Balzac: The Man for My Thirties?
By Jeffrey Wald I have come to realize that a writer has indelibly marked each decade of my life. In my first decade of life, that author was Franklin Dixon. All right, I understand that “Franklin W. Dixon,” the author of Hardy Boys, was a pen name used by multiple...
A Prodigal Search for Self and the South
Where I Come From: Stories from the Deep South By Rick Bragg. Knopf, 2020. Hardcover, 256 pages, $26.95 Reviewed by Owen Edwards Where I Come From by Rick Bragg was published a few months before Uprooted by Grace Olmstead, and has strong resonances with it. Bragg’s...
A Crisis and the Heroic March of Medicine
The Great War and the Birth of Modern Medicine: A History by Thomas Helling, M.D. Pegasus Books, 2022. Hardcover, 496 pages, $32. Reviewed by Karl C. Shaffenburg The inscription on Dr. Thomas Helling’s book, The Great War and the Birth of Modern Medicine: A History...
Scruton Makes His Case
Against the Tide: The Best of Roger Scruton’s Columns, Commentaries, and Criticism Edited by Mark Dooley. Bloomsbury Continuum, 2022. Hardcover, 256 pages, $28. Reviewed by John G. Grove How should the conservative respond to a time in which so much seems to be lost?...
A Cryptic Prophecy for the Information Age
Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy by George Gilder. Regnery, 2018. Paperback, 256 pages, $17. Reviewed by Auguste Meyrat Although it seems like ages ago, there was a time when the internet was a fun and exciting place. Like...
Back to the Pro-Life Future
Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v. Wade by Daniel K. Williams. Oxford University Press, 2016. Hardcover, 380 pages, $35.95. Reviewed by David G. Bonagura, Jr. “Before you know it,” commented NARAL president Lee Gilding in 1973, days after the...
Only the Lover Writes
Contemplative Realism: A Theological-Aesthetical Manifesto by Joshua Hren. Benedict XVI Institute, 2022. Hardcover, 65 pages, $13. Reviewed by John-Paul Heil Transcontinental voyages provide fecund soil for the seeds of self-reflection. On one such journey, returning...
The Odyssey of ‘The Godfather’
Leave The Gun, Take the Cannoli: The Epic Story of the Making of the Godfather By Mark Seal. Gallery Books, 2021. Hardback, 448 pages, $29. Reviewed by Paul Krause I believe in the Godfather. Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather is, possibly, my favorite film. I say...
Americanism and the ‘Roman’ Catholic
American Catholic: The Politics of Faith During the Cold War by D. G. Hart. Cornell University Press, 2020. Hardback, 280 pages, $29.95 Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl In 1864, Pope Pius IX issued Syllabus Errorum, outlining heresies opposed to Catholic Church...
There are metaphorical hills on which I would be willing to die. The Oxford comma is one of them.
So easy to forget that the best way to educate yourself is to read great works of literature and philosophy, then talk about them. Bring back the salon!