The Rev. S. J. Adamo wrote over 130 columns for America on “The Press,” and seemingly had plenty of fun along the way.
Literature
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Is it moral to watch football? Here’s what America magazine said over the years
A spate of football injuries—and news that the longterm effects of the game can be catastrophic for the human brain—raise the question: What is the future of football?
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Is it really possible to transform your life?
Katy Carl’s debut collection of short stories examines how people manage change in their lives—whether they have actively sought what comes next or had it forced upon them.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
The atheist author Jesuits loved: Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch might seem like an unlikely candidate for praise from America reviewers, but her philosophical novels about love and alienation earned many praise-filled reviews over the years.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
In the belly of the beast: Daniel Kraus’s novel ‘Whalefall’ considers the power of communion and grief
Sucked into the belly of an 80-foot sperm whale, scuba diver Jay Gardiner reconciles the loss of his father and challenges the power of the creatures of the sea in Daniel Kraus’s novel ‘Whalefall.’
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Daniel Hornsby’s new novel seeks meaning in a world gone mad
Daniel Hornsby’s new page-turning novel ‘Sucker’ is consistently funny, a sobering screengrab of our wealth- and power-obsessed nation.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: How can we fix our hospitals?
In his debut book, ‘The People’s Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine,’ Ricardo Nuila presents the conflict between the profit motive of health care and the art of medicine by describing the hospitals that work for people and the hospitals that do not.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: The shameful history of when the Jesuits sold enslaved people
In ‘The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church,’ Rachel Swarns tells of “one of the largest documented slave sales in the nation,” the Jesuit sale of 272 enslaved persons in 1838.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Three new books expose the shameful history of Ireland’s Magdalene laundries
In recent years, several books have attempted to piece together what really happened behind the doors of power in Ireland’s Magdalene laundries, including Emer Martin’s novel ‘The Cruelty Men,’ Claire Keegan’s novella ‘Small Things Like These,’ and new collection of essays, ‘A Dublin Magdalene Laundry: Donnybrook and Church-State Power in Ireland,’ edited by Mark Coen, Katherine O’Donnell and Maeve O’Rourke.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
The devastation and dishonesty of the ‘wonder drug,’ thalidomide
It was touted as a sedative with no hangover. It was hailed as non-addictive. It was rumored to present no side effects. It was trumpeted in medical journal ads as “astonishingly safe” and “completely non-poisonous.”