The Revolution of Tenderness by Raymond Friel (Redemptorist, £12.95). Drawing on the testimonies of 12 ordinary Catholics, five men and seven women, Friel explores what it means to be a Catholic amid the upheavals of modern society. Clifford Longley has written the foreword, suggesting that we have to find “a way of being Catholic that no longer relies on rules but on love”. In reality rules and love should not be in opposition to each other: love requires boundaries and the Church’s rules flow from the compassion of Christ himself. The influence of Pope Francis is noteworthy.
A Priest in Gallipoli by John Watts (Mungo, £5.99). Subtitled “The War Diary of Fr Hugh Cameron”, this fascinating little book is exactly that: extracts from the diary of British Army chaplain Fr Cameron, written in the blood and fire of the Gallipoli trenches in the autumn of 1915. Every schoolboy knows about the military disaster, but it is enthralling to read the actual words written down by a member of the Church who witnessed the battles. Fr Cameron’s short and pithy entries always start with a terse description of the weather before relating the bad news from the front.
Terrence Malick: Rehearsing the Unexpected edited by Carlo Hintermann and Daniele Villa (Faber, £25). Terrence Malick is one of the most interesting, frustrating and demanding filmmakers around. His hallucinatory movies, laced with religious allegory, are among the finest ever made. This is an oral biography which starts with the young Malick studying under the theologian Paul Tillich, follows him through his PhD in philosophy and uses his friends to explain the strange and metaphorical constructs of his films. As Malick is notoriously publicity shy – he is rarely photographed, let alone interviewed – this is as close to his creative process as we can hope to get.
Sirius by Jonathan Crown (Head of Zeus, £7.99). The Liliencron family are Jews living in Berlin in 1938. They have a dog named Levi. When all Jewish men and women are forced to change their names to Abraham and Sarah, the family wisely decide to rename their dog Sirius. So begins this unique and unforgettable novel. We follow Sirius through the horrors of Kristallnacht, emigration to America, Hollywood, and finally back to Berlin, where Sirius ends up in the bunker as Hitler’s confidante. Needless to say, the canine works for the Resistance. Sirius is that rare thing: a genuinely sweet and uplifting novel that still manages fully to convey the gravity of the Holocaust.
The Second Calling by Hans Reinders (DLT, £9.99). It is not often that a movement inspires a novel of nearly 500 pages – but this one has been inspired by the life and work of Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche communities, where people with a learning disability live in small family groups alongside their helpers. The House of Bethany in southern Spain invites its residents to live in communion with each other. They are called to celebrate their God-given community life. Reinders’s novel beautifully exemplifies the discovery of “the sacrament of the poor”.
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