News & Notes

I guess I've been around the book review block enough times that it takes a special upcoming release to excite me. This, I suppose, could be the underlying reason why I haven't gotten around to updating the Upcoming Releases section on this website. Coming soon, I promise!

Near the end of last week, missiologist extraordinaire, prolific author, SBC personality, and all-around nice guy (he has to be - he is married to a nice Canadian lady) Ed Stetzer publicly thanked DR for our review of New Hope Publishers' Compelled by Love, written by himself and his friend Philip Nation.

A review of Archbishop Peter Jensen's Matthias Media release The Future of Jesus is forthcoming toward the end of next week, but not quite in time for the big sale that Matthias is having. While Discerning Reader is on hiatus for a week, please take a look at what Matthias has to offer, including The Future of Jesus for $8.39 US instead of its regular retail price of $13.99. Remember that Amazon does not carry Matthias Media resources.

Every so often Tim and I receive requests to review more fiction, Christian fiction, and sometimes specific works of fiction. Both of us enjoy fiction (I'm an English major and he's a History major, so it comes with the territory) but our book reading diets aren't really conducive to imbibing massive amounts of it. Enter the solution: Relz Reviewz. An Australian, Relz primarily reads and reviews Christian female fiction, but there are some more masculine books mixed in; think suspense and mystery. Enjoy!

Themelios reviewer Constantine R. Campbell of Moore Theological College in Australia, has put his money where his mouth is: he has enthusiastically dubbed the D.A. Carson-edited Granville Sharp’s Canon and Its Kin: Semantics and Significance by Daniel B.

Last one for awhile, I promise.

Thank you to all the faithful DR readers who have prayed for my health situation over these past two weeks, and special thanks to those of you who emailed to express your support. The lung surgery went better than expected; the 24 hours after the debriding (scraping the scarring) of the right lung were extremely painful, but the subsequent days of recovery were very encouraging.

If you have at all noticed that posting around here has been done in spurts and starts since last summer, then you may have clued in that something's a bit off...and you'd be right. In the summer of 2009 I (Managing Editor Mark Tubbs) began to experience a recurrence of a strain of pneumonitis that had bothered me 18 months before. Only this time, it came back with a vengeance. Tomorrow I go in for lung surgery to determine whether this is "only" some sort of pneumonia or whether it's something more serious.

We here at DR don't tend to tip our hands as to the books we are reading before we post reviews of them, but I can't help but crow about the 2008 Oxford University Press release Anti-Arminians: The Anglican Reformed Tradition from Charles II to George I by the Rev. Dr. Stephen Hampton, Dean of Peterhouse in Cambridge.

Pastor Mark Kelly at Grace Dependent only started blogging in January of this year, but his informative, prolific blog has already made a splash in the Christian blogosphere. Kelly usually focuses on summary book reviews, but recently began to blog through Bob Kellemen's Soul Physicians on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Doc K is one of DR's reliable, discerning reviewers, so we are happy to point you to a blog that is giving Doc's book some much-deserved exposure.

Colin Adams has provided an excellent list of 100 Recommended Books. The suggestions run from books to unbelievers, to books for new believers to classics and apologetics and just about everything else. Give it a look!