Seen today, Jazz on a Summer’s Day shimmers with its glimpses of a world in which people, for all their differences, shared so much. When was the last time so many people got together with such geniality and grace? Continue Reading »
Art gives us structure and clarity; it helps us make sense of the disorder of life. Will Arbery’s Corsicana is a weird play, but you will feel warmer for having seen it—and maybe a little wiser, too. Continue Reading »
Despite its flaws, Louise Penny’s latest novel is ultimately a book of fundamental human goodness. It encourages us to look at a child, as happens at a significant New Year’s Eve moment, and not see “Down syndrome,” but a person with a name—a person given for us to love. Continue Reading »
The Index of Self-Destructive Acts is the Big New York Book of the 2020s, as Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities was for the 1980s. Continue Reading »
In declaring that it is inappropriate for a straight actor to play a gay man on screen, Hanks negates the importance of the shared humanity that makes him empathetic in the first place. Continue Reading »
As a young First Things reader, I found it both consoling and inspiring to be part of a community of people who believed, as I did, that the Christian faith is both beautiful and true. Continue Reading »
Commitment makes Maverick the oldest and truest type of Naval officer; the oldest and truest type of American; and finally, the oldest and truest type of man. Continue Reading »
Good bookstores invite us to contemplate truths that lie beyond our everyday concerns. Continue Reading »
As First Things launches our spring fundraising campaign, I invite you to man the ramparts with us. Please join us in speaking that first word, the one that will shape the future. Continue Reading »
Even after Orwell explicitly diverged from some of Chesterton’s views in the 1930s, under the influence of socialist ideas and hopes, Chesterton’s assumptions and political and ethical conceptions continued to shape him. Continue Reading »
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