[The Bookshelf #77] Lights, Camera, Action
On Jason Bailey's coffee table book about movies in New York City, and more from Tomáš Halík and Ellen Davis
Hi friends, just a quick note to say thanks for subscribing to this newsletter and for reading it. If you enjoy it, why not tell a friend or two?
It should also be mentioned that this edition of The Bookshelf—which I’m writing mid-week—will be on the shorter side, as I’m scheduled to undergo surgery on Friday morning. It’s a high-tech, “minimally invasive” procedure, and I’m told it’s considered straightforward by those with the requisite skills. Even so, I’d of course appreciate your prayers in the days ahead as my body learns to live without a gallbladder.
What I’ve Read Recently
Last month I made note of Tomáš Halík’s Touch the Wounds: On Suffering, Trust, and Transformation (Notre Dame). At the time, you may recall that my expectations were high. Having just finished it, I am pleased to report: it’s my favorite book of the year (so far).
As with most good books, I have some quibbles here and there; you, dear reader, may discover some of your own. But Halík is doing important work here, and what Halík gets right more than makes up for anything he might get wrong.
It seems to me that Touch the Wounds is a book for our time precisely by being a book that transcends the debates of our age—leading us always back to Jesus, the resurrected Lord who was known to his disciples by his wounds.
I needed this book, right now. You just might need it too.
What I’m Reading Now
I haven’t read a proper coffee table book in a while, so recently I dusted off Fun City Cinema: New York City and the Movies That Made It (Abrams) by Jason Bailey, which I’d received as a gift last year. It’s a physically imposing book (3.85 pounds!) guiding us decade by decade through the history of New York and the history of movies, which in Bailey’s telling is very much one symbiotic history.
As part of the fascinating story of filmmaking in New York, Bailey picks ten films that in some way symbolize the decades in which they were made, beginning with The Jazz Singer—a 1927 musical with an Al Jolson performance in blackface—and culminating with Frances Ha—a 2012 comedic drama starring the inimitable Greta Gerwig as a struggling dancer.
The Vox film critic (and transplanted New Yorker) Alissa Wilkinson has this to say: “Fun City Cinema is my favorite sort of film book. Jason Bailey takes us on a tour through not just New York cinema, but the city that gave birth to it and the fantastic, absurd, glorious ways in which New York’s history is, all on its own, stranger than fiction. New York owes much to the cinema, and the cinema owes much back, and Fun City Cinema is a wild and gorgeous ride through that brilliant relationship.”
So far I’ve made it through King Kong and the Great Depression. Next up, the films made to reflect a world forever marked by World War II.
What I Might Read Next
For many years now, Katie and I have been eager to make a pilgrimage to Laity Lodge, a retreat center on the Frio River in the Texas Hill Country. It’s a place that’s famously soul-restoring and imagination-fueling, and we know that Steven Purcell has a knack for gathering our kinds of people there.
Two weeks from now—Lord willing and the creek don’t rise—we’ll be there for a weekend retreat. The speaker will be Ellen Davis, an Old Testament scholar who teaches at Duke Divinity School. In preparation, I’m hoping to read Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament (Cowley) in the weeks ahead.
As always, thanks for reading. I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of these reflections. And do let me know what you’re reading these days.
Tim
*thrilled* to hear of your plans to trek to Laity Lodge for Ellen Davis!
I am reading “Tom Lake” by Ann Patchett in preparation for her talk Kerri Miller here in St. Paul in a few weeks.