Help Me Spend $$$

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Here's the deal. I have $35 in gifts cards from Amazon, but my book wish list is well beyond that. Try as I might, I cannot decide what books to get. In my despair I thought that I would turn to you, gentle readers, for guidance. So leave a comment with your suggestion of how I should spend these gift cards. You can check my library to see if I already have a book you're thinking of suggesting. As added motivation, feel free to use your Amazon Associates links to suggest titles and if I go with your suggestion, I'll follow your link when I make the purchase.

Any suggestions?

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Comments

ken oakes said…
In case you want to take a break from theology: Cormac McCarthy, The Border Trilogy; Michael Ende, The Neverending Story; Gabriel García Márquez, 100 Years of Solitude.
March 31, 2012 1:44 PM
Judy SN said…
Luther on Vocation (Wingren)
Commentary on Galatians (Luther)
God's Long Summer (Marsh) [Fascinating!]
Franny and Zooey (J.D. Salinger)
The Idiot (Dostoyevsky)
Hermeneutics (Thistleton)
March 31, 2012 2:07 PM
Nathan Maddox said…
* Tracts and Letters, 7 vols. (Calvin) -- Only 69.99 at CBD.
* Christ Without Absolutes: A Study in the Christology of Ernst Troeltsch (Coakley)
* Powers and Submissions: Spirituality, Philosophy and Gender (Coakley)
* Feminist and Womanist Essays in Reformed Theology (Pauw)
* Reformed Confessions: Theology from Zurich to Barmen (Rohls)
* Anything by Randall C. Zachman

* If you can really splurge by putting the amazon card to a larger purchase CBD is releasing all 38 vols. of the old ECF series for 229.99 this April. Of course, some of the translations are outdated, but it might be useful to have on hand.
March 31, 2012 2:44 PM
W. Travis McMaken said…
Thanks for thinking outside the box, Ken, but I tend to get my fiction from the local library. Same for the fiction on your list, Judy, although I would make an exception for Dostoyevsky. But I don't have time ATM for my professional reading, much less pleasure reading.

As for "Look", the Calvin bit is enticing but that's at CBD and my cards are for Amazon. The Pauw book is the only really temping one so far...
March 31, 2012 4:00 PM
Nathan Maddox said…
My mistake, I thought you might be able to purchase via amazon or that amazon would have a comparable price. As I look at the listing, however, I see that's simply not the case.
March 31, 2012 4:35 PM
Kevin Davis said…
You could really use more Catholic theology, e.g., Gilson's The Unity of Philosophical Experience or Ratzinger's Eschatology or more Balthasar.
March 31, 2012 6:07 PM
Adam Nigh said…
The new book of T. F. Torrance essays edited by Jock Stein is worth getting. http://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Church-Ministry-Thomas-Torrance/dp/1608999394/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333236670&sr=8-1
March 31, 2012 6:32 PM
W. Travis McMaken said…
Yeah, get with it, "Look"! ;-P

Kevin, you're totally right. But...why am I not excited?

Adam, what's in the TFT book? Is it stuff not published before?
March 31, 2012 6:56 PM
D.R. Ward said…
I just finished reading The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy, which turned out to be quite a remarkable little book. It has wonderful sections on nonviolence/nonresistance, religion, and Tolstoy's anarchism that I think are all well worth reading. I highly recommend it!

Or perhaps you might consider purchasing a book on economics. I think that one of the greatest threats (if not the greatest) to ethical and responsible action in the world is the pervasive economic illiteracy of the clergy and the theological profession at large. I fear that the majority of theologians still view mankind through a primitive anthropological lens that is fundamentally anti-scientific and outdated.

We must be careful that as theologians we address real man as he really is in the day to day of human existence. If our theological ethics are beholden to a fundamentally flawed view of man and the world, we run the risk of not addressing men at all. Instead we address an idol, a world and a man of our own making. We, in effect, become our own gods. The Word of God is addressed to real man as he really is, and thus we cannot ignore the advances of economic science and what it reveals about the world in which we live.

The church is outdated and irrelevant insofar as we ignore this reality and the coming-of-age of man. There are, I think, deep ecclesiological implications of this line of thinking.

Best of luck on your decision!

D.R.
April 02, 2012 7:59 AM
W. Travis McMaken said…
Economics is a good suggestion, D.R.
April 04, 2012 9:19 AM
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