John Wilson

The inspiration for this column is one of the most wonderfully strange books I’ve encountered in a lifetime of reading (strange and a bit melancholy), John McPhee’s Tabula Rasa. Continue Reading »

I don't think Baggini has earned the right to patronize religious believers, but it's particularly striking that he does so after telling readers to question their own questions, advice he fails to heed himself. Continue Reading »

I don’t walk as much (or as quickly) as I have for most of my life. Still, Wendy and I take a walk every day, weather and other circumstances permitting. I treasure these times. But I also like to read about walking. Continue Reading »

Even the “mundane” happenings of a single day exceed our grasp, let alone the span of a lifetime. Continue Reading »

 I hope that, in addition to letting you know about at least a book or two that might be your cup of tea, I’ve managed to suggest the riches available to us. Continue Reading »

I am struck by the everyday misery and uncertainty and sheer muddle that George Orwell endured, along with his quotidian joys and satisfactions; particularly when juxtaposed with today's handwringing.  Continue Reading »

I have never been approached by one of those pollsters with a list of questions intended to suggest how crazy “we” are (evangelicals, that is). But if I were, here’s what I would say.  Continue Reading »

It is not unusual to come across writers trading on received notions of “evangelicals,” the like of which they would never countenance in their own house.  Continue Reading »

Can anything we ever learn about history, about the universe, about ourselves compare with that reality in its sheer strangeness and wonderful improbability? He is risen; he is risen indeed.  Continue Reading »

Reading this book gave me a sense of visiting another world, roughly a century ago, in some respects similar to ours but in other ways radically different: time-travel on the cheap. Continue Reading »