First Things RSS Feed - Randy Boyagoda https://www.firstthings.com/author/randy-boyagoda en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:51:17 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/randy-boyagoda 60 Homer’s Reach https://www.firstthings.com/article/2024/03/homers-reach https://www.firstthings.com/article/2024/03/homers-reach Fri, 01 Mar 2024 00:00:00 -0500 Homer and His Iliad
by robin lane fox
 basic books, 464 pages, $32.50

Continue Reading »

]]> Zero Gravity History https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/10/zero-gravity-history https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/10/zero-gravity-history Sun, 01 Oct 2023 00:00:00 -0400 The World:
A Family History of Humanity
by simon sebag montefiore
knopf, 1,344 pages, $45

Continue Reading »

]]> Melancholic Verses https://www.firstthings.com/article/2022/08/melancholic-verses https://www.firstthings.com/article/2022/08/melancholic-verses Mon, 01 Aug 2022 00:00:00 -0400 Run and Hide
by pankaj mishra
 farrar, straus and giroux, 336 pages, $27

Continue Reading »

]]> Culture of Competition https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/07/culture-of-competition https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/07/culture-of-competition Tue, 27 Jul 2021 06:00:00 -0400 Little Platoons:
A Defense of Family in a Competitive Age  
by matt feeney
basic books, 303 pages, $28   

Continue Reading »

]]> Nordic Penelope https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/04/nordic-penelope https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/04/nordic-penelope Thu, 01 Apr 2021 00:00:00 -0400 Vows
 by sigrid undset
translated by tiina nunnally
 minnesota, 336 pages, $17.95

Continue Reading »

]]> Papa Don’t Preach https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/01/papa-dont-preach https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/01/papa-dont-preach Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:00:00 -0500 The Lying Life of Adults
 by elena ferrante
translated by ann goldstein
europa editions, 336 pages, $26

Continue Reading »

]]> Strategic Long-Term Propaganda https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/06/strategic-long-term-propaganda https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/06/strategic-long-term-propaganda Mon, 01 Jun 2020 06:00:00 -0400 Cold Warriors:
Writers Who Waged the Literary Cold War
 by duncan white
custom house, 800 pages, $32.50

Continue Reading »

]]> The Breath of God https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/09/the-breath-of-god https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/09/the-breath-of-god Mon, 09 Sep 2019 09:25:00 -0400 What do a genocidal African ex-warlord, an ambitious and fecund Buddhist man with sixteen children, and a middle-aged English professor-turned-suicide bomber all have in common? Well, nothing really—except that they are but three of a myriad of strange and lively characters you’ll meet in Randy Boyagoda’s teeming fictional worlds. Author of three critically acclaimed novels— Governor of the Northern Province (2006), Beggar’s Feast (2011), and Original Prin (2019)—a biography of the Catholic public intellectual Richard John Neuhaus, and a slew of academic and popular articles, columns, and reviews, Boyagoda has charted his own course for what writing in a pluralistic, secular, globalized twenty-first century looks like when written by a Catholic who takes his Catholicism seriously. (Which is not to suggest Boyagoda’s not wickedly funny; at his best he usually is.)

Continue Reading »

]]> Wonder Is Critical https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/01/wonder-is-critical https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/01/wonder-is-critical Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 -0500 I finished teaching a university course in faith and ideas a little while ago by administering individual oral exams to forty first-year students. The exams took place in a hotel bar overlooking a volcanic lake. The pope’s summer palace shone in the distance, and the Mediterranean gleamed beyond that.

Continue Reading »

]]> Having a Baby at the End of the World https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/05/having-a-baby-at-the-end-of-the-world https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/05/having-a-baby-at-the-end-of-the-world Tue, 01 May 2018 00:00:00 -0400 Future Home of the Living God
 by louise erdrich
 harpercollins, 288 pages, $28.99

Continue Reading »

]]>