I had my doubts about “The Hunger Games” — Suzanne Collins’ novel and the blockbuster movie based on it. Can anything this popular be much good, I wondered? Yes, it can. And if you take a pass on this one, you will miss one of the more important stories to come down the cultural pike in [...]

Walk, drive, or sit on the couch to see the new movie “The Way,” but do so as a pilgrim — deliberately, intentionally, mindfully. This understated film, which premiered in U.S. theaters last fall and will be released on DVD next month, stars Martin Sheen (President Bartlet in TV’s “The West Wing”) and was written [...]

Faith and health unite at the center of Abraham Verghese’s redemptive and semi-autobiographical novel, “Cutting for Stone.” This is the first work of fiction for Verghese, a medical doctor and professor of medicine at Stanford University and author of “My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story,” the acclaimed account of his work with AIDS patients in [...]

From a literary standpoint, Kathryn Stockett’s best-selling book “The Help,” the story of two African-American maids working in the white homes of 1960s Jackson, Miss., does not merit all the attention it is receiving. It frequently stereotypes the characters, black and white. It fails to set the domestic relationships within the larger events…[Read more]

When fiction writers jump into the spirit-filled waters of Pentecostalism, they stir up lots of froth. Attracted to the emotionalism that accompanies much of Pentecostal worship, the writer cannot resist poking fun at the worship practices that many outside of Pentecostalism consider exotic. From the lust ridden moanings of Sister Bessie Rice in…[Read more]