This book, more than any other, reflects my career as a roving journalist.  (A journalist is a generalist, someone who knows a little about many things but not a lot about any one thing.)  It has short chapters based in a variety of settings from around the world. I investigate such varied topics as polar bears, sex surveys, Shakespeare, South American prisons, fund-raising appeals, and lousy praise music–basically, anything I felt like writing about at the time.

In this book I write on a diverse range of topics that touch on the fields of history, science, religion, ethics, and more.  It came about after I wrote a column in Christianity Today magazine consisting of questions sparked by reading the novelist Walker Percy.  I’ve always felt more comfortable with questions than answers.

In a research project, my colleague Tim Stafford and I discovered that although many people have a high view of the Bible and want to read it, often they never get around to it? Why not? We identified three major reasons, and designed a Bible with notes that addresses the three most common complaints.