(REVIEW) One sure sign that the pandemic is fading may be the steady stream of books about it that have started to trickle out. It’s true that COVID-19 affected the planet like nothing else in our lifetimes. In fact, the fallout from what has transpired over the last 15 months could be felt for years, if not decades, to come.
Read More(REVIEW) America’s White underclass suffers from many of the same social problems as its Black urban counterparts. National Review journalist Kevin Williamson documents what he calls the Big White Ghetto, where he grew up, to illustrate how both Republicans and Democrats are promoting a narrative of White victimization rather than an ethic of personal responsibility.
Read More(REVIEW) Christians of many theological stripes claim to follow Jesus Christ, but how many actually follow his life and teachings? That’s the central question behind Skye Jethani’s visual devotional book “What If Jesus Was Serious?”
Read More(REVIEW) The book offers readers a detailed history of Catholic thinkers, statesman and military leaders who helped the colonists during the American Revolution. Over the course of 12 chapters, author Dan LeRoy delves into what the fight for freedom would have been like without these figures and, almost more importantly, why they felt the need to help.
Read MoreThe history of Christianity shows different and evolving interpretations on how Christian women should live. Medieval Christians for example prized joining a convent and devoting one’s life to God more than becoming a wife. This history is the subject of a new book by Dr. Beth Allison Barr, a professor of medieval history at Baylor University.
Read More(EXCERPT) “Faith-Based Fraud,” by Warren Cole Smith, is a new book on financial and other scandals in the church. Almost a chapter centers around Bernard Madoff, who confessed to one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history.
Read MoreAsma Uddin, a religious liberty lawyer and a fellow at the Aspen Institute, writes in her new book The Politics of Vulnerability about how American Muslims and conservative Christians can engage better to protect their religious freedoms.
Read More(REVIEW) Unlike any pope of the modern era, no one has been as controversial and polarizing as Francis. This new book tries to delve into what motivates this pontiff and his mission.
Read MoreDr. Jenny Taylor meets an “accompanist” with soul in her English village: the author Maxine Green who with co-author Dr. Phil Daughtry just published the book “The Art of Accompanying” about the life of one’s soul and the delight in being still.
Read More(REVIEW) Church historian Massimo Faggioli's new book “Joe Biden and Catholicism in the United States” offers background of the three previous times a Catholic candidate has been the nominee for the highest office in the land and why Biden's candidacy and now presidency comes at a particularly fraught moment for not just American Catholicism but the global church.
Read MoreThe Rev. James Martin, one of the most famous Catholic priests in this country, has written a new book, Learning to Pray: A Guide for Everyone, that focuses on helping Christians understand what it takes to have a relationship with God.
Read More(REVIEW) David Geisser’s new cookbook in time for the holidays, The Vatican Christmas Cookbook, offers up over 100 recipes from around the world.
Read More(EXCERPT) “Jesus. A World History,” by Markus Spieker, is both a biography of Jesus and a historical narrative of his influence across the world.
Read More(OPINION) That Pope Francis would put his name on a book — written by a British author — criticizing the United States, its media and politics without understanding the First Amendment is a major shortfall of the project. There is also more to this book that the mainstream secular press did not highlight — like the pope’s staunch opposition to abortion.
Read MoreWood joins a chorus of historians who see the New York Times’s 1619 Project as a failed effort to reframe American history and with “1620” makes the case that the Mayflower Compact inaugurated the American experiment in democracy. “If the 1619 Project were a term paper, any knowledgeable, fair-minded teacher would give it an F,” Wood writes. The project’s lead essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones won a Pulitzer Prize.
Read MoreFourteen years after her death, Octavia Butler’s 1993 novel “The Parable of the Sower” hit national bestseller lists for eerily predicting this year’s dystopian-feeling chaos. Her invented religion Earthseed, along with her identity as a Black woman, sets her apart from other science fiction writers who often imagine a faith-less future.
Read More(REVIEW) Marilynne Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005 for her novel Gilead. Jack is the fourth book in her Gilead series that goes back in time to show Jack’s point of view in an interracial friendship and forbidden romance that reflect God’s love.
Read More(REVIEW) While 83-year-old Pope Francis is in good health, that hasn’t stopped speculation over who will come next. In his new book, author George Weigel examines the problems affecting the church and what the next pope will need to do in order to address them. Think of it like a very long to-do memo for the next head of the Catholic church.
Read More(EXCERPT) Blood and Oil , by award-winning Wall Street Journal reporters Justin Scheck and Bradley Hope, shows how a rift in the world’s most powerful ruling family, Saudi Arabian royalty, produced Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a charismatic leader with a ruthless streak.
Read More(REVIEW) Norman Lebrecht’s Genius & Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947 paints a complex portrait of Jewish figures and their relationships to each other. He points out that their brilliance and influence was the result of their collective anxiety.
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