Given the literary scandal that more or less led Edna O rsquo Brien to flee Ireland following the publication of her Country Girls trilogy in the 1960 rsquo s it would have been understandable if she had spent the rest of her life bashing Ireland and writing books about noble outsiders persecuted b

In Running Alone the distinguished Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McGregor Burns tracks almost a half-century of what he considers critically flawed American presidential leadership His starting point is John F Kennedy rsquo s success in the 1960 election in which he ran his campaign wit

To read A Balm for Gilead is to want author/friar/physician Daniel Sulmasy and his disciples to be your doctor, nurse or therapist. A practitioner with a deep sense of spirituality who considers healing an encounter with the divine will not blame us for our bad habits, will not be repulsed by what illness does to our bodies, will not give up on us when treatments do not work and will see in us the opportunity to serve God.

Sulmasy takes his title from the spiritual sung in his Harlem parish:

There is a balm in Gilead

The Sulpician priest Gerald D Coleman is to be commended for this volume In it he shares with the Catholic community at large not only his long-term experiences as a rector professor and guide for seminary life but also his keen insights into the practical needs of priestly formation Catholic m

When Michael Dirda took this summer off discerning readers of The Washington Post Book World were most likely disappointed They enjoy Dirda rsquo s erudite yet accessible reviews each Sunday The range of Dirda rsquo s interests and the breadth and depth of his literary knowledge are quite impress

The distinguished political scientist and historian Jan Gross nails the title of his book with one word fear This is not the first time In 2001 he did the same with Neighbors another one-word title dripping with irony because the book told the story of the July 1941 gruesome murder of the Jew