Arts & Letters

A selection of recent articles on this topic

Real Persons

John F. Crosby

How to Know a Person:The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by david brooksrandom…

Lady Scrooges

Rhys Laverty

I noticed it last Christmas: It’s the women who really hate Ebenezer Scrooge. In the opening scene of…

Apophatic

Not with the myth and phosphorus of metaphor. Notwith lines of force looped in true-love knots.Not by…

Spontaneous Loss

Those early weeks, you could have been anyone,   Too young for fingerprints, much less a name,And years…

Disintegrating England

Richard Rex

The English Soul:Faith of a Nation by peter ackroydreaktion books, 416 pages, $30 Peter Ackroyd is a…

Immigration Realities

John Wilson

If you have followed this column for a while, you will have gathered that there are a…

Christ-Haunted Sally Rooney

John Duggan

I grew up in Ireland in the 1970s and eighties. The parents of my friends, neighbors, cousins,…

Reclaiming Our Catholic Schools

Thomas W. Carroll

An alarming number of children from Catholic families lose their faith during elementary and secondary school. By…

Burdened By What Has Been

M. D. Aeschliman

History and contemporary life often present reflective persons with terrible ethical and political choices. One current American…

Book Recommendations for Christmas

John Wilson

October is almost gone (we’ve had a lovely fall season here in Wheaton), and it’s time—if you…

Jane Austen’s Novels are Darker Than You Think

Peter J. Leithart

Jane Austen’s DarknessBY JULIA YOSTWISEBLOOD BOOKS, 86 PAGES, $8 A glance at the cover of Julia Yost’s…

Baffled Joy

Ephraim Radner

I have long known who Mischa Elman was: one of the great violinists of the last century (1891–1967).…

In the Activities Room

Jane Greer

No one will say it, but we knowtoday’s fresh-flamed hibiscus flowerreveals in one brief, glorious showour birth,…

Parting Gifts

Benjamin Myers

Thanks for playing. Here’s your consolation prize:a mountain capped with fog, the sun behind throwing light circumspectly…

Romantic Agenda

Rowan Williams

Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment by Charles Taylorharvard university,640 pages, $37.95 One way of…