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Super chill book review: Bittersweet (Susan Cain)
I tore through Susan Cain’s new book Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Can Make Us Whole (Crown 2022) pretty quickly. And I may have done so while referring to it as “my emo book” for short. “Delightful” may seem an odd word for a book that’s all about being sad, but I really did find…
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Super chill book review: Sand Talk (Tyson Yunkaporta)
I read Tyson Yunkaporta’s Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World (HarperOne, 2020) a couple months ago in the midst of a several-days-long cat crisis. (Kitty is doing well now, thank you). So I may have been a bit distracted. So maybe take everything I say with an extra large grain of salt.…
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Super chill book review: God is a Black Woman (Christena Cleveland)
God is a Black Woman by Christena Cleveland (HarperOne, 2022)—what a book. It’s basically a mix of spot-on critiques of what Cleveland calls whitemalegod (you may know the one) and compelling explorations of what it can look like to ditch whitemalegod and seek the Sacred Black Feminine instead. I was a fan of Cleveland’s work…
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Super chill book review part 2: Jesus and John Wayne (Kristin Kobes Du Mez)
Back with part 2 of a super chill book review for Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne. (Part 1 is chillin over here.) A few more thoughts and quotes: 5. I appreciated Du Mez’s reflections on the blurring between the evangelical mainstream and (extra-conservative extra-patriarchal) margins. This quote made sense to me, and…
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Super chill book review part 1: Jesus and John Wayne (Kristin Kobes Du Mez)
Well, this is looking to be another two-part super chill book review… (Some might ask, does it still count as “super chill” once it gets to be this long? To which I would say, the chill factor isn’t about length so much as style—these aren’t really book reviews so much as just collections of quotes…
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Super chill book review part 2: All the White Friends I Couldn’t Keep (Andre Henry)
As promised—and eagerly awaited, I’m sure!—this is the second part of a super chill book review of Andre Henry’s All the White Friends I Couldn’t Keep. (The first part is chillin over here if you didn’t catch it before.) Here are a few more quotes and thoughts. 4) On the language of “can’t”: “That was…
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Super chill book review part 1: All the White Friends I Couldn’t Keep (Andre Henry)
I was fortunate to cross paths with Andre Henry while studying at Fuller, and I have a great deal of respect for him as a musician, writer, and human. So my expectations for his first book, All the White Friends I Couldn’t Keep: Hope–and Hard Pills to Swallow–About Fighting for Black Lives (Convergent 2022), were…
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Super chill book review: Red Lip Theology (Candice Marie Benbow)
Candice Marie Benbow’s new book Red Lip Theology: For Church Girls Who’ve Considered Tithing to the Beauty Supply Store When Sunday Morning Isn’t Enough (Convergent 2022) strikes me as a combination of memoir, Black feminist manifesto, ode to Benbow’s mother, and work of theological deconstruction and reconstruction. Or something like that. I’m here for it.…
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Super chill book review: Becoming Rooted (Randy Woodley)
I recently read Randy Woodley’s Becoming Rooted: One Hundred Days of Reconnecting with Sacred Earth (Broadleaf Books, 2022). (First super chill book review for a book that was published in 2022—woohoo!) I’ll confess I did not take the full one hundred days to read it. But I still like how the book is broken up:…
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Super chill book review: Found in Transition (Paria Hassouri, MD)
It’s been a minute (like, six months) since I’ve done a “super chill book review.” But I feel a few of them coming. So watch out! Here’s the first. This one feels especially relevant in this time of states trying to pass bonkers (and deeply damaging) legislation against supportive and healthy care for trans kids…