Kindred The Gospel According to Mark
The Kindred collection of Bible books is a modern presentation using the New American Bible with Revised New Testament and lots of full-color photos. Their purpose is to make God’s Word accessible through publishing beautiful volumes that inspire reading and devotion. They approach this goal with beautiful visual and tactile design to draw the reader. The collection is a work in progress that will consist of individual books of the Bible. They’ve completed their first book and sent it to us for review. So, in this review, we’ll take a look at The Gospel According to Mark from Kindred. This is a paperback edition, ISBN: 9780578751351, printed in China. MSRP $19.99.
Video Review
Materials
It’s perfect bound, meaning it’s a glued paperback. The cover has a premium finish. It’s thick and you can feel the edges of the photos and other design elements as you run your fingers across it. The overall size is 8.25 x 11.75 x .5″. The beautiful modern design includes extra-thick, heavy stock gloss paper. Every detail about the materials feels elegant.
Design
The text itself is a 10-point font with double-spaced lines. The font’s color depends on the background. It doesn’t present the words of Christ in a different color or format. It’s in single-column (mostly) paragraph format with extra-large bold verse numbers, making verses easy to find at a glance. Columns vary in width. Text is left-justified, leaving a ragged right edge. The bold verse numbers are hard to miss, making them easy to find without trouble. Dark red asterisks and letters alert you to footnotes, which are also printed in dark red. Translation footnotes are placed to the side or at the bottom of the page. They’re printed extra-small, so they might be difficult for older eyes to see.
Page titles seem to loosely follow the section headings in the NABRE. They’re in the same locations and some are word-for-word while others are similar. The outline from the book introduction is also printed on the title pages of the starting verse in that portion of the outline. Each chapter has an introduction page with the chapter number. The upper right corner shows the references for the verses on those two pages.
Many pages include large full-color photos. Some cover one page while others overlap another page in one form or another. Some cover both pages with the text printed over the photo. Others include color.
Book Introduction
In the front is a detailed introduction to the Gospel of Mark. It introduces what the book is about, the major themes, the key verse, summaries of the major sections, about the author, and an outline of the major sections.
Ending Thoughts
Kindred’s Gospel of Mark is beautiful. Every page presents the text in an elegant layout with nature photography that draws the eye. Every element of this design is elegant. I almost want to see it without the verse numbers, but I would at least like to see the verse numbers minimized. I think this would improve readability and draw me to the text more. The inclusion of the verse numbers and footnotes indicates that it’s designed for study as well as reading, so it does make sense why they included them the way they did. I recommend Kindred’s The Gospel According to Mark to any NABRE reader.
Where to Purchase
Kindred Gospel of Mark is available from the publisher’s website.
Kindred provided this book in exchange for an honest review. I was not required to give a positive review.
