Book review: “Shalako” by Louis L’Amour
Louis L’Amour died in 1988 at the age of 80. In his long life as a writer, he published 105 novels and other books, almost all of them westerns or [...]
Book review: “Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink” by David Margolick
Sports books tend to be bland reading. They can’t hold a candle to watching an athlete ply his or her trade. In Beyond Glory, David Margolick does a good job [...]
“Tell ’em about the dream, Martin!”
It was a moment of high drama. And Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was trying to find his rhythm. He stood before the Lincoln Memorial to address some quarter of [...]
Book review: “But Come Ye Back” by Beth Lordan
I wonder if anyone has written about the waning years of a happy (and, at times, sharp-edged) marriage with as much sensitivity and nuance as Beth Lordan in But Come [...]
Book review: “Gates of Dannemora” by John L. Bonn
I think I was 12 when I read John L. Bonn’s Gates of Dannemora. That’s more than a half century ago. The Second Vatican Council was about to start, and [...]
Book review: “Young Stalin” by Simon Sebag Montefiore
While reading Young Stalin, I was struck by the very human and, at times, very attractive portrait that Simon Sebag Montefiore paints of Joseph Stalin. At various points in the [...]
Freedom “for all God’s children”
On August 28, 1963, a solemn, deliberate Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. began his address at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial — the climax of the March on [...]
A parish, like a family, is made of woven lives
By Patrick T. Reardon The baby crawled along the carpet in an open area in the back of church. She was dressed in a celebration of white and red horizontal [...]
Book review: “A Perfect Spy” by John Le Carre
I am surprised that, having finished John Le Carre’s A Perfect Spy a few days ago, the image of Rick Pym that remains in my mind is this one: …Rick [...]
Who is a saint?
Pope John Paul and President Bill Clinton The recent fast-track beatification of Pope John Paul II has got me thinking about saints. Throughout its 2,000-year history, the Catholic Church [...]