While no one collection will be able to cover all the aspects of a giant thinker such as Newman, “A Guide to John Henry Newman: His Life and Thought” does provide a very good one-stop shopping collection for those who are interested in Newman’s thought and would like something to help them think through what […]
Huckleberry Finn is no hero, though he does symbolize the American conscience at the time Mark Twain wrote, or at least the conscience Twain hoped for. Yes, “Huckleberry Finn” is a coming-of-age tale and a social criticism and satire, but it also asks crucial questions: Who actually changes? What type of American will change? Huckleberry […]
Romance novels are making a big comeback. There is BookTok now, too, that is playing a role in the comeback. With Valentine’s Day behind us, this story caught my eye. I can’t help but think that the general malaise felt in our country has a part in this. When we feel anxious or depressed, we […]
Incarnating the truth in art is the supreme test for a writer with convictions, and this problem is the real heart of the tension between entertainment and literature. I had a friend in England I’ll call Rosemary. She had always wanted to be a writer, so she honed her craft and eventually got a contract […]
In taking his autobiographical protagonist through hell, Winston Brady does many things that would, I believe, have pleased Dante Alighieri. Like Dante’s “Inferno,” Brady’s “Inferno” tests the will and courage of its hero, forcing him to wrestle with his American identity and legacy, to understand the grave nature of sin, and to seek repentance from […]
If the “Vita Nuova” had been the only major work Dante had made, this work alone would have earned him the reputation as a great poet of Western Civilization. It is well-known that Dante is one of the greatest poets in Western Civilization. His magnum opus, The Divine Comedy, is considered one of the crowning […]
Eva Brann’s latest book, “Pursuits of Happiness,” is a collection of essays which range from Aeschylus to Austen, with topics spanning the nature of time itself to Sacred Scripture. Interspersed here are two parts constituting the whole of an ideal education. Pursuits of Happiness: On Being Interested by Eva Brann (640 pages, Paul Dry Books, […]
Yuval Levin’s “The Great Debate” does a valuable service in working toward promoting more reflection in our political debates, by examining the all-too-often unspoken assumptions implicit in our political discourse. The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Left and Right, by Yuval Levin (296 pages, Basic Books, 2013) When Russell Kirk […]
Some Memphis Area High School Administrators Say That Adherence To State Guidelines Regarding Book Selection Has Kept Them From Having To Deal With Controversy That Some Other Tennessee School Districts Have Faced. Image Credit: Canva The Tennessee Conservative Staff – While books have always been a source of conversation, the last few years have brought […]
Regina Derieva’s life and poetry were filled with the bleak, the absurd, and the painful. But they do not form the last word in either, for God was her friend. Earthly Lexicon: Selected Poems and Prose by Regina Derieva, translated by various (156 pages, Marick Press, 2019) Images in Black, Continuous, by Regina Derieva, translated […]
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