Cole Hartin reviews George MacDonald's Diary of an Old Soul.

Cole Hartin reviews Benjamin P. Laird's Creating the Canon: Composition, Controversy, and the Authority of the New Testament.

Cole Hartin reviews The Future of Orthodox Anglicanism, edited by Gerald R. McDermott

Most pastors and seminarians are familiar with Gonzalez’s work on church history. His two-volume The Story of Christianity serves as the standard historical text in first year history courses in addition to offering one the best pathways into church history for a general audience. Gonzalez’s work is standard reading for good reason. He has the rare ability to synthesize deep scholarly knowledge and present it in a way that is readable for eighteen-year-olds. He does this, moreover, while still offering enough substance to be informative for seasoned students of theology.

Perhaps the greatest success of Alan Jacobs’s biography of the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) is his own facility with the English language. Thomas Cranmer’s masterpiece rivals Shakespeare in beauty and influence. Few contemporary authors do justice to this work, however, not for lack of expertise, but for lack of ability in the language Cranmer himself mastered. Jacobs succeeds where many others have failed. And thank goodness. This is a delightful book. Beginning with Cranmer in his library at Croydon, Jacobs weaves a compelling tale that carries us through nearly five centuries of turbulent history and sends us around the globe into a communion of nearly 80 million Christians worldwide.