Alan Jacobs

The afflictions of a Southerner living above the Mason-Dixon line are many, but they have certain compensations. Perhaps the most valuable lessons come from being on the receiving end of unthinking . . . . Continue Reading »

Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life By Martha C. Nussbaum Beacon, 143 pages, $20 I Even in Plato’s Republic Socrates can already speak of “the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry,” quoting dismissive remarks now-unknown poets made about philosophy as though such . . . . Continue Reading »

Folded into the corner of a comfortable old sofa, reading an equally comfortable old novel, I discovered an unoccupied corner of my mind with which to contemplate Wallace Stevens’ great poem about reading: “The house was quiet and the world was calm.” But almost at that moment it occurred to . . . . Continue Reading »

Recently the Divinity School at the University of Chicago sponsored a conference to investigate and celebrate the theological importance of the writings, especially the novels, of Iris Murdoch. The attitude expressed by many of the theologians involved was one of abject, almost pathetic, gratitude . . . . Continue Reading »

A few years ago, when the English novelist A. N. Wilson announced his repudiation of Christianity, the story was reported in Christianity Today . On the face of it this seemed an odd “event” for CT to cover. Wilson’s novels had often, though not always, shown an interest in religious . . . . Continue Reading »

A few years ago, I joined a group of people who were keeping a lengthy vigil over a dying man. He was a priest and a teacher, a man of great passion, who loved and was loved deeply. Cancer of the bone marrow was racking his body; heavy medication could not hold off the ceaseless tides of pain. That . . . . Continue Reading »

The Children of Men by p. d. james knopf, 241 pages, $22 For some years now the novels of P. D. James—most of which feature Adam Dalgleish, London homicide detective and published poet—have been growing increasingly ambitious. In the early Dalgleish stories, as in most mysteries, the . . . . Continue Reading »

The best way we can demonsrate our love for great books is ro use them in our search to discover “what we might do and . . . . Continue Reading »

Samuel Johnson believed that Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy made the finest bedside reading, in the morning as well as the evening, of any book he knew (and he knew a lot of them). C. S. Lewis, in Surprised by Joy, reflecting upon books that are good to read while eating—which . . . . Continue Reading »

Most Americans believe, when they think of the issue at all, that our disputes over the role of religion in public life and discourse are pretty heated—though for some of us they aren’t nearly hot  enough. But in other places the complexity of the issues and the intensity of . . . . Continue Reading »