Summer reading.(SHELF LIFE)

IT was already a bestseller before its appearance on bookstore shelves, but it would be a shame if Jesus of Nazareth (Doubleday, 374 pp., $24.95) ended up like a Stephen Hawking tome--more bought than read, and gathering dust on the coffee table. Joseph Ratzinger's intellectual reputation is certainly intimidating, but his first book as Pope Benedict XVI is (for the most part) written in a clear, reader-friendly style: He has read Julicher and Schnackenburg, so we don't have to.

The book is an examination of Jesus's public ministry. (An anticipated second volume will tackle his birth and infancy, passion and resurrection.) The mission of Jesus's life, Ratzinger explains, is to reveal God to humanity: As God's Son, He shows us the face of God the Father, and brings mankind into closer relation with divine reality. The chapter on the Lord's Prayer stresses that the initiative in this drama comes from God's grace, not from man: "The Our Father does not project a human image onto heaven, but shows us from heaven--from Jesus--what we as human beings can and should be like."

The author displays his remarkable breadth of knowledge and sympathies, as he simultaneously engages with the details of modern scholarship and upholds in a convincing manner the basic reliability of the Bible.

* Anthony Esolen, an accomplished Dante translator, is also an incisive literary critic. In his generous new book, Ironies of Faith: The Laughter at the Heart of Christian Literature (ISI, 350 pp., $28), he discusses great works from Shakespeare to Tolkien--and points out how the divine mysteries always end up being deeper than we think we know. The worldly-wise are confounded; strength is made perfect in weakness; eros becomes a vehicle of grace. "It is as Mauriac once said: We will be surprised to see not only the harlots and publicans enter before us, but even the persecutors and the atheists. Let us pray we will be in a position to enjoy the irony."

* Victor Canto is one of the most prominent expositors of supply-side economics. He is also a talented market-watcher; in his new book Cocktail Economics: Discovering Investment Truths from Everyday ...