Calvin's Top 40, #36: The Kite Runner

Next up on Calvin's Top 40 is Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. Probably one of the best of a slew of novels on Afganistan that rose to prominence after Sept. 11th, the book was recently used, along with Hosseini's newer A Thousand Splendid Suns, for a class on Afganistan for CALL, the Calvin Academy for Lifelong Learning.

Calvin's Top 40, #37: Colossians Remixed

Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire was put together by two scholars with CRC connections (Walsh is CRC campus minister at U of Toronto and Keesmaat is at the Institute for Christian Studies) this "anti-commentary" is perhaps the best example of a merging of biblical studies and postmodernity that aids contemporary readers.

Calvin's Top 40, #38: Loves Me, Loves Me Not

Laura Smit is a smart cookie. Her published work touches on Radical Orthodoxy, St. Francis of Assisi, and, in this helpful volume, unrequited love. Though much ink has been spilled on the fairly common experiences of courtship and marriage, very, very little has been said about this even more common experience, love gone awry.

Though Loves Me, Loves Me Not: The Ethics of Unrequited Love was not expected to do well (who wants to focus on the downside of love?) it has proven to be a consistent seller, appealing to thoughtful students as well as those who have a little more experience in love and loss.

Calvin's Top 40, #39: The Language of God

Clocking in at #39 on Calvin's Top 40 is the excellent book by the former head of the Human Genome Project, Frances Collins's The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. Though Collins is often accused of over-reliance on C.S. Lewis, his book does present a coherent case for theistic evolution.

Calvin's Top 40, #40: Healing for a Broken World

One of the most commented upon sections of the store is our new section "Calvin's Top 40." It has existed in seed form since my first days at the Campus Store, but it has only recently appeared in its full glory. For the uninitiated, the Top 40 is an in-store display that tracks the best selling books over the past year and collects them into one wall of quality reading. I'll post the whole list eventually, but for now I thought I'd blog my way up the list from forty to one.

Number 40 is a book that will likely go higher in the future, Stephen Monsma's Healing for a Broken World: Christian Perspectives on Public Policy. Monsma rightly lays out solidarity as a basic organizing principle for Christian involvement in politics, an emphasis that helps to trancend the neat divisions of Right vs. Left and Red vs. Blue. (Although Red vs. Blue seems quaintly 2004 during 2008's Obamamania!) Another great feature of this excellent book from Crossway is the companion video series of the same title put out by the Calvin Media Foundation. Set up to be used for weekly gatherings in churches, it touches on end-of-life issues, Creation care, terrorism, human rights, and more. As a sometime participant in a trial run of the class earlier this year at Church of the Servant I can attest that the DVD sparked helpful, if sometimes heated, debate.

Great fiction for summer

We've been talking books here at the store. The summer always seems to be the time when fiction once again rises to the top of staff and student reading lists. I finally completed East of Eden and am once again being tempted by Douglas Coupland, as his newest, The Gum Thief comes highly recommended by staff here at the store. (I was burned by J-Pod which seemed to me to be a less inspired retread of Microserfs.) But Coupland rarely disappoints, and if Gum Thief is even 1/2 as good as Hey Nostradamus! or All Families Are Psychotic I'll be happy to recommend it.