This model of academic inquiry and analysis is clearly written, deeply researched, socially engaged, ambitious in the intellectual scope of its questions about race and religion, and methodical in its answers.

The right book for the historical moment of the rapid growth of the religiously unaffiliated is written with clarity, wit, intellectual rigor, and generosity.

Religion? No, really. Morris's novel about a mysterious man whose advent changes the straightened circumstances of a WWI-era family is everything faith fiction ought to be and usually isn't: a fabulous (as in fable) and subtle tale of love, loyalty, grit, and on-fire imagination, a Southern stew lightly seasoned with the mystery of faith.

An academic in command of her field of early Christian studies and also of clear, nonacademic prose offers wise analysis of a puzzling biblical text that has prompted many a fevered preacher to pencil the end times onto a calendar.

Loss and failure season a life and challenge a faith. Winner's meditative writing is sadder, wiser, and more beautiful than be-fore.