By Dorothee Soëlle and Luise Schottroff
WJKP. 2002. 160 pp. Pb. $14.95.
0-664-22500-4
— Review by Gary Collins, Newport Beach, Calif.
Jesus of Nazareth by German theologians Dorothee Soëlle and Luise Schottroff provides a fine introduction to the feminist/liberationist view of Jesus, as well as fresh insights for those who have already had that introduction. Twenty-four gritty poems — nine from Soëlle — are spread through the text to inject into the scholarly narrative the authors' deep concern for the Earth's overlooked and exploited ones.
By Peter Gomes
Harper. 2002. 388 pp. Pb. $23.95. ISBN 0-06-000075-9
— Review by Lewis F. Galloway, Columbia, S.C.
The Good Life by Peter Gomes is a fresh presentation of the challenge to live a good life by practicing virtue. His book will give rise to much discussion about the crisis of purpose in North American higher education, the meaning of virtue and the nature of the good life.
Chuck Barris' life has been so bizarre that when they made a movie of it, you still can't tell what's real, what's fantasy, what's fiction, and what's such a whopper of a tale that it could very well be the truth.
By Bruce Feiler
William Morrow. 2002. 224 pp. $23.95. ISBN 0380977761
— Review by James H. Gailey, Brevard, N.C.
Bruce Feiler's Abraham is not an attempt to solve the political problems of the Near East. Instead it is the personal journey of a sensitive Jew seeking understanding of the spiritual ancestor of Jews, Christians and Muslims. Feiler has literally walked over significant sites in the Holy Land, and he realized that no physical traces of Abraham could be found.
Marvin M. Ellison and Sylvia Thorson-Smith, eds.
Pilgrim. 2003. 393 pp. Pb. $21.
— Review by Isabel Rogers, Richmond, Va.
"Despite decades of debate, conflict over human sexuality continues to persist unabated in the church." So begins the last chapter in a book that has grown out of that long debate, Body and Soul: Rethinking Sexuality as Justice/Love.
By Charles Kimball
HarperSanFrancisco. 2002. 256 pp. Pb. $21.95. ISBN 0-06-050653-9
— Review by Gerald A. Butler, Eureka, Ill.
Religion can nurture and lead people closer to God. It can also destroy body and soul. Charles Kimball deals with that paradox in this book, which is timely, informative and easy to read.
By M. Craig Barnes
Brazos Books. 2003. 191 pp. $17.99
— Review by John A. Dalles, Longwood, Fla.
In a society in which almost everyone is from somewhere else, and where they are likely to move on again before very long, how does one combat or respond to a profound longing for home? This is the problem M. Craig Barnes addresses in this timely book.
'The Pianist' is the true story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, the Polish pianist who was just entering his prime in the ill-fated year of 1939. The German blitzkrieg began there, in September, and Poland fell in a fortnight. Then it was the occupation, with the gradual encroachment of civil rights. Jews had to wear armbands with the star of David. Jews couldn't be seen in public parks or on public benches. Jews couldn't walk on the sidewalk. Jews had to have a work permit. Jews had to relocate, in a narrow area known as the Warsaw ghetto. And the once-proud and prosperous Szpilman family, mother and father and sisters and brothers, were crammed like beggars into a dirty hovel where even the rats cannot survive because there is no food.
In 1963, Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo De Caprio) was a normal 17-year-old high school kid. Then his world fell apart. His father, owner of a small printing business, and recent honoree of the local Rotary club, runs afoul of the IRS. Suddenly banks will no longer lend to him. The family has to sell their nice house and their late-model car, and downgrade to a lowly apartment and a rattle trap used auto.
Tim Allen does it again. He not only plays Santa Claus convincingly, but is warm and funny without being saccharine or sappy. In "Santa Clause 2" the jolly elf in the red suit appears with a cast of children and puppets and makes something magical.
The viewer doesn't have to have seen the original "Santa Clause" to catch up to the sequel.
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