Pastoral care for Loneliness: A New Apostolate, by Matthew Fforde (Gracewing, £9.99) Sometimes a reviewer has to ask themselves, following the changing events of the days, whether some books deserve to be noticed again, to prevent them getting lost in the flood tide of new books which seem so often to carry away good books,…
A Late Finding, a novel by Lucy Beckett (Gracewing, £20.00 / €24.00) We seem to live in a time where Catholic culture has passed out of general public discourse, especially in fiction. The days of Fr Benson, Belloc, Chesterton, Waugh, Graham Greene and others are lost in the past. Yet there must be a readership…
Many readers who find many of today’s novels present them with a problem, will find many titles that they long to reread (which is the real pleasure of all reading), or have heard of, but which never come their way, which are hard to find in libraries, will be delighted by what they can find…
Gaza, so much in the news recently, is one of the world’s oldest cities, though one might not believe this from what one reads or hears about it today in the media. Gaza, which lies 50 miles or so south-south-west of Jerusalem, was in antiquity a great Philistine city and fortress, often mentioned in the…
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier, with a new afterword (Vintage, £9.99 / €12.60) The author of this book would, I think, regard this ambition as the start of a race to the bottom. Jaron Lanier is a Jeremiah of the internet who has emerged directly from Silicon Valley.…
The Power of Thank You: Discover the God of Gratitude by Joyce Meyer (Hodder and Stoughton, £9.99 / €11.99) Each moment that you’re given,” Joyce Meyer writes, “is a precious gift from God.” How often were we told when small to ‘say thank’ on so many occasions? But how little it affects the adult world. Many are…
An exhibition by Anthony Kelly, Seán McCrum, Peter Reid, and Paddy Sammon in the Irish Architectural Archives, 45 Merrion Square; run to 29 March 2024; free The Ariège is a French department that lies in the Pyrenees between Carcassonne and the mountain state of Andorra. It is one of the least populated regions of France,…
St Brigid was recognised from an early date as one of the ‘Three Patrons of Ireland’. Born of the Celtic nobility, in Irish history and legend she has always held a premier place; and yet about her life and achievement there has always been, because of her early date, so soon after St Patrick, both…
The Great Dreamer: The Life and Mission of St Francis Xavier by Brendan Comerford (Messenger Publications, €12.95 / £11.95) St Francis Xavier is among the most celebrated of the original body of Jesuits. He has been the subject of many biographies and devotional books in the past – the author mentions some of them on…
The other day to a female associate of mine (which is modern speak for my wife) who remarked to me that she had a clear recollection of a prayer used in her Dublin convent school in the early 1950s, she thinks about 1953, which the diocese had asked to be used in both schools and…