IVP - Behind the Books

Meet the Press: Nick Liao

Although it's a cliché and can even be exploited for "spin" about faceless corporations, you know it's true, at root: a big part of any healthy organization is its people. So I figure you might be interested to learn about some of the real individuals here at InterVarsity Press. A good place to start is with Nick Liao.

Roger Ebert, Writer

If you think of Roger Ebert (who passed away yesterday) as a movie critic or a TV personality first, let me recommend to you his beautiful 2011 memoir, Life Itself.

[Video] Andy Crouch on Institutionalism

We had a real treat last week: an in-person visit from Andy Crouch, the energetic and insightful executive editor of Christianity Today magazine. He's following up his 2008 IVP title, Culture Making, with a new book coming out this fall entitled Playing God. He was at the Press to lay some of his thinking on us, and it was great. Would you like to listen in?

[Giveaway] Seven Kinds of Reading

The incomparable Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) practiced four distinct kinds of reading:

• Study
• Perusal
• Mere reading
• Curious reading

Perhaps someday we'll talk more about Doctor Johnson's four-layered approach, but in the meantime let me point you to Robert DeMaria Jr.'s excellent Samuel Johnson and the Life of Reading (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), which I heartily recommend.

But I've got an alternate scheme that allows me (like Johnson) to have a baker's half-dozen books in active readership at any given time.

[Question] Junot Díaz on Creating a Reading Public

There are some periodicals that are so good that I fall way behind — because they're so good I don't want to skim or skip or unsubscribe. Currently I'm about three years behind with National Geographic, even longer with McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, and I don't even want to think about Books & Culture.

Mama Loves All Her Babies the Same

One of the struggles I have when blogging about books here is my fear of appearing to favor some IVP titles over others. I have quite the opposite problem from that of another colleague in book publishing: the incomparable Bridget Jones.