Books

Though often labeled a modern-day Thoreau Wendell Berry is perhaps more akin to a biblical prophet a lone voice crying not in the wilderness but from his own farm Like Isaiah and Amos Berry is able to discern the embedded patterns of corruption and injustice in a culture of haves and have-nots

When we were in the seminary our economics professor Ed Roche God be good to him told us one day that his classmates were getting old ldquo I say to them when you start complaining about the young guys it rsquo s proof you rsquo re getting old rdquo Ironically his classmates in those days

By this point in his illustrious career Garry Wills the most celebrated Catholic intellectual in the United States must find it increasingly burdensome to be ldquo Garry Wills rdquo Not only the most celebrated but perhaps the most ubiquitous as well This spiritual autobiography which doub

On Nov 7 1630 Orazio Morandi abbot of the Roman monastery of Santa Prassede and former general of the Benedictine order of Vallombrosa was found dead in his cell in the Eternal City rsquo s Tor di Nona prison Although the doctor on duty and a friar confessor insisted that he died a natural dea

The Dead Sea scrolls have fascinated the general public for over 50 years Indeed 10 years ago they were front-page news with wild claims about their contents and charges about coverups and conspiracies What has happened since and what can we expect in the future These two fine books can help t

In this disarmingly honest and haunting memoir the former governor of Nebraska and United States senator Bob Kerrey tells the story of his rite of passage from a rather na iuml ve and carefree childhood in the 1950 rsquo s Midwest to his transformation into a skeptical Vietnam veteran with the Cong

What more appropriate time than this year of bombings retaliations wars and rumors of war to investigate the meaning and practice of terror especially in its relationship to faith Lee Griffith in The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God offers a compelling start Although he examines histori

As James M McPherson notes at the opening of his new book Sept 17 not Sept 11 was the worst day in American history mdash Sept 17 1862 Over 6 000 Americans died that day at Antietam four times as many as on D-Day and more than those who died in all the pre-1900 wars combined Many of the

First of all there are the kudos for The Orchards of Syon No less an eminence than Harold Bloom calls the book Hill rsquo s most magnificent work in a long career of splendors A N Wilson calls Hill probably the best writer alive in verse or in prose the nearest thing we have got to a poet who

Catholics have always relied on church teaching for an understanding of marriage expressed perhaps in papal encyclicals and theological studies But A Daring Promise is different from these It is both intellectual and spiritual offering a treatment of married spirituality that is in rather short