Stephen Barkley

On the Calculation of Volume I | Solvej Balle

Stephen Barkley — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 11:30:40 +0000

Every now and then you encounter a novel that’s unlike anything else you’ve ever read. On the Calculation of Volume I is that novel, for me. The protagonist of this volume, Tara Selter, went to sleep on the eighteenth of November and woke up the next morning on the eighteenth of November. Ad infinitum. Or [...]

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Ghosts of a Holy War | Yardena Schwartz

Stephen Barkley — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 11:30:00 +0000

Ghosts of a Holy War is a devastating read. But how could a history of the last hundred years of Arab-Israeli relations be anything else? You’ll read, in detail, the worst that human beings have done to one anther while receiving some measure of hope from people—both Arab and Israeli—who have sought to stop the [...]

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Enshittification | Cory Doctorow

Stephen Barkley — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 11:30:22 +0000

I’m not going to lie—it was the pile-of-poo emoji on the front cover along with the irreverent title that grabbed my attention. I stuck around for the argument. In 2022, Cory Doctorow coined the titular phrase to describe the “sudden-onset platform collapse going on all around us” (4). We are now living in the diseased [...]

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The Waste Lands | Stephen King

Stephen Barkley — Wed, 27 May 2026 11:30:37 +0000

The Waste Lands sees Roland and his newly-minted ka-tet leaving the Western Sea for the Dark Tower along the path of the beam. Our travelers begin in the forest and end the book on a suicidal monotrain. You’ve gotta love Stephen King! The classic science fiction trope of multiple realities is masterfully developed here. We’ve [...]

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Untrustworthy | Bonnie Kristian

Stephen Barkley — Wed, 20 May 2026 11:30:59 +0000

The subtitle gives you a pretty clear idea of what this book’s all about—but it’s easy to miss the point. The book’s not about the crisis of social media, politics, and Christian community, but the knowledge crisis that grounds all these problems. This is a book on Christian epistemology. What is epistemology, you ask? Doing [...]

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Twelve Tomorrows 2018 | Wade Roush, ed.

Stephen Barkley — Wed, 13 May 2026 11:30:22 +0000

Could a lab-grown 3D printed vegetable heart lead to political revolution? Could a senior living community become a prison? Could a social media star traveling to the edge of the solar system unite humanity? These are the sort of questions explored in this short story collection. MIT-published science fiction is always science-heavy, imagining what could [...]

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The Drawing of the Three | Stephen King

Stephen Barkley — Wed, 06 May 2026 11:30:30 +0000

Unsurprisingly, The Drawing of the Three picks up right where The Gunslinger left off. Roland finished his lengthy palaver with the man in black and stumbled to the shore of the Western Sea. The purpose of this volume is to populate Roland’s ka-tet, the people who will join him on his quest for the tower. [...]

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Grit | Angela Duckworth

Stephen Barkley — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 11:30:50 +0000

We all know the adjective 'gritty’ (no, not the Philadelphia Flyer’s mascot). It’s that seemingly indefinable stick-to-it-iveness that marks high achievers. In Grit, psychologist Angela Duckworth not only defines grit, but measures it, sharing the results with her readers. In the early chapters, Duckworth defines some key terms. Talent is “how quickly your skills improve [...]

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So, Anyway … | John Cleese

Stephen Barkley — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 11:30:35 +0000

If you’ve ever watched Monty Python or the equally brilliant Fawlty Towers, John Cleese needs no introduction. The Brit, known for his zany humour, makes those old episodes come alive. So, Anyway … is Cleese’s autobiography, complete with an abundance of photos. In it, he takes the reader on a chronological journey from his first [...]

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Introduction to Biblical Interpretation | Jacqueline Grey and Paul W. Lewis

Stephen Barkley — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 11:30:56 +0000

As a pentecostal Bible College teacher, I’ve been waiting for a book like this for a while. While there are plenty of hermeneutics books on the market, the undergraduate texts lean almost exclusively into historical-critical method. Is there even a role for the Holy Spirit in interpretation? What about the community of faith? Are there [...]

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