Books

What We've Been Reading—August 2020

The editors of First Things muse on what they're currently reading.
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20 Aug 2020

Children's Books and the Christian Story

It is one thing to talk about the Resurrection. It is quite another to see the Easter fire struck in the night, the candle lit, the light of Christ filling the tomblike darkness of the waiting church. As a Catholic, I live and relive that liturgy every year; every year it astonishes me as no amount . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Aug 2020

Cheever's God

by Matthew Schmitz

Readers of John Cheever’s stories, most of which appeared in the New Yorker before being collected in a Pulitzer-winning book in 1978, regarded the author as “the Ovid of Ossining,” the artist who showed the riches and wonders of suburban life. Alert to the transcendent in the . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Aug 2020

Brave New World Revisited

by Francis X. Maier

If today’s street violence and political extremism serve any good purpose, it’s this: They remind us that humans have a chronic appetite for destruction. Continue Reading »

30 Jul 2020

The State of Fictional Espionage

by John Wilson

David Ignatius’s The Paladin tells a compelling story that (among other things) gives the worn-out phrase “fake news” a new urgency. Continue Reading »

24 Jul 2020

What We’ve Been Reading—July 2020

by Editors

Mark Bauerlein on William F. Buckley's The Unmaking of a Mayor and Veronica Clarke on Tara Isabella Burton's Social Creature. Continue Reading »

23 Jul 2020