Book Reviews

The Question–New Book by Leigh Bortins

The Question–New Book by Leigh Bortins

It is at this point that Leigh Bortins is helpful.  She very well knows the challenge facing thousands of homeschooling moms around the country who are educating their children classically.  She knows how to start at the beginning (a very good place to start) and keep...

A Review of Waiting for Superman

Waiting for Superman (Paramount Pictures) Christopher A. Perrin It is hard to watch David Guggenheim’s documentary Waiting for Superman without leaning into the screen with anticipation and hope, only to droop with disappointment, yes even despair.  It is the kids...

Making Ideas Stick: How Chip and Dan Heath Rediscovered Aristotle Without Even Knowing It

Every summer I read a few business books. The really good ones are actually filled with insight that not only help me as a publisher and consultant, but also illuminate other areas of the human enterprise. This summer I have found another business book of universal value—Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by brothers Chip and Dan Heath. Chip is a Stanford business professor and Dan is a consultant and entrepreneur. The book sets out to explore what makes idea memorable and transferable—or what makes them sticky. They proceed inductively, looking at scores of sticky ideas and seeking to discover what traits are common to them all.

Thomas More’s Utopian Education

Thomas More’s Utopia (first published in 1516) has been calling out to me from my bookshelf for a few years now, and I finally heeded the call, took it off the shelf and read it. We keep hearing of Utopian visions of culture and society, and I have been itching to go to the sources the word and the concept. More’s book was also a nice complement to the Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s 1984. So I read it last week.

Review of Wisdom and Eloquence

Last year Crossway published Wisdom and Eloquence by Robert Littlejohn and Chuck Evans, which presented what they term a “Christian Paradigm of the Seven Liberal Arts.”  The book is excellent in many ways and has become a choice read for classical educators across the...