In her debut novel ‘Lightborne,’ Hesse Phillips portrays a world of intrigues swirling around Christopher Marlowe and his London circle.
Books
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: The return of Thomas Pynchon
A kind of maximalist profusion of detail and incident characterizes ‘Shadow Ticket,’ though this new novel from Thomas Pynchon might also be categorized as zany neo-noir—or slapstick noir—for developing the noir tropes of the 1930s and 1940s in a less hardboiled, wackier direction.
Posted inCatholic Book Club
‘Gaudium et Spes’ and the optimistic final days of Vatican II
Vatican II closed 60 years ago this week. One of its final documents, “Gaudium et Spes,” has also proved to be perhaps its most influential.
Posted inCatholic Book Club
What William Kennedy’s writing did for his hometown of Albany
William Kennedy did for his hometown what Joyce did for Dublin, what Bellow did for Chicago, what Faulkner did for his fictional Yoknapatawpha County. He became the bard of a particular time and place and, through it, continues to explore universal themes.
Posted inCatholic Book Club
‘Lumen Gentium’: The master work of Vatican II
Some of the most resonant and memorable phrases of Vatican II come from “Lumen Gentium,” including the description of the church as the people of God.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: The drama of Dostoyevsky
Józef Tischner remains virtually unknown in Western classrooms, despite being one of the pre-eminent voices in 20th-century Catholic thought. The new edition of ‘The Philosophy of Drama’ in English might help change that.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Chris Hayes on the war for our attention
In his new book, Chris Hayes argues that our attention is not just the most fundamental human need; it is also our most important resource.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: The moral authority of John Lewis
David Greenberg has produced a biography of John Lewis that, if not quite definitive, is still the gold standard by which all subsequent biographies will be judged.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: A first look at an intriguing new pope
Christopher White’s ‘Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy’ presents readers with a substantive, engaging portrait of where things stand right now in a church, and a world, increasingly marked by polarization, authoritarianism and violence.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Michael Harrington, the ‘pious apostate’ who championed socialism in America
Michael Harrington was America’s much-needed conscience on issues of poverty in the 1960s and later.