New to the Rabbit Room Bookstore
Dear readers, we’re happy to announce that the Rabbit Room Bookstore, which has previously only dealt in used books and books by our contributors, has now moved up a step in the world. We’ve become a full-fledged bookseller with the ability to sell new books as well as used.
One of the first books we are excited to be able to offer our readers is The Jesus Storybook Bible. Those that have seen the Behold the Lamb of God concert or listened to the live CD may recall Andrew reading an excerpt from it to set the tone of the show to follow. It’s a beautiful book and we’re happy to be able to offer it in the store.
We’ve also added some other books that have been in high demand. In the last few weeks we’ve scarcely been able to keep Mike Mason’s Mystery of Marriage on the shelves around here. Now that we’ve got access to new books, though, we can fill as many orders as we need to.
We’re looking forward to being able to offer folks a wider selection books and we hope you’ll let us know if there’s something in particular that you’d like to see in the store.
We just added a fresh harvest of used books to the store today as well. Thanks to all the folks who have graciously donated books to us. We’re in your debt and we are happy to pass along these great stories. Here’s a look at a few of them:
The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor. This single volume contains a whopping thirty-one short stories from one of our greatest American writers, including twelve that are unavailable in any other of her collected works. We’ve also added quite a few other Flannery O’Connor books such as Wise Blood, A Good Man is Hard to Find, and Mystery and Manners.
Home is the anxiously-awaited new novel by Marilynne Robinson, author of Gilead, one of our favorite books here at the Rabbit Room. I haven’t read it yet but I’m looking forward to it. I’ve heard good things.
And we’ve added several of Madeline L’Engle’s books to the Young Adult section. Classics like A Wrinkle in Time, Many Waters, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet.
Find yourself a story and settle in. They’re all good ones, we guarantee it.
A.S. Peterson has crafted a work of compelling historical fiction which begs the question, “Can this really be a debut novel?” With dogged fidelity, Peterson captures the spirit, manners, and social conditions present during the American Revolutionary War. We meet colorful, credible characters who navigate the high seas of life and love, dependence and independence, war and peace, truth and consequence, and despite forays into dark places, The Fiddler’s Gun is beautiful, lyrical, and redemptive.
Walt Wangerin, Jr. strikes again.
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Sara Groves irritates me just a little bit. With each album she makes, she moves from strength to strength and is always raising the bar with the quality, depth, and lyrical ambition of her work. And as a fellow artist, that’s just a little irritating since it means the rest of us are going to have to work harder if we hope to keep up.
I am outside on my front porch. The yellowed leaves are methodically falling from the black walnut in the yard, my breath is chalky visible in the recent cold snap, and lately I have been exploring the unpleasant nuances of the dark night of a soul - my own, to be exact. It is a strange passion we live out on this over-glorified orb of rock hurtling through space at some rate that I’m sure would astound me were I to know what it was. It is an odd series of days, I am realizing, when you question your own faith more than you question your own doubt. And, indeed, it is these nagging questions which have prompted me to share my thoughts on Andrew Peterson’s 2003 album, Love and Thunder.
11-year old Reuben Land, a character in the 2001 book Peace Like a River, provides narration that is clear-eyed and insightful, yet retains the magic, wonder, and innocence of youth. I found it easy to entrust my imagination to the author’s clever method of telling the story through the sensibilities of a pre-teen boy. An author with lesser skill would have either made the boy too smart-alecky for his own good or impossibly cute.
I just finished a book that upon closing it, I felt like it finished me in a sense. A quiet meditative book that reached down and stirred the deep waters in me. It’s Marilynne Robinson’s 2005 Pulitzer prize winner Gilead, given to me by my friend Andrew Peterson.
Eric Peters’s body of work addresses a diverse range of topics, but hope is a recurring theme that gently percolates in the midst of it all. And yet, somewhere between the 2001 masterpiece Land of the Living, and Scarce, the flavor of hope that Peters’s work emits has evolved closer to a tone that is more resolute than what came before. And though the complexion of hope has a broad range, the lyrics from Scarce–while intermittently contrite and timorous as in previous efforts, are now strengthened and bolstered by roots that have grown deeper, radiating an underlying grit and security.
Having read The Great Divorce many times over the years, I’ve found this classic from the great C.S. Lewis to be full of startling clarity and depth on the differences between Heaven and Hell. The only thing both have in common is that both begin in the human will; we can either let Heaven enter us and rule in us to blossom into love and goodness, or allow Hell to infect and reign in our hearts by the daily refusal to submit to Heaven.
Even if you haven’t heard Room to Breathe, its still likely you’ve heard Andy Gullahorn. He’s what I’d call a heavy lifter by trade. He writes lyrics, plays guitar, arranges vocals and adds production help to the work of artists like Jill Phillips and Andrew Peterson.
Allow me to preface this by telling you that I am a great despiser of gushing reviews. I’d much rather write (or read) a scathing dismemberment of the latest Brett Ratner film or Terry Goodkind book than suffer through four hundred words of overblown hyperbole about even the best of things. But when asked to write some thoughts on Frederick Buechner’s Godric, no amount of distaste for high praise was able to intervene. I hope you’ll take what I say with the understanding that I do not say it readily or lightly.
I have given the Jesus Storybook Bible to two of my granddaughters and it is a hit with them and their parents. This is a great gift for a young one. Let’s help the Rabbit Room sell-out.
Dear Sally Lloyd-Jones, the Rabbit Room really, really likes your work. Really.
Oh for cryin’ out loud — you guys might as well print up a whole sheet of labels for my address right now. Seems like I can’t go more than a couple of weeks at a stretch without you putting some fabulous new goodie in the store that I think I can’t go on without. Perhaps you could just put me on a level payment plan with automatic withdrawals like the utility company…
I heard about the Jesus storybook bible last year when andrew came to orlando
I got copies for all my children and their families and one for myself. I love reading it!!!
great stuff
This is exciting. Please promise me that The Rabbit Room books will only be books that are read and approved by The Rabbit Room contributors. I just want to make sure they will come with what I count as a reliable stamp of approval.
Chris,
While we now have access to millions of books, that doesn’t mean we intend to carry them. We’ll still be picking and choosing only those we can recommend.
In the veins of the Jesus Storybook Bible and teaching one’s children, the RR store might be a good home for The Wall Chart of World History by Irish geologist Edward Hull. It parallels timelines encompassing all major and numerous minor peoples and events on a global scale going all the way back to Adam.
The original was published in 1890, but current revisions take it all the way to the Clinton era. I could lose myself in one of these for days. And you can’t look at the thing without learning something.