The best Christmas gift — a life story
I get a lot of books for Christmas or my birthday, but the writings I've most treasured have been the autobiographies that my wife, Cathy, and our kids David and [...]
Book review: “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” by James Agee and Walker Evans
There are many ways to approach "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men," the majestic, mystical and often maddening book that James Agee and Walker Evans published in 1941. I'm going [...]
God’s voice in a scratching sound? an itch?
Published November 25, 2011 in the National Catholic Reporter Friends of mine get angry with the Catholic Church hierarchy, and, Lord knows, there's enough reason for that. To err is [...]
Book Review: “Killing Lincoln” by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
You'd never know from reading "Killing Lincoln" that Bill O'Reilly is a conservative political commentator. O'Reilly, the host of The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel, doesn't use this [...]
Book review: “No Night Without Stars” by Andre Norton
Andre Norton's "No Night Without Stars" landed in bookstores in 1975. That was 23 years after her book "Star Man's Son," better known as "Daybreak — 2250 A.D.," appeared in [...]
Book review: “Tinkers” by Paul Harding
As "Tinkers" opens, George is dying. Paul Harding makes this clear with his first sentence: "George Washington Crosby began to hallucinate eight days before he died." By the end of [...]
Honoring veterans — of all sorts
Striding purposely around a bend of a park path recently in Washington, D.C., Jim Chianakas suddenly saw before him the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. "There it is," he said. "Wow!" Beside [...]
Book review: “Clarence Darrow: Atttorney for the Damned” by John A. Farrell
Finishing "Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned" by John A. Farrell, I was surprised to find myself underwhelmed by the book. No question, it's a good solid effort. Farrell has [...]
Fully American: The election of JFK and the place of Catholics in the U.S.
When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, I thought he would be canonized. St. JFK? It seems silly now. Now that all the stories of Kennedy's womanizing have [...]
Book review: “The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution” by Mark Roseman
About midway through "The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution" by Mark Roseman, I got to wondering how writers like Roseman do it. I mean, writers who spend a good [...]