Books

I read Lauren Winner's new book with the sort of joy one feels when watching someone utterly hit their stride.

Instead of sitting down to rage at a blank page again, I grabbed a copy of Don Quixote. Three days later, the ice of time had cracked.

Study of the Armenian genocide has attracted many fine scholars, but Ronald Suny's book stands out.

When I was 13, my pastor slipped me Glenn Clark's The Soul's Sincere Desire. Within three pages, I knew I had a soul.

In her 11th novel Toni Morrison returns to the foundation of most of her fiction: childhood and its traumatic effects.

Karl Ove Knausgaard forced me to cancel six months of my life in order to fixate on 30 years of his.

The appeal of Abandonment to Divine Providence is its simple, lyrical repetition of a single idea: whatever happens is the will of God.

The "Fall of Rome...is not a historical event; it's more akin to a theological idea." So proclaims Douglas Boin, sacking the understanding of early Christian identity that has prevailed since at least the second century.

Christian Smith and Hilary Davidson's book is a tale of two ways of life: with generosity and without.

Brantley Gasaway contends that the progressive evangelical movement "stands as strong as ever." Which is to say, not very strong at all.

Austen Ivereigh's book on Francis has caused some controversy. It's also the most important biography of Jorge Mario Bergoglio yet published.

It’s easy to imagine health-care reform that does more than the ACA. It's almost impossible to see it getting enacted, as Steven Brill's book reminds us.

Why do scientists turn to questions traditionally reserved for the humanities? Tom McLeish argues for a deep kinship between the two spheres.

Secularists from Voltaire to Richard Dawkins have attacked religion for its connection to violence. Karen Armstrong flatly rejects the idea.

Samuel Adams's book is important on two counts: he focuses on the once-neglected period of the Second Temple, and he asks economic questions rather than theological-spiritual ones.