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b'Marilynne Robinson is one of the great living novelists. She has won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Humanities Medal, and Barack Obama took time out of his presidency to interview her at length. Her fiction is suffused with a sense of holiness: Mundane images like laundry drying on a line seem to be illuminated by a divine force. Whether she\\u2019s telling the story of a pastor confronting his mortality in \\u201cGilead\\u201d or two sisters coming of age in small-town Idaho in \\u201cHousekeeping,\\u201d her novels wrestle with theological questions of what it means to be human, to see the world more deeply, to seek meaning in life.\\n\\nIn recent years, Robinson has tightened the links between her literary pursuits and her Christianity, writing essays about Calvinism and other theological traditions. Her forthcoming work of nonfiction is \\u201cReading Genesis,\\u201d a close reading of the first book of the Old Testament (or the Torah, as I grew up knowing it). It\\u2019s a countercultural reading in many respects \\u2014 one that understands the God in Genesis as merciful rather than vengeful and humans as flawed but capable of astounding acts of grace. No matter one\\u2019s faith, Robinson unearths wisdom in this core text that applies to many questions we wrestle with today.\\n\\nWe discuss the virtues evoked in Genesis \\u2014 beauty, forgiveness and hospitality \\u2014 and how to cultivate what Robinson calls \\u201ca mind that\\u2019s schooled toward good attention.\\u201d And we end on her reading of the story of Israel, which I found to be challenging, moving and evocative at a time when that nation has been front and center in the news.\\n\\nBook Recommendations:\\n\\nFoxe\\u2019s Book of Martyrs by John Foxe\\n\\nThe Vision of Piers Plowman by William Langland\\n\\nTheologia Germanica\\n\\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.\\n\\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of \\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.\\n\\nThis episode of \\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show\\u2019s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero and Alex Engebretson.'