Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Plough Quarterly • Spring  R       Laurus Eugene Vodolazkin (Oneworld Publications) Readers who are short on time are often quick to ignore new novels in favor of recent nonfiction (small-talk-enabling) and classics (reliable). Laurus, the novel by Russian medieval- ist Eugene Vodolazkin, is a powerful reason to resist this temptation. It tells the story of a boy born in 1440 who is baptized as Arseny, loses his parents to the plague, and as an adolescent inherits his grandfather’s practice as herbalist and medicine man. As Arseny passes through life, changing names as he goes, he is variously a father, a penitent, a faith healer, a prophet, a holy fool, a pilgrim, and finally, a saint. Colorful and earthy, this is no pious tale, yet it is suffused with a sense of the interwovenness of the invisible and the material worlds. Prayer, it becomes clear, is far more potent than Arseny’s medical arts; by the end of the book, he discards his herbs completely. Just as real is the continu- ing presence of those who have died among the living. It is Arseny’s desire to do penance on behalf of Ustina, the unmarried mother of his son who died in childbirth without the sacrament of confession, that impels him to a life of holiness and self-sacrifice. Lisa C. Hayden’s translation from Russian, which reflects the original’s mix of colloquialisms and archaic language, is generally fluent and compelling. (One quibble: the pastiches of Chau- cerian English can be irritatingly amateurish.) All in all, Laurus is one of those rare books that can help us live our lives with a greater degree of “assurance of things hoped for, and the certainty of things unseen.” The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of Syria Samar Yazbek (Ebury Press) In Yazbek’s Syria, terrifying nightmares, imagined and concrete, run into one another seamlessly. In Homs, the streets are impassable, filled with smoking rubble, toxic dust, and the stench of burned flesh. In the countryside near Aleppo, the beauty of a spring orchard hides snipers lurking among the blossoms. A Syrian journalist, Yazbek gives scant space to the politics behind the conflict. Her goal is different: to record the shattering stories of her people, from grandmothers and teens to militants (she interviewed more than fifty)–no matter their allegiance. It’s a risky business. In one chill- ing scene, she interviews a prominent emir of the Islamic State. Sweating with fear, but unable to just sit there and listen to him, she tells him that his views are “absolutely evil.” Unbelievably, he simply dismisses her, saying, “Leave the war to us men, sister.” At times Yazbek wonders how effective her efforts are. How long, she agonizes, will the blood go on pooling in Syria’s streets and cellars while the world looks on, transfixed, but unable or unwilling to stop the war? No one can answer that. But when the tide turns, it will be thanks in part to the power of stories such as these. For stories specifically about Christians per- secuted by ISIS, there’s They Say We Are Infidels (Tyndale Momentum), in which journalist and World magazine editor Mindy Belz gives on-the- ground reporting and perspectives on what it means to be Christian in the Middle East today. Editors’ Picks concrete, run into one another seamlessly. In