Martin Sherwin’s Gambling With Armageddon (Knopf, 2020) should do for the whole world what cancer scares should do for individuals: drive us to our knees and make us deeply thankful for being spared. It’s a terrific book to read, even if the author’s conclusions about why the world escaped a nuclear war are thoroughly un-Biblical. 

About a year ago my husband and I began reading a series of books by a man who belongs in the top rank of memoirists (and whose book titles come from the colorful periods in his life). 

I liked Rod Dreher’s previous book, The Benedict Option, but told him that if harassment of Christians grew to the point where that option became essential, so would the unwillingness of empowered authorities to live and let live. Dreher’s new book is a manual for spiritual survival if a surveillance state imposes secularism on all. He summarizes well what we can learn from those who lived under 20th century totalitarianism.

Texas novelist Larry McMurtry died Thursday of heart failure. He was 84. He was born in 1936 in a ranch house near Archer City, Texas. The home contained no books, with the possible exception of a Bible. But on the front porch or around the fireplace in the winter, family and friends drew from a deep well of oral stories. For two generations his ancestors had moved cattle from rural Texas to populated areas. He spent much of his life herding books the other direction.

Beloved children’s author Beverly Cleary died Thursday at her home in Northern California, publisher HarperCollins announced. She was 104. Her stories portrayed carefree childhoods, much like her own in Oregon. As a little girl, Cleary hated to read and was in the lowest reading circle in first grade. That bad experience inspired her to write books her young readers could enjoy. Cleary’s mother, an ex-teacher, told her, “Try to write something funny.”

Echo Mountain by Lauren Wolk: With the onset of the Great Depression, Ellie’s family loses everything and has to start anew in the rugged Maine wilderness. Ellie learns from the land, gathering honey and discovering carved wooden trinkets from a mysterious observer. Then Ellie’s family faces a crisis after an injury leaves her father lying comatose in the cabin they’d built.

All Through the Night by Tara Johnson: At the start of the Civil War, Cadence Piper wants to prove her worth to her father by serving as a nurse. But the head of nursing rejects her because she’s too young and pretty. Instead Cadence brings comfort to the Union soldiers by singing to them. Joshua Ivy, head surgeon at Judiciary Square Hospital, resents the “Songbird of the North,” thinking she’s vain. But as he gets to know her, he recognizes her deep insecurities and encourages her to see herself as God does: a worthy daughter, loved by Christ.