a book that’s part biography, part travelogue, part personal prescription.

Ben Franklin lingers in our lives and in our imaginations. One of only two non-presidents to appear on US currency, Franklin was a founder, statesman, scientist, inventor, diplomat, publisher, humorist, and philosopher. He believed in the American experiment, but Ben Franklin’s greatest experiment was…Ben Franklin. In that spirit of betterment, Eric Weiner embarks on an ambitious quest to live the way Ben lived.

Not a conventional biography, Ben & Me is a guide to living and thinking well, as Ben Franklin did. It is also about curiosity, diligence, and, most of all, the elusive goal of self-improvement. As Weiner follows Franklin from Philadelphia to Paris, Boston to London, he attempts to uncover Ben’s life lessons, large and small. We learn how to improve a relationship with someone by inducing them to do a favor for you—a psychological phenomenon now known as The Ben Franklin Effect. We learn about the printing press (the Internet of its day), early medicine, diplomatic intrigue and, of course, electricity. And we learn about ethics, persuasion, humor, regret, appetite, and so much more.

At a time when history is either neglected or contested, Weiner argues we have much to learn from the past and that we’d all be better off if we acted and thought a bit more like Ben did, even if he didn’t always live up to his own high ideals. Engaging, smart, moving, quirky, Ben & Me distills the essence of Franklin’s ideas into grounded, practical wisdom for all of us.

Drawn Testimony

My Four Decades as a Courtroom Sketch Artist

by Jane Rosenberg

Pub Date 13 Aug 2024

Description

A penetrating, compulsively readable memoir about the four-decade career of America’s top courtroom sketch artist, for fans of Lab Girl and Working Stiff

Jane Rosenberg is America’s pre-eminent courtroom sketch artist. For over forty years, she’s been at the heart of the story, covering almost every major trial that has passed through the New York justice system. From mob bosses to fallen titans of finance, terrorists and sex abusers, corrupt cops and warring entertainment icons, she has drawn them all.

In Drawn Testimony, Rosenberg brings us into the high-stakes, dramatic world of her craft, where art, psychology and courtroom drama collide. Over the course of her legendary career, Jane has had a front row seat to some of the most iconic and notorious moments in our nation’s recent history, sketching everything from Tom Brady’s deflate-gate case, to John Lennon’s murder trial to cases against Ghislaine Maxwell, John Gotti, Harvey Weinstein and most recently, the indictment against former President Donald Trump. Readers will learn how she has honed her unique powers of perception, but also what her portraits reveal, not only about her subjects, but about the human condition in general.

Fearless, fascinating and gorgeously written, Drawn Testimony captures the unique career of an artist whose body of work depicts history as it’s happening.

My Roman History

A Memoir

by Alizah Holstein

Pub Date 25 Jun 2024 

Description

In this exquisite and profound memoir, a medieval historian traces her lifelong obsession with Rome and the encounters with the city’s past and present that became fulcrum points in her life

From the time she first felt called to its gates as a high school student fascinated by Dante and Italian thanks to a life-changing teacher, Rome has been a fixed star around which Alizah Holstein’s life has rotated—despite the fact that she bears no Italian heritage, and has never lived there long enough to call it home. 

In this kaleidoscopic yet intimate memoir, her shifting relationship to a vibrant city layered with human history becomes a lens on why we look to the past, on the mysteries of affinity and desire, and on what it means to grow up. Holstein weaves the stories of Romans past and present, and encounters with the city of historical figures from Petrarch to Freud, into the narrative of her evolution from a curious student abuzz with the thrill of discovery, to a lonely researcher in a city to which she feels she belongs despite knowing no one, to an ambitious young historian struggling to find her place in the halls of academia. Following a trail of memories—that first taste of a tartufo cioccolato in Piazza Navona, the ancient walls of the Via Appia blurring from the back of a motorcycle, the smudge of ink on a manuscript left by a scribe’s hand over seven hundred years before—she explores what it means to be romana, Roman—and to find solace and self-knowledge in the presence of the past.

An enveloping, original, and deeply resonant account, set against one of the world’s most beguiling cities, of the unexpected things that give our lives meaning, My Roman History is a profound depiction of the winding path to self-realization, which—much like history itself—is mysterious, captivating, and ever-unfolding.

Wish-List: Books on the Christian Faith

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I’ve been on the search for books on Systematic Theology, further Biblical teachings of Christ’s ministry and Christian application with a non-Calvinistic view point and came across Norman L. Geisler. I found information saying he is considered “moderate Calvinist,” and that he is not a “Five Point Calvinist.” I find that to be somewhat reassuring in my search for the reading material I’m looking for. I am definitely willing to give his books a read. You see, I’m not a Calvinist nor am I a protestant. That said, I am not closed minded from reading different viewpoints; I’m just looking for particular studies for the moment. Mater of fact, I respect and listen to a lot of what protestants have to say.

Also, I’m planning on reading the books in my father’s library on Systematic Theology as well as adding to my own library.

First, what is Systematic Theology according to Oxford Languages? The theology is “a form of theology in which the aim is to arrange religious truths in a self-consistent whole.” In a nutshell, the systematic view is to give an orderly format of the doctrines of Christian faith. And let me tell you, I have seen and heard many different viewpoints. Below are a few books by Geisler that I’m interested in reading.

The Big Book of Christian Apologetics: An A to Z Guide (A to Z Guides) 

The Big Book of Christian Apologetics is a comprehensive resource designed to equip motivated believers with information to help defend and explain their faith. Examining nearly every key issue, person, and concept related to Christian apologetics, this book clarifies difficult biblical passages, clearly explains various philosophical systems and concepts, examines contemporary issues and challenges, and offers classic apologetic arguments, all with the aim of giving readers the background to intelligently and persuasively talk about their Christian faith with skeptics. An expertly abridged version of the Baker Encyclopedia on Christian Apologetics, this resource brings leading apologist Norman L. Geisler’s seminal work to the masses.

A Popular Survey of the New Testament 

Understanding the New Testament is a daunting but exciting task. Our world is so different from that of the first century. Yet it is important to understand the context and content of the New Testament if we are to be faithful followers. Now in paper, this survey addresses the who, what, where, when, why, and how questions that readers of the Bible may have, such as: How can we tell if what is written in the New Testament is true history or just mythology? When were these books written and why? and What can today’s believers get out of letters addressed to people who lived two millennia ago? Written in an easy, informal style, this survey is accessible and enjoyable to anyone who wants to better understand the New Testament.

Defending Inerrancy: Affirming the Accuracy of Scripture for a New Generation

According to the authors, the doctrine of inerrancy has been standard, accepted teaching for more than 1,000 years. In 1978, the famous “Chicago Statement” on inerrancy was adopted by the Evangelical Theological Society, and for decades it has been the accepted conservative evangelical doctrine of the Scriptures. However, in recent years, some prominent evangelical authors have challenged this statement in their writings.

Now eminent apologist and bestselling author Norman L. Geisler, who was one of the original drafters of the “Chicago Statement,” and his coauthor, William C. Roach, present a defense of the traditional understanding of inerrancy for a new generation of Christians who are being assaulted with challenges to the nature of God, truth, and language. Pastors, students, and armchair theologians will appreciate this clear, reasoned response to the current crisis.

Note: Also, I would like to mention a book of his I’ve had on my wish-list and at first, the author’s name escaped my memory. I’m delighted to know he has written the book along with Frank Turek of whom I know his work.

I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Foreword by David Limbaugh) 

Geisler and Turek argue that Christianity requires the least faith of all worldviews because it is the most reasonable. A valuable aid to those interested in examining the reasonableness of the Christian faith.

The Way of the Hermit

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(My Incredible 40 Years Living in the Wilderness)

by Ken Smith

Pub Date 28 May 2024

Description

Subconsciously, I pressed myself into the loch’s banks as that summer inched forward. We’d got off to a rocky beginning, but I started to see Treig in a different way. There was something about this land that told me just to hold on a while longer. It might’ve been just a whisper at the time, but I knew it was definitely worth heeding. I just knew that was it. This was the place.

Seventy-four-year-old Ken Smith has spent the past four decades in the Scottish Highlands. His home is a log cabin nestled near Loch Treig, known as “the lonely loch,” where he lives off the land. He fishes for his supper, chops his own wood and even brews his own tipple. He is, in the truest sense of the word, a hermit.

From his working-class origins in Derbyshire, Ken always sensed that there was more ot life than an empty nine to five. Then one day in 1974, an attack from a group of drunken men left him for dead. Determined to change his prospects, Ken quit his job and spent his formative years traveling in the Yukon. It was here, in the vast wilderness of northwestern Canada, that he honed his survival skills and grew closer to nature. Returning to Britain, he continued his nomadic lifestyle, wandering north and living in huts until he finally reached Loch Treig. Ken decided to lay his roots amongst the dense woodland and Highland air, and has lived there ever since.

In The Way of the Hermit, Ken shares the remarkable story of his life for the very first time. Told with humor and compassion, his unique insights allow us to glimpse the awe and wonder of a life lived in nature and offer wisdom on how each of us can escape the pressures and stresses of modern life.

My thoughts:

I came across The Way of the Hermit as I started my search for books that will be published this year.I find the premise to be intriguing. Adding this title to my ever growing wish-list! Do you collect titles? Even knowing you may never get a chance to read them all? There is something unique and delightful in the search and discovery. I do hope I get the chance to read this story. Maybe one day. Sometimes those opportunities show up when least expected. Like last October when I went to a library sale with my mother and found books I hadn’t read but I knew of them or had previously added them to my wish-list. Funny thing is, they were not on the list of titles I brought with me to the sale. What a lovely thought to know they were edged in my memory.

Stephanie Hopkins