Thomas Carlyle might not have called the study of economic matters dismal if instead of debating the gloomy Thomas Malthus on population growth he had come across the economist Steven Levitt and his often humorous takes on whether drug-dealing really pays or the effect that the name a parent selec

The question that forms the title of Michael Crosby rsquo s work reveals the perspective from which he approaches the situation of contemporary religious life It is also a measure of hisand the book rsquo shonesty and realism He eschews a repetition of the contemporary rhetoric about religious lif

The best-selling novelist and semiotician Umberto Eco now applies his considerable skill to the matter of identity Along the way readers too will ponder who we are and how we know who we are In The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana An Illustrated Novel Eco rsquo s protagonist Yambo full name Gi

Anne Lamott strews many bitter and distracting political asides throughout her new book of essays Plan B Further Thoughts on Faith but her honesty and humor rescue the book from being a polemic As she did in Traveling Mercies Lamott shares her day-to-day struggle to live as a Christian and the

Eudora Welty closed her best-selling autobiography One Writer rsquo s Beginnings with the words As you have seen I am a writer who came of a sheltered life A sheltered life can be a daring one as well For all serious daring comes from within Originally opposed to the idea of a biography towar

One of the most enduring images I have of my visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City in 1999 is the proliferation of religious goods booths selling every conceivable souvenir or item of devotion which one must pass in order to reach the shrine itself I remember being troubled