Framing a Life in Liberal Learning

Framing a Life in Liberal Learning

From the Cast-Iron Shore: In Lifelong Pursuit of Liberal Learning by Francis Oakley. University of Notre Dame Press, 2018. Paperback, 526 pages, $35. Reviewed by Weronika Janczuk The story narrated in any given memoir is dependent on the life of the one who narrates....
A New Apologetic

A New Apologetic

Steadfast in Faith: Catholicism and the Challenges of Secularism by David G. Bonagura, Jr. Cluny Media, 2019. Paperback, 308 pages, $19.95. Reviewed by Casey Chalk “When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?” This question, asked by Jesus and recorded in...
The Lost Futures of Mark Fisher

The Lost Futures of Mark Fisher

K-punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher Repeater, 2018. Paperback, 500 pages, $30. Reviewed by Ben Sixsmith In 2013, the British cultural and political theorist Mark Fisher wrote an article called “Exiting the Vampire Castle” in which he took...
The Doctor’s Mask, Removed

The Doctor’s Mask, Removed

Counting Backwards: A Doctor’s Notes on Anesthesia by Henry Jay Przybylo, MD. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2017. Hardcover, 256 pages, $26. Reviewed by Jacob A. Bruggeman On occasion, one can come upon good books by coincidence. An offhand recommendation from a...
Nothing More to Prove

Nothing More to Prove

The Life of Saul Bellow: Love and Strife, 1965–2005 By Zachary Leader Alfred A. Knopf, 2018. Hardcover, 784 pages, $40. Reviewed by Carl Rollyson I was hard on the first volume, The Life of Saul Bellow: To Fame and Fortune, 1915–1964, in the June 2015 issue of The New...
Liturgies Real and Imagined

Liturgies Real and Imagined

The 21: A Journey into the Land of Coptic Martyrs by Martin Mosebach. Plough, 2019. Hardcover, 272 pages, $26. What Was Before: A Novel, by Martin Mosebach. Seagull Books, 2014. Hardcover, 248 pages, $27.50. Reviewed by Trevor C. Merrill This powerful little book...