2024: reading

I read fewer books in 2024 than any year in the last decade, and I can’t quite figure out why. I didn’t teach a class for the final eight months of the year, for goodness’ sake. What else did I have to do?

I did read some fairly fat books. And we had a busy summer of travel (including two weddings I performed). And I published at least thirty essays, in addition to two books and a number of lectures and dozens of podcasts. So I was busy.

But still. I’m disappointed. The truth is, I am the slowest reader I know and a terrible skimmer. In 2011 I read 150 books and the closest I’ve come since is 120. In 2025, to take full advantage of my sabbatical, even granting that I’ll be drafting a book manuscript, I should end the year with at least 150 books read, ideally closer to 175. It probably won’t happen, but a man can dream.

This year may not have been a success in terms of quantity, but it was in terms of quality. Below I’ve listed below my favorite reads of the year, organized loosely by category. The only one not listed, since it lacks a category and since now I’m a biased judge, is Gavin Ortlund’s What It Means to be Protestant, which won Christianity Today’s Book of the Year. A few of the following were re-reads, or at least deeper reads following prior skims, but most were first-time reads, however old the book.

Classics

With some friends, this year I read both The Iliad and The Odyssey. We’re currently reading Virgil. Later in the year we’re turning to Dante and Milton. Everyone in the group has different prior experiences with Homer et al. I’ve got an essay under consideration right now that’s partly about (re)reading these classics. We’ll see if someone goes for it.

Poetry

I did my usual re-read of Franz Wright, Mary Karr, and Marie Howe, followed by Malcolm Guite’s Sounding the Seasons and Charles Wright’s Scar Tissue. I confess that, at first, I thought the latter was James Wright, i.e., father to Franz. All three won the Pulitzer and share the same surname, so I think the mistake wasn’t entirely unjustified.

Fiction

10. Daniel Silva, The Kill Artist & The English Assassin. Ideal airport reading.

9. John le Carré, Call for the Dead; A Murder of Quality; Single & Single. Getting closer and closer to le Carré completion.

8. Michael Bond, A Bear Called Paddington & P. L. Travers, Mary Poppins.

7. William Gibson, Neuromancer. This is a “successful” book, and its influence and prescience cannot be overstated, but it is not a pleasant read. The snaggletooth prose had me bleeding, confused, and and even bored. I’m still glad I read it, but I doubt I’ll go on to the sequels.

6. Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn + Percival Everett, James. Thoughts here. Rereading Twain did give me a greater appreciation of his achievement.

5. Robin Sloan, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. As promised, a delight. On to Moonbound.

4. Michel Houellebecq, Submission. Far different than I expected, based on its reputation. I’ve got a long essay on the novel I hope will be published soon.

3. Liu Cixin, The Three-Body Problem. Thoughts here.

2. Tad Williams, The Navigator’s Children. Thoughts here. The apocalypse of Osten Ard. Worth the wait.

1. Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener.

Academic Theology

7. Matthew Lee Anderson, Confidence in Life: A Barthian Account of Procreation. Turns out this Anderson guy knows his stuff!

6. Kendall Soulen, Irrevocable: The Name of God and the Unity of the Christian Bible. Some thoughts here.

5. Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Last Supper & (with Michael Barber and John Kincaid) Paul: A New Covenant Jew. I’m something of a Pitre super-fan; these books did not disappoint.

4. Ephraim Radner, The End of the Church; Leviticus; Hope Among the Fragments; Time and the Word. More here.

3. William Lane Craig, In Quest of the Historical Adam: A Biblical and Scientific Exploration.

2. Ian McFarland, The Hope of Glory: A Theology of Redemption. A former teacher of mine and arguably the proper successor to Hauerwas’s moniker for Joe Jones: “the best unknown theologian in America.” This book completes a loose trilogy, following books on creation from nothing and the incarnation. Earlier works also address theological anthropology, the image of God, and original sin. Next up is ethics. The lesson: Read McFarland, people!

1. Paul DeHart, Unspeakable Cults: An Essay in Christology. This book is a riddle, a provocation, a tour de force, and designed alternately to thrill and to madden. If I’d read it closer to its publication date, I would have pitched a review essay to an academic journal. I love Paul’s work, even when we disagree profoundly, and this is him at the peak of his powers.

Spiritual (older)

5. Romano Guardini, The Spirit of the Liturgy.

4. François Mauriac, The Eucharist: The Mystery of Holy Thursday.

3. Saint Isaac of Nineveh, On Ascetical Life.

2. Simone Weil, Waiting for God. Is Weil having a moment? It seems I can’t go one week without seeing a new essay or podcast about her. Or maybe she’s always having a moment, as seems to have been true from very early in her life.

1. Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath. A perfect book. Perhaps the best book about technology, because it’s not about technology, that you’ll ever read.

Technology

8. Franklin Foer, World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech.

7. Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation & Abigail Shrier, Bad Therapy. They go together.

6. Albert Borgmann, Power Failure: Christianity in the Culture of Technology.

5. Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight For a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.

4. Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.

3. Byung-Chul Han, Infocracy: Digitization and the Crisis of Democracy. My second Han, and not the last.

2. D. W. Pasulka, American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology. A shot in the arm. Pasulka’s star is rising with reason. Hoping to read her latest soon.

1. Sara Hendren, What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World. In contention for my favorite book I read this year. Certainly the best book-about-technology I read this year. Sara is a rock star.

Nonfiction

12. Ryan P. Burge, The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going & Stephen Bullivant, Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America & Isabella Kasselstrand, Phil Zuckerman, and Ryan T. Cragun, Beyond Doubt: The Secularization of Society. These folks keep me honest, Zuckerman especially.

11. John le Carré, The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories From My Life. Opt for the audiobook; as read by the late author, you might as well be by the fireside with the master storyteller himself.

10. Marilynne Robinson, Reading Genesis. More here.

9. Albert Borgmann, Real American Ethics & Crossing the Postmodern Divide. The latter is outstanding; the former is not, in my view, Borgmann’s finest work. More here, in any case.

8. Mark Lilla, The Reckless Mind: Intellectual in Politics.

7. Jennifer Banks, Natality: Toward a Philosophy of Birth. Beautiful. I still can’t quite believe she pulled it off, given the thin ice all around.

6. Carlos Eire, They Flew: A History of the Impossible. Scholarly cheek in the best way.

5. Joseph Bottum, An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America. Ten years later, it remains a vital “explainer” for our times. And beautifully written to boot.

4. Nathan Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity. A classic for a reason. As informative as it is distressing and even depressing. Let the reader understand.

3. Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book. A one of one. Nothing like it. The sections on therapy and suicide read like they were written yesterday, in direct response to current events. There is nothing new under the sun.

2. Guy Davenport, The Geography of the Imagination: Forty Essays. I’m late to Davenport, but better—far, far better—late than never. What a joy.

1. Clive James, Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time. This book rocked my world this summer. I couldn’t put it down. I’ll never be one-tenth the writer as James, or one-hundredth the reader, or one-thousandth the linguist—but I can try. Reading James doesn’t make you want to give up: it, he, makes you want to persevere. More thoughts here and here.

An old-fashioned (annotated) blogroll

“Navigating the vastness of the Internet can feel like getting marooned in the middle of the ocean, both terrifying and sublime in its overwhelmingness.” That’s Franklin Foer in World Without Mind. He’s right. But if there’s too much to read on the internet, how to triage for the best?

One way is social media. Another is Substack. Still another is print magazines (not dead yet!).

Alongside these, my preferred mechanism is the RSS feed, which is basically a personal blogroll: a live feed, perpetually updated, of the authors and publications one wants to be sure never to miss. In principle infinite, in practice finite. Years ago a colleague asked me how I decide what to read and who my favorite contemporary writers are, and ever since then I’ve meant to draw up an old-fashioned blogroll in response to her request. Better late than never. At least it’s annotated!

To be sure, stellar newsletters with links to the best stuff are not hard to find: Arts & Letters Daily, The Browser, Prufrock. If I don’t know a writer by name or don’t keep up with a given publication, resources like these are usually how I happen upon new things, in addition to friends sharing links.

Short of grab-bags and random links, though, it’s nice to have a list of one’s own. Below I’ve drawn up a list of the writers whose work I make it a point to keep up with. I limited myself to one hundred names. Initially I organized them by category, but I opted just to run them in alphabetical order. Bios and links are meant to be helpful but, as will be clear, are sometimes tongue-in-cheek.

A few ground rules first. The listed names fit the following criteria: (a) living writers whose publishing output is (b) regular, (c) popular, and (d) accessible online. These aren’t academics whose primary work is found in scholarly journals. Nor do they mainly write books while occasionally putting out an essay. Nor still is the following list exhaustive, as if I didn’t enjoy, appreciate, respect, or follow those unnamed.

For example, Wendell Berry and Marilynne Robinson aren’t here, but their age is advanced enough and their essay output minimal enough that it wouldn’t make sense to include them. (They’re not exactly “online,” either.) My friend Ross McCullough is my favorite theological writer going, but I can’t induce him to write anything popular more than once every few years. I used to read Andrew Sullivan and Rod Dreher but slowly drifted away, even as I continue to keep an eye on their work. I’m delighted when Abigail Favale and Erika Bachiochi emerge from their scholarly dens to write popular essays, but lately it’s too rare an event by my calculation to add their names to the list. I subscribe to Robin Sloan’s monthly newsletter, but he’s a novelist with the best newsletter around, not an essayist pumping out regular pieces. I laugh whenever I read Andrew Ferguson and learn whenever I read Noah Millman, but I’d be lying if I said I keep up with everything they write. Maybe I should and maybe I will, but time is short and you can’t read everything.

That’s not even to mention friends and acquaintances whom I try to read as much as I’m able but don’t (yet) read enough of, like Matt Milliner and Kirsten Sanders and Chris Green and Kyle Williams and Ian Olsen and Alex Sosler and Alan Noble and Ben Crosby and James Wood. Or ballers like Onsi Kamel and Matt Burdette and Justin Hawkins and Rachel Roth Aldhizer who need to write more, more, more. Or once-yearly bangers like Matthew Rose and Patricia Snow and Zena Hitz. Or writers I hugely enjoy but can’t quite keep track of, like Ian Marcus Corbin and Matt Feeney and Samuel Goldman and David Samuels and David Polansky and Park MacDougald and Sebastian Milbank and Derek Thompson. Or old standbys I guiltily don’t read enough of, like Nicholas Carr and Mary Eberstardt and Jamelle Bouie and Oren Cass and Niall Ferguson. Or old lovable know-it-all academics like Philip Jenkins. Or old souls like Joseph Epstein and Stanley Fish, Peter Brown and Jackson Lears who’ve written so much for so long that I could barely make a dint in it. Or Ben Thompson and Jesse Singal and Ed West, who seem to write more daily than I can read in a week.

For those names that are on the list, therefore, their inclusion means that their author page is in my RSS feed, that I subscribe to their Substack, that I constantly scour the internet for their latest publication, and/or that I crack open a magazine the moment I see their name on the cover. To be clear, I don’t love or agree with all of them. A few might qualify as hate-reading, or at least facepalm-reading. Nevertheless I do find myself reading them—to see what they have to say, or to see how they say it. Everyone on this list has either style or substance, and many have both.

One last way to put it: These are the writers I’ve learned to read because the editors I trust continue to commission and publish them—Matthew Walther at The Lamp, Ari Schulman at The New Atlantis, Jay Tolson at The Hedgehog Review, Jon Baskin at The Point, Matthew Schmitz at Compact, Rusty Reno at First Things, Matthew Boudway at Commonweal, Anne Snyder at Comment, Peter Mommsen at Plough (all of which, by the way, arrive in my mailbox). These are the gatekeepers, together with their many fellow editors; they know what’s what, and most of what follows is just picking favorites from the murderer’s row of writers they have the regular pleasure of publishing.

Oh: And I’m sure I’ve forgotten someone. If your name is missing, I’m sure that someone is you.

1. Sam Adler-Bell – leftist journalist and freelance writer, hate-hate relationship with the Right, co-host of Know Your Enemy podcast, bylines at the New York Times and New York Magazine and The New Republic

2. Sohrab Ahmari – co-founder of Compact, author of Tyranny, Inc., bylines at First Things and The American Conservative

3. Matthew Lee Anderson – ethics prof at Baylor, founder of Mere Orthodoxy, writes The Path Before Us newsletter, author of Called Into Questions, former co-host of the Mere Fidelity podcast, bylines at Vox and First Things and The Dispatch

4. Helen Andrews – conservative journalist, former editor at The American Conservative, author of Boomers, bylines at First Things and The Lamp and Compact

5. Jon Askonas – politics profs at CUA, winner of the Emerging Public Intellectual award, bylines at Comment and Compact and The New Atlantis

6. Jon Baskin – founding editor of The Point, former editor at Harper’s, author of Ordinary Unhappiness

7. Richard Beck – psychology prof at ACU, long-time daily blogger at Experimental Theology, author of Hunting Magic Eels

8. Jeff Bilbro – English prof at Grove City College, editor of Front Porch Republic, author of Words for Conviviality

9. David Brooks – come on, let’s not pretend you don’t know who he is

10. Joseph Bottum – man of letters, poet, onetime editor of all the magazines, Catholic and conservative intellectual, author of An Anxious Age (a masterly book but criminally under-read), bylines at The Washington Free Beacon and First Things and Commonweal

11. Josh Brake – engineering prof at Harvey Mudd, wise guide to all things A.I., author of The Absent-Minded Professor newsletter

12. Elizabeth Bruenig – staff writer at The Atlantic, formerly at the New York Times and The Washington Post

13. Matt Bruenig – wife guy, lefty data policy guru, fellow Texan, righteously angry, founder of the People’s Policy Project, blogs at his website, bylines at Jacobin and The Nation

14. Sonny Bunch – film critic for The Bulwark, writes the Bulwark Goes to Hollywood newsletter

15. Timothy Burke – history prof at Swarthmore, author of Lifebuoy Men, Lux Women, writes the Eight by Seven newsletter

16. Tara Isabella Burton – novelist and essayist, former religion reporter for Vox, author of Strange Rites, co-writes The Line of Beauty newsletter, bylines at Comment and Commonweal and Plough and the New York Times and The New Atlantis

17. Christopher Caldwell – polyglot monarch of conservative intellectual journalism, contributing editor at the Claremont Review of Books, contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, author of The Age of Entitlement, bylines at Compact and The New Statesman and The New Republic and National Review and The American Conservative and Financial Times and The Spectator

18. Isaac Chotiner – interrogative journalist at The New Yorker, author of the Q&A column, formerly of Slate

19. Phil Christman – marvelous essayist, equally(!) midwestern and leftist and Christian, English prof at the University of Michigan, author of How to Be Normal, writes The Tourist newsletter, bylines at Plough and Commonweal and Slate

20. Clare Coffey – freelance writer, bylines at The New Atlantis and The Hedgehog Review and Plough and The Bulwark

21. Tyler Cowen – economics prof at George Mason, columnist at Bloomberg, author of The Complacent Class, blogs at The Marginal Revolution, host of Conversations With Tyler podcast

22. Matthew B. Crawford – research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, author of Shop Class as Soulcraft, writes the Archedelia newsletter, bylines at First Things and The New Atlantis and The Hedgehog Review

23. Theodore Dalrymple – retired doctor, conservative essayist and novelist, author of Our Culture, What’s Left Of It, bylines at The Lamp and First Things and City Journal

24. Freddie deBoer – last true Marxist, disbeliever in word counts, freelance writer on everything under the sun, author of The Cult of Smart, writes the Freddie deBoer newsletter, bylines at Compact and the New York Times and Harper’s and n+1

25. Michael Brendan Dougherty – writer at National Review, author of My Father Left Me Ireland, regular on The Editors podcast, bylines at The Week and the New York Times

26. Ross Douthat – my own personal op-ed spirit animal, columnist at the New York Times, film critic at National Review, author of Bad Religion, co-host of the Matter of Opinion podcast

27. Christine Emba – staff writer at The Atlantic, author of Rethinking Sex, formerly at The Washington Post

28. Edward Feser – philosophy prof at Pasadena City College, long-time blogger, author of Philosophy of Mind, writes for First Things

29. Angela Franks – theology prof at St. John’s Seminary, author of Margaret Sanger’s Eugenic Legacy, bylines at First Things and Church Life Journal and Catholic World Report

30. John Ganz – lefty interpreter of the Right, author of When the Clock Broke, writes the Unpopular Front newsletter, bylines at The Nation and The New Statesman and The New Republic

31. David P. Goldman – right-Hegelian journalist of economics and China, writer at Asia Times, author of You Will Be Assimilated, bylines at Law & Liberty and First Things and Claremont Review of Books

32. Ruth Graham – religion journalist for the New York Times

33. John Gray – intellectual virtuoso and prolific analyst of the post-Christian West, author of Two Faces of Liberalism, bylines at The New Statesman and The Guardian

34. Emma Green – religion journalist at The New Yorker, formerly at The Atlantic

35. Paul Griffiths – retired theology prof at Duke, author of Decreation, bylines at Commonweal and (once upon a time) First Things

36. Allen Guelzo – historian at Princeton, senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, author of Fateful Lightning, bylines at First Things and The New Criterion and Claremont Review of Books

37. Jonathan Haidt – psych prof at NYU, author of The Anxious Generation, writes the After Babel newsletter, bylines at The Atlantic and the New York Times

38. Shadi Hamid – columnist at the Washington Post, formerly at The Atlantic, author of Islamic Exceptionalism, co-founder of the Wisdom of Crowds website and podcast, co-host of the Zealots at the Gates podcast, bylines galore

39. Mary Harrington – reactionary feminist, author of Feminism Against Progress, writes the Mary Harrington newsletter, bylines at First Things and UnHerd

40. David Bentley Hart – irascible genius unbound by institutional shackles, Eastern Orthodox theologian, essayist, and translator, author of The Experience of God, writes the Leaves in the Wind newsletter, bylines wherever he damn well sees fit

41. Sara Hendren – design prof at Northeastern, author of What Can a Body Do? (an all-timer), blogs at her website, microblogs at ablerism, write (wrote?!) the undefended / undefeated newsletter, bylines at the intersection of the built and the physical environment

42. Wesley Hill – NT prof at Western seminary, author of Spiritual Friendship, bylines at The Living Church and First Things and Comment

43. Dan Hitchens – editor at First Things, sharp-tongued and unsentimental observer of all things Catholic, bylines at The Spectator and The Critic

44. Peter Hitchens – surviving brother of Christopher, irascible conservative scribbler, columnist at the Daily Mail, author of The Rage Against God, bylines at The Lamp and First Things and Compact

45. Alan Jacobs – English prof at Baylor, OG uber-blogger, my self-assigned mentor and archegos, author of The Narnian, blogs at The Homebound Symphony, bylines at The Atlantic and Comment and The New Yorker and The New Atlantis and First Things and Harper’s

46. Samuel James – editor at Crossway, author of Digital Liturgies, writes The Digital Liturgies newsletter

47. Paul Kingsnorth – ex-pagan novelist, poet, and essayist, my favorite convert to Orthodoxy outside of my brother, author of Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist, writes The Abbey of Misrule newsletter, bylines at First Things and elsewhere

48. Phil Klay – Iraq veteran, novelist and essayist, author of Redeployment, bylines at the New York Times and The Atlantic and Commonweal

49. Ezra Klein – columnist at the New York Times, founder of Vox, author of Why We’re Polarized, host of The Ezra Klein Show

50. Austin Kleon – fellow Austinite and thief, author of Steal Like an Artist, super-duper blogger, also writes a glorious newsletter

51. Sam Kriss – unclassifiable essayist, logorrheic in a good way, writes the Numb at the Lodge newsletter, bylines at Compact and First Things and The Lamp and the New York Times

52. Bonnie Kristian – editor extraordinaire at Christianity Today, author of Untrustworthy, writes the Bonnie Kristian newsletter, bylines at The Week and The American Conservative

53. Peter Leithart – president of Theopolis, author of The End of Protestantism, writes for First Things

54. David Leonhardt – pandemic worldbeater, writer at the New York Times, author of Ours Was the Shining Future, writes The Morning newsletter

55. Yuval Levin – everyone’s favorite level-headed institutionalist conservative, senior fellow at AEI, editor of National Affairs, author of A Time to Build, bylines at the New York Times and National Review

56. Mark Lilla – humanities prof at Columbia, author of The Once and Future Liberal, bylines at the New York Review of Books and the New York Times

57. Michael Lind – grumpy gumshoe pro-labor conservative, author of Hell to Pay, bylines at Tablet and Compact and The Free Press

58. Damon Linker – radical moderate, poli-sci prof at UPenn, onetime editor of First Things, author of The Theocons, writes the Notes From the Middleground newsletter, bylines at the New York Times and The Atlantic

59. Matthew Loftus – doctor in Kenya via Baltimore, bylines at Mere Orthodoxy and Plough and Christianity Today and the New York Times

60. Zach Lowe – NBA journalist, formerly of Grantland and ESPN, former host of The Lowe Post podcast, currently and unjustly a free agent

61. Kate Lucky – editor at Christianity Today, bylines at The Point and Commonweal

62. Tim Markatos – film critic, writes the Movie Enthusiast newsletter

63. Eugene McCarraher – humanities prof at Villanova, author of The Enchantments of Mammon, byline at Commonweal

64. Daniel McCarthy – omnicompetent conservatism-explainer, editor of Modern Age, columnist at The Spectator, bylines at the New York Times and The American Conservative

65. Esau McCaulley – NT prof at Wheaton, author of Reading While Black, writes a New York Times newsletter, byline at Christianity Today, host of the Esau McCaulley podcast

66. B. D. McClay – simply one of the best essayists around, Swiftie explainer, lover of perfume and anime, has the world eagerly awaiting a book, writes the Notebook newsletter, bylines at The Hedgehog Review and the New York Times and The Lamp and The New Yorker and The Paris Review

67. Jake Meador – editor of Mere Orthodoxy, author of In Search of the Common Good, bylines at Plough and The Atlantic and First Things

68. Russell Moore – editor of Christianity Today, author of Losing Our Religion, bylines at The Atlantic and the New York Times, host of the Russell Moore Podcast

69. Wesley Morris – film critic (the best when he wants to be), formerly at The Boston Globe and Grantland, now art and culture critic for the New York Times, former co-host of various podcasts

70. Gary Saul Morson – literature prof at Northwestern, master of all things Russian, author of Wonder Confronts Certainty, bylines at First Things and The New Criterion and The New York Review of Books

71. Samuel Moyn – law prof at Yale, author of Liberalism Against Itself, bylines at the New York Times and Compact and The New Republic

72. Adam Nayman – film critic for The Ringer, author of The Coen Brothers: This Book Really Ties the Films Together

73. Grace Olmstead – journalist, localist, memoirist, author of Uprooted, writes the Granola newsletter, bylines at the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and Mere Orthodoxy and Plough

74. Louise Perry – journalist, author of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, writes the Maiden Mother Matriarch newsletter, bylines at First Things and The New Statesman

75. Brian Phillips – staff writer at The Ringer, formerly at Grantland, author of Impossible Owls, bylines all over

76. Jeff Reimer – editor nonpareil at Comment, bylines at Plough and The Bulwark

77. Adam Roberts – best SF writer alive, supposedly moonlights as a lit prof in London, author of The Thing Itself, writes the (new!) Substack-ships On Fire, Off The Shoulder Of Orion newsletter, byline the Internet

78. Alastair Roberts – digital lector, adjunct senior fellow at Theopolis, co-author of Echoes of Exodus, blogs at Alastair’s Adversaria, co-writes The Anchored Argosy newsletter, co-host of the Mere Fidelity podcast

79. Becca Rothfeld – book review critic at The Washington Post, editor at The Point, contributing editor at Boston Review, author of All Things Are Too Small, writes the a fête worse than death newsletter

80. L. M. Sacasas – best tech writer alive, associate director of the Christian Study Center of Gainesville, FL, author of 41 Questions: Technology and the Moral Life (forthcoming), writes The Convivial Society newsletter, writes elsewhere but really just subscribe ASAP

81. Fred Sanders – humbly wry polymath, theology prof at Biola, author of The Triune God, blogs at fredfredfred.com

82. Leah Libresco Sargeant – journalist and freelance writer, author of Arriving at Amen, writes the Other Feminisms newsletter, bylines at the New York Times and First Things and The Lamp and The New Atlantis

83. Matthew Schmitz – co-founder and editor of Compact, former editor at First Things, bylines at the New York Times and The Atlantic and The American Conservative

84. Ari Schulman – editor of The New Atlantis, steady hand at the scientism-critical ship, bylines at National Review and the New York Times

85. George Scialabba – my favorite living lefty essayist, author of Only a Voice, bylines everywhere but especially Commonweal and The Baffler and The New Statesman

86. Matt Zoller Seitz – film and TV critic for New York Magazine, editor-in-chief of RogerEbert.com, my first-read for all things cinematic, co-author of TV (The Book)

87. Alan Sepinwall – TV critic for Rolling Stone, co-author of TV (The Book)

88. James K. A. Smith – philosophy prof at Calvin, former editor of Comment and Image, author of Desiring the Kingdom, bylines at First Things and The Christian Century

89. Justin Smith-Ruiu – the artist formerly known as Justin E. H. Smith, everything prof somewhere in Paris, author of The Internet is Not What You Think It Is, meta-writes The Hinternet newsletter, bylines at The Point and Tablet and elsewhere

90. Jonathan Tran – ethics prof at Baylor, author of Asian Americans and the Spirit of Racial Capitalism, writes for The Christian Century

91. Eve Tushnet – saint in the making, tragicomic Catholic queer writer and journalist, author of Tenderness, writes The Rogation Dragon newsletter, bylines at Commonweal and America and The Lamp and First Things

92. Matthew Walther – trad Cath prose stylist bar none, editor and founder of The Lamp, author of a biography of Saint John Henry Newman (forthcoming from Yale UP), bylines at the New York Times and First Things and elsewhere

93. Tish Harrison Warren – priest at local speakeasy Immanuel Anglican Church, author of Liturgy of the Ordinary, writes (wrote?!) for Christianity Today and the New York Times

94. Audrey Watters – ed-tech Cassandra (and therefore to be trusted), author of Teaching Machines, blogs at Hack Education, writes the Second Breakfast newsletter

95. Myles Werntz – ethics prof at ACU, author of From Isolation to Community, writes the Taking Off and Landing newsletter, bylines at Mere Orthodoxy and Christianity Today

96. Alissa Wilkinson – film critic for the New York Times, formerly of Vox and Christianity Today and Books & Culture, author of Salty

97. Rowan Williams – Welsh wizard, former archbishop of Canterbury, author of On Christian Theology, bylines at First Things and The New Statesman and The Guardian

98. Andrew Wilson – teaching pastor at King’s Church London, author of Remaking the World, blogs at Think Theology, writes for Christianity Today and The Gospel Coalition, sometime co-host of Mere Fidelity

99. John Wilson – lovable curmudgeon and devotee of books, former editor of the much lamented Books & Culture, bylines at First Things and The Hedgehog Review and elsewhere

100. Molly Worthen – history prof at UNC, recent convert to Christianity, author of Apostles of Reason, bylines at First Things and the New York Times and Christianity Today

Twenty texts for twenty centuries

Suppose you knew someone who wanted to read broadly in the Christian tradition. Specifically, this someone requested twenty Christian texts—no more, no less—one from each century of the church’s existence (present century excluded).

What would you assign? Who would be on your list?

For the purposes of this hypothetical, the texts are not supposed to be “the best” or the most influential or the most significant or what have you. Nor need they represent the full gamut or spectrum of Christian faith, doctrine, practice, and liturgy—as if that were possible.

At the same time, while the someone in question is a sharp reader, they are an Anglophone normie, not a polyglot scholar. You’re not, for example, going to assign the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas. You’re aiming for reasonably accessible texts by great Christian writers that, together, offer a snapshot of what it means to be Christian; what it means to live as a Christian; what it means to believe as a Christian; and so on.

You could tweak the rules as you please. These are my rules. Here are my answers.

*

First century: The Gospel According to Saint John.

Second century: Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Letters.

Third century: Origen, An Exhortation to Martyrdom.

Fourth century: Saint Athanasius, On the Incarnation.

Fifth century: Saint Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ.

Sixth century: Pope Saint Gregory the Great, Homilies on the Gospels.

Seventh century: Saint Maximus Confessor, The Lord’s Prayer.

Eighth century: Saint John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith.

Ninth century: St. Theodore the Studite, On the Holy Icons.

Tenth century: Saint Gregory of Narek, Festal Works.

Eleventh century: Saint Anselm, Cur Deus Homo?

Twelfth century: Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, On Loving God.

Thirteenth century: Saint Bonaventure, Journey of the Mind Into God.

Fourteenth century: Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love.

Fifteenth century: Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ.

Sixteenth century: John Calvin, Book II of Institution of Christian Religion.

Seventeenth century: Saint Francis de Sales, An Introduction to the Devout Life.

Eighteenth century: Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits.

Nineteenth century: Saint Thérèse of Liseux, Story of a Soul.

Twentieth century: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship.

*

I will confess, I almost trolled the Prots by leaving out Calvin, Edwards, and Bonhoeffer for Saint Teresa, Saint Alphonsus Liguori, and Simone Weil. That would still be a good list! But I had to be honest. I also somewhat cheated with Julian, whose visions and writing spanned the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Were she to be moved ahead, I would remove Kempis and add Dante or Saint Catherine.

It goes without saying that, for most centuries—though curiously not for all, at least from my vantage point—you could choose a dozen or more texts. It hurts not to include Saint Augustine; but then, neither are there any Cappadocians. The fourth and fifth centuries are rich beyond compare.

It’s clear what I’m prioritizing here: brevity, clarity, piety, devotion, faith, love, prayer, discipleship. With, granted, an emphasis on the person and work of Christ. I also wanted a relative balance between East and West, Greek and Latin. It seems to me that an open-hearted reader of these twenty texts would walk away with a beautiful picture of the meaning of lived Christian faith, told from the inside. I almost envy such a person the experience.

Ranking drama series finales

The Ringer ran a fun piece this month, since revised, ranking the forty best series finales by TV shows of any kind—bar miniseries—since the turn of the century. Some of the choices were head-scratchers, though. Parks and Rec? Lost?? New Girl??? The Good Place???? They also included both comedies (Friends, 30 Rock) and reality/other (Nathan For You, The Hills). But the move to limit the options to the post-Sopranos prestige/peak TV era was smart. And they ranked a couple episodes usually overlooked in these debates (though they missed one big one). Overall it’s a solid list.

Here’s mine, following the conclusion to Succession Sunday night. Like many, I’ve soured on the TV hype over the last few years. Partly just because I want to spend my time doing things other than keeping up with the latest shows. But mostly because Peak TV was excellent at creating B-level series with A+ production and unreliable at creating A+ series of any kind—especially ones that made it to the end, rather than starting with a bang and ending with a whimper.

With the end of Better Call Saul last year and Succession this spring, I expect to limit my TV viewing going forward to occasional/pure-fun shows: basically, blockbusters or popcorn fare that involve cooking, spies, or galaxies far, far away. And any series that gets a lot of attention out of the gate, I’ll wait till the start of season 4 (I’m looking at you, Last of Us and House of the Dragon). If everyone still swears by it at that point, I’ll give it a look.

Having said that, the following is a list of shows I don’t regret watching, because each of them stuck the landing. Though first some criteria followed by honorable mentions.

First, I’m only ranking dramas.

Second, I’m only considering finales aired after the year 2000.

Third, I’m considering the finale in the context of the final season. No “good” finale of an otherwise dispensable or poor final season qualifies.

Fourth, while I’m not prioritizing unhappy endings, I am giving the nudge to conclusions that avoid the sitcom trap of giving everyone an (unrealistically) happy ending, because these are people we (and the writers room) love, and we can’t allow ourselves to imagine them unhappy once we say goodbye.

Fifth, I’m also (and therefore) giving the edge to finales that simultaneously (a) work as episodes of television, (b) conclude the overall story of the season/series, and (c) do not in any way swerve from the story the show was always telling, but are clearly an organic and fitting and thus (in the Aristotelian sense) necessary way of completing the story.

Full disclosure: I’ve seen whole seasons of Girls, Atlanta, Half & Catch Fire, and Deadwood, but not finished any of them. I’ve not seen more than a scene or an episode of Six Feet Under, Dexter, Sex & the City, Barry, and Ozark. I’ve always heard wonderful things about the SFU finale, as well as Deadwood’s. Perhaps one day I’ll make it to the latter; I doubt I’ll ever get around to the former.

Honorable mention: Battlestar Galactica (a wild ride, but a bit too hand-wavy even for this Christian Luddite), Mr. Robot (somehow successful, if dragged out there in the final episodes), The West Wing (good for CJ! But all around too much, even for this show), Parenthood (melodrama is as melodrama does), The Expanse (an action-packed blast, but too premature—given how much more story there was to tell), Boardwalk Empire (so good! Almost cracked my top 10), Breaking Bad (excellent, obviously, but still too happy and action-hero-ish for Walt), Mad Men (one or two seasons too late, and too enamored of its two leads to see them as the sad, artless, tragic souls they always were), Hannibal (off the deep end … and also in need of that Clarice sequel!)

Dishonorable mention: Lost + Game of Thrones (no comment necessary)

Now to the top ten … (Minor spoilers ahead, though I’ve tried to be vague.)

*

10. Friday Night Lights. Unlike all that follow, this one partakes of the happy tradition of TV dramas and sitcoms giving everyone the happy ending the audience wants them to have. But because that was always the nature of this show, as a high-production soap opera about high school Texas football and the perfect marriage at its heart, this was never going to be the wrong call. Our heroes ride off into the sunset—the bright lights of Philly, that is.

9. Rectify. Somehow not on The Ringer’s list! The best TV drama of the 2010s. It ended in just the way it ran from the beginning: beautiful, ethereal, contemplative, ambiguous, honest, hopeful. This is the only show I recommend to anyone without reservation. A lovely and humane work of art.

8. Justified. Like Star Trek movies, the best Justified seasons come in evens: two, four, six, followed by five, one, three. The finale hits all the beats, while providing surprising catharsis between the star-crossed hero and villain. I’m not a re-watcher of TV shows, but I look forward to going back through this one with my kids once they’re old enough.

7. The Leftovers. Had the finale of season two been all she wrote, it would have been higher on the list. As it stands, the third season is good but unnecessary. I’ve long wanted to write something about the finale, which has something to say about religion. It’s the wrong thing, but it’s something all the same. You can’t help but cry in those final moments. And it doesn’t spoil a thing in the previous seasons. It even brings a measure of closure to both leads’ stories, along with a question mark the viewer can’t answer for himself. We just have to trust Nora’s word, too. (Or not.)

6. The Wire. Dinged for the final season going a bit haywire. But still a magnificent final two episodes. A sort of sitcom finale, except without making everyone’s ending happy. Feels epic the way the whole show was epic: a story about a city and the lives and institutions that make it endure, for all its dysfunction. And that last Irish wake…

5. The Americans. They were holding out on that U2 song. When it hits, you know why they were so patient. In a sense, this finale was “happier” than expected. But not all happy. And no corners were cut getting there. And when you realize what the leads have lost, you realize it’s not happy at all. But that final confrontation! A whole series building to one single moment in a parking garage. Marvelous performances. When The Americans was on, it was the best show around.

4. The Shield. A pitch-perfect finale with so much plot, so many storylines built into it! So brutal, so devastating. And that final scene. Haunting. An underrated show.

3. Succession. Shows four through one on this list all have perfect finales, in my view. It’s only been twenty-four hours, but Succession belongs. They stuck the landing. They knew the story they were telling. They knew the characters they were crafting. They knew how it had to happen. And they twisted the plot in just the right—and sometimes unexpected—ways, to get there. (Tom!) I wonder how this show would play for someone watching it all for the first time, binged in a week or two? Viewers have been agonizing for what feels like ages to see how it all would come to an end. And people interpreting the finale as a set-up for more seasons or even a movie have utterly misunderstood both the show and the finale. It’s done, folks! They, and we with them, were stuck in interminable infernal circles for forty episodes—and they’re still stuck. They’ve just swapped spots in hell’s musical chairs. It’s never getting better. That’s the point.

2. Better Call Saul. I’ve written about the BCS finale at length. Whether I’m right or Alan Jacobs is right (or his amended take is right), the finale couldn’t have been better. Not only were they completing Jimmy McGill’s arc, they were also bringing the entire Breaking Bad universe to a close—not to mention the excellent-but-still-slightly-missed-opportunity of the BB finale. It’s true, Jimmy-Saul gets to shine. But not because the writers couldn’t bear to see him unhappy. Because he couldn’t help himself. And whether or not he’s happy where he landed, it’s not a happy place to finish one’s days.

1. The Sopranos. This one’s been written about to death. I’ve got nothing to add. It’s still on the throne. No dispute from me. Long live the king.

100 theologians before the 20th century

Earlier this summer I set myself the task of creating a list of 100 theologians before the 20th century. Partly for myself, since I'm an inveterate list-maker and lists help me organize my reading habits; in this case, I would see where my training had left gaps and blind spots that I needed to fill in. But partly, also, for my students, who regularly ask me who they should read from the tradition—not only where to start, but a kind of curriculum or "who's who." So I set out to answer that very question: who's who?

The current list has 153 entries on it. I still want to cull it down to a clean 100, but I figured I would share it here in its unfinished, bloated form. I covet your corrections: Who am I missing? Who have I misnamed? Who is or is not a saint? Whose dates are mistaken? If you had to cull the list down to 100, which dozen (or more) figures would you nix?

I've separated the list into four groups, ranging from 32 to 50 theologians per period: patristic, medieval, reformation, and modern. The cut-offs, naturally, are bound to be arbitrary, but they're roughly accurate, I think. I'm a Westerner making a list in the West, so the Protestant Reformation is a meaningful period in a way that it isn't for the East—but then, I conclude that "age" with Dositheus II, who is a fitting representative of the East's encounter with reformed faith.

As for my goals and criteria:

First, the list is ecumenical; Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestants of every stripe are included.

Second, influence is important; I want the "relevant" names who decisively drove events, doctrines, controversies, etc.

Third, substance is important, too; indeed, on the final list I'm willing to opt for quality over legacy, if it comes down to that.

Fourth, I want epochs, traditions, regions, cultures, and languages to be disparate and representative of the church catholic at any one slice of time in history.

Fifth, orthodoxy is preferable but not required. Partly that's the nature of an ecumenical list (plenty of folks here have anathematized one another!), but even in terms of loose small-o orthodoxy, there a few whose credentials are questionable. So be it—if their thought is significant and worth engaging.

Sixth, candidates for the list have to have left substantial theological writings: St. Benedict, St. Lawrence, and St. Francis are all left off for that reason.

Seventh, I've included a few poets, but only those whose theological imaginaries have decisively informed the church's grammar and devotional practices, such as Dante and Milton; doubtless Herbert, Donne, and Hopkins, among others, could also be included, but I've left them off for now.

Eighth, the cut-off for the 20th century is difficult. What if your someone's straddles both sides of the dividing line? One criterion I used was whether a theologian's writing was equally distributed, or weighted toward the 19th century; another was whether a theologian's major work came before the year 1900. In the end, though, since (a) World War I ended in 1918, (b) Barth's Römerbrief came out in 1919, and (c) the current year is 2020, I used the "hard" cap of 1920.

Finally: Why theologians before the 20th century? First, because almost to a person, these are figures my students have never heard of and certainly have never read. Second, because duh, these are the fathers and mothers of the faith, who handed it down for 19 centuries to the present; they are worth attending to for their own sake. But third, because if I were to make a list of theologians worth reading from the last 100 years, I'd come up with at least as many names, and probably more. That's the job most seminaries and classrooms presuppose as the relevant task, apart from the stray history class or two. But that ends up sidelining the thinkers below. Imagine instead a graduate program in theology that ensured that students would read 2-4 major works by each of the theologians below (or at least by 100 of them). Imagine the theological range and depth, indeed the spiritual formation, that students would receive. Some programs are in fact trying that out. May their tribe increase.

In any case: to the list. Again, I welcome feedback. Leave a comment or drop me a line directly (brad DOT east AT acu DOT edu). Enjoy. [Update: suggested additions follow the list.]

Patristic Period

1. St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. 108)
2. St. Justin Martyr (100-165)
3. St. Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130-202)
4. St. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215)
5. Tertullian (c. 155-240)
6. Origen (c. 184-253)
7. St. Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258)
8. Eusebius of Caesarea (265-339)
9. St. Athanasius (c. 297-373) 10.
   
10. St. Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306-373)
    
11. St. Hilary of Poitiers (c. 315-368)
    
12. St. Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 315-386)
    
13. St. Basil the Great (c. 329-379)
    
14. St. Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 330-390)
    
15. St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395)
    
16. St. Ambrose (c. 340-397)
    
17. St. Jerome (c. 343-420)
    
18. St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407)
    
19. St. Augustine of Hippo (c. 354-430)
    
20. St. John Cassian (c. 360-435)
    
21. St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376-444)
    
22. St. Peter Chrysologus (c. 400-450)
    
23. Pope St. Leo the Great (c. 400-461)
    
24. St. Severinus Boethius (477-524)
    
25. St. Gregory the Great (c. 540-604)
    
26. St. Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636)
    
27. Dionysius the Areopagite (c. 565-625)
    
28. St. John Climacus (c. 579-649)
    
29. St. Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662)
    
30. St. Isaac of Nineveh (c. 613-700)
    
31. St. Bede the Venerable (c. 673-735)
    
32. St. John Damascene (c. 675-749)

Medieval Period

1. Theodore Abu Qurrah (c. 750-820)
   
2. St. Theodore of Studium (c. 759-826)
   
3. St. Photius the Great (c. 810-893)
   
4. John Scotus Eriugena (c. 815-877)
   
5. St. Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022)
   
6. St. Gregory of Narek (951-1003)
   
7. St. Peter Damian (1007-1072)
   
8. Michael Psellos (1017-1078)
   
9. St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)
   
10. Peter Abelard (c. 1079-1142)
    
11. St. Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090-1153)
    
12. Peter Lombard (c. 1096-1160)
    
13. Hugh of St. Victor (c. 1096-1141)
    
14. St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)
    
15. Nicholas of Methone (1100-1165)
    
16. Richard of St. Victor (1110-1173)
    
17. Joachim of Fiore (c. 1135-1202)
    
18. Alexander of Hales (1185-1245)
    
19. St. Anthony of Padua (1195-1231)
    
20. St. Albert the Great (c. 1200-1280)
    
21. St. Bonaventure (c. 1217-1274)
    
22. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
    
23. Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-1328)
    
24. Dante Alighieri (c. 1265-1321)
    
25. Bl. John Duns Scotus (1265-1308)
    
26. William of Ockham (c. 1287-1347)
    
27. Bl. John van Ruysbroeck (c. 1293-1381)
    
28. Bl. Henry Suso (1295-1366)
    
29. St. Gregory Palamas (c. 1296-1357)
    
30. Johannes Tauler (1300-1361)
    
31. St. Nicholas Kabasilas (1319-1392)
    
32. John Wycliffe (c. 1320-1384)
    
33. Julian of Norwich (c. 1343-1420)
    
34. St. Catherine of Siena (c. 1347-1380)
    
35. Jan Hus (c. 1372-1415)
    
36. St. Symeon of Thessaloniki (c. 1381-1429)
    
37. St. Mark of Ephesus (1392-1444)
    
38. Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)
    
39. Denys the Carthusian (1402-1471)
    

Reformation Period

1. Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)
   
2. Thomas Cajetan (1469-1534)
   
3. St. Thomas More (1478-1535)
   
4. Balthasar Hubmaier (1480-1528)
   
5. Martin Luther (1483-1546)
   
6. Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531)
   
7. Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566)
   
8. Thomas Müntzer (1489-1525)
   
9. Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556)
   
10. St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556)
    
11. Martin Bucer (1491-1551)
    
12. Menno Simmons (1496-1561)
    
13. Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560)
    
14. Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562)
    
15. St. John of Ávila (1500-1569)
    
16. Heinrich Bullinger (1504-1575)
    
17. John Calvin (1509-1564)
    
18. John Knox (1514-1572)
    
19. St. Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582)
    
20. Theodore Beza (1519-1605)
    
21. St. Peter Canisius (1521-1597)
    
22. Martin Chemnitz (1522-1586)
    
23. Domingo Báñez (1528-1604)
    
24. Zacharias Ursinus (1534-1583)
    
25. Luis de Molina (1535-1600)
    
26. St. John of the Cross (1542-1591)
    
27. St. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621)
    
28. Francisco Suárez (1548-1617)
    
29. Richard Hooker (1554-1600)
    
30. Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626)
    
31. Johann Arndt (1555-1621)
    
32. Johannes Althusius (1557-1638)
    
33. William Perkins (1558-1602)
    
34. St. Lawrence of Brindisi (1559-1619)
    
35. Jacob Arminius (1560-1609)
36. Amandus Polanus (1561-1610)
    
37. St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
    
38. Jakob Böhme (1575-1624)
    
39. William Ames (1576-1633)
    
40. Johann Gerhard (1582-1637)
    
41. Meletios Syrigos (1585-1664)
    
42. John of St Thomas (1589-1644)
    
43. Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661)
    
44. John Milton (1608-1674)
    
45. John Owen (1616-1683)
    
46. Francis Turretin (1623-1687)
    
47. Petrus van Mastricht (1630-1706)
    
48. Philipp Spener (1635-1705)
    
49. Thomas Traherne (c. 1636-1674)
    
50. Patriarch Dositheos II of Jerusalem (1641-1707)
    

Modern Period

1. August Hermann Francke (1663-1727)
   
2. St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787)
   
3. Nicolaus Zinzendorf (1700-1760)
4. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
   
5. John Wesley (1703-1791)
   
6. St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain (1749-1809)
   
7. St. Seraphim of Sarov (1754-1833)
   
8. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834)
   
9. St. Philaret of Moscow (1782-1867)
   
10. Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860)
    
11. Johann Adam Möhler (1796-1838)
    
12. Charles Hodge (1797-1878)
    
13. St. John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
    
14. John Williamson Nevin (1803-1886)
    
15. Alexei Khomiakov (1804-1860)
    
16. F. D. Maurice (1805-1872)
    
17. David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874)
    
18. Isaak August Dorner (1809-1884)
    
19. Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903)
    
20. Heinrich Schmid (1811-1885)
    
21. St. Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894)
    
22. J. C. Ryle (1816-1900)
    
23. Philip Schaff (1819-1893)
    
24. Heinrich Heppe (1820-1879)
    
25. Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889)
    
26. John of Kronstadt (1829-1909)
    
27. Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920)
    
28. B. B. Warfield (1851-1921)
    
29. Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900)
    
30. Herman Bavinck (1854-1921)
    
31. Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923)
    
32. St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897)

Suggested additions [last updated 24 July 2020]:

1. Evagrius Ponticus
   
2. The Cloud of Unknowing
   
3. Theologia Germanica
4. Francisco de Vitoria
5. Jose de Acosta
   
6. Gerard Winstanley
   
7. Blaise Pascal
8. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 
9. David Walker
   
10. Søren Kierkegaard
11. Rauschenbusch
12. Alcuin of York
    
13. Rabanus Maurus
14. Paschasius Radbertus
15. Cassiodorus
16. G. W. F. Hegel
17. George MacDonald
18. Ignaz von Döllinger
19. Tobias Beck
20. Adolf von Harnack
21. Giovanni Perrone
22. Franz Overbeck
23. August Vilmar
24. Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
25. Léon Bloy

The 11 Best Hour-Long TV Dramas of the Decade (2010–2019)

A few months back I posted this list to Twitter, but I thought I'd re-post it here, with a bit more commentary, as well as a reshuffling due to Mr. Robot's outstanding fourth season.

First, to the rules. This is a list of hour-long dramas: so no half-hour genre-exploders (Atlanta, Louie) or comedies (Parks and Rec, Brooklyn 99). I'm also only thinking of TV series, with discrete seasons that tell something of a unified narrative: thus excluding miniseries (e.g. The Honourable Woman) and specialty shows (a la Sherlock or Black Mirror). Further, in order to qualify the series must have at least three seasons to its name (so The Knick falls short and both Succession and Yellowstone ran out of time before decade's end). Seasons prior to 2010, however—such as Mad Men's first three or Breaking Bad's first two—don't count for the purposes of this list. I am solely considering television seasons comprising hour-long dramatic episodes shown or streamed between 2010 and 2019.

Now to the list:

1. Rectify (SundanceTV, 2013–2016)
2. The Americans (FX, 2013–2018)
3. Breaking Bad (AMC, 2008–2013)
4. The Leftovers (HBO, 2014–2017)
5. Better Call Saul (AMC, 2015–)
6. Mad Men (AMC, 2007–2015)
7. Game of Thrones (HBO, 2011–2019)
8. Mr. Robot (USA, 2015–2019)
9. Justified (FX, 2010–2015)
10. Fargo (FX, 2014–)
11. The Expanse (SyFy/Amazon, 2015–) 

Comments:

–My, that's a M-A-N-L-Y list. No apologies—one is who one is, one likes what one likes—but I'm not blind to it.

–Some shows got the cut due to waning quality in later years: I'm looking at you, The Good Wife, and you too, Orange is the New Black.

–Others were marked by high highs matched only by equally low lows: e.g. Homeland, True Detective.

–Consulting my annual lists, I was reminded of Boardwalk Empire, which is sorely underrated. The fourth season is up there for single-season masterpieces. But I'll never be able to shake Matt Zoller Seitz's comment, when he reviewed the short-lived series Boss, that the character Nucky Thompson should have been played by Kelsey Grammar. The show becomes an immediate classic in that alternate universe.

–Hannibal! A real show that really played on NBC—NBC!—for three—three!—seasons! That second season, y'all.

–You know, I never got around to watching the final season of Halt & Catch Fire. An unjustly overlooked show, beloved by none but critics. But the fact that I just never quite found myself needing to finish the story might say something. About the show, or about me, at least.

–It would be easy enough to keep the list to a clean ten and leave off The Expanse. But it just got too good in those second and third seasons, I couldn't do it.

–Were it not for Mr. Robot's second season, I might have been willing to move it up to the top five. Alas.

–Game of Thrones is so strange. Those last couple seasons were so dreadful overall (fun at times, but almost always stupidly silly), and the series was far from flawless in the first six. But the sheer narrative scope, the quality of the source material, the heft of the story and acting, the excellence (at times) of the writers' ability to juggle so much so deftly, and, man, those big moments: it still deserves much of the awe it garnered.

 –For me, at least, separating rankings by time limit and/or genre makes things so much easier than it would otherwise be. How are you supposed to compare Mad Men to Parks & Rec, or Veep to Mr. Robot? But once you sort for genre and running time, the top 10-20 dramas more or less sort themselves.

–Watch Rectify. It may well be the only TV show—given my predilections to tell people to turn their screens off, not on—that I suggest people ought to watch, and without reservation. It's that good.

The most stimulating works of systematic theology from the last 20 years

On Twitter yesterday I made an observation followed by a question. I said that Paul Griffiths' Decreation is, in my view, the most thought-provoking, stimulating, exhilarating work of systematic theology written since the first volume of Robert Jenson's systematics was published in 1997. Then I asked: What are other plausible candidates from, say, the last two decades?

I thought of half a dozen off the top of my head, then started adding others' replies to the list. See the (lightly curated) resulting list below.

A few preliminary comments, though. First, everything on the list was published (for the first time) in 1998 or later. That's arbitrary, but then, all lists are; that's what makes them fun.

Second, your mileage may vary, as mine does; I think some of these books are in a league of their own compared so some of the others. But I've tried to be broader than just my own preferences.

Third, candidates for this list are works of Christian systematic theology. As ever, the genre is loose enough that you know it when you see it. But I had to make some choices. So comparative theology is out, as is moral theology—excellent examples of the latter might be Cavanaugh's Torture and Eucharist and Herdt's Putting on Virtue. The same goes for historical theology: Ayres's Nicaea and Its Legacy, though laudably normative in many of its proposals, and arguably one of the handful of most important theological books in recent decades, is not itself an instance of systematic theology. I've similarly ruled out works of theology primarily interpreting a single theologian, past or present; so books with Augustine or Barth or whomever in the title are excluded. (I imagine this is the most contestable of the criteria. I'm only half persuaded myself, as evidenced by the exception I allowed.) Works of practical or popular or narrative theology are out too; whereas Cone's God of the Oppressed is certainly systematic theology at its most bracing, The Cross and the Lynching Tree belongs to a different genre (which, lest I be misunderstood, is not a judgment of value). Biblical scholarship is excluded from consideration as well; N. T. Wright and Richard Hays and John Barclay and Paula Fredriksen are brilliant and theologically stimulating writers, but their work is not systematic theology. Oh, and I suppose I should add: I'm limiting this to works originally written in English, if only to narrow the purview of the list (while lessening its potential hubris).

Fourth, this is not intended as a list of the "best books" from the last two decades. My words about Decreation were sharp and specific: it's a knock-your-socks-off kind of book, the sort of work you can't put down, that leads to compulsive reading, that changes your mind 10 times in as many pages, and makes you rethink, or refortify, what you always thought about this or that major topic. A book on this list should not be boring, in other words; and there are good works of scholarship that are undeniably boring. Such works are not included here.

Fifth, some might quibble with the choice of book for a given author. Should Tanner's book be Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity or Christ the Key? Should Rowan Williams's be On Christian Theology or The Edge of Words? John Webster's Holy Scripture or God Without Measure? I've opted for my own idiosyncratic preference or gut sense for what made a bigger "splash" at the time of its publication. Again: your mileage may vary.

Without further ado (ordered alphabetically):

1. Marilyn McCord Adams, Christ and Horrors: The Coherence of Christology (2006)
2. John Behr, The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death (2006)
3. J. Kameron Carter, Race: A Theological Account (2008)
4. Sarah Coakley, Powers and Submissions: Spirituality, Philosophy, and Gender (2002)
5. Paul J. Griffiths, Decreation: The Last Things of All Creatures (2014)
6. David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (2003)
7. Willie James Jennings, The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (2010)
8. David H. Kelsey, Eccentric Existence: A Theological Anthropology (2009)
9. Matthew Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics: Aquinas and the Renewal of Trinitarian Theology (2004)
10. Alan E. Lewis, Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday (2003)
11. Bruce D. Marshall, Trinity and Truth (1999)
12. Eugene F. Rogers Jr., Sexuality and the Christian Body: Their Way Into the Triune God (1999)
13. Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (2015)
14. Katherine Sonderegger, Systematic Theology: Volume 1, The Doctrine of God (2015)
15. Kathryn Tanner, Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology (2001)
16. Linn Marie Tonstad, God and Difference: The Trinity, Sexuality, and the Transformation of Finitude (2016)
17. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship (2010)
18. John Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch (2003)
19. Rowan Williams, The Edge of Words: God and the Habits of Language (2014)
20. Frances Young, God's Presence: A Contemporary Recapitulation of Early Christianity (2013)

Genre lists: the best science fiction authors and series

All right. I've written about my crime fiction list and my fantasy list; here, rounding out the genres (at least those in which I'm interested), is my chronological list of the authors and series in science fiction that I have read or aim to read. Far from exhaustive, and not aiming to be "completist." I want to read the best. What should I add to it? [NB: The list has now been expanded with suggestions.]

1. H. G. Wells, Time Machine + Invisible Man + War of the Worlds (1895–98)
2. Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars (1917)
3. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)
4. C. S. Lewis, Space Trilogy (1938–45)
5. George Orwell, 1984 (1949)
6. Ray Bradbury, Martian Chronicles (1950) + Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
7. Isaac Asimov, The Foundation Trilogy (1951–53)
8. Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End (1953) + 2001 (1968)
9. Richard Matheson, I Am Legend (1954)
10. Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination (1957)
11. Walter M. Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959)
12. Stanislaw Lem, Solaris (1961)
13. Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) + The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966)
14. Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle (1962)
15. Frank Herbert, Dune (1965)
16. J. G. Ballard, The Crystal World (1966)
17. Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) + The Dispossessed (1974)
18. Joe Haldeman, The Forever War (1974)
19. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, The Mote in God's Eye (1974)
20. Alice Sheldon (as James Tiptree Jr.), The Girl Who Was Plugged In (1974)
21. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979)
22. Gene Wolfe, The Book of the New Sun (1980–83)
23. William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)
24. Connie Willis, Fire Watch (1984) + Doomsday Book (1992)
25. Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game (1985) + Speaker for the Dead (1986) + Ender’s Shadow (1999)
26. Michael Crichton, Sphere (1987) + Jurassic Park (1990) + Timeline (1999)
27. Iain M. Banks, The Culture Series (1987–2012)
28. Dan Simmons, Hyperion (1989) 
29. Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (1992) + Anantham (2008)
30. Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower (1993) + Parable of the Talents (1998)
31. Kim Stanley Robinson, Mars Trilogy (1993–96)
32. Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow (1996) + Children of God (1998)
33. Ted Chiang, Story of Your Life (1998/2002)
34. Margaret Atwood, MaddAddam Trilogy (2003–13)
35. Theodore Judson, Fitzpatrick's War (2004)
36. Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (2005)
37. John Scalzi, Old Man's War Series (2005–2015) 
38. Liu Cixin, Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy (2008–10) 
39. Max Brooks, World War Z (2006)
40. Haruki Murakami, 1Q84 (2010)
41. Tom Perrotta, The Leftovers (2011)
42. China Miéville, Embassytown (2011)
43. Ann Leckie, Imperial Radch Trilogy (2013–15)
44. Pierce Brown, Red Rising (2014–)
45. Jeff Vandermeer, The Southern Reach Trilogy (2014)
46. Adam Roberts, The Thing Itself (2015) 

Genre lists: the best fantasy series

Last year I wrote about how I worked my way back into regular fiction reading through genre, specifically the genre of crime novels. I also keep separate genre lists for fantasy and science fiction. Each scratches a particular itch, and I slowly make my way through each one, as the mood strikes me. But I'm a novice, using either my own eclectic interests or the lists of others as guides. I thought I'd open myself up to others to build out my current fantasy list.

NB: I'm not looking to be a completist for completion's sake. I don't want to read just-fine or so-so series in order to comprehend the genre. I want to read the very best series, for nothing but pleasure. Having said that, I do enjoy (as my chronological listing below shows) understanding the relationship between different fantasy novelists and series, tracking the influence going forward and the reactions, revisions, and subversions looking backward. I find that endlessly fascinating.

So: Having said that, if you were to add 3-5 must-read books or series to this list, what would you recommend? [NB: The list has now been updated with suggestions.]

1. E. R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros (1922)
2. Robert E. Howard, Conan the Barbarian (1932–36)
3. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (1937) + The Lord of the Rings (1954)
4. T. H. White, The Once and Future King (1938–58) + The Book of Merlyn (1977)
5. C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–56)
6. Alan Garner, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (1960)
7. Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
8. Lloyd Alexander, The Chronicles of Prydain (1964–68)
9. Ursula K. Le Guin, Earthsea Cycle (1968–2001)
10. Richard Adams, Watership Down (1972)
11. Stephen King, The Stand (1978) + The Dark Tower (1982–2004)
12. Mark Helprin, A Winter’s Tale (1983)
13. Terry Pratchett, Discworld (1983–2015)
14. Guy Gavriel Kay, The Fionavar Tapestry (1984–86)
15. Tad Williams, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn (1988–1993)
16. Robert Jordan, The Wheel of Time (1990–2013) 
17. Robin Hobb, The Farseer Trilogy (1995–97)
18. Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials (1995–2000)
19. George R. R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire (1996–)
20. J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter (1997–2007)
21. Jim Butcher, The Dresden Files (2000–)
22. Neil Gaiman, American Gods (2001)
23. Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (2004)
24. Gene Wolfe, The Wizard Knight (2004)
25. Scott Lynch, Gentlemen Bastard Sequence (2006–) 
26. Joe Abercrombie, The First Law (2006–)
27. Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn (2006–)
28. China Miéville, Un Lun Dun (2007) + The City & The City (2009)
29. Patrick Rothfuss, The Kingkiller Chronicle (2007–)
30. Lev Grossman, The Magicians Trilogy (2009–2014)
31. Justin Cronin, The Passage Trilogy (2010–16) 
32. N. K. Jemisin, Broken Earth Trilogy (2015–17)

The best American crime novelists of the last century, or: a way into the genre

Four and a half years ago I decided I wanted to try out the genre of crime fiction. I was about to take a semester off from my doctoral studies for paternity leave, and I knew my academic reading would be on the wane, at least while I was caring for my newborn son during the day. I needed something punchy, new, and different that would grab and hold my attention during downtime, long walks, and seemingly endless Baby Bjorn–pacing.

So I ordered a few books: The 39 Steps by John Buchan, The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins, The Hunter by Donald Westlake, Killing Floor by Lee Child, and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carré. An odd, eclectic sampling, obviously made by an outsider. In any case, the experiment worked.

Turns out I love crime fiction.

From there, I wanted to get my hands on the best stuff out there. But the way my mind works, I wanted to do this in a particular way. First, I wanted to get a sense of the genre as a whole, particularly in its development and in the order of influences. I wouldn't read chronologically, but if I read Ross Macdonald, I wanted to know and not be ignorant of the fact that he had read and was influenced by Hammett and Chandler. Second, I wanted to read the masters, not their second-rate imitators. And third, if the author had a series featuring a long-standing character—and they nearly always do—I wanted to read that series and preferably the first entry. I knew that that would mean I might not read an author's best, or best-read-first, work, but that was fine by me. I wanted to see the genesis of their art; and should they draw me in, I wanted to read the series from beginning to end, not start in the middle.

Long story short, here's my list. (I'm an inveterate list-maker. It's a compulsive habit.) I've yet to find a comparable one online: when I do, it invariably includes British authors (e.g., P. D. James, Agatha Christie), expands the genre to include spy fiction (e.g., John le Carré, Len Deighton), does not limit itself to one book per author (e.g., Hammett and Chandler get multiple entries), and includes mysteries from every time period (e.g., Poe, Dickens).

My list's rules: only Americans, beginning with Hammett in the 1920s (so the last 88 years—but close enough to say "the last century"), only crime fiction (broadly defined, but excluding spy and similar novels), and focusing especially on the first entry in the author's most beloved or well-known series.

I've put an asterisk by the ones I've yet to read. I'm only about halfway done, so this is far from an authoritative list. To state the obvious, I'll feel comfortable ranking either the authors or their works only once I've actually read them all. I'll add that falling in love with le Carré and P. D. James along the way hasn't helped in finishing the list.

But in any case, here it is. I welcome suggestions of every kind: corrections, amendments, additions, subtractions, and more.

1. Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon (1929)
2. Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Velvet Claws (1933)
3. James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)
4. Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance (1934)
5. Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep (1939)
6. Cornell Woolrich, The Bride Wore Black (1940)
7. Vera Caspary, Laura (1942)
8. Helen Eustis, The Horizontal Man (1946)
9. David Goodis, Dark Passage (1946)
10. Mickey Spillane, I, The Jury (1947)
11. Elisabeth Sanxay Holding, The Blank Wall (1947)
12. Dorothy B. Hughes, In a Lonely Place (1947)
13. Kenneth Millar (as Ross Macdonald), The Moving Target (1949)
14. Charlotte Armstrong, Mischief (1950)
15. Jim Thompson, The Killer Inside Me (1952)
16. Margaret Millar, Beast in View (1955)
17. Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)
18. Evan Hunter (as Ed McBain), Cop Hater (1956)
19. Chester Himes, A Rage in Harlem (=For Love of Imabelle) (1957)
20. Dolores Hitchens, Fools' Gold (1958)
21. Donald Westlake (as Richard Stark), The Hunter (1962)
22. John D. MacDonald, The Deep Blue Good-by (1964)
23. George V. Higgins, The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1970)
24. Robert B. Parker, The Godwulf Manuscript (1973)
25. Donald Goines, Crime Partners (1974)
26. Joseph Wambaugh, The Choirboys (1975)
27. Lawrence Block, The Sins of the Fathers (1976)
28. James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss (1978)
29. Ross Thomas, Chinaman’s Chance (1978)
30. Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park (1981)
31. Sara Paretsky, Indemnity Only (1982)
32. Newton Thornburg, Dreamland (1983)
33. Charles Willeford, Miami Blues (1984)
34. Robert Crais, The Monkey’s Raincoat (1987)
35. James Lee Burke, The Neon Rain (1987)
36. Elmore Leonard, Get Shorty (1990)
37. Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress (1990)
38. James Ellroy, L.A. Confidential (1990)
39. Michael Connelly, The Black Echo (1992)
40. James Sallis, The Long-Legged Fly (1992)
41. Richard Price, Clockers (1992)
42. George Pelecanos, The Sweet Forever (1995)
43. Laura Lippman, Baltimore Blues (1997)
44. Ace Atkins, Crossroad Blues (1998)
45. Craig Johnson, Cold Dish (2004)
46. Megan Abbott, Die A Little (2005)
47. Don Winslow, The Power of the Dog (2005)
48. Daniel Woodrell, Winter's Bone (2006)
49. Benjamin Whitmer, Pike (2010)
50. Dennis Lehane, Live by Night (2012) 
51. Adrian McKinty, The Cold Cold Ground (2012)
52. Reed Farrel Coleman, Where It Hurts (2016)

**Update #1: Added Highsmith, Hughes, and Millar on Megan Abbott's recommendation.
**Update #2: Added Lippman, Stout, Sallis, Holding, Goodis, Thompson, and Woolrich on Topher Lundell's recommendation.
**Update #3: Added Hitchens, Eustis, Armstrong, and Caspary on Sarah Weinman's (editorial) recommendation.
**Update #4: I've dropped the asterisks on the books I haven't read—with 15 new additions, the disproportion of unread to read was getting out of hand!
**Update #5: Added Coleman, whose first Gus Murphy book, out last year, I had forgotten to include. 
**Update #6: Added Johnson, Woodrell, and Whitmer on Kester Smith's recommendation.