Philip Zaleski

Original Sin: A Cultural History by Alan Jacobs HarperOne, 304 pages, $24.95 Chesterton said of original sin that it “is the only part of Christian theology that can really be proved””by which he meant empirically demonstrated in every era, in every culture, and in every human . . . . Continue Reading »

Of the making of saints there is no end cries the modern Ecclesiastes, and with some justification. A thousand years ago—or even twenty-five years ago—the roster of canonized saints was severely circumscribed. From 1000 AD to 1978 AD, fewer than 450 men and women had been “raised to . . . . Continue Reading »

The Miracle Detective by Randall Sullivan Atlantic Monthly, 448 pages, $25 Few things rankle the modern mind more than religious apparitions. See a ghost, and you may raise a few eyebrows; see a celestial being, and eyes will roll, tongues clack, friends worry and strangers edge away. To believe in . . . . Continue Reading »

The Pope leaned toward her, so that “their faces nearly touched,” and Thérèse hurriedly whispered her desire (despite her bishop’s opposition) to become a Carmelite nun. Leo, flustered by this breach of protocol, first ventured a conventional response: “Ah well, my child, do what the . . . . Continue Reading »

“Read not the times, read the eternities,” said Henry David Thoreau. It isn’t often that the two realms intersect, but they have this year”and not only in the New York Times , but in news media across America”with the runaway success of Bruce Wilkinson’s The Prayer . . . . Continue Reading »

There’s no escaping the Brothers Grimm. Their masterwork, Kinder und Hausmarchen (1812-1822), usually translated as Grimm’s Fairy Tales, still reigns unchallenged as the greatest folk tale collection of them all. Millions of children have listened, spellbound, as parent or schoolteacher . . . . Continue Reading »

Daniel Defoe: The Life and Strange, Surprising Adventures.By Richard West.Carroll & Graf. 427 pp. $26. The best physical description of Daniel Defoe comes to us, fittingly, from a wanted poster: “a middle siz’d spare man, about 40 years old, of a brown complexion, and dark brown-coloured . . . . Continue Reading »

Two or three years ago, the first cold winds of middle age came knocking at my door. My muscles ached after an hour of softball and my mind turned to mush by ten o’clock every night. But I resolved to fight back. The decision is commonplace enough; we all know graying men who seek the fountain of . . . . Continue Reading »

Some writers capture national headlines; others capture local hearts. This observation was brought delightfully home to me a few months ago, when I dropped a small pile of books on the checkout desk at my neighborhood public library. The librarian working the computer screen, a small, quiet woman . . . . Continue Reading »

Every two or three years, at a small, elite New England university, I offer a graduate-level course on “Nature Writing.” The students, as you might guess, exhibit a keen interest in birds, blossoms, bugs, and bears. Despite shared tastes, the composition of the class is impressively diverse, a . . . . Continue Reading »