magi

These wise men, or magi, will eventually arrive at the manger on Jan. 6, also known as Epiphany or Three Kings Day.

This “accessible and deeply human” portrait of four “notoriously incomprehensible” thinkers, as our reviewer, John Kaag, described them, posits that “intellectual magi” met interwar turbulence by conjuring “a new world.”

Connect these three Toms and you have the three magi attending the birth of a new Los Angeles, an ecumenical place, a confident place, a city no longer a Hollywood coat-holder or New York also-ran.

His thoughts, however, were exalted: predestination, God’s all-commanding word, Jesus’ living and suffering among us, Christmas with its angels, magi and shepherds.

He patiently draws these four intellectual magi out of the shadows of their writings, which often tend toward complete opacity.