George Saunders’s place among the best living American writers is secure. And while Saunders is not often included in discussions of the best Catholic writers, in both his upbringing and his thematic concerns, his work fits solidly in the Catholic literary tradition.
Books
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Review: A Steve Martin smorgasbord
Steve Martin’s new memoir offers an honest look at the deeply human struggles and achievements behind his “wild and crazy guy” persona.
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Review: The ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ and church-state tensions
Brenda Wineapple’s ‘Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted a Nation’—about the famous Scopes “monkey trial,” is timely. Then again, church-state conflicts simply never go away in the United States.
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Review: Are we overthinking motherhood?
A handful of books published over the past few years get at the question of just what makes 21st-century motherhood so uniquely tough and comparatively unappealing when compared to the child-free life.
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Building a Palestinian theology amid the ruin
‘The Cross and the Olive Tree’ allows peace advocates in the Middle East to imagine a new year with a glimmer of hope.
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Review: Rediscovering a forgotten theological force at Vatican II
With her new study of Marie-Dominique Chenu, O.P., Mary Kate Holman offers a major contribution to ressourcement scholarship and the history of Vatican II.
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Review: the catholic Catholic imagination of John Darnielle & the Mountain Goats
John Darnielle’s ‘This Year: 365 Songs Annotated’ collects lyrics from, and brief reflections on, 365 different Mountain Goats songs. Catholicism saturates his lyrics, which include references to saints, heretics, the rosary and the Bible.
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Review: The U.S. church today—and tomorrow
‘Reclaiming American Catholicism,’ coming in at nearly 400 pages, is a comprehensive and meticulous synopsis of many of the ills that are plaguing the church in the United States.
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Review: Slavery and American Jewish history
The Jewish people in America have long punched above their demographic weight. Consider how deprived our science, music, letters, film and law would be absent the contributions of Abraham’s stock. Owing to this and all the discredited drivel about the American slave trade’s supposed Jewish hub, a fresh, thoughtful treatment of Jews and America’s original […]
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Review: A world inundated by trash
“Every day, the world discards 1.5 billion plastic cups, 250 million pounds of clothes, 220 million aluminum cans, 3 million tires.” These nearly ungraspable numbers are among the staggering revelations with which Alexander Clapp confronts us in ‘Waste Wars.’