I was just doing my daily obsessive check of my Amazon ranking checking in on a friend’s book and realized that today, February 5th, is its official publication day!

I first met Jeffrey Overstreet a few years ago when we were both in a fiction workshop at the Glen. You know how sometimes you instantly recognize another person as “one of you”? We recognized each other in that way and it’s been a pleasure to get to know him better over the years. (Also we discovered we were born on almost exactly the same day. I share this same “one of me” connection with other people born on or about the same day and same year with Tara Altebrando and my friend Mark P. It’s a little eerie.) Anyway, I don’t think I’ve ever met a person more passionate about movies and their capacity for connection with and exploration of the human spirit. He’s poured all this passion into Through A Screen Darkly: Looking Closer at Beauty, Truth and Evil in the Movies. (He also has a novel coming out this year, maintains a busy busy daily blog, is married, has cats and a day job. Whew! I get tired just thinking about it all!)

In a starred review, Publisher’s Weekly wrote: ”If viewing a film is to be a spiritual exercise, one must be open to conversion. Overstreet, cultural commentator and film critic for Christianity Today, leads readers through his own cinematic conversion in this compelling volume.” CT wrote: “Overstreet’s achievement in this book is his winsome articulation of the magnificence of art and its irreplaceable part in a fully human life.” (Not that readers of this blog need any convincing on that front!) If you happen to be someone of a remotely traditional faith persuasion who has ever found yourself trying to justify or defend or articulate your love for such wordly and possibly—depending on your denomination—forbidden things as movies, this is a book for you and maybe your skeptical friends and family. We will have Jeffrey over here for a Q&A soon!