What We’ve Been Reading & Watching During Lockdown
WE HAVE BEEN in this pandemic now for almost a year and it may not end for several more months. The Anglican Planet has asked some of our subscribers and contributors what they have been reading and watching during lockdown. Their recommendations might help all of us survive the final stretch.
Newfoundland
Don Harvey, St John’s
Canoeing the Mountains by Tad Bolsinger (2018). Challenging. Disturbing and very topical. A well written assessment on what needs to be done to prepare clergy for what will be a far different future.
Kilvert’s Diary by Francis Kilver (1938–40). Amusing, descriptive, helpful. An incredible description of day-to-day pastoral experiences in the late 19th century as things were changing in society and in the church.
War in Heaven by Charles Williams (1930). Disturbing, puzzling, spell-binding. A fascinating tale, difficult to follow, which leaves the reader with more questions than answers.
Lark Rise to Candleford (Britbox). Entertaining, believable series, wonderfully cast. One of the best period dramas of English country life around the era of the Industrial Revolution.
Jane Eyre (Britbox). Brilliant. Although this novel is well known, this 1983 film opens up new dimensions while remaining faithful to Charlotte Bronte’s original text.
Downton Abbey (Britbox). Nostalgic yet still spell-binding. This popular series vividly depicts a vanished age with all its strengths and weaknesses.
New Brunswick
Siobhan & Gerry Laskey, Blackville
The Housekeeper and the Professor, a novel by Yōko Ogawa (2003). His memory only holds the last 80 minutes, and she and her son discover him, and themselves, in that time – over and over again. Tender. Thought-provoking. Challenging.
At Home: a short history of private life, by Bill Bryson (2010). From a revived Victorian parsonage, we discover how life and many of its intricacies begins and ends at home. A collection of facts that influence our common daily histories.
Knowing by Heart: A Tribute to A Kennebecasis Valley Homestead Farm by Lee Whitney (2019). The manifestations of grace and providence in everyday life on a small farm, with a priest-scholar, an artist-teacher and their large family. Witty, wise and winsome poetic prose.
Cranford (miniseries) and Return to Cranford (two-part film on Britbox). Adapted from Elizabeth Gaskell’s novels. Vignettes of a small mid-19th century English town where nothing happens – or so it would seem. Well produced. Cleverly satirical. Inviting.
Would I Lie to You? (Britbox). When life calls for some lighthearted silliness this British panel show variation on “Two Lies and a Truth” helps.
Terence Chandra, Saint John
Crime and Punishment (1866). Dostoevsky’s masterpiece, a novel about a deeply resentful young man, his drive to murder and his tortured conscience.
Man’s Search for Meaning (1946). Viktor Frankl’s personal retelling of his brutal experiences at Auschwitz and how a devotion to something greater than himself ultimately allowed him to survive, both physically and psychologically, in so dehumanizing a place.
Cynical Theories (2020). A recent work of non-fiction by academics James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose that dives deep into the scholarly and academic origins of the contemporary social justice movement.
Cobra Kai (Netflix). This action-packed TV series builds on the original Karate Kids’ perennial theme of fathers, children and the passing of ancient wisdom from one generation to another.
Darkest Hour (Netflix). Gary Oldman’s brilliant portrayal of Winston Churchill, from his election as Prime Minister to the dark days leading up to the outbreak of the war. Watch this movie back-to-back with another World War II film, Dunkirk.
Nova Scotia
David Curry, Windsor
Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times (2020). The last published work of Jonathan Sacks, former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, before his death last year. An excellent comment upon the narcissistic ‘me’ characteristics of the present global world.
Learning How to Die: Wisdom in the Age of Climate Crisis (2018). By the Canadian couple, Robert Bringhurst and Jan Zwicky, this is a very short but powerful ‘little’ book that recalls us to the significance of the classical and theological virtues in the face of our current concerns about climate change. In so doing it complements Jonathan Sacks’ Morality with respect to the loss of civic virtues and institutions in our North American context.
Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf (2018). A powerful yet positive critique of the effects of the digital world on reading and ways to reclaim the concept of “deep reading”. Essential for the recovery of intellectual and spiritual life.
Anaphora by a west coast American writer, Scott Cairns (2019). Wonderful collection of poems that offers some profound and timely spiritual reflections about prayer, praise and worship.
The Penultimate Curiosity: How Science Swims in the Slipstream of Ultimate Questions by Roger Wagner and Andrew Briggs; the first a ‘religious painter,’ the second, a particle physicist at Oxford with an interest in theology (2018). Apart from the book or along with it, this is well worth viewing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53sPXlWGovI. A nicely balanced corrective to the usual and tiresome conflict narrative about the relation between science and religion.
Quebec
Tim Perry, Shawville
Fertility and Faith by Phillip Jenkins (2020). Quantitative Sociology/Demography. Amid the handwringing about the advance of secularity in Christian circles, very little popular attention has been given to two accepted demographic realities. (1) Globally, we are headed to a birth dearth, not overpopulation and (2) there is a clear correlation between faith and fertility. Fertile societies are devout ones.
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (1945). Novel. The story of Charles Ryder’s dealings with the Flyte family, a member of England’s Catholic aristocracy from 1923 until World War II. A book that explores God’s hidden work in awakening faith.
The Care of Souls by Harold Senkbeil (2019). Pastoral Theology. An “old hand” at the pastoral plow slowly and patiently explaining why and how pastors are not CEOs, but soul-physicians and shepherds.
Still Game (Netflix). Sitcom. The adventures of Jack and Victor, two Scottish widowers in the Glasgow suburb of Craig Lang. Coarse humour masks thoughtful reflections on the nature of long, local friendships.
Wicked Tuna (National Geographic/Disney). Reality. The lives and livelihoods of Boston-based blue fin Tuna fishers. You’re not in control on the ocean.
The Right Stuff (Disney). Drama. The story of the Apollo astronauts, based on Tom Wolfe’s novel. Our heroes are truly heroic, brave, but not moral exemplars. At all.
Ontario
Karen Stiller, Ottawa
Still Life and other Armand Gamache mysteries by Canadian Louise Penny (2005-present). Immensely readable mysteries that are beautifully written and mostly set in Quebec. I’d heard of them for years but finally dug in during COVID and raced through the first 11 books.
The Art of Slow Writing: Reflections on Time, Craft and Creativity by Louise DeSalvo (2014). A wonderful book on writing that I’m reading with a writers’ group and it’s helpful for experienced and new writers alike.
How to Be an Artist by Jerry Saltz (2020). A small, beautiful and thoughtful read encouraging the artist within us all.
The Mandalorian (Disney+). Our sons told us to watch and we’re glad we did. Great story, fun action.
Bosch (Amazon Prime). Classic cop show, great acting.
Jim Gaffigan (Amazon Prime). Stand-up comedy. Clean and funny.
Brent Stiller, Ottawa
The New Testament in its Context by N.T. Wright and Michael Bird (2019). An accessible summary of research from each author. A must-read for those wanting to deepen their understanding of the New Testament and its cultural settings.
Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life by Henri Nouwen (2013). Two of Nouwen’s friends assembled materials from his unpublished writings into this publication about practicing the awareness of God at work in daily life.
Diary of a Pastor’s Soul: The Holy Moments in a Love of Ministry by M. Craig Barnes (2020). The diary of a fictionalized pastor reflecting on the experiences and relationships that shaped his life in the parish. Barnes is the president of Princeton Theological Seminary and professor of Pastoral Ministry.
A Hidden Life (2019). A thought-provoking and beautiful film directed by Terrence Malik about a person of faith conscientiously objecting to his conscription into the Nazi armed forces.
Roseanne Kydd, Colbourne
The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel (1951). The holiness of time is expressed by God in the sanctity of Sabbath in which the Sabbath, another name for God, longs for us to revel in tranquillity, refrain from striving and give ourselves to God’s rest.
CrimeDotCom: From Viruses to Vote Rigging, How Hacking Went Global by Geoff White (2020). Be prepared to delve into the underside of the worldwide web: Don’t open your phishing emails but do make regular backups stored unconnected to your computer, do use strong passwords and keep your programs updated to avoid the destruction and humiliation of what a computer hacker can do.
Diversity: The Invention of a Concept by Peter Wood (2003). Words matter, with few having had such a varied and performative career as “diversity,” from evoking the richly complex vitality of a forest to the sometimes-contrived population of a committee.
Loving Leah (YouTube) Film. Can you imagine being a young Jewish man and woman in our current era and subjecting yourself to Levirate marriage when the man is a successful surgeon and the woman a university student in New York City?
How St Paul Changed the World (YouTube). This exchange between Church history scholars NT Wright & Tom Holland was invigorating and appealing, unique and simply delightful.
Ron Kydd, Colbourne
Virus as a Summons to Faith by Walter Brueggemann (2020). An Old Testament master draws his penetrating, accessible essay, provoked by COVID-19, to a close calling upon Isaiah and the Cross to show that sometimes a culture’s old ways have to be broken amid groans before a new way of faith can emerge.
Essential Mystic Prayers Paraclete Press (2018). A brief collection of cries to God made by well-known Christians through the years, including ecstasy, “Lord, you are my lover, my longing, my flowing stream, my sun, and I am your reflection” and confusion, “Dear Lord, if this is how you treat your friends, it is no wonder you have so few.” They are so like we are, and what a comfort to read over and over again.
Manitoba
Lissa Wray Beal, Winnipeg
The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel (2020). A study of worldly power through a layered fictionalization of Thomas Cromwell.
Including the Stranger: Foreigners in the Former Prophets by David G. Firth (2019). For our world of ethnic “othering,” Joshua-Kings’ vision of ethnic inclusion.
Preaching the Luminous Word: Biblical Sermons and Homiletical Essays by Ellen F. Davis (2016). The Old Testament as transformative Christian witness. An encouragement for preachers.
Saskatchewan
Jason Antonio, Moose Jaw
Starving Ukraine by Serge Cipko (2018). The brutal Ukrainian Holodomor, “extermination by hunger,” and how Canada re-sponded to it. Heart-breaking, eye-opening, frustrating.
Counting Up, Counting Down by Harry Turtledove (2002). Short story collection. Impressive, outlandish, futuristic.
Alberta
Matthew Perreault, Calgary
The Mystery of Sacrifice: A Meditation on the Liturgy by Evelyn Underhill (1938). Engaging and thought-provoking theological study.
Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot (1935). A poignant and gripping two-act play about the martyrdom of St Thomas Beckett.
Love Her Wild by Atticus (2017). A whimsical and romantic modern poetry anthology.
The Good Place (Netflix). A philosophical comedy series focused on morality.
Dane Neufeld, Calgary
David Thompson’s Narrative of His Explorations in Western America 1784-1812. A stunning and beautiful account of western Canada before European settlement.
Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States by James C. Scott (2017). Sounds boring, but it is a refreshing and surprising account of the early civilizations that surrounded the people of Israel.
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868). A wonderful story of faith and family that is great to read with your children.
Wolf Hall (itunes). A must for Anglicans.
Rectify (Netflix). A challenging story of faith, guilt and salvation.
Broken (itunes). Sean Bean plays a Roman Catholic priest in this powerful miniseries.
British Columbia
George Egerton, Vancouver
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism and the Road to Sexual Revolution by Carl Trueman (2020). Destined to be a Christian classic for understanding contemporary culture.
Enigma by Robert Harris (2009). Superb reconstruction, in novel form, of the greatest intelligence tool of WWII. A page turner.
Jeremy Graham, Vancouver
Breaking Bread with the Dead by Alan Jacobs (2020). Jacobs argues that reading old books is more important than ever in the age of one-dimensional character formation, polarized politics and twitter feuds.
Can I Believe? by John G. Stackhouse (2020). The most helpful book for skeptics and seekers I’ve read in recent years.
On Reading Well by Karen Swallow Prior (2018). Prior’s essays are theological literary criticism — a conversation between great literary classics and the cardinal, theological and heavenly virtues.
Beth Allen, Vancouver
Hamnet and Judith by Maggie O’Farrell (2020). Fascinating fictional representation of Shakespeare’s family life.
Arctic
Rebecca Osborn, Rankin Inlet
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (1814). This had been my least favourite of Austen’s novels, but the main character’s strong, quiet backbone and adherence to principle and faith was deeply moving this time.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (1847). I had never read this classic, and was drawn into this tale of hardship with its strong characters and undercurrents of faith.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DVD). Science fiction with political intrigue and exploration. I enjoy the longer story arcs in the later seasons, and the deep friendships and strong leaders throughout.
Man About Cake (YouTube). My kids and I love this YouTube series about making ridiculous cakes!
Joey Royal, Iqaluit
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006). A father and son navigate a ruined world. A masterpiece.
The Sorcerers House by Gene Wolfe (2010). A fun, mind-bending epistolary novel by the late, great Catholic sci-fi writer.
Spiritual Direction by Martin Thornton (1984). A refreshing vision of Anglican ministry and spirituality.
Arrested Development (Netflix). Hilarious, cringe-worthy series.
Twin Peaks: The Return (2017, DVD/Blu-Ray). Bizarre, unpredictable, offbeat, surreal.
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story (2019, Netflix). Martin Scorsese blends fact and fiction in recounting Dylan’s carnival-like 1975 tour. TAP
