In ‘Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel, Edwin Frank explores how reality has been presented and even transformed through the way it is molded in fiction—and how the novel evolved from the 19th century novel to that of the 20th century.
Books
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Review: Father Charles Strobel’s life of servant leadership
There is joy and heartbreak in Father Charles Strobel’s memoir, ‘The Kingdom of the Poor,’ but mostly joy.
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Review: Tara Isabella Burton’s fairy tale for grownups
If what we need now is the kind of story that restores wonder to the world, Tara Isabella Burton’s ‘Here in Avalon’ provides one avenue to that destination.
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A Catholic visit to the New York International Antiquarian Bookfair
At the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, you are guaranteed to find the following: a signed first edition of your favorite book, a celebrity (or two) and Bibles.
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Review: Earl Weaver and baseball’s balance between stories and statistics
In ‘The Last Manager,’ John W. Miller marries stories and statistics in a fascinating account of the life of Earl Weaver, the diminutive, cantankerous skipper who is the winningest manager since the moon landing.
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Review: Charles Taylor on how poetry expresses our deepest yearnings
In ‘Cosmic Connections,’ Charles Taylor focuses on how art, and poetry in particular, both expresses and responds to the unique human experience of “being modern.”
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Flannery O’Connor at 100: What would the Catholic author have to say in 2025?
One wonders: If the “red wolf” of lupus had not ended Flannery O’Connor’s life at age 39, what would the author be writing about in 2025? What might she think of what was being written about her?
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Review: Percival Everett revisits Huck Finn
In his 2024 National Book Award-winning novel, ‘James,’ Percival Everett grapples with philosophical and metaphysical questions as well as racial issues, while enveloping all in sarcasm and irony.
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Masked man: Al Jolson and the politics of performance
Richard Bernstein tackles difficult topics in his short study of an extraordinary entertainer, Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson in Lithuania in 1886), and a profoundly important movie—and not just because “The Jazz Singer” is recognized as the “first talkie.”
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Review: A novel about aging, ailing and the inevitability of death
With ‘Featherless,’ her new novel about aging, ailing and the inevitability of death. A. G. Mojtabai joins so many other prominent contemporary fiction writers (Toni Morrison, Phillip Roth, Marilynne Robinson and Margaret Atwood, to name a few) who have explored aging late in their careers.