TO READ: RELIGION
Wills, Garry	What Jesus Meant
Wills, Garry	What the Gospels Meant
Wills, Garry	What Paul Meant
Wills, Garry	Why Priests?
Wills, Garry	What the Qur’an Meant
Wills, Garry	Why I Am A Catholic
Gottwald, Norman	The Tribes of Yahweh
Schmid, Konrad	The Making of the Bible
Barton, John	A History of the Bible: The Book of Its Faiths
Peterson, Eugene H.	The Pastor
Dever et al.	The Rise of Ancient Israel
Clendenin, Daniel B,	Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Martin, Dale B.	New Testament History and Literature
Shahab Ahmed	What is Islam?
Smith, Mark S.	The Early History of God
Pagels, Elaine	Why Religion?: A Personal Story
Friedman, Richard Elliott	The Exodus
Smith, Mark S.	The Early History of God
Day, John	Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan
Pelikan, Jaroslav	Whose Bible Is It?
Brueggemann, Walter	Old Testament Theology: An Introduction
Armstrong, Karen	The Bible: A Biography
Steinsaltz, Adin	The Essential Talmud
Collins, John J.	An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (Third Edition)
Wright, Robert	Why Buddhism Is True
Doniger, Wendy	The Hindus: An Alternative History
Doniger, Wendy	Hindu Myths
Aslan, Reza	No God But God
Ernst, Carl W.	Sufism: An Introduction
Warraq, Ibn	What the Koran Really Says
Hayes, Christine Elizabeth	Introduction to the Bible
Friedman, Richard Elliott	Who Wrote the Bible?
Friedman, Richard Elliott	The Bible with Sources Revealed
Collins & Harlow	Early Judaism: A Comprehensive Overview
Donin, Hayim Halevy	To Be A Jew
Potok, Chaim	My Name is Asher Lev [a Novel]
Dosick, Wayne D.	Living Judaism
Wright, Robert	The Evolution of God
Rahula, Wapola	What the Buddha Taught
McLaren, Brian	Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha and Mohammed Cross the Road
Kornfield, Jack	Teachings of the Buddha
Craddock, Fred	Craddock Stories
Bass, Diana Butler	A People’s History of Christianity
MacCulloch, Diarmaid	Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years
Gonzalez, Justo	The Story of Christianity: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation
Gonzalez, Justo	The Story of Christianity: The formation to the Present Day
Ware, Timothy	The Orthodox Church: A New Edition
Spufford, Francis	Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense
MacCulloch, Diarmaid	All Things Made New: The Reformation and Its Legacy
Pagels, Elaine	The Gnostic Gospels
Vanderkam, James C.	The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Significance for Understanding the Bible, Judaism, Jesus, and Christianity
Marshall, Peter	The Reformation: A Very Short Introduction
Cahill, Thomas	Heretics and Heroes: How Renaissance Artists and Reformation Priests Created Our World
Carroll, James	The Truth at the Heart of the Lie: How the Catholic Church Lost Its Soul – A Memoir of Faith
Holcomb, Justin S.	Know the Creeds and Councils
Bowler, Kate	Everything Happens for a Reason … and Other Lies I’ve Loved
Bowler, Kate	Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel
Evans, Rachel Held	Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church
Norris, Kathleen	Dakota
Norris, Kathleen	The Cloister Walk
Merton, Thomas	Seven Storey Mountain
Turner, John G.	The Mormon Jesus
Gates, Henry Louis	The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song
Gutierrez, Gustavo	A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation (15th Anniversary Edition)
FitzGerald, Frances	The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America
Noll, Mark A.	The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind
Barr, James	Fundamentalism
Smullyan, Raymond	The Tao Is Silent
I-Ming, Liu	Awakening to the Tao
Ono, Sokyo	Shinto: The Kami Way
Merton, Thomas	New Seeds of Contemplation
Armstrong, Karen	Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet
Lipovsky, Igor	Early Israelites: Two Peoples, One History
Wallis, Jim	America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America
Wallis, Jim	God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It
Chesterton, G.K.	Orthodoxy
Wills, Garry	Chesterton
Clark, David	C.S. Lewis: A Guide to His theology
Lewis, C.S.	Mere Christianity
Witherington, Ben III	The Problem with Evangelical Theology
Feiler, Bruce	Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths
Palmer. Parker	Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit

So long since I posted the last time … that’s my first thought

This is the beginning of the renamed and revised Blog. It’s now named This Book … These Words and reviews recently read books.

Why do I use Stitcher SmartRadio instead of just subscribing to the podcast? Simple. It’s easy to find what I know I want and it also shows me other podcasts that I might want to hear.

We live in an age where amount of material to listen to is like the overflowing fruit from a cornucopia … it almost threatens to drown us. The number of shows alone on NPR stations is just overwhelming. I’m always behind in listening to shows and podcasts that I know that I like, much less trying to find new shows/podcasts to try out.

If you have a Sonos system (and that’s another posting in itself), you may want to try out Stitcher, downloading it as an app within Sonos. You can also download the Stitcher app for iPhones or iPads … or for Android devices. (Or you can try Stitcher on your Mac or PC by going to http://www.stitcher.com)

Once you have Stitcher, what do you do with it? It’s organization is great, with three main heading Stations, Sources, and Favorites. Stations, though, really isn’t radio stations. It’s a set of shows/podcasts.

The subheadings are Popular & Trending, New & Noteworthy, Comedy, Business & Industry, etc.

The Popular & Trending then has three subheadings: Top Shows, Top Movers, Most Shared

The Top Shows then gets you down to the actual shows and podcasts: Stuff You Should Know, Marketplace on Stitcher, Radiolab from WYNC, etc …

By the time you see the shows/podcast you want to hear you’ll probably see a lot of other ones you may want to try out. Just don’t drown in the thousands of shows/podcasts that are available!

Why have the number of public radio stations grown explosively over the past year or two in Virginia?

One of the mysteries of life is that Harrisonburg, VA now has six NPR stations (88.1, 88.5, 89.3, 90.7, 91.1, and 91.7) while the DC area still only has two (WAMU and WETA).  And it’s not just Harrisonburg, either. Fredericksburg has four NPR stations and Charlottesville has six plus one other public radio station (WTJU) that isn’t formally an NPR station.

What is going on? Is there a collapse of commercial FM radio and a freeing of FM frequencies so that public radio is filling a vacuum?

It is obvious that some of the stations are so-called repeater stations. For example, I think that Virginia Tech (WVTF) has been expanding its stations into under the WVTW call sign, while its expansion into Fredericksburg and Harrisonburg has been using its original call sign, WVTF.  In any case, I would guess that VA Tech takes real pleasure in penetrating into Cavalier territory.

But why now?

A list of the call letters and frequencies is below for the three cities mentioned follows:

FEDERICKSBURG
1430 – WTJU

88.3 – WVTF – RADIO IQ
88.5 – WAMU
89.5 – WYAU

HARRISONBURG
88.1 – RADIO IQ
88.5 – RADIO IQ WITH BBC
89.3 – WVTF
90.7 – WMRA
91.1 – WTJU
91.7 – WEMC

CHARLOTTESVILLE
88.5 – WVTW
89.3 – WVTU

89.7 – WVTW

91.1 – WTJU

96.7 – WVTW

101.1 – WVTU

103.5 – WMRY