Books

Article

Staff Pick: The Novels of Penelope Lively

The consistently compelling reads of a prize-winning author

By Tiina Aleman

December 26, 2017

Books

Article

Of Course They Hated Her

Mary McCarthy's writing is always taking the temperature of the room, feeling the social shifts in attention and power, uncovering pettiness and mistaken victories

By B. D. McClay

December 18, 2017

Book Essay

Books

Feature

Wonders Never Cease

How the modern period arose and how it has become another era, and in need of another name

By Marilynne Robinson

December 11, 2017

Secularism and Modernity

Theology

Spirituality

Article

Make America Keynesian Again

A popular history that tackles tough issues of economic history and economic theory

By Charles K. Wilbur

December 9, 2017

Economy

Article

Senses of Possibility

Layli Long Soldier’s poetry replies to the U.S. government’s apology to Native Americans and Julia Cameron offers concrete tools for fostering creativity

By Ellen B. Koneck

December 5, 2017

Poetry

Books

Article

Rhyming Pages

During this trying year, a collection of poetry that people—young and old—can simply enjoy

By Sarah Ruden

December 4, 2017

Poetry

Article

‘She Lived to Read’

Elizabeth Hardwick could not conform, could not often like whatever her peers liked

By William H. Pritchard

December 4, 2017

Books

Poetry

Article

Christmas Critics

What our Christmas Critics read this year

By The Editors

December 1, 2017

Books

Article

Mad Men & the Just Man

Alasdair MacIntyre asks, “Can we explain our actions, to ourselves or others, by saying what desire they satisfy?”

By Edward Skidelsky

November 29, 2017

Books

Ethics

Secularism and Modernity

Article

What is the Basis for Human Equality?

One of the most fundamental American tenets—that all human beings are created equal—is nowhere near universally accepted

By Samuel Moyn

November 28, 2017

Secularism and Modernity

Ethics

Article

Religion Booknotes

Books that speak directly to believers about the experience of faith

By Luke Timothy Johnson

November 28, 2017

Theology

Books

Spirituality

Article

Welcome to Our House

Advent and Christmas reading from the frontier

By Mollie Wilson O’Reilly

November 20, 2017

Books

Article

Funk-Busting Books

Three kinds of books for the world- and word-weary

By Bria Sandford

November 20, 2017

Books

Article

Revelations Here & Abroad

A coming-of-age tale, Americans abroad, Frank Sinatra’s genius, and the how and why of belief

By Paul Baumann

November 20, 2017

Books

Music

Article

An Art of Life

Carvaggio’s extraordinary painting changes an ordinary life, while Karl Ove Knausgård’s ordinary life makes extraordinary literature

By Ingrid D. Rowland

November 20, 2017

Books

Arts

Feature

Christians & the Death Penalty

If the death penalty seems a just and proportionate response to willful murder, so what? That’s not a Christian view of reality

By David Bentley Hart

November 16, 2017

Feature

Intelligible Mysteries

Modern artists and modern theologians had a lot to say to one another

By Anthony Domestico

November 10, 2017

Poetry

Theology

Books

Article

Share This Protest

While the horizontal nature of social media can be a solution to the problem of state- or elite-controlled media, it presents problems of its own

By Regina Munch

November 6, 2017

Books

Foreign Affairs

Article

Why Don’t They Like Her?

Why did Hillary prompt such rage?

By Leslie Tentler

October 31, 2017

Books

Election 2016

Article

Nothing to Be Done?

The stories of women in ‘The Ninth Hour’ don’t teach easy lessons, but they show how people in hopeless situations do what they can

By Mollie Wilson O’Reilly

October 31, 2017

Books

Religious Life

Article

Tradition You Can Hold

Books have their own fates

By Peter Jeffery

October 26, 2017

Books

Article

Why the Doily?

Once you notice the doilies, you see them everywhere in the wild

By Cassandra Nelson

October 26, 2017

Poetry

Books

Higher Education

Article

After the Thaw

‘A Legacy of Spies,’ which really cannot be understood without reading some of the predecessor novels, is not a match for them

By Katherine A. Powers

October 26, 2017

Books

Feature

An Interview with Carmen Maria Machado

The author discusses good sentences, the story-telling instinct, and this monstrous world we have to make better

By Anthony Domestico

October 9, 2017

Books

Article

Poems Against Paralysis

This is a collection of movement and stillness, of the body and the spirit

By Anthony Domestico

October 9, 2017

Poetry

Books

Spirituality

Article

Both Sides Have Their Reasons

A useful, approachable introduction to the new egalitarian thinking driving so much social and legal conflict over religious liberty today

By Paul Horwitz

October 4, 2017

Sexuality

Domestic Affairs

Article

Ancient Identities

I can’t read the Epistles without wanting to know a lot more—yet feeling stuck. Paula Fredriksen’s book on Apostle Paul’s writings helps

By Sarah Ruden

September 28, 2017

Theology

Article

Tuning In & Out

John Ashbery offers important poetic experiences that traditional poetry has not typically offered

By Frank B. Farrell

September 22, 2017

Poetry

Secularism and Modernity

Article

When Art & Spirit Meet

Paul Lakeland ruminates on the theology of the imagination

By Edward T. Wheeler

September 21, 2017

Books

Arts

Spirituality

Article

Agreeing on How to Disagree

Three philosophers and unlikely coauthors challenge our cultural moment: they opt for mutual understanding over demonization

By Robert K. Vischer

September 20, 2017

Books

Secularism and Modernity

Article

A Church That Can & Did Change

Within the Catholic Church, the “culture wars” have become the “council wars.” The latest entry in these debates is ‘The Reception of Vatican II’

By Richard R. Gaillardetz

September 20, 2017

Vatican II

Books

U.S. Catholicism

Feature

Delight Is Where the Mystery Lies

Anthony Domestico speaks with Alice McDermott about her new novel, the nature of time in Catholicism, and the best kind of reader

By Anthony Domestico

September 13, 2017

Books

U.S. Catholicism

Article

The West Point of Capitalism

Duff McDonald exposes the fraudulence of the Harvard Business School’s pretensions to wisdom

By Eugene McCarraher

September 11, 2017

Article

Manifestations

Literary modernity did not suddenly appear in China in the 1920s

By Nicholas Haggerty

September 7, 2017

Books

Article

Keep Them Poor & Tired

Jeff Guinn’s new biography-cum-history is a study of persuasion and power in Peoples Temple, the twentieth-century socialist cult led by preacher Jim Jones

By Kate Lucky

September 7, 2017

Books