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Showing posts from March 27, 2006

Reviews: The Supernatural (#15 & #16)

I've been getting behind on the book reviews, so I'll just jump right in to what I've read in the past couple of weeks. (Beware, this is kind of a long one.) What Jesus Meant by Gary Wills (Viking, March 2006) One of my favorite parts of living in Brooklyn is going to Old First , by some reckonings the oldest church in the borough. (Yep, I'm a Christian as well as a book nerd – talk about your obstacles to hipster credibility!) The building is magnificent, if in need of repair (Tiffany stained glass, an ancient pipe organ, and that great old wood smell). And it's an open-armed, community-minded sort of place, where tradition is taken as seriously as a commitment to a progressive engagement with contemporary realities. It's actually a lot like my idea of the perfect neighborhood bookstore, though with less profit-oriented goals. Anyway, at Old First we've been knocking around the idea of starting a book group for reading literature that has resonances fo