Chaucer: A European Life marion turner princeton, 624 pages, $39.95 Chaucer has not lacked for biographies, but Marion Turner’s is of a rare ambition and competence. Its method is geographical, even topographical, approaching the poet’s life by way of the extraordinarily disparate places . . . . Continue Reading »
We often blame the unfavorable treatment of traditional religion in contemporary art on animus or ignorance. Sometimes that’s an accurate assessment. But we underestimate how devilishly difficult it is to depict devout, God-centered characters convincingly, without making them plastic saints or . . . . Continue Reading »
John Wilson recommends the writings of Isaac Bashevis Singer.
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A devout Jewish writer faced the horrors of war in his work. Continue Reading »
A bibliophile makes his picks for essential summer reading. Continue Reading »
Featuring Dana Gioia on John Donne, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Elizabeth Jennings, and his latest collection of essays, The Catholic Writer Today. Continue Reading »
Jeeves and the King of Clubs: A Novel in Homage to P.G. Wodehouse by ben schott little, brown, 320 pages, $27 Jeeves and the Wedding Bells: An Homage to P.G. Wodehouse by sebastian faulks st. martin’s, 256 pages, $25.99 Aunts, Comrades, Gentlemen . . . According to Hilaire Belloc, . . . . Continue Reading »
The Collected Novellas of Stefan Zweig by stefan zweig translated by anthea bell pushkin, 384 pages, $30 The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig by stefan zweig translated by anthea bell pushkin, 720 pages, $14.99 The World of Yesterday by stefan zweig translated by anthea bell . . . . Continue Reading »
If a work of literary art tells a unique and critical truth, then it is good—worth giving oneself to—and its beauty has not misled us. Continue Reading »
Marilynne Robinson's Gilead should be read as a summa pietatis rather than a summa theologiae. Continue Reading »
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