Book Reviews

In her excellent new collection, “The Blackbird and Other Stories,” Sally Thomas presents nine brief works of fiction.

Review of “A Hiker’s Guide to Purgatory: A Novel.” In terms of adventure, the author, Michael Norton, does not disappoint. For a story with a foregone conclusion, the road to heaven nonetheless takes many turns for its main character, an erstwhile family man and lawyer from St. Paul by the name of Dan Geary.

“Hold Fast” is the tale of a father and son in the harsh time following a pair of tragedies. Thom, a grizzled Minnesota handyman and snowplow driver, has fallen into a deep depression after the loss of Helen, his wife; Jude, his son, has lost both his mother as well as his dream of rowing on the Olympic team after an injury.

Douthat takes issue with committed Darwinists and similar skeptics who suggest that creation and human and animal life are the result of nothing more than an inexplicable series of random accidents. By denying that the universe has some divine purpose and meaning, these nonbelievers are forced to fall back to an increasingly untenable position.

“He Leadeth Me” is the story of Servant of God Father Walter Ciszek, a Polish-American priest who set out to minister to the Russian people and was imprisoned in the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1963.

Over the course of the National Eucharistic Revival, I’ve seen several proposals that we need a “Confession Revival,” too. It’s hard not to agree. We’re all sinners in need of God’s grace. We all need the experience of God’s mercy in order to be people of mercy. We need all the help we can get as we press on to live Christ and give Christ.

Catholic writer Ellen Gable Hrkach’s latest book “Life From the Bottom Shelf” (Full Quiver Publishing) is a bit of a departure from her traditional writing canon. Detailing the lifelong struggles of someone, shall we say, “vertically challenged,” the book shares the ups and downs of being short-statured in a tall world.

In the 2014 chapbook the “Catholic Imagination in Modern American Poetry,” distinguished poet and educator James Matthew Wilson celebrates that the “Catholic imagination” continues to inform and inspire American poetry.