Forty years after its publication, Jon Sweeney revisits ‘Blue Highways’ and its iconoclastic author.
Books
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Review: What would the great silent film clown Buster Keaton make of the smartphone era?
In “Camera Man,” the critic Dana Stevens uses the biography of the great silent film clown as a lens to explore the early days of movies, the cultural forces that gave them birth and the social upheavals they in turn engendered.
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Review: Finding our way back to the farm
Half memoir of farm life, half manifesto against modern agricultural practices, James Rebanks’s ‘Pastoral Song: A Farmer’s Journey’ urges us to return to our agrarian roots.
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Review: How to live a scholarly life with gratitude and grace
In his new memoir, John W. O’Malley reflects on a life of priestly ministry and teaching, and offers lessons on how to live a scholarly life.
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Review: It’s good to be king. It’s better to be Caesar.
In ‘Twelve Caesars,’ Mary Beard analyzes the reception and adaptation of ancient Roman imperial portraits in Western European and American art from the 15th century to the present.
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Review: What can the writers of the Christian left tell us about the future?
If contemplation and criticism can lead to imitation, then writing about the literary Christian left of the last century might help establish a literary Christian left for this century.
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Review: An intergenerational look at the messiness of falling in love
In ‘Monster in the Middle,’ Tiphanie Yanique shows how the choice to love is always a leap of faith, a heedless plunge into the unknown.
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Review: A rebel nun is an exemplar of feminism in action
The tale of a medieval woman’s decision to join the convent, Marj Charlier’s historical novel, ‘The Rebel Nun,’ resonates with many of the issues faced by the church in modern times.
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Review: Thomas Merton, unfiltered
Patrick Collins gives a close read of Thomas Merton’s correspondence in “A Focus on Truth: Thomas Merton’s Uncensored Mind.”
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Suffering, faith and perseverance: Ross Douthat chronicles his struggle with Lyme disease
In “The Deep Places,” Ross Douthat relates how an experience of illness and suffering can lead to a search for answers to more transcendent questions, including the meaning of suffering and the gift of perseverance.