The Treasures of English Churches: Witnesses to the History of a Nation, by Matthew Byrne Shire Publications, £20, 160 pages   And Did Those Feet: The Story and Character of the English Church AD 200-2020, by Patrick Whitworth  Sacristy Press, £40, 662 pages ________ The Archbishop of Canterbury and every single Anglican vicar and Catholic

Violet Hudson reviews Elizabeth Macneal's latest novel, Circus of Wonders

Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images   I’ve just finished reading Boomers, Helen Andrews’ send-up of her parents’ generation. My parents are Boomers too, but I’m laughing a little, because her assessment is almost exactly the opposite of mine. She blames the Boomers for, well, pretty much everything that’s wrong with modern life, but especially neoliberalism,

For most of us, ‘Vatican II’ calls to mind dense collections of documents and divisive debates about the liturgy and the Church in the modern world. There is little that is obviously humorous about it. Yet, as this volume reminds us, it was a deeply human experience as participants gathered from across the globe in intense and unfamiliar circumstances. 

A long read by Michael Duggan on the Irish novelist, Francis MacManus, who "could write about the Catholic faith in a way that was tender but committed, welcoming 'the winds and rains of grace which blow from eternity through the gates of the sacraments upon the human creatures of this narrow world'."

In this extract from his latest book, veteran Vatican reporter and Herald contributor John Cornwell explores his Catholic upbringing and the reasons he drifted from the Church – only to be reeled back in

The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym By Paula Byrne £25, 704pp, William Collins ________ Towards the end of Paula Byrne’s biography of the novelist Barbara Pym, we are told about a letter Pym received from the editor of the Church Times. In it, he expressed a wish to review Pym’s fiction, contrary to the usual

With the centenary of Henry Thorold’s birth in June, Michael Hodges celebrates the 
life of one of Britain’s most eccentric but brilliant ecclesiastical historians

Last Days In Cleaver Square, by Patrick McGrath, reviewed by Elisa Segrave

Malice in Wonderland: My Adventures in the World of Cecil Beaton, by Hugo Vickers, reviewed by Nicky Haslam

Katharine Parr, The Sixth Wife, by Alison Weir, reviewed by Linda Porter

Dorothy L Sayers found fulfilment in the life of the mind, if not in others, writes Melanie McDonagh