Intro

Another quarterly conversation on books with Christianity Today’s Editorial Director, Ashley Hales, on the subject of resisting the digital era.

Watch the full conversation on YouTube

What’s the role of reading in a screen-saturated, distracted, AI world?

Russell is joined once again by Ashley Hales, print editor at Christianity Today, to explore how literature can help us resist the attention-fractured nature of our technological era by offering unique ways to process real life itself, giving us tools to see grace where we least expect it.

Russell reflects on Wendell Berry’s latest (and perhaps final) Port William novel, Marce Catlett, and what it means to say goodbye to a lifelong literary companion. Ashley shares insights on Jan Karon’s return to Mitford, and the two discuss how stories shape our capacity for empathy, memory, and hope. They also highlight nonfiction works like Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation (check out our recent episode with Jon) and David Zahl’s The Big Relief, considering how books can guide us through exhaustion, anxiety, and the pressures of modern life. Then, the two share the stack of books they’re reading just for fun, and upcoming releases they’re looking forward to.You can find all the titles mentioned in the episode below.

Plus–Hear ye one and all!–Russell shares about an AI tool that he likes! 

If you’ve ever wondered how exactly reading still matters in a world of constant noise, this episode makes the case that it does—perhaps now more than ever.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Bookshelf App

• Marce Catlett by Wendell Berry

• My Beloved by Jan Karon

• The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jon Haidt

• The Big Relief by David Zahl

• Feminism Against Progress by Mary Harrington

• Ashley’s CT article based on this book

• Ct article about MAID in Canada

• Pan by Michael Clune

• Blaise Pascal: The Man Who Made the Modern World by Graham Tomlin

• Mark Twain by Ron Chernow

• Thomas More by Joanne Paul

• On His Own Terms by Richard Norton Smith (audiobook link)

• Food For Thought by Alton Brown

• Making Room by Christine D. Pohl

• Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara 

• The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe

• The Trinity Forum’s Revelation of Divine Love, which includes an introduction by Jessica Hooten Wilson

• Joseph and his Brothers by Thomas Mann
  The Vanishing Church by Ryan Burge

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