For a long time, Eugene Kennedy was certain that Joseph Bernardin, the soft-spoken, bridge-building archbishop of Cincinnati, would become the first American-born Pope. "He was a perfect candidate for it," [...]
Roger Ebert's "Life Itself" is a newspaperman's memoir, which is to say it's breezy, fact-filled and rather light on emotions. That makes sense, of course. For all his fame as [...]
Consider this scene: A full hour before the party reached the city they had begun to note the perplexing changes in the atmosphere. It grew darker all the time, and [...]
In an often-reproduced photograph, Henrietta Lacks stands in a matching skirt and jacket, her hands at her hips, her hair complexly coiffed, a smile brightening her face. An attractive, lively [...]
It took me a long time to finish Jim Crace's "The Gift of Stone" because, although short, it is a very, very good novel. At 179 pages, "The Gift of [...]
"Miracle Ball" is a thin book, just 231 pages. And it could have been thinner. Even so, it's a sweet story, a sort of Pilgrim's Progress through the worlds of [...]
More than 40 years after it was first published, Jim Bouton's "Ball Four," his diary of his 1969 season with two major league teams, remains eminently readable and entertaining. And [...]
In 2005, the British publishing house of Canongate began producing a series of short novels based on myths from Western and non-Western civilizations. "The Penelopiad" by Margaret Atwood was among [...]
When my daughter saw me reading "The Odyssey," she made a face. Back in high school, I think it was, she had to read it, and hated it. Truth be [...]
Which is this nation's most hallowed ground? The phrase has been used to describe the Gettysburg battlefield, Arlington National Cemetery and Ground Zero. I write about this question in an [...]
