Tag: Dr. John H. Walton

2024 Year in Review

2024 Year in Review

Posted on by Jaymie

2024 was a busy reading year, but I was pleased to see in the end that my top 10 were a nice mix of books. (You can read past Year in Review posts here.)

I want to remember that 2024 was the year I discovered Lucy Score – both the Riley Thorn series and the Knockemout series were fantastic and made for fun vacation reading for the year. 2024 was also the year I discovered John Walton’s books on scripture which led to the Bible for Normal People podcast, more books by Pete Enns, and other books on Biblical studies. When I think of 2024, these are some of the things I think of.

In my top ten, there’s one picture book, two middle grade books, and one nonfiction adult book to accompany the usual adult fiction. As an honorable mention to the top ten, I would list Dating and Dragons by Kristy Boyce as my favorite YA read from 2024, since there’s no YA option in the top ten. This is a companion book to Dungeons and Drama. I will have a full review of Dating and Dragons later this month.

Here are my top 10 favorite books from 2024:

10. The Frindle Files – This sequel to the beloved Frindle, and the last book written by the author, was everything I hoped it would be. You can read my full review here.

 

 

 

9. The Imposter – We lived this story of having a second beloved critter in case of an unfixable loss, so I hoped this would be cute and capture that experience from when my son was small. And this exceeded my expectations. This is the only picture book to make the list this year. You can read my full review here.

 

 

8. Big Witch Energy – I have thoroughly enjoyed both of the books so far in the Starfall Point series about a trio of “witches” with ghostly powers, but this book has been my favorite because of the teen characters who were an absolute treat. You can read my full review here.

 

 

 

7. No One Leaves the Castle – I have loved Christopher Healy’s middle grade novels since I first read The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom. You will be able to read my full review of this delight later this month.

 

 

 

6. Wisdom for Faithful Reading – 2024 was a great nonfiction year for me. I still read them SOOOOO slowly, but the quality has been top notch. And this book really kicked off a year of memorable study and learning. You can read my full review here.

 

 

 

5, The Rom-Commers – Another Katherine Center book makes my Year in Review list – The Bodyguard made the list in 2022. You can read my full review of the 2024 entry here.

 

 

 

4. The Corpse in the Closet – The Riley Thorn series was EVERYTHING I needed this year from my reading – funny, flirty, and clever. I loved the characters and the mysteries in this paranormal romance/mystery series, and this book (second in the series) has been my favorite. You can read my full review here.

 

 

3. Apprentice to the Villain – Book 1 in this delightful series, Assistant to the Villain, was at the top of my 2023 favorites list. For good reason. This series is a delight. I didn’t post a full review of book 2, but I loved it just as much as book 1. I can’t wait for book 3 which will release later this year!

 

 

2. Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books – This was the surprise of my reading year in 2024. I saw this in the bookstore and found the premise intriguing, but not enough to pay full price for a hardcover book. So I picked this up from the library – and was stunned by how fantastic this was. I immediately shelled out the money for my own copy because I will definitely read this one again. There are several content warnings on this one, so check out my full review here, but you won’t want to miss this one.

 

 

1. The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year – And the best of the best. I tried to describe in my full review how reading this felt in my body – all the ways I knew this book was special and would definitely be in my top 10 for the year. I don’t know that I did it justice. But this book was perfection for me – the humor and banter, the swoony romance, the book-related and writing-related content, and the top notch mystery. I re-read this before Christmas, and it was just as perfect as the first time I read it. I can’t recommend this one highly enough.

 

 

And those are my top 10 favorites for 2024! What did you read – and love – in 2024?

REVIEW: Wisdom for Faithful Reading by John Walton

REVIEW: Wisdom for Faithful Reading by John Walton

Posted on by Jaymie

Summary and Review

Walton, Old Testament professor at Wheaton College, presents his overall approach to Old Testament (and in some ways Biblical) interpretation here. Readers of his Lost World books like The Lost Word of the Prophets, will be familiar with the general concepts. While the Lost World books apply these principles in a deep dive with a specific section of scripture, this book presents the overall approach. Many examples are given from Walton and other scholars.

I set an intention for 2024 to read one nonfiction book per month, and this was my January book. And then it became my February book as well. While I was tempted to blitz through to the end in order to check it off the list as “done” and meet that goal, I LOVED digging into this content, and I didn’t want to fly through it just to say I finished. I wanted to read and consider each section. I often read a few “chapters” at a time – or just one longer one – and made notes and dog-earred pages and then set it down for awhile so I could absorb it in polite-sized bits.

This rocked my world. It went into excellent, readable details of things I have encountered in other places about the care necessary when approaching Biblical texts with a 21st century mindset. The writing is conversational and easy to understand. I was challenged by what I read and saw familiar passages in new ways. While I could see using this with Biblical scholars, it doesn’t feel “academic.” (Although if your general approach to scripture is a verse or two at a time through a devotional, this will feel academic.) I think readers will need to approach this like any other scholarly work. Take your time with it; read carefully and closely. It may completely change your approach to reading and studying – and understanding – the Bible. I highly recommend it!

Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥*

*♥♥♥♥♥ = Outstanding!

REVIEW: The Lost World of the Prophets by John H. Walton

REVIEW: The Lost World of the Prophets by John H. Walton

Posted on by Jaymie

[I received a free electronic review copy of this book from Netgalley and IVP Academic in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]

Summary and Review

Dr. John H. Walton is a professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College and author of the Lost World series among other books. I discovered this series while reading another book by Walton this year, and I was intrigued enough to request a review copy. I was not disappointed. This book digs into the prophetic literature of the Bible, and Walton applies his philosophy and approach for Biblical interpretation to this portion of the Old Testament.

Walton’s basic premise is that scripture should be viewed through the lens of its original context. Who wrote it? Who was the original audience? What was the author’s intension for writing? (“Writing” being used loosely here as the written Bible we have today was compiled over time from what was originally an oral tradition, etc., etc..) Walton uses a metaphor of a “cultural river” that I found particularly helpful. Our 2024 cultural river of social media and technology, for example, is very different from the cultural river of 1924. That’s easy enough to conceptualize. But it’s even easier to see how the cultural river of Biblical times is different from our own.

The writing in this book is conversational and easy to follow. While I initially read this as an electronic ARC, I definitely would prefer this in print (which is why I pre-ordered a copy a month ago). I am not sure how different the ARC formatting and final e-book formatting might be, but the footnotes alone would push me to a print version, much less my own tactile preferences for writing in and underlining nonfiction. That said, readers of either version will not need a special university or seminary education to follow this material, although I could also see this book working in a classroom setting.

The content includes things like:

  • discussion of how the Covenant between God and Israel makes Old Testament prophecy distinct from prophecy of other people groups of the same time
  • discussion of the role of prophet as God’s spokesperson and not as a predictor of the future
  • differentiation of the oracles initially delivered by the prophet, usually verbally, and the compiled, written scripture we read today

One struggle I personally have with nonfiction in general is perseverance. Without a story to pull me from page to page, I often will set down a nonfiction book part way through and never pick it up again. I can so easily get distracted by other things and lose momentum. Not so here. The writing is engaging and the content is fascinating. I can’t wait to get my print copy in my hands so I can start working through it again, marking up the pages and digging into the rich content. I have been a Walton fan since I watched several of his teaching videos on Zondervan Academic during the pandemic. But haven’t read much of his work until now. I read this while I was also working through his 2023 book,  Wisdom for Faithful Reading (review coming soon). The two together were a perfect pairing.

Walton’s Lost Worlds series is now 7 books long, but this is my first exposure to it. And I loved it! The content made me think in all the best ways, wrestling with new ways of looking at familiar passages and new ways of approaching the Bible in general. I can absolutely see using this in a classroom setting, but I think it could also be interesting as a resource for a small group or Sunday school class. I never felt like I needed to have read the previous Lost World books to understand this one, although I will say Wisdom for Faithful Reading would be an excellent precursor as it lays out Walton’s approach in a more general way. I absolutely think readers will get the most out of this if they have at least an “intermediate” level of scripture knowledge and exposure – I would *not* hand this to a new Christian or someone new to studying the Bible. I think this works best with folks who are familiar with the full arc of the Biblical story. I will definitely be checking out the other Lost World books now!

Rating: ♥♥♥♥½*

*♥♥♥♥½ = I loved it! Would re-read!