February Round-up
a nice little collection of books, podcasts, and movies to start 2024
Hey, y’all. An especially warm digital welcome to all the new folks here thanks to Beth Felker Jones’s recommendation of my book and Substack over at
That shout out made my day. Glad to have new folks along for the ride.This time around, I’m recapping a few things. I’ve been talking lots of books and movies, and I want to make sure you all know where that’s been happening.
Book Round-Up
Have you checked out the Scandal of Reading podcast? Jessica Hooten Wilson, Austin Carty, and your boy launched a series of convos pairing books with a fruit of the Spirit. I mentioned LaRose by Louise Erdrich as one of my best reads of 2023, so I recommend my conversation on the novel with Dr. Tiffany Kriner. LaRose is a book that will break and mend your heart.
Also, Austin Carty and I have been discussing Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer. I don’t love the book, but I think about it all the time.
What are you reading right now? My friends know wintertime is when I like to tackle thick novels. This year I’m lugging around Don DeLillo’s Underworld. The novel debuted in 1997, just one year after David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. That’s two mammoth, time-jumping novels about the malaise of modern American life back-to-back. Sounds like I’ll need to write something about both to sort out my thoughts.
“Don’t be a topper.” I learned the phrase “topper” from David Brooks’ excellent How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. What’s a topper, you ask? Toppers are people who usurp you in conversation. Example: Someone asks you about your day; you share about a failure from work or something, and partway through your vulnerable spill, they “top” you with a similar tale from their own life, never to return to you or the original topic at hand. Confession: We all possess this topper tendency, don’t we?
Brooks offers many gems, synthesizing all manner of interdisciplinary insights and stories to help us better hear and love others. Ministry leaders especially would appreciate and benefit from this book.
Movie Round-Up
The Boy and The Heron. Hiyao Miyazaki’s latest was my movie of the year pick for the “Best of 2023” podcast over at Think Christian.
On that same pod, I also discussed the slow and poignant All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt by poet and director, Raven Jackson. My fumbling description for this film is that its feel and pace are similar to Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (a must watch if you haven’t seen) but set in black rural Mississippi. It’s not the best description narratively, but tonally, it’s sort of on point. I recommend the film, if you’re looking for something to sit with and savor.
Writing Round-Up
My manuscript for my new book, tentatively titled, Word and Time: A Devotional Guide to the Church Year for Novices and Experts, is due in August. I’m just getting rolling. (I work best under pressure, maybe?) I’ll share some more here shortly on the what and why behind this project. The book is set to release in fall 2025 with Waterbrook.
Black History Month
Saving the best for last! My BHM novel recommendation is Nella Larsen’s Passing. I discuss this Harlem Renaissance novel in Reading Black Books, and I’m glad to be one voice in a chorus of Larsen-centric revivalism. Even Netflix adapted the book for a film. My non-fiction BHM rec is Jonathan Eig’s new biography on MLK, which I just picked up on Audible.
Lenten blessings. Catch y’all soon.
Peace,
Claude