Books taking stock of our broken world

Religion and philosophy

Why I Am Not an Atheist

Christopher Beha
Penguin Press, 432 pages

This book follows a life shaped by confusion, courage, and a nonstop search for meaning. Beha’s early life has a sense of mystery that lingers as he grows older and enters a period marked by suffering. His twin brother is nearly killed in an accident. He himself faces cancer. In search of solid ground, Beha turns to philosophy and to the New Atheists. Their arguments are self-assured, yet they never quite touch the deeper anxieties he wrestles with. A purely scientific view feels too narrow to carry the weight of lived experience. A purely emotional view feels too unstable to guide through fear or loss. He tries to build a way of living that allows both clear thinking and awe, both thought and longing, without forcing one to replace the other. His writing moves gently through this tension. His return to faith arises from reflection rather than revelation, coming from the recognition that theories alone cannot sustain a meaningful life and that the human heart keeps reaching for something larger than itself. —John Mac Ghlionn

Read WORLD’s full review of this book here.

Theology

What Is Wrong With the World

Timothy Keller
Zondervan, 240 pages

It might seem strange that Tim Keller is coming out with a new book a couple of years after his death, but where there’s a widow there’s a way. Kathy Keller got the ball rolling on adapting a sermon series her husband preached in the 1990s called “The Faces of Sin.” At times, it’s disconcerting to hear Tim’s voice from the grave, but What Is Wrong With the World is nonetheless a wise and accessible book. Keller explains that our problems aren’t external to us: The problem is inside. He shows both the destructive nature of sin and its subtleness. He points out that if people are trusting in God to get something else from God, their real trust is in that something else. The book reminds us that we’re all sinners who need to grapple with the reality of grace, and it encourages its reader to trust fully in the gospel to remedy the sickness of sin. —Collin Garbarino

Literary criticism

The Tower and the Ruin

Michael D.C. Drout
W.W. Norton & Co., 384 pages

Ecclesiastes says there is no end to the making of books, an observation that seems particularly apt for books about C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Readers of the Inklings can’t get enough of their favorite authors, and this book is yet another volume in the ever-expanding line of Tolkienalia. A professor of English at Wheaton College, Drout writes that he’s read The Lord of the Rings more than 40 times. His book offers fellow Tolkien devotees unique insights from Viking mythology and Tolkien’s wider literary output that enhance our understanding of the core novels. He explains how reading Tolkien is often like reading the Bible: It’s beautiful on the surface, but there’s another layer beneath that exposes a more intricate design when you know the historical, literary, and linguistic context. But Drout’s reader must extract those worthwhile insights from dense academic prose. The information is interesting, and Drout professes to make the book accessible, but it takes some commitment all the same. Joseph Loconte’s The War for Middle-earth (Thomas Nelson 2025) or Humphrey Carpenter’s J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography (reissued Wm. Morrow 2000) are an easier ­introduction for fans looking to start exploring Tolkien beyond the novels. —Daniel R. Suhr

Apologetics

Post Woke

Neil Shenvi & Pat Sawyer
Harvest Apologetics, 288 pages

Clarity and courage are on full display in this work of cultural apologetics. Post Woke is concrete, focusing on the everyday manifestations of critical social theories. The authors draw on examples many folks will instantly recognize. Readers repeatedly find themselves thinking, “Yes—that’s exactly what I’ve encountered, and I didn’t know how to respond.” The result is something like a field manual for navigating contemporary workplaces, institutions, and strained relationships. The authors show that debates over wokeness are not merely academic but exert real pressure on ordinary people trying to live with integrity. Much of the book’s practical value lies in its careful unpacking of stock phrases, rhetorical moves, and logical fallacies that routinely disarm ordinary Christians. For the average person encountering such claims in workplaces, schools, or social settings, this material functions as a concise and immediately applicable crash course in critical reasoning. Shenvi and Sawyer offer guidance for charitably engaging those advancing woke ideology. Less expected, and equally important, is their concern for those who react against wokeness by drifting toward the dissident right. Shenvi and Sawyer identify a real generational dynamic here, noting that younger cohorts are particularly susceptible to this over­correction. —James R. Wood

Read WORLD’s full review of this book here.

Computer hacking

Ctrl + Alt + Chaos: How Teenage Hackers Hijack the Internet

Joe Tidy
Hanover Square Press, 256 pages

This fast-paced unsettling book looks at the teenage hackers who manage to upend the modern world armed only with laptops and a taste for disruption. The book begins with the 2014 Christmas Day attack that brought Xbox Live and PlayStation to a standstill, introducing readers to the “Lizard Squad,” a group of boys who treated global ­disruption with casual swagger. Tidy charts the shift from teenage mischief to criminal damage. These boys aren’t necessarily brilliant operators. They’re lonely, restless souls swept into something far beyond them. Tidy’s reporting brings the story to life: news teams racing to track down cheeky minors, police pushing through long nights, and a hacker who, in a moment of pure folly, uploads his own secrets for everyone to see. The book veers between the ridiculous and the ­disturbing. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Vastaamo breach in which thousands of private therapy notes were dumped online. Tidy keeps his focus on the ­people at the center of the controversy—the boys craving attention, the victims left shaken, and the officers ­trying to hold the line. Danger comes in many forms, not all of them grand or sophisticated. Sometimes it’s just a bored teenager with too much time on his hands. —J.M.G.

Read WORLD’s full review of this book here.