Girlhoods, boyhoods, childhoods, "freindships": Youth is the setting (and subject) in works by Jane Austen, J.M. Coetzee, Michael Ondaatje, and Leo Tolstoy.
These books offer two rewards: a lot of fascinating information, and an opportunity to think hard about history and being human. But they prompt some questions too.
The case for "youthful credulity" when reading; Don DeLillo's moral but discomforting vision; a new translation of Julian of Norwich's 'Revelations of Divine Love.'
A biographical novel for Thomas Hardy fans; a theory on how Christianity came to dominate Europe; short poems; and the fascinating (true) tale of a house in Germany.
Donaldson's willingness to admit imperfections in his work and the mistakes he’s made in pursuit of his subjects makes him a winning guide to literary biography.
Mary Ziegler’s account of the “lost” history of Roe may surprise even the closest (and oldest) observers of the battles following the 1973 Supreme Court decision.
James Booth examines Philip Larkin’s life and work. Colm Tóibín writes on Elizabeth Bishop. James Wood looks at religious and secular modes of narration in novels.
John Norris's new biography of Pulitzer prize-winning political journalist (and Commonweal Catholic) Mary McGrory is engaging, carefully researched, and sympathetic.
An account of the sexual abuse scandal at the elite Horace Mann school, noteworthy for the contrast with common impressions of Catholic institutional environments.
In "Christian Human Rights," Samuel Moyn concedes that the modern human-rights movement is untethered from its Christian origins. Is this something to worry about?
You don’t need to be a thespian to appreciate James Shapiro's "Year of Lear"—a brilliant, meticulously researched history of social tensions that inspired the play.
While Franzen’s natural mode as writer is one of confident high spirits, in "Purity" his view of people is steeped in pessimism, and his characters are miserable.
Peter Mitchell's take on Charles Curran and the "dissident theologian" strike at Catholic University in 1967 presents a conspiracy so big it's literally incredible.
Why has there never been a culture of accountability in the American university? James Keenan, SJ believes the teachers of ethics should practice what they preach.
In this collection of essays, authors draw on “Theology of the Body" to present the Church as a place where women’s leadership can flourish. The results are mixed.
Narrated by the nameless victim's brother, Kamal Daoud's novel asks: Did Camus intend to use the Algerian murder victim in 'The Stranger' as a disposable prop?
Laura Swan does a good job of explaining both the beguines’ spiritual practices in the context of their own times and how their continuing legacy affects us today.
Brooks thinks character is what’s missing in our self-centered society, yet has written a self-help book for an age he believes values the self much too highly.
Anne Enright's new novel suggests something simple—family, for good or ill, keeps forming us even when we try to escape it—but her prose constantly surprises.
In her new book, Jane Maienschein lays out the history of embryonic science—going back to Aristotle—hoping to answer an old question: When does a human life begin?
Amusing and engaging, Barney Frank's stories (from sixteen terms in Congress) tell what kinds of “inside politicking” informed the presidencies of LBJ through Obama.
Paul Moses's history of Irish-Italian relations in 19th century New York delves into the causes for "race war" between the immigrant groups and how they overcame it.
Langdon Hammer's biography of poet and writer James Merrill is "wholly definitive" in scope, and threaded throughout with Merrill’s brilliant, always enlivening wit.
The pattern of income inequality is more than a social problem, Robert Putnam says; it's a social tragedy, most devastating in the lives of poor American children.
Many modern American thinkers have asked, often and with anxiety, "What is man?" In his latest book, Mark Greif thinks we've outgrown this—and it's a good thing.
In his final book, the late Peter Gay expands familiar notion of the Romantic rebellion against Enlightenment rationality, to the focus on artistic self-expression.
Andrew Cockburn's 'Kill Chain' examines the disastrous political effects of the U.S. military's targeted assassination practices--and the true motives behind them.
Unlike past Eurocentric taxonomies of world religions, the latest Norton anthology aims to let six major, living, international religions speak...in their own words.
Iranian author Azar Nafiri defends the value of canonical American literature—its imagination and humanity—against Common Core, market analyses, and Babbitt.
Charles Camosy believes we are “on the verge of a new moment in the abortion debate," politically capable of compromise. But has he misunderstood Catholic teaching?
Pinckney's short history deals with basic things—Reconstruction, Ku Klux Klan terrorism, crude political machinations like Plessy v Ferguson—white people can forget.
The pro-British kings archeologist-turned-spy-turned-colonel T.E. Lawrence helped establish in Arabia, Iraq, and Transjordan made "Arab unity" a "madman's notion."
Is humanity better or worse off believing in the sacred? Kitcher has not provided new reasons for declaring the death of God, but he certainly makes it seem foolish.
It might be tempting to call D’Ambrosio’s essays confessions. But he rejects that label. The self of his essays is “more like a perspective, an angle of vision..."
William Deresiewicz not only critiques the idea that college education is about learning marketable skills; he also revives the quest for meaning, self, and soul.
This integrative, enjoyable "book for beginners" still may hold surprises for scholars: nuns absolving sins, petitioners humiliating saints, a woman pope, and more.
Mailer, Trilling, Macdonald, Kazin, Maxwell, Bellow, Auden, O'Hara—men with public moral concerns, who seized power to shape American literature. But who were they?
Baxter reads fiction to “see bad stuff happening.” He writes characters who get into serious trouble, and face their own "human wreckage" at someone else's request.
Kevin Kruse convincingly claims that the association of patriotism with Christianity comes from a libertarian reaction in American business to the New Deal.
“New atheists” like Richard Dawkins have made a splash with aggressive attacks on religion. But Michael Ruse, philosopher and reflective atheist, is not impressed.
Posner’s attempt to intertwine Vatican finance with a history of the papacy—"rampant corruption, pervasive nepotism, unbridled debauchery"—isn't neutral, or correct.
How can we choose to have agency over our lives when we are bombarded by choices? Crawford proposes a way to reclaim your attention span and thereby reclaim yourself
Appy’s view is that American exceptionalism is an obnoxious and dangerous delusion, and his broadside against it recounts a litany of Vietnam atrocities.
This story is fascinating in its own right, but what makes the shootings of these four Jews a worthy subject of Timothy Ryback's arresting new book is their timing.
The humorous tone of Lev Golinkin’s new memoir doesn’t prevent him from engaging with topics of deadly importance: tryanny, communism, anti-Semitism, and childhood.
Readers expecting a tour de force of church history shouldn't. The question for Wills is this: Why do we need the church or Pope Francis to remind us of God’s love?
Through the eyes of a middle-aged alcoholic grandson of an Auschwitz survivor, Michel Raub's fifth novel contemplates the infinite ways humans torment each other.
