At the Corner of East and Now: A Modern Life in Ancient Christian Orthodoxy — Frederica Mathewes-Green

The wonderful title of this book gives a glimpse into its subject: a life at the crossroads of everyday life in America and the timeless rituals in a Christian Orthodox service. Full of information about this ancient church, Mathewes-Greene–author of Facing East and a columnist for Christianity Today–uses a style that is both quirky and intellectual, moving easily from the conversational (“this wasn’t one of those woo-woo spiritual experiences where everything goes misty”) to references to great Orthodox theologians and rich, Annie Dillard-like prose.

One example is her brief description of a young man she saw in California who believed he was Christ: “This is just someone’s boy, someone’s dreamer, who grabbed a sheet out of the linen closet and walked out of the suburbs, a nice young man breaking someone’s heart, lost and gliding over the beautiful Santa Rosa Mountains in a private plane of bliss.” While bearing the hallmarks of a fairly recent convert to the faith (some readers will have to adjust to her celebration of orthodoxy at the expense of both Catholicism and Protestantism), the book makes a fine introduction to orthodoxy for contemporary readers. –Doug Thorpe