In this series some of our literary collaborators will be giving suggestions for lockdown reading, books of all kinds to amuse and raise our spirits. This week, Felix M. Larkin writes of that ‘study of provincial life’ which deals with normal people and their hidden lives, George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1871-72). At a public lecture in…
Theology and Ecology in Dialogue: The Wisdom of Laudato Si’ by Dermot A. Lane, with a foreword by Seán McDonagh SCC (Messenger Publications, €19.95/£17.95) This year marks the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’s dramatic and historic encyclical Laudato Si’. It is being marked by the publication here in Ireland of a book exploring the document’s significance…
Utopia for Realists and How we Can Get There by Rutger Bergman (Bloomsbury, £8.99; can be ordered online for around €10.00) Christopher Moriarty At Easter, Pope Francis delivered a message endorsing the concept of the universal basic wage. This idea, whereby every individual receives a basic income from their government whether they are in employment…
The Bee’s Knees by James Morrissey (Currach Books, €19.99) Barbara Pierce The title comes from 1920s slang: “Bee’s knees – highly admired person or thing; Something excellent!” This all applies so well to James Morrissey’s tremendous book. As a long-time bee keeper in flowery south Dublin, I simply loved it and warmly recommend it to all.…
In this series, some literary collaborators will be giving suggestions for lockdown reading, books of all kinds to amuse and raise our spirits. This week: Ian d’Alton writes about The Swiss Family Robinson (1812) and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1871) For adults, children’s books often open a window onto a…
Medieval Philosophy (A History of Philosophy without any Gaps) by Peter Adamson (Oxford University Press, £25) When I discussed with a friend my intention of reviewing this tome – and tome it is, running to more than 600 closely printed pages – he wondered: “Are readers of The Irish Catholic interested in medieval philosophy?” Ignoring this…
The Sin of Certainty: Why God desires our trust more than our ‘correct’ beliefs by Peter Enns (Hodder & Stoughton, £14.99) Author Enns, who is a professor of Biblical Studies at a Pennsylvanian University, is a writer in the evangelical tradition. This book, though issued before the present plague descended on us, has interesting things to…
Irish Servicewomen in the Great War: From Western Front to roaring twenties by Barbara Walsh (Pen & Sword Books, €25) Books dealing with service in time of crisis or disaster are always an interesting read, as so often they reveal aspects of the best parts of people’s characters. This is especially true in war, and the…
Over the coming weeks some of our literary collaborators will give suggestions for ‘lock-down reading’, books of all kinds to amuse and raise our spirits. This week: Anthony Redmond on The Path to Rome (1902) by Hilaire Belloc. It must be 40 years since I first read The Path to Rome and I have…
Journeys of Faith: Stories of Pilgrimage from Medieval Ireland by Louise Nugent (Columba Books, €26.99) This book is an epitome of a thousand years of Irish history, roughly 500 AD to 1500 AD. It is a reminder, if one is really needed, of just how important the context of history is to understanding present attitudes…
Peter Costello