Depths of Hell, Heights of English
Paradise Lost: A Primer by Michael Cavanagh. Catholic University of America Press, 2020. Paperback, 256 pages, $30. Reviewed by Casey Chalk There’s great value in reading fictional literature that imagines hell, devils, and the origin of evil—and it’s not just because...
Timing Devices
Ordinary Time: Poems by Paul Mariani. Slant Books, 2019. Paperback, 80 pages, $11. Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl The weeks in the Christian liturgical calendar outside the major festal seasons are numbered in ordinary time, First Sunday, Second Sunday, and so on,...
Sources for Rebuilding
A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream by Yuval Levin. Basic Books, 2020. Hardcover, 256 pages, $28. By Anthony M. Barr “When they were filled, he said unto his...
The Winter Sportsmen-Soldiers
The Winter Army: The World War II Odyssey of the 10th Mountain Division, America’s Elite Alpine Warriors by Maurice Isserman. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019. Hardcover, 318 pages, $28. Reviewed by William F. Meehan III I judged Maurice Isserman’s book by its cover...
The Elon Musk of Botany Bay?
The Multifarious Mr. Banks: From Botany Bay to Kew, The Natural Historian Who Shaped the World By Toby Musgrave. Yale University Press, 2020. Hardcover, 357 pp., $35. Reviewed by Karl C. Schaffenburg In current usage “multifarious” refers to a thing that demonstrates...
Kirk saw poetry, fiction, tradition, and restraint as essential to understanding America and preserving its character. In his review of "On America," @cjscalia explores Kirk’s vision of the founding, statesmanship, literature, and the enduring ideas that have shaped the republic.