The IBIC Guide to Books By John Calvin Batchelor

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Remarks from the IBIC Editor's Journal

FATHER'S DAY by John Calvin Batchelor (Henry Holt, 1994) is a quick-witted, clever successor to Fletcher Knebel's SEVEN DAYS IN MAY. It's a glibber book than SEVEN DAYS IN MAY, and a sadder one. It's a lot easier to be cynical about American politics in 1995 than it was in 1961 (?) when Knebel's book came out. But in the end this political thriller focusing on a 25th Amendment challenge to a disabled President has some interesting and subtle things to say about fatherhood.

Incidentally, my dad writes the following about FATHERS' DAY:

 Fred: I have now switched to Pine. It is hard to teach old
dog's new programs of whatever ilk. I have also created a
bookmark--a new trick to be sure--on the WWW so I can readily
access your impressive, if slightly idiosyncratic, book club. I
have read through Father's Day. Thanks again for the thoroughly
appropriate gift. I can't say as I thought the book a classic or
even in the class of the best of this kind of genre 
HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER for instance. The characters never developed very
much and it was pretty clear from the outset that the group
scheduled to kill the more or less good president was not going
to kill him and that the usurper president wasn't going to be
alive at the end. There are also far better succession story
novels--the best I think of immediately are CPSnow's story of
the search for a dean at Oxbridge ( what's the title? Ah, yes of
course: The Masters) and a wonderful book by a guy whose name I
won't remember who we tried to keep from going to the University
of Virginia (unsccessfully) on Sir Walter Raleigh. I know where
it is in my book cases; when you finish the current class I'll
lend it to you. I thought it was just terrific. Love,
Pop/Dad/Granddaddy,etc. 

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Editor's Recommendations, Summer 1996

In this inaugural edition of IBIC's Featured Books, I'd like to draw your attention to several titles which have helped to shape my life and thinking.

  • When I was around fifteen, I came across Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's science fiction novel, INFERNO. This '70s remake of Dante's classic describes science fiction writer Allen Carpentier's descent into Hell. It's still a very fresh, accessible take on the classic. What a great movie it would make!
  • The Niven/Pournelle INFERNO immediately inspired me to read the original Divine Comedy. I've read a number of translations over the years, but my favorite is the one by Dorothy Sayers (INFERNO; PURGATORY; PARADISE). The notes are excellent, and Sayers had such a knowledgeable and witty mind that reading her prose is a pleasure in itself. (For those interested in a more contemporary translation, I should mention that Robert Pinsky received excellent notices for his 1995 THE INFERNO OF DANTE : A NEW VERSE TRANSLATION; it's a very handsome book.)
  • I also want to tell you about the late Henry Fairlie's THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS TODAY, which probably did more than any other single book to galvanize me into a lifetime interest in Christianity that led me, eventually, to faith. Ironic, because Fairlie was a self-proclaimed agnostic socialist! But reading between the lines of this insightful and deeply feeling book, one realizes that the love of God cannot have been far from Fairlie's heart.
  • Finally, I should draw to your attention a more recent acquisition, the very handsome NIV STUDY BIBLE (10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION) from Zondervan, indexed and bonded in leather in IBIC's theme color, burgundy (black and brown are also available). The notes to this Bible are amazing. They appear to provide you with a very substantial portion of what you need to know to have an intelligent layman's appreciation of the linguistic and historical issues involved in understanding Scripture.

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