Which new books deserve a spot under the Christmas tree?
We asked our contributing editors to each pick two.
The value of God-shaped art
T. S. Eliot and the other modernist theologian-poets knew that artists are makers of worlds.
Inklings of good news
The proliferation of Inklings books is often prompted by Christian triumphalism. Carol and Philip Zaleski have something more interesting to say.
Inexhaustible Lewis
"You'll never get to the bottom" of C. S. Lewis, said Tolkien. The books published for the 50th anniversary of Lewis's death reveal the truth of this statement.
The Lion’s World, by Rowan Williams
Who would have thought that a new book on C. S. Lewis could bring fresh, even revolutionary insight to perhaps the most overstudied Christian writer in the anglophone world?...
Blessed and dangerous
The spate of books on John Henry Newman shows that there is little hope of settling arguments about him—or about Benedict's understanding of him.
Mystery of evil: Sin in the novels of P. D. James
The archbishop of Canterbury recently observed that “P. D....
The liberal Chesterton
G. K. Chesterton as Controversialist, Essayist, Novelist and Critic. By John D. Coates. Edwin Mellen Press, 206 pp., $109.95...
Mysteries and morals: The historical fiction of C. J. Sansom
"Man is wolf to man," said Roman playwright Plautus, and novelist C. J. Sansom seems to agree. The main character in his historical novels, detective Matthew Shardlake, repeats the ancient adage three times in Dark Fire, the second novel in the Shardlake series.Through the first-person narratives of a 16th-century lawyer, Sansom gives fictional life to a gloomy but not hopeless view of human nature.In Dissolution, the first book, King Henry VIII closes a Benedictine monastery on England's Cornish coast as part of a massive seizure of church lands and properties. In Dark Fire, Henry fears that Catholic forces may revolt with a magical concoction, a jellied petroleum akin to napalm. In the newest book, Sovereign, the king makes a grand tour of his kingdom as a display of royal might and a warning to Catholic forces in the north.