More than thirty years have passed since Bob Scribner published his seminal article on incombustible images of Martin Luther (Past and Present no. 110 [Feb, 1986], 38–68). Thanks to the work of several generations of scholars, the world of the Reformation historian is now full of Protestant miracles (or at least wonders), of Protestant prophets, of Protestant portents and omens and even of Protestant ghosts. Shamir's study represents a welcome addition to the field. Following on from his distinguished work on the burning and desecration of English Bibles, Shamir has turned his focus to Germany, offering a thorough examination of the tradition of incombustible prayer books and Bibles. This tradition really began, he emphasises, not with incombustible Luther but with incombustible Arndt: with the wide dissemination of the story of a copy of the Paradiesgärtlein preserved from fire in 1624, amidst the traumas of the Thirty Years War. Shamir draws attention to the role played by publishers and editors in transmitting this story and others like it. Shamir's interest lies not only in the textual transmission of stories of incombustibility, but also in recovering attitudes towards the books as material objects. This was the age of the Wunderkammer and of the princely library, and unburnt books were likely to be viewed as curiosities rather than as Lutheran relics. During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, however, the high point of the tradition of incombustibility, learned Lutherans turned accidental survivals into significant objects, into symbols of ‘benevolent divine intervention’ (p. 181). The experience of engaging with burnt books, and the emotional attachment that they generated, is an important theme here. Shamir's book also contains a lengthy discussion of miracles and of Lutheran attitudes towards divine intervention. As Shamir demonstrates, the Lutheran attitude towards such phenomena was characterised by flexibility. With unburnt books, as with so much else, Lutheran theory could support a very great variety of Lutheran practices.