We often use the word wise to mean ldquo insightful rdquo or ldquo graceful rdquo or ldquo shrewd rdquo or even ldquo humble rdquo Philip Levine rsquo s newest just-published poetry collection his 20th not even counting chapbooks is wise in a more fundamental truer way it is knowing

Genocide has claimed hundreds of thousands of African lives in recent decades In his ambitious new book Tracy Kidder the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer takes readers into the heart of that awful chapter in human history through the eyes of a Burundian medical student named Deogratias mdash known

Somehow it seems fitting that Karen Armstrong should make the case for God Her earlier works establish her gift for displaying the vast historical range of a topic with little distortion Here she pursues the human quest for God from the evidence of the cave painters of 30 000 B C E to the musings

A memoir of an American archbishop

A history of sin, reviewed