Imagine this nightmare scenario On a beautiful day in Southern California you have just dropped off your children at school On your return just a block from your home a police car approaches and flashes its lights for you to stop When you do an officer handcuffs you and drives back to your ho

Penelope Fitzgerald rsquo s family crops up often in her prose She alludes to her two Victorian grandfathers one the bishop of Manchester and the other of Lincoln to her uncle Monsignor Ronald Knox and to another uncle and aunt who spent their engagement in the 1890 rsquo s corresponding with

When The Wall Street Journal announced last year that Bob Dylan had lifted lyrics in his most recent album from an obscure Japanese author it came as no surprise to generations of Dylan fans who had long recognized him as music rsquo s most prolific borrower When ldquo Blowin rsquo in the Wind r

On Aug 15 the feast of Mary rsquo s Assumption a homeless Chaucer scholar on antipsychotic drugs has a vision that convinces him that 14-year-old Francesca Dunn is the Virgin pregnant with the Savior Certain he rsquo s been elected to serve and protect her Chester finds the girl at a Colorado

You rsquo ll need an iron stomach and a leather bottom to get through these two investigative reports but if you want to know about sexual abuse in the church they are indispensable You will also have to put up with cute titles and chapter heads as well as an occasionally questionable judgment

El Salvador rsquo s civil war took 175 000 lives and during the dozen years of its duration human rights abuses ran rampant Those who denounced the abuses mdash like Archbishop Oscar Romero the six Jesuits at the University of El Salvador and other activists mdash were targeted for assassination