Notable Books

Before famine caused mass starvation in the early 1990s, Kim had plenty. His father had a good job, Kim attended school, and his belly was full. But as North Korean conditions deteriorated, his father lost his job. The family ended up scrounging food, stealing from farmers, and barely surviving. His father died. Extended family kicked them out. Across North Korea the same thing happened. Finally Kim fled to China where he met Christians who helped him flee to America. His heartrending first-person account opens a window on the terrible suffering in North Korea and shows God at work.

Voracious

Nicoletti writes delightfully about her life through the prism of books and food, beginning with favorite books from her childhood. She moves on to adolescence and college years and then adulthood, discussing books as varied as Little House in the Big Woods, Nancy Drew, Les Misérables, Pride and Prejudice, and Good-Bye to All That. She zeros in on key themes and picks out recipes associated with each book, including breakfast sausage from Little House, double chocolate walnut sundae from Nancy Drew, black rye bread from Les Misérables, and grilled peaches with homemade ricotta from Good-Bye to All That.

Joy: Poet, Seeker, and the Woman Who Captivated C.S. Lewis

Santamaria’s sympathetic and clear-eyed portrait of Joy Davidman might surprise people who assume that confirmed bachelor C.S. Lewis would fall only for an especially godly woman. Santamaria, relying heavily on Joy’s own writings, paints a vivid portrait of the pre-Lewis Davidman. It’s a fascinating portrait of Davidman’s childhood in New York, her radical college years and membership in the Communist Party, her rocky marriage to Bill Gresham, and her long-distance infatuation with Lewis, whom she pursued with single-minded focus despite her marriage. Santamaria highlights Davidman’s literary brilliance and shows her growing reliance on Christ.

The Elements of Eloquence

Like tools in the carpenter’s toolbox or recipes in the hands of a cook, so are the figures of rhetoric—the “techniques for making a single phrase striking and memorable just by altering the wording.” In 39 chapters, Forsyth shows how Shakespeare, The Beatles, and the stylists of the King James Bible used the figures—diacope, adynaton, merism, antithesis, and others—to craft memorable lines. In humorous and occasionally R-rated style, Forsyth shows how Yoda and St. Paul were both fans of anadiplosis. He suggests that Shakespeare’s writing improved as he learned the figures—and suggests that yours could too.

Spotlight

In the book, In Defense of the Fatherless (Christian Focus, 2015), Sara Brinton and Amanda Bennett urge Christians to rethink how they care for orphans internationally. They focus on adoption agency corruption and the unintended consequences of building orphanages. Unlike Kathryn Joyce and other secular critics, Brinton and Bennett are evangelicals who share the concerns of other Christians involved with orphan care—but they want believers to see that good intentions are not enough and helping can hurt.

The book could be better: It says Christians should encourage domestic adoption and family restoration in countries with large orphan populations, but doesn’t go into worldview questions that keep families in those countries from adopting. It also ignores many of the Christian groups that are working to improve the lives of poor children in their own countries. Nevertheless, the topic is important and the critique is challenging. —S.O.