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
Joel Belz
Mistimed message
If I wasn’t right when I first made the point in this column more than 25 years ago, I probably should be super careful with such a warning now. ...
Mindy Belz
Showdown over Lebanon
Never mind that Lebanon is half the size of New Jersey, its national melodrama is not to be missed. ...
The Editors
Mailbag
‘From Luther to Merkel’ ...
Marvin Olasky
Tumultuous times
Airport shooting. Trump inauguration. Travel ban. Pipeline protest. Midwest tornadoes. Neil Gorsuch. School shooting. Comey firing. Obamacare survival. Solar eclipse. Charlottesville killing. Antifa...
Andrée Seu Peterson
The new rules
There has been climate change in America. ...
Janie B. Cheaney
Dreamland faces reality
In 1905, Hollywood was a peaceful suburb of Los Angeles populated mostly by orange trees, unconcerned with the new art form taking shape on the East Coast. “Motion pictures” were a novelty predicted...
Notebook
Science
Sowing catastrophe?
Geostorm is Hollywood’s latest disaster drama. The movie depicts a fictional, futuristic world where scientists use a satellite system to control the Earth’s weather and battle climate change—until...
Sports
New foul territory
WASHINGTON—The nonprofit advocacy group Athlete Ally intends to do for college athletics what the Human Rights Campaign has done for corporate America: force compliance with LGBT demands. ...
Lifestyle
Finding Jesus after the Summer of Love
SAN FRANCISCO—This year marks the 50th anniversary of San Francisco’s 1967 Summer of Love—a summer that quickly turned into a winter of discontent, rife with drug overdoses, sexually transmitted...
Religion
Epic opening
The Museum of the Bible will impress you with its scale and amenities, but not with its evangelism. ...
Culture
Movies & TV
Living in the mud
Few escape a mud fight—literal or metaphoric—without getting dirty. This seems to be the theme of Mudbound, independent writer-director Dee Rees’ sprawling drama about two families in the race-charged...
Movies & TV
Honoring elders
Parents will probably ascertain from the trailers that Pixar’s big PG holiday release, Coco, centers on the Mexican tradition of Dia de los Muertos—Day of the Dead. This could cause concern for some,...
Movies & TV
A Christmas transformation
In an exchange some scholars now believe may never have happened, the great Russian novelist Dostoevsky described meeting the great British novelist Charles Dickens. As the story goes, Dickens told...
Music
New or recent releases
Christmas Christmas ...
Music
Mary’s (and Isaiah’s, and Gabriel’s) song
With her new album Immanuel, Melanie Penn has risen to the challenge of creating original Christmas music that neither exploits nostalgia nor struggles to be trendy. Of its 10 songs, only “Joy to the...
Q&A
Persevering saints
When sociology professor Fenggang Yang, who directs Purdue University’s Center on Religion and Chinese Society, said China will be the most Christian nation in the world by 2030, major Western...
Children's Books
Complicated plots
Clayton Byrd Goes Underground ...
Books
Recent nonfiction books
Education A La Carte ...
Books
A walk on the dark side
This issue lists our best books of the year, so this is an opportune time to describe the worst I read in 2017: Sally Quinn’s memoir, Finding Magic (HarperOne). ...
Movies & TV
A middle-school story
Wonder, in theaters now, makes you think: How great would fifth grade be if you had Mr. Browne (Daveed Diggs) as your teacher, Mr. Tushman (Mandy Patinkin) as your principal, and a children...
