The Passion and the Cross by Ronald Rolheiser (Hodder & Stoughton, £9.99 hb) Lent approaches, and many will be looking round for a book which will provide them with reading during the weeks to Good Friday and Easter. For readers of this paper, and for the many other publications where his columns are syndicated around…

Soldiers of Christ: The Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar in Medieval Ireland ed. Martin Browne OSB and Colmán Ó Clabaigh OSB (Four Courts Press, €50.00 hb) Ever since the controversy over The Da Vinci Code the Knights Templar have become a stock item in books from  ‘alternative historians’ who have produced so many strange…

Killers of the King: the men who dared to execute Charles I by Charles Spencer (Bloomsbury, £8.99pb) J. Anthony Gaughan  A book by Princess Diana’s brother would be certain to be of wide interest. But in this account of the vengeance that pursued the men who ordered the death of Charles I he has found…

Augustine: Conversions and Confessions by Robin Lane Fox (Allen Lane, £30.00) In the history of Western civilisation St Augustine has a special place. Just how special many may not realise. In any academic library the works of the Greek and Latin Fathers in their original (say in the standard edition of Migne) occupy a great…

Jim Noonan OCD The Eighth Day, selected writings of Christian Bobin translated by Pauline Matarasso (Darton, Longman & Todd, £12.99) An inspirational French author, Christian Bobin is a prolific writer, producing over 50 books, in more than 30 years, and has been a bestseller (his books have sold over 200,000 copies per edition) in France for many…

Fighting Irish: The Irish Regiments in the First World War by Gavin Hughes (Merrion Press, €19.00pb, €65.00hb) This is an account of the Irishmen who fought in the ranks of the British army in World War I. The narrative includes descriptions of some of the killing fields of that horrendous war. Most of the Irish served…

Silence and Thomas Merton The Powerball Lottery in the USA has been much in the news recently, partly because of the huge prize on offer to the lucky winner, or it seems, winners: $1.6 billion. Just think of that in terms of aid for famine and flood victims. What could an individual not do with…

John Wyse Jackson Windharp: Poems of Ireland since 1916 edited by Niall MacMonagle (Penguin Ireland, £20.00hb) A plethora of poetry anthologies has appeared in Ireland over the last few years. This latest one takes as its starting point the date of our nation’s foundation myth, 1916. Its editor, a teacher and broadcaster, is an old hand at…

The Real Archbishop Mannix from the Sources by James Franklin, Gerald O. Nolan and Michael Gilchrist (Connorcourt Publishing, AUS$29.95) Twelve biographies of Archbishop Daniel Mannix have already been published. They range from the hagiographic to the critical. The authors justify this addition to the list on the grounds that it is an account of Mannix based…

The Four Gospels: Following in the Footsteps of Jesus by Maurice Hogan SSC (Veritas, €14.99) This interesting book on the four Gospels seems to have grown directly out of the author’s own experiences. Fr Maurice Hogan is a Columban Father. After he was ordained, back in 1965, he went out to the Far East, working…