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'."

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

Sir Bill Cash reviews The Impossible Office? The History of the British Prime Minister, by Anthony Seldon

Sylvana Tomaselli reviews The Innocence of Pontius Pilate: How the Roman Trial of Jesus Shaped History, by David Lloyd Dusenbury

Melanie McDonagh reviews The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos, by Sohrab Ahmari

The 2021-2022 Genesis Jewish Book Week Emerging Writers Programme is open to applicants with at least 18 years of age and living in the UK, who have no more than three years’ experience of being published and feel they would benefit from the support and insight of an established writer.

Nick Ripatrazone explores the spiritual songbook of one of the great contemporary American artists, Bruce Springsteen.