SPIRITED THINKING SINCE 1888
Books
Dial M for Murder
July 01, 2021
Daisy Goodwin
"This is a delightful soufflé of a book, puffed up and bursting with wit and attitude" writes Daisy Goodwin
Christianity and all that
June 01, 2021
Harry Mount
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
Big top, small lives
June 01, 2021
Violet Hudson
Violet Hudson reviews Elizabeth Macneal's latest novel, Circus of Wonders
It’s Not All the Bitter Boomers’ Fault
May 25, 2021
Rachel Lu
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,
Human Comedy, and Divine
May 25, 2021
Fr Nicholas Schofield
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. 
All Ireland that Froze for Want of Europe
May 02, 2021
Michael Duggan
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 unseen hook
May 01, 2021
John Cornwell
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
Stranger than fiction
May 01, 2021
Helena Kelly
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
Last of the Antiquarian Country Parsons
May 01, 2021
Michael Hodges
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
Haunted by Franco
May 01, 2021
Elisa Segrave
Last Days In Cleaver Square, by Patrick McGrath, reviewed by Elisa Segrave
Look back in languor
May 01, 2021
Nicky Haslam
Malice in Wonderland: My Adventures in the World of Cecil Beaton, by Hugo Vickers, reviewed by Nicky Haslam
The last of Henry’s wives
May 01, 2021
Linda Porter
Katharine Parr, The Sixth Wife, by Alison Weir, reviewed by Linda Porter
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