Michael Longley, the Irish poet whose long career included more than 40 books, died last week. He was lauded by literary, social and political figures alike for his many contributions to Irish literature and to the cause of social reconciliation.

Josephine Ward was a strong critic of Catholic modernism, and many of her novels featured protagonists struggling to reconcile au courant political and religious ideas with the strictures of the Catholic Church.

D. J. Waldie's strikingly beautiful book in 1996 about what it was like to grow up in Lakewood, Calif., "Holy Land," is one of many writings by this chronicler of Los Angeles's past and future.

David Lodge's novels—as well as his many works of nonfiction—made him an important figure in 20th-century British literature. He also captured well the angst of many lay Catholics in the aftermath of Vatican II.

John Banville is surely the only crime novelist in recent memory who has won the Booker Prize and is regularly rumored to be in the running for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The box office success of “Gladiator II” is a reminder that many Americans are obsessed with the Roman Empire. They've been joined over the years by more than a few ‘America’ contributors.