My take-home message from this review is similar to the line I wrote on my book reports in elementary school: I would recommend this book to all my friends. It is a rare experience for me to find a book that sets me on fire, stirs me up and makes me think critically about my […]
Literature
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Sweetness and Light
Ron Hansen’s new novel is a dollop of sweet cream, an entertainment, a sip of champagne, a screwball comedy, a romp, a bauble, a love letter to Nebraska.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Paradise Lost
During an interview several years ago Edna O’Brien told me a story about an appearance of hers in the 1960’s on an Irish television program during which the host said to the studio audience: “Hands up all of you who think Edna O’Brien has shamed her country.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Mindful Monks
Robert King a retired philosophy and religion professor and academic dean, discovered only late in his academic career the contemplative dimension of Christianity
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A Hungry Philosopher
The novelist Iris Murdoch died only two years ago at the age of 79, but already a memoir, film and biography have appeared to preserve her memory for devoted fans and to introduce her to new audiences. In Iris Murdoch: A Life, Peter J. Conradi offers a wide-ranging look at the life of a writer and philosopher who had a remarkable “hunger for the spiritual in a post-theistic age.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Film
Fellowship of the Wrong: ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring’
What follows should come with a warning label for a goodly number of longtime readers. It is time for us Catholics to turn up the lights and take a second look at that brand of mid-century Anglo-Catholicism from both sides of the papal divide that dominated our undergraduate days.
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A Writer’s Writer Remembers
Seven years ago in ‘Acts A Writer: Reflections on the Church, Writing and His Own Life,’ novelist Larry Woiwode interleaved his idiosyncratic meditations on Luke’s narrative of the first Apostles with his own story of giving up an English professor’s job in upstate New York.
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Four Travelers’ Tales: Suggestions for Lenten Reading
Lent is just the right size. Forty days is enough time to get to know the desert and for most of us too little time to be swallowed by it. Guides are always welcome on the sometimes inconvenient, scary and unpredictable journey—including good books.
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A Disconcerting Thing: From October 4, 1997
John Updike’s reflection on faith and writing upon his reception of America’s Campion Medal in 1997.