Can one still be an aspirant in old age? That unknown fourteenth-century author of "The Cloud of Unknowing" wrote his text for a 24-year-old aspirant. There’s a moment in the book in which the author writes about how we cannot think our way to God, since God can only be loved. So we have to [...]
Does the "socialist-patriot" George Orwell offer a model for us today? Specifically for the young—of left or right—for whom Peter Stansky's book is likely meant to serve as an introduction of sorts? The Socialist Patriot: George Orwell and War by Peter Stansky (130 pages, Stanford University Press, 2023) Less a brief biography than a lengthy [...]
A good Catholic novel is true to life, and one of the most difficult truths is that some very bad people may continue in their evil—never in this life finding the repentance that might make for a happy ending. Fr. Alexander Lucie-Smith's "The Chemist of Catania" is such a Catholic novel, showing us truth, but [...]
I read in a book—when there still were books—the kind of books you hold in your hands and turn the pages, that God is omniscient. That’s the main reason the System targeted God for Erasure. That’s what it said in the book. If there was a God, the System couldn’t control It because they couldn’t [...]
In the long battle for the human soul, there are finally only two alternatives laid out long ago by God: life or death. What we need, theologian Philip Rolnick says, is “the gospel that has never ceased offering its life-giving alternative.” The Long Battle for the Human Soul, by Philip A. Rolnick (171 pages, Baylor, [...]
Michael Herr left us one of the best accounts of men at war in his book, “Dispatches.” A reporter, he had gone to Vietnam to find a story, but had found something else that would hound him for the rest of his life. Dispatches by Michael Herr (Knopf Doubleday, 272 pages, 1977) As the 1967 Summer [...]
No one who reads and digests “A Better Guide Than Reason” can fail to be revolutionized. We had thought that the great Southern political tradition—that of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John C. Calhoun, and the agrarians—was dead. Not so. A Better Guide Than Reason: Studies in the American Revolution by M.E. Bradford (241 pages, Sherwood Sugden [...]
In the first volume of his three-volume biography, "Becoming Ray Bradbury," Jonathan R. Eller draws upon his friendship with Bradbury as well as upon a myriad of primary sources to write one of the best biographies of the famous author that I’ve yet encountered. Becoming Ray Bradbury, by Jonathan R. Eller (360 pages, University of [...]
Is there room for yet another biography of Abraham Lincoln? Of course there is, especially if the biographer in question is as deft and insightful as Jon Meacham. And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham (676 pages, Random House, 2022) Is there room for yet another biography of Abraham [...]
It is today widely acknowledged that conservatism is in disarray or crisis. There is an obvious need for major rethinking of the meaning of conservatism and of what it means to be an American. This book suggests that the current disorientation springs in large measure from certain long-standing, seemingly chronic weaknesses. What went wrong and [...]
In the final analysis, freedom is not possible without freedom of speech, and tolerance is not possible without the tolerance of texts with which we disapprove. The lack of such tolerance leads to the banning of books and the banning of people. Ultimately, so history proves, it leads to the burning of books and the [...]
Romano Guardini reminds us, above all, to render “to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God, the things that are God’s.” His writings help us to recognize the spiritual necessity of not being slaves of the things of the world. His testimony thus pleads with us to disentangle ourselves from the enemies of [...]
In addition to being a story-telling genius, Tim Powers is a devout Catholic. While his novels in no way come across as religious, his regard for theological truth is evident to a fellow believer. While his books might not be described by all as wholesome, they undeniably transmit truth. And the Truth always prevails. “Power [...]
Who, then, was Gabriel Marcel, and why spend time on a philosopher who, unlike his contemporaries, never refused to recognize the “ontological” mystery? It could have been that my conversion was like an answer from Heaven to a prayer that [my mother] made without knowing that some days later she would leave this earth. Shaken [...]