Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas. Bonhoeffer is a hero of mine. He was a Lutheran minister in Germany who joined up with the plot to assassinate Hitler and was executed for it. His story was famously depicted in the Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie. The key thing is that he ended up having to justify /wrestle with assassination while being a pastor who teaches “Thou Shalt Not Murder,” so he ended up dealing with these deep issues of the responsibility on a human being to try to do what is good even when it is not clear or seems contradictory to what is written.
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. This is my 3rd time reading the philosophical fantasy, The Lord of the Rings. It is my comfort food—my one abject fandom (I’m collecting ugly LOTR Christmas sweaters). The world building in Lord of the Rings is unmatched and the hero’s journey is almost definitive of the idea of “hero’s journey.” The movie adaptions are probably some of the best movie adaptions every put to screen (not the Hobbit—but the original trilogy).
Professor Jones teaches Political Science and History at the Ridgecrest/IWV campus and online.
There are few things more beautifully human than the acquisition and sharing of knowledge and putting that knowledge down on a page connects libraries to thousands of years of that beautiful human history in a way that mere characters on an electronic screen never will. Libraries contain one of the most important and beautiful aspects of human history in their very existence.
Deanna Ing Campbell
Cliff Davis
Tyrone Ledford
Melanie Jeffrey & Debilyn Kinzler
Matt Jones
Kim Kelly
