Books

As the poet Joan Murray points out in her introduction to this stellar collection the glitteringly self-deprecating Pushcart Prize has been bringing extraordinary literary talents to a broad readership for 30 years This volume is the third in a series of prize-winning Best of the Best volumes from

In 2002 Pete Hamill scored a bestseller with his novel Forever which told the story of an Irish immigrant granted the gift of eternal lifeso long as he never leaves the island of Manhattan Meanwhile next year Brad Pitt will star in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button based on an F Scott Fitzg

The words ldquo messiah rdquo and ldquo messianism rdquo are often used loosely not only in popular culture but also in religious discourse even in biblical scholarship This magisterial study of these terms in the Bible and related ancient sources by a premier biblical scholar of our time brin

Most people realize that over the last 40 years the tobacco industry has spent millions of dollars to mislead the public about the dangers of smoking People are less likely to know that oil companies are doing something similar ExxonMobil has spent 16 million to fund a web of organizations charg

Assigned to read Thomas Hardy 8217 s The Return of the Native in high school I was fascinated by its evocation of our pagan agricultural past Reading Jude the Obscure recently however I suffered all the way through Hardy 8217 s determined destruction of hope in the life of his stonemason hero

Are the culture wars of the last two decades a bogus conflict Do the debates about abortion gender sexuality and aesthetics amount to a series of shadowboxing matches Intellectuals appear increasingly divided For some they 8217 re a genuine combat for others they 8217 re something for the

Where is the solution manual Nearly a quarter-century ago when I first taught Business and Public Issues in a large state university an undergraduate accounting student came to see me The class had just discussed a case that described a difficult ethical dilemma Not surprisingly there was no e

Last fall hearing Bob Dylan 8217 s 1975 song Shelter From the Storm on the radio several times brought to mind a student from around that time who had written an outstanding paper with that title using the words of Dylan 8217 s song to shape an interpretation of Gnosticism So I searched for th

This book is the companion to the Discovery Channel rsquo s program ldquo The Lost Tomb of Jesus rdquo A well-written interesting often titillating account of the 1980 discovery of inscribed ossuaries from a tomb in Talpiot a suburb south of Jerusalem it reveals the names of various first-cen

For years I have stared at the five published volumes over 2 100 pages of Thomas Merton rsquo s letters arranged neatly on a shelf in my Merton collection and wondered if I would ever have time to work through them Occasionally I opened a volume to check a reference but the massive collection of