Lyz Lenz’s "God Land" is a nuanced examination of the political, personal, and religious complexity of middle America. Beginning with Lenz’s own faith-filled dream of a new church (one which ended up dissolving) and the challenge of... Read More

The vein of greatness that pulses through the work of Ada Limón is remarkably subtle, in the same way that beauty in a human isn’t a rote assemblage of chiseled noses, high cheekbones, and full lips. Her extraordinary poems act the... Read More

Ruth Haley Barton’s refreshing "Invitation to Retreat" gives guidance to Christians longing for more time with God. Modern life is harried, to say the least. Yet people resist taking advantage of retreats because of misconceptions... Read More

By turns quirky, touching, amusing, and sad, Inside the World: As Al Lehman is an intellectual achievement that rivals some of the best literary fiction of the last half century. Marvin Cohen’s biography of the fictional Al Lehman,... Read More

Taylor makes alternative approaches to personal well-being seem easy, interesting, and fun. A traumatic childhood with a father who went into rages and denigrated her; teen years self-medicating with drugs, alcohol, pills, and risky... Read More

Hanif Kureishi’s "The Nothing" is a darkly humorous and slightly pornographic story about three extremely self-centered individuals entrenched in an odd, triangular affair. A retired and terminally ill filmmaker, Waldo, has suspicions... Read More

In Hunter’s poetic post-apocalyptic novel, meditations on what has been lost are heartrending in their clarity. Poetic and succinct, Megan Hunter’s "The End We Start From" is an etiological exercise for a climate-changed world—a... Read More

"The Order" offers an engaging and original story that is well conceived and artfully rendered. Lynn Chase’s "The Order" is an ambitious and complex Christian thriller. The plot involves the archangel Gabriel and numerous other members... Read More