biography
The vocation of Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau's beautiful writing, biographer Laura Dassow Walls shows, is scripture waiting to be heard.
The stubborn love and inflexible mercy of Dorothy Day
More than a memoir, Kate Hennessy's book about her grandmother is a participant biography written from the inside out.
Kierkegaard and his gifts for the church
Stephen Backhouse’s accessible biography reveals a man who worked hard to conceal himself.
The isolation of Wallace Stevens
A new biography reveals the poet’s devotion to his vocation. It also reveals his loneliness.
Penelope Fitzgerald, by Hermione Lee
Penelope Fitzgerald wrote her first novel at 60 and became famous at 80. "How does she do it?" asked A. S. Byatt. Hermione Lee tries to answer.
reviewed by Lawrence Wood
In Bonhoeffer’s company: Biographer Charles Marsh
"Bonhoeffer came to embody some of the contradictions modernity imposed on the faith. I could happily spend the rest of my life sorting through this."
by David Heim
Harriet Beecher Stowe, by Nancy Koester
The Harriet Beecher Stowe of Nancy Koester’s new biography is not the one with which most readers are familiar—the “little woman who made this big war,” as Abraham Lincoln reportedly said about the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
reviewed by Kathryn Gin Lum
Hijacking Bonhoeffer
For Eric Metaxas, polarization is a structural motif: his mission is to reclaim the true Bonhoeffer from liberals.