Foibles and triumphs: eight books

Biography

Henry V

Dan Jones
Viking, 432 pages

Celebrity historian Dan Jones has written a biography of one the genuine celebrities of the Late Middle Ages: England’s King Henry V. In Jones’ hands, Henry’s story reads like a novel. From his youthful adventures in service of his father’s controversial ascension to the throne to his untimely death far from home, the book reveals the compelling personality that unified a fractured kingdom, empowered an underdog army in the face of more powerful enemies, and inspired future generations of world leaders (to say nothing of Shakespeare, the world’s greatest playwright). As Jones explains, Henry was a reconciler from the beginning—a thoughtful tactician who recognized the human cost of his actions, understood the complexity of his role, and helped shape the future of a Europe still dazed by the Black Plague. Henry’s political vision and lionhearted temperament are worth revisiting, especially given the ways he merged them with a natural piety. —David Kern

Entertainment history

Play Nice

Jason Schreier
Grand Central, 384 pages

How does a creative empire succeed its way into failure? In Play Nice, Jason Schreier chronicles the history of Blizzard Entertainment—the company behind the massive multiplayer phenomenon World of Warcraft and other industry-defining video games. Today, Blizzard is associated with Federal Trade Commission lawsuits and sexual misconduct investigations, but not long ago, it stood as one of the top developers in the industry—beloved by players and employees alike. What happened? Play Nice examines the tension between creativity and profit. It’s a tale of gradual corporate dilution stripping a creative enterprise of its soul—sometimes so slowly employees don’t notice until they’re packing their things into cardboard boxes. It’s also a story of seemingly innocuous sins bearing disastrous fruit. In its glory days, Blizzard permitted a boys-club “frat culture.” Executives can ignore such faults while the company smashes revenue records. But what happens when success fades? Schreier’s industry knowledge and sharp writing make the tale accessible even for non-gamers. It’s the kind of story that will appeal to both gaming enthusiasts and business aficionados. —Jonathan Boes

Writing and writers

Revisionaries

Kristopher Jansma
Quirk Books, 320 pages

In his new literary history/writing advice book, novelist and English professor Kristopher Jansma considers lost, unfinished, and just plain bad works from great writers. Jansma identifies lessons we might learn from authors’ weaknesses and mistakes. Drawing from works such as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon and Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, Jansma gives us eminently readable background info followed by refreshing suggestions for refining our own writing process. For Jansma, “genius” is “something built up, over much time and effort, by those resilient enough to never stop testing new ways of creating.” Forgotten works show that geniuses stumble too: Fitzgerald writes bad drafts, and Kafka lacks confidence. Ralph Ellison bites off more than he can chew, Gustave Flaubert gets lost in the weeds, and Richard Wright gets rejected. Jansma’s literary digging includes some troubling and explicit biography of writers such as Patricia Highsmith and Sylvia Plath, but Revisionaries is generally an inspiring, informative, and fun read. It’s a helpful shot in the arm for anyone on the perilous path to publication. —Chelsea Boes

Fiction

Time of the Child

Niall Williams
Bloomsbury, 304 pages

In Faha—Ireland’s equivalent of Mayberry—nothing important ever happens. Faha’s only doctor, widower Jack Troy, cares for his patients without complaint or thanksgiving. He believes “the central challenge of life was to accept that the world is a place of pain. And yet live.” But an unexpected event changes his perspective on the very possibility of goodness. One bitterly cold night, someone brings an abandoned infant to the doctor, and his unmarried daughter falls in love with the baby. Jack invents a way for her to keep the baby without disgracing herself, but their secret doesn’t stand a chance among such nosy neighbors. Niall Williams has a sly sense of humor with punch lines often arriving several paragraphs later than expected. The narrative contains occasional swearing, and in a suggestive passage a woman explains how she and her husband have been “trying.” But the novel is well suited for wintry evenings thanks to Williams’ unhurried attention to detail and its parallels to the Christmas story. Readers shouldn’t anticipate a revision of the Bethlehem account, but they are invited to “see in Faha the full of humanity, in its ordinary clothes.” —Bekah McCallum

History

The Notebook

Roland Allen
Biblioasis, 416 pages

We don’t usually consider something as mundane as a booklet of blank pages to be transformative technology, but Roland Allen’s history of the notebook shows how we’ve shaped this humble invention and how it in turn has shaped us. The book is a true delight for people like me who possess a compulsion to buy little notebooks and continually scribble in them. Allen follows the notebook from its creation in the Renaissance, where it revolutionized accounting practices, through its adaptation to other uses such as personal diary, ship’s log, and novelist’s best friend. Allen introduces us to famous notebooks and famous notebook keepers like Leonardo da Vinci and Isaac Newton, as well as obscure scientists, sailors, and policemen, all of whom found their own uses for this exciting technology. The development of the notebook becomes a window through which one can witness the development of the modern world. Allen writes, “When notebooks appear on the scene, interesting things happen.” So true. —Collin Garbarino

Biography

One Lost Soul

Daniel Silliman
Eerdmans, 336 pages

The 37th president, Richard Milhouse Nixon, has been the subject of countless biographies, movies, and documentaries, but few have examined his complicated religious life. Christianity Today news editor Daniel Silliman changes that with this new book. Silliman, who holds a doctorate in American history, takes a careful look at the interior life of the only U.S. president to have resigned from office. The book moves through the major seasons of Nixon’s life: his childhood toiling in his father’s grocery store, his rise through the political ranks, and his subsequent fall. Each section pieces together Nixon’s spiritual search from letters, memoirs, biographical reporting, and White House tapes, creating a fair portrait of a complicated figure whose Quaker upbringing taught him to work hard, but whose elusive quest to be loved wasn’t satisfied with the Christian gospel of grace. The insecurities that plagued Nixon never went away and arguably fueled the paranoia that became his downfall. The book is neither hagiography nor hit piece but a sympathetic and earnest look at a tragic American life. —Daniel Darling

Politics and history

The Israel Test

George Gilder
Encounter Books, 224 pages

Where there is liberty, freedom, and capitalism—things essential for human flourishing—Jews thrive. Where anti-Semitism persists, whether in America or Gaza, freedom itself is in danger. This is George Gilder’s thesis in the rereleased The Israel Test: How Israel’s Genius Enriches and Challenges the World. Before modern Israel’s birth, the land “flowing with milk and honey” was a desert waste. Jews fleeing persecution immigrated and transformed the land into an agricultural and technological marvel. Today’s war in the Middle East is a “war against wealth and individual genius” fueled by envy. Arabs in Israel are better off economically than those elsewhere in the Middle East, which isn’t good news for terrorist leaders who would “rather their people suffer for ‘a hundred years’ than prosper by working with the Israelis.” Gilder argues the Jews have a higher concentration of economic, technological, and scientific brilliance and when nations oust their Jews, they oust their geniuses. A “crucial moral test” remains: “Will they admire, reward, and emulate a minority that has achieved towering accomplishments? Or will they seethe in resentment and plot its destruction?” —Candice Watters

Theology

The Church

Brad East
Lexham, 200 pages

Brad East exposes our fundamental need for the Church by engaging in a theological exploration of its nature and mission through the whole story of Scripture in this book that benefits from the insights of Christians across denominational lines and throughout the centuries. He introduces a barrage of titles, images, and ­adjectives to show what the Church is. This includes “mother”—an ecclesiological moniker near and dear to Cyprian, Augustine, and Calvin, but largely alien to most Protestants today. One critique: East argues that the Church is the ­presence of the new creation in the midst of the old. While I agree with his arguments, the sole recent theologian he quotes here is John Howard Yoder, whose legacy is mixed to say the least. East could have invoked an alternative 20th-century theologian who made ­similar arguments without the baggage: Henri de Lubac. Still, this is a wonderful little book that should help contemporary Christians love the Church in all her brokenness and beauty. —James R. Wood

Read WORLD’s full review of this book here.