Mainly About Books by the Books Editor The lockdown came when many were planning summer excursions. Plans for travel have been postponed. So, being well supplied with books of all kinds, I have been rereading with pleasure some older travel books. One is European Detours (1981), subtitled ‘A travel guide to unusual sights’ –…
Creation Walk: The Amazing Story of a Small Blue Planet by Brian Grogan SJ (Messenger Publications, €9.99) Brian Grogan is a well-known writer and teacher, author of many books. But this new book may well be one of the most effective that he has written some may feel. I have often wondered, reading or listening to…
The cover of Prof. Fr Thomas O’Loughlin’s new book Eating Together, Becoming One (reviewed in our issue of April 2) carries an image that very powerfully evoked themes that the author has explored as an historian and theologian. As a cover image it lost some of its impact as a work of art. In this…
Eating Together, Becoming One: Taking up Pope Francis’s Call to Theologians by Thomas O’Loughlin (Liturgical Press Academic, $US29.95/£19.99; available in several formats, search www.litpress.org.uk; orders@norwichbooksandmusic.co.uk) This is the latest book by well known historian Thomas O’Loughlin, the prominent Irish theologian and liturgist, who was elected president of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain in 2016.…
Food, Feast and Fast: The Christian Era from Ancient World to Environmental Crisis by P. Fintan Lyons OSB (Columba Books, €19.99) Reading Fr Lyons’ title, one’s mind turns back at once to Joseph’s interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream of seven fat and seven lean cows, and seven ears of corn ripely full, and seven ears thin and…
The World of Books by the Books Editor This year we are celebrating Easter in a time of trial. With so many of us being isolated, or rather ‘cocooned’ we have to celebrate much as the very early Christians did, just within the family circle – and indeed as Jews today still celebrate the…
Early Irish Saints by John J. Ó Ríordáin (Columba Books, €12.99) When people talk in general about the saints of early Christian Ireland, that is those three or four centuries after St Patrick, they often emphasise their travels across Europe, adding in as an extra measure some comments on the relevance of this to the…
Mainly About Books by the Books Editor Back in January, Steve Green, the billionaire founder with his family of the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC, issued a book he had co-authored. It is called This Beautiful Book (Zondervan, £18.99), one of a series he is devoting to his main interest in life…
Coping with Coronavirus: How to stay calm and protect your mental health A psychological toolkit Dr Brendan Kelly (Merrion Press, eBook €0.99; audio book in preparation) Dr Kelly, professor of psychiatry at Trinity College, suggested this book to his publisher and within five days he had a text prepared, and a week later they had…
River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey Sister Helen Prejean (Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99) Helen Prejean is the well known author of that massive success as book, film, and even opera, Dead Man Walking (1993). She is one of the most powerful advocates for the abolition of the death penalty, not just in the US, but…