Why Movies are Prayers
Movies Are Prayers: How Films Voice Our Deepest Longings by Josh Larsen. IVP Books, 2017. Paperback, 208 pages, $16. Reviewed by Mark Judge Film critic Josh Larsen has written a beautiful and grace-filled book. Movies Are Prayers got strong reviews in the Christian...
When Burke Became Burke
Edmund Burke and the Invention of Modern Conservatism, 1830–1914: An Intellectual History by Emily Jones. Oxford, 2017. Hardcover, 288 pages, $88. Reviewed by William F. Byrne Two myths, or, at least, oversimplifications, have long surrounded Edmund Burke’s iconic...
Tipping the State’s Sacred Cows
The False Promise of Big Government: How Washington Helps the Rich and Hurts the Poor by Patrick M. Garry. Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2017. Paperback, 112 pages, $10. Reviewed by Jacob Bruggeman Published in 2017 by University of South Dakota professor Patrick...
The Action of Grace
This Our Exile: Short Stories by Joshua Hren. Angelico Press, 2017. Hardcover, 131 pages, $22. Reviewed by Trevor C. Merrill The twelve stories in this slender but powerful volume bring the everyday and the eternal together in compressed, often dreamlike sequences,...
The Forgotten Farnese
Alexander: La Extraordinaria Historia de Alejandro Farnesio by Luis de Carlos Bertrán. Barcelona: Editorial Crítica, 2018. Hardcover, 614 pages, $61. reviewed by Alberto M. Fernandez The Golden Age of Spain was safeguarded by men of iron. Some, like the third Duke of...
The Humane Vision of Elmore Leonard
Westerns: Last Stand at Saber River, Hombre, Valdez is Coming, Forty Lashes Less One, by Elmore Leonard. Edited by Terrence Rafferty. Library of America, 2018. Hardcover, 781 pages, $40. Reviewed by Will Hoyt I first got acquainted with Elmore “Dutch” Leonard when,...
Two Leaders at War
Lincoln and Churchill: Statesmen at War by Lewis E. Lehrman. Stackpole Books, 2018. Hardcover, 526 pages, $35. Reviewed by Chuck Chalberg Studies abound on Lincoln and Churchill. And why not? Each statesman deserves the attention he has received and will continue to...
The Tsarist Commander
Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, Supreme Commander of the Russian Army by Paul Robinson. Northern Illinois University Press, 2016. Hardcover, 465 pages, $35. Reviewed by James Baresel As I write these words it is, quite unintentionally, exactly one hundred years to the...
The New Storytelling, From Tocqueville to Fortnite
By Titus Techera Computer games are the least discussed of our massive entertainment industries. Gaming is uniquely dominated by men and newest among our forms of entertainment, so the suspicion that it owes its success to its criticism of our society is still fresh....
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!