Some suggestions from the staff of America for summer reading: books old and new, long and short, funny and sad.
Literature
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
How Jürgen Moltmann’s ‘theology of hope’ inspired liberation theology
Jürgen Moltmann’s influence on theology extended far beyond his native Germany or his religious denomination. His “theology of hope” influenced everything from liberation theology to contemporary politics.
Posted inFaith, Podcasts
Ethan Hawke on Faith, Imagination and Flannery O’Connor
Ethan Hawke on exploring religious questions through art and his new film, “Wildcat,” about the Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor.
Posted inArts & Culture, Vantage Point
The late Protestant theologian Jürgen Moltmann asked: How can we find a human God in a dehumanized world?
In 1975, Leo O’Donovan, S.J., a theologian and former student of Karl Rahner, reviewed the renowned German theologian Jürgen Moltmann’s ‘The Crucified God.’ Jürgen Moltmann died on June 3, 2024, at the age of 98.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
How ‘America’ did (and didn’t) cover D-Day 80 years ago
As we prepare to celebrate the 80th anniversary of D-Day later this week, a look back at how ‘America’ covered the invasion then and in the years following.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Jackie Robinson and the arc of justice in America’s national game
It has been 77 years since Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball—and led his Brooklyn Dodgers to new heights in their final years in the borough.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Poet, feminist and nun: Sister Madeleva Wolff’s ideal of the ‘well-rounded woman’
A poet and a woman religious whose work often appeared in America, M. Madeleva Wolff, C.S.C., is known for much more than her verse. She was also a pioneer in Catholic education in the United States.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: America’s two-front dilemma in World War II
Books about World War II are ubiquitous in the nonfiction section, but “Hitler’s American Gamble” is the rare recent work with a genuinely new contribution to make, not just to our understanding of the past but also to our understanding of the present.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: A heroine’s journey
Lauren Groff’s new novel inverts Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe” by casting a girl—and only briefly, much later on in the novel, the woman—as its heroine.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Integralism, liberalism and the future of Christendom
In “All the Kingdoms of the World¸” Kevin Vallier engages with Catholic integralists, but he opens a bigger question: Is there such a thing as a Catholic politics?