Books for every kind of reader are featured in our Spring Books special literary issue.
Rather than framing moral philosophy as just another form of epistemology (how can we know what to do?), Iris Murdoch was asking a more classical question: “How can we make ourselves morally better?” she asks. “These are the questions the philosopher should try to answer.”
For decades, Lopez has sought to re-establish our ethical relationships with the land and the other creatures who dwell on it. But Lopez, like many authors, struggles against labels.
C.S. Lewis does not come to lovely conclusions about his God or his religion or his suffering. He asks many more questions than he answers. He rants, questions, weeps and feels terrible, deservedly sorry for himself and for the woman he loved so much and has now lost. And in doing so, he renders in
In “Steepletop,” an essay in which Mary Oliver recalls her time living at Edna St. Vincent Millay’s estate of the same name, she insists: “We need to be each others’ storytellers—at least we have to try. One wants to know what the beautiful strangers were like—one needs to know.
When it comes to writing fiction about the papacy, we imagine the popes we want—most of the time.
Crosby was the most Catholic superstar the United States has ever seen.