Eleven different poetry collections reviewed by four America editors offer a sample of the God-haunted and the God-hunted contemporary literary artists who work out their spiritual, intellectual and emotional conundrums through lyrical compositions.

Something has changed for the novelist John Banville in the last 15 years. In a twist worthy of his own byzantine fiction, Banville has adopted a new persona and writing style, and even—perhaps—a changed attitude toward “the Irish thing” he once derided.

In this time when so much seems to be falling apart, the writer/philosopher/farmer Michael Martin is reimagining and even building anew.

For Kavanaugh, the only true response to our consumer culture is the life of Christ: inviting, healing, self-sacrificing, loving.

Just as St. Augustine had aimed “to kindle the light of things eternal in human hearts no longer supported by temporal institutions which had seemed eternal but which were crashing on all sides,” so did John S. Dunne, C.S.C., in his many erudite books.

The highest tribute I can offer this biography is that it is not unlike a Nichols film itself: incisive, dense with detail yet somehow brisk.