REVIEWS BY HOWARD SHIRLEY

The end of the year has always been a time for giving, for reflection and for exploring faith. New books offer opportunities for all three—whether as gifts to others or as gifts to one's soul.

Where God Was Born: A Journey by Land to the Roots of Religion is Bruce Feiler's sequel to his best-selling Walking the Bible. Feiler explores both the historical and geographical realities behind the latter books of the Hebrew Bible (known to Christians as the Old Testament), from the times of Joshua, the Judges and the Kings into the ages of the Prophets, the Exile and the Diaspora. Journeying to the Middle East, from Jerusalem through war-torn Iraq and even into the totalitarian theocracy of Iran, Feiler follows the transition of the Jewish faith from one based on a single location—Jerusalem and the Holy Land—to a faith which understood that God is bound to no location, but is everywhere. Tying ancient history, myth and legend with modern conflicts and experiences, Feiler searches not only for God's personal call, but for his message to all people today—how do we find in our common roots a mutual understanding of God, our world and each other? Where God Was Born is thought-provoking and challenging to individuals of every faith or none at all.

Where God Was Born: A Journey by Land to the Roots of Religion
By Bruce Feiler Morrow, $26.95 352 pages
ISBN 0060574879

A further, pictorial glimpse of Feiler's journey is also available in Walking the Bible: A Photographic Journey, a beautiful companion piece to his earlier book. A collection of stunning photographs of the locations Feiler explores in his first book (as well as a few from the sequel), this book gives visual testimony to the majesty and sacred beauty that surrounded the ancient world—and still surrounds us today.

Walking the Bible: A Photographic Journey
By Bruce Feiler
Morrow, $32.50
160 pages
ISBN 0060799048

Biblical king
One cannot examine the development of either Jewish or Christian faith without considering the greatest hero of the Jewish nation, King David. The Life of David, by former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, presents a philosophical and at times poetic journey through the life of David. In this entry from the new Jewish Encounters series, Pinsky explores both the historic David as well as the mythic and religious impact of his life. Using the Biblical account as his guide, Pinsky focuses not only on who David was, but what he meant to the Hebrew people, both during his own lifetime and today. Shepherd boy, kingmaker's protégé, legendary hero, poet, musician, rebel, traitor, friend, tyrant, father, adulterer, murderer and a "man after God's own heart." All these descriptions can be applied to David, and Pinsky skillfully examines what they tell us about David, his world, his people and their mutual faith.

The Life of David
By Robert Pinsky
Schocken, $19.95
210 pages
ISBN 0805242031

Role models
"It is your character, and your character alone, that will make your life happy or unhappy... And you choose it," says Senator John McCain in the introduction to his latest book, Character Is Destiny: Inspiring Stories Every Young Person Should Know and Every Adult Should Remember, written with his administrative assistant, Mark Salter. This collection of short biographies of both the great and the barely known—in some cases, just snapshots within a life—highlights examples of personal character worth emulating. Here are presidents and prison guards, warriors and washerwomen, scholars and slaves—all lives that demonstrate how we can make our world better, richer and fuller. From honor to love, from faith to humor, McCain offers stories that help us understand what the human character can and should be. Written in a style that is both accessible enough for younger readers and thoughtful enough for their parents, this book rises above the ordinary. The senator is correct: these are stories worth reading and remembering, and they transcend politics of any sort.

Character Is Destiny: Inspiring Stories Every Young Person Should Know and Every Adult Should Remember
By John McCain
Random House, $23.95
336 pages
ISBN 1400064120

Heartfelt readings
A few years ago, John Eldredge and the late Brent Curtis swept the Christian inspirational market with The Sacred Romance, a call to understand the Christian life as a story of adventure and romance, with ourselves as the objects of God's desire—and God as the true object of ours. After the death of Brent Curtis, Eldredge continued to explore this theme in subsequent books dealing with the nature of our hearts, the love of God and the beautiful yet fallen world in which we live. The Ransomed Heart: A Collection of Devotional Readings takes excerpts from all these works, presenting them as a year's worth of daily devotional readings. While the words themselves are not new, the presentation offers an opportunity to consider key ideas in a fresh way. The result allows both fans of Eldredge and those new to his ideas to explore the deeper meanings of who we are and who God has made us to be. Uplifting, challenging and deeply refreshing, Eldredge's words make a worthy gift.

The Ransomed Heart: A Collection of Devotional Readings
By John Eldredge
Nelson, $21.99
384 pages
ISBN 0785207066

A pope's legacy
Known largely for her work as a speechwriter for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush during the late 1980s, Peggy Noonan is also a devout Catholic who regained her religious faith during those same years—partially through watching the ministry of Pope John Paul II, "the Great," as she and millions of others referred to him. Her new book, John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father, is not a political tome (though politics comes into it, as faith and politics often collide). Nor is it a biography of Karol Wojtyla, though his life story permeates the book. Instead it is a study of faith—John Paul's faith, Noonan's own faith and the faith of the world—and how one man's love and conviction spurred the hearts of others. It was John Paul's faith, says Noonan, that led her to embrace the Catholicism she had largely abandoned in her youth. It was John Paul's faith that inspired the people of Poland to stand against their tyrannical leaders, that chiseled the crack that eventually crumbled the Iron Curtain, and that led people to see the Roman Catholic Church as a real and vibrant presence in the modern world. Noonan does not sugarcoat John Paul's era. The pope and the church had (and still have) flaws, she says, and she deals with them forthrightly—but always with a love for her faith and the pope she revered.

John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father
By Peggy Noonan
Viking, $24.95
256 pages
ISBN 0670037486

Howard Shirley writes from Franklin, Tennessee.