Category: books

Brandy Pie Book Co. Offers Value-Driven Children’s Books

For Kathleen Harward, the heroes and themes in her books are her medicine for today’s social ills. She sees them as antidotes for a generation of youth that would rather blame and destroy instead of solve and create. Her path as an independent publisher of children’s books is one inspired by experience and heart. In…


Epoch Booklist: Recommended Reading for Sept. 30–Oct. 6

This week, we feature a rollicking read about a Scottish bookseller and a groundbreaking chronicle by black educators on the value of the classics. Fiction Putnam to the Rescue, Again! ‘Captain Putnam for the Republic of Texas’ By James L. Haley The naval adventure series continues as Bliven Putnam joins the fight for Texas’s independence…


Book Review: ‘River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile’

Years ago, I visited Egypt. The pyramids are, of course, awesome in their ancient majesty and mystery. The Nile River, winding its way through the arid desert lands, is the longest in the world. Like the pyramids, its history spans millennia. Its gift for centuries has been the fertile floodplain created by the river. The…


‘The Morals of Chess’ by Benjamin Franklin: Life Is Like a Game of Chess

“Checkmate!” concludes a chess match and separates the victor from the vanquished. Yet, the ending of the chess match is not the most important part of the game. What matters most are the moves and strategies that precede the win and constitute the game. In his essay written in 1750, “The Morals of Chess,” Benjamin…


Epoch Booklist: Recommended Reading for Sept. 23–30

This week, we feature an incisive analysis of the Goths’ sacking of Rome and an endearing novel about a boy saved from grief by a musical genius. Fiction From Grief to the Solace of Faith ‘The Great Passion’ By James Runcie It’s 1727 and 13-year-old Stefan Silbermann is grieving the loss of his mother. When…


Book Review: ‘How to Be a Farmer: An Ancient Guide to Life on the Land’

Princeton University Press continues with its rather large selection of introductions, or reintroductions, to classic literature in its Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series. One of the latest books is “How to Be a Farmer,” which contains ancient Greek and Roman works selected, translated, and introduced by M.D. Usher, the Lyman-Roberts Professor of Classical Languages…


Book Review: ‘Great Battles for Boys: The American Revolution,’ Created to Instill a Love of Reading and History for Young Readers

The battles of the American Revolution are the centerpiece for the eighth installment of the “Great Battles for Boys” series written by Joe Giorello. In about 200 pages, the author takes young readers through the important battles―wins, losses, and draws―during the War for Independence. This book accomplishes precisely what its author has set out to…


Stephen Vincent Benét’s Short Story, ‘By the Waters of Babylon’: Fatal Forward Progress

Today we continually build more buildings, update new electronics, create better platforms, invent different cars. We seem to be dominated by a craze for continual forward progress, keeping ourselves forever busy. How often do we pause this frenetic forward motion to consider where we are heading? Two years before World War II and as the…


Book Review: ‘The Confessions of a Bookseller,’ A Year in the Life of a Scottish Bookseller

I have a propensity for acquiring books. My small, upstairs office has shelves full of them. I have a friend who runs a small bookstore in Warrenton, Virginia. Originally from Portland, Oregon, I find my memories are keen of Powell’s, a legendary independent bookstore touted as the world’s largest. I like everything about books, and…


This Foundation Remains: Christian Poetry in a Post-Christian Society

In his Introduction to “The Oxford Book of Christian Verse,” Lord David Cecil writes that “Religious emotion is the most sublime known to man,” but in the same paragraph adds that “a large proportion of religious verse is poor stuff” and that “those poets who have invoked both the sacred and the profane must have,…