Short Review: "The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography" by Alan Jacobs
The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography by Alan Jacobs My rating: 4 of 5 stars Recently I heard Alan Jacobs, author of "The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography," interviewed on Mars Hill Audio Journal. The whole discussion intrigued me and so I snatched up a copy of this 236 page hardback. I found it easy to read, free of laborious longitudinal loquaciousness, and full of perceptive and instructive material. The first five chapters of “The Book of Common Prayer” take the reader through the environmental history of Thomas Cranmer and his original prayer book, as well as its literary and liturgical ingredients. The flux and flow of its use and disuse, along with its society-shaping consequences are brought forward in broad strokes and embossed swipes. Jacobs has made what could have been a dry labor into something accessible and attention-grabbing. The final two chapters, coupled with the appendix, take the reader around the corner. Here Jacobs shows how the pressure to m