2019 Books of the Year
Great books tell stories. Here’s our pick of vivid and insightful new releases for better understanding America, world events, history, science, and theology
Voices
Mailbag
Only the Father For the first time, I watched a bit of American Idol this season to see what it was all about. Thousands had gathered in the contestants' hometowns to swoon over the new "st...
Joel Belz
Truth teller
I don't want you to think it was part of a typical morning at work to get a personal phone call from Mrs. Billy Graham. True, she lived just a few minutes down the road and had literally hundreds ...
Andrée Seu Peterson
Count it all joy
I am happy these days, because of a command. One is not supposed to be happy about commands. Commands are a superseding of the will. America was founded on the impulse against that. Why then does ...
Marvin Olasky
Frontline books
Books by atheists are hitting the best-seller lists, but defenders of the faith should not miss other new books that are flying in under major media radar. One outstanding scholarly work, Richard ...
Notebook
Sports
Loose lips
To the extent San Francisco Examiner reporters Mark Fainura-Wada and Lance Williams enjoy the next 18 months, they'll have disgraced attorney Troy Ellerman to thank. Ellerman, who exposed himself ...
Money
Cracked foundation
It's shaping up to be a cruel summer for the U.S. homebuilding industry, which only a few years ago seemed to be powering the American economy. The troubles are mainly of the economic variety, but...
Science
Where the evidence leads
In recent decades, a dominant portion of paleontologists have taught that birds evolved from dinosaurs. The popular theory of bird origins has been bolstered by fossils showing filamentous pattern...
Culture
Notable Books
Noteworthy books
Plot: A wealthy businessman learns how to control weather. His personal weaknesses and a long-standing grudge cause him to use this power to strengthen a hurricane bound for Manhattan. Gist...
Movies & TV
No mystery here
"I like old-fashioned things," Nancy Drew says to the girls making fun of her in her first big-screen incarnation since the '30s. After watching her sleuthing antics for an hour and 40 minutes, a ...
Movies & TV
Power for good
In the annals of hypotheticals, nothing captures imaginations like superpower questions. But beyond the standard Flight vs. Invisibility conundrum comes an even more vexing question: If you had a ...
Movies & TV
In her dreams
From the moment she spies the two pink lines on her EPT, waitress Jenna Hunterston is as willfully determined to keep her baby as she is not to want it. "I respect this baby's right to thrive," sh...
Dispatches
Quick Takes
Quick Takes
Off-road adventure One wrong turn (and a bunch of alcohol) has landed a 24-year-old Colombian man visiting Rome in a lot of trouble. The young man mistakenly confused a historic staircase f...
Quotables
Quotables
"We are friends with the Americans, the Anglo-Saxons, but it's economic war." French lawmaker Pierre Lasbordes on advice from French defense experts that government agencies avoid BlackBerr...
The Buzz
The Buzz
North Korea In a breakthrough, Pyongyang says it is ready to play nuclear disarmament, after months of stalling over a banking dispute. In mid-June the United States found a Russian bank wi...
The Buzz Sidebar
In vain they claim
As our article on the recent rash of atheistic best-sellers in this week's issue notes, the hills are alive with the sound of musings about the purportedly increased role of religion in American p...