Joyelle McSweeney’s ‘Death Styles’—her 10th book across creative and critical genres—rewards our attention.
Literature
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Frantz Fanon is having a moment
With his new biography, ‘The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon,’ Adam Shatz seeks to give us Fanon the person, and not just his most famous soundbites.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Eamon Duffy on Peter Ackroyd’s ‘The English Soul’
Peter Ackroyd declares at the outset of ‘The English Soul: Faith of a Nation’ that Christianity has been “the reflection, perhaps the embodiment of the English soul.” But his book is not about Christianity so much as it is about some notable figures in Protestant England.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Bishop John Cummins and the Catholic history of Oakland
Bishop John Cummins had a significant and lasting impact on the Catholic Church in his own diocese and elsewhere through his quiet leadership and ministry. He was a reminder to many of what Pope Francis meant when he called for bishops who are “pastors, not princes.”
Posted inFaith, Features
An atheist’s return to the Catholic Church: a story of death, love and meaning
From Nietzsche and Heidegger to Charles Taylor, Dostoevsky and the Gospels, one believer’s journey to faith.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
John Banville: notorious literary esthete—and crime novelist
John Banville is surely the only crime novelist in recent memory who has won the Booker Prize and is regularly rumored to be in the running for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
‘Gladiator II’ reminds us what we already knew: America can’t stop thinking about the Roman Empire
The box office success of “Gladiator II” is a reminder that many Americans are obsessed with the Roman Empire. They’ve been joined over the years by more than a few ‘America’ contributors.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Doris Grumbach, L.G.B.T. pioneer and fearless literary critic
Doris Grumbach was an accomplished novelist, literary critic, biographer and memoirist and an early pioneer for her books exploring L.G.B.T. themes. She was also a longtime book reviewer and essayist for ‘America.’
Posted inArts & Culture, Vantage Point
Doris Grumbach on the art of the book review
In 1960, novelist and literary critic Doris Grumbach reflected on the art—and science—of book reviewing, including Catholic books.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Movie Club
‘Brooklyn’: a story of welcoming the immigrant, now and then
Sometimes you have to leave home to find home. That’s the paradox of the immigrant experience, portrayed beautifully in “Brooklyn.”