by the Books Editor When they were in doubt about a book to give a child or young person, our parents, grandparents and great grandparents gave a classic and in doing so followed an important tradition. But it is one with for some people disconcerting results. The philosopher L.P. Jacks, the once eminent editor of…
The World of Books by the books editor The other day I was reading a book by the American palaeontologist George Gaylord Simpson about his expedition through part of Patagonia in 1930 in search of fossils. His finds helped recreate an idea of past life; but it was not his comments on geology that caught…
My Words will not Pass Away by Fr Martin Hogan (Messenger Publications, €19.95/£18.95) Fr Martin Hogan formerly lectured in New Testament studies at Mater Dei in Dublin, and had written some five previous books on reflections for the liturgical years. These commentaries allow readers to enjoy a period of reflection in their own time, recollections…
Karl I, destined to be the last Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary (where he ruled as Karoly IV), succeeded on the death of his great-uncle Franz Joseph who had blundered into war with Serbia and so opened the way to the ruin of Europe. When the Emperor Karl gave up the government of…
The Birth of Jesus the Jew: Midrash and the Infancy Gospels by Peter Keenan (Columba Books, €14.99/£12.99) Peter Keenan is a man with a mission. He styles himself “a post-holocaust Christian”, and believes that the outlook of all Christians of every persuasion should be shaped by the fact of the Shoah. This has a bearing…
Chaplains: Ministers of Hope ed by Alan Hilliard, with a foreword by Bishop Eamonn Walsh (Messenger Publications, €19.95/£18.95) Unheard Voices: Reflections of a prison chaplain by Imelda Wickham PBVM, foreword by Peter McVerry SJ (Messenger Publications, €12.95/£11.95) Our attitudes to chaplains may well depend on our own experiences. One of my brothers, who lived in…
Finding Peace compiled by Sister Stan (Columba Books, €16.99 / £14.50) A reader opening this book is likely to turn first out of curiosity to those entries by public figures such as the party leaders of the Government and opposition: this is worth reading, and recalling perhaps on future occasions, such as at the time of…
Joy in the Good: Rekindling an Inner Fire by Joachim Hartmann SJ and Annette Clara Unkelhäußer (Messenger Publication, €12.95 / £11.20) On first picking up this book I was taken by a sentence in the blurb: “We overlook the rich and complementary relationship between silence and communication. In silence we can rediscover the gift of…
The Doré Illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy by Gustave Dore (Dover Art Library, £12.99) Gustave Doré (1832-1883): Master of Imagination Hardcover by Erika Dolphin and others (Flammarion, £31.96) William Blake: Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’, the Complete Drawings edited by Sebastian Schutze (Taschen, £29.00) Four centuries ago Italy, indeed the whole of Christian Europe, was absorbing the news that the…
The Celtic Myths that Shape the Way We Think by Mark Williams (Thames & Hudson, £20.00/$23.99) This book ought to have a wide readership for it explores an area of modern literature that has, since the mid-Victorian era, exerted great influence over writers, artists and filmmakers in these islands. Mark Williams was born in London and…