Back in the 1950’s, when I was a kid in a Jesuit high school, a novel called Mr. Blue, by Myles Connolly, was all the rage. The eponymous hero was a mystical type who combined the social activism of Dorothy Day with the contemplative reserve of Thomas Merton. In short, he made Catholicism cool

I’ve just finished reading Edward Hirsch’s How to Read a Poem (Harcourt Brace, 352p, $23 hardcover; Harvest, $15 paperback) with its wonderfully subversive and liberating subtitle, And Fall in Love With Poetry, andtrue to its promiseI have just fallen in love with poetry all over again.

The 20th century has concluded. Thomas Merton remains the single most influential American Catholic spiritual author of that century. Judging from the number of current publications by and about Merton, his spiritual vision remains as captivating today as when he broke upon the scene in 1948 with hi

Lent is just the right size. Forty days is enough time to get to know the desert and for most of us too little time to be swallowed by it. Guides are always welcome on the sometimes inconvenient, scary and unpredictable journey—including good books.

With a little bit of luck we can trace a certain recent huffing and puffing to a distinguished corps of papal observers desperately striving to keep abreast since 1995 of the spate of lengthy and weighty biographies of Pope John Paul II. More than one Vaticanist has taken great and vicarious pleasur