Books

20 Books to Make You a Smart Catholic Joseph Epstein is the best essayist alive. He's urbane, funny, self-deprecating. He's a fine stylist, and he's remarkably well-read. I remember William F. Buckley marveling at Epstein's erudition and wondering how Epstein could have

From 2002: It dawned on me today that I haven't gotten engrossed in a book in quite awhile, possibly as long as five years. In the past, there were books that grabbed me, fired my imagination and intellectual motivation. They threw so much good stuff at me that

The Restoration of Christian Culture [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1932528164/thedailyeudem-20] [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1932528164/thedailyeudem-20] John Senior [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1932528164/thedailyeudem-20] More passages: “work, prayer, sacrifice. Those are the items on the Catholic Agenda.” p. 82. I&

I wasn't raised in the Detroit area, but I had lived there for two summers. In addition, during my college years in Ann Arbor, I had regularly attended Red Wings hockey games, often taking the Lodge Freeway from I-94 to Joe Louis Arena. Right before I exited for

I read a lot. It's a trait I inherited from my parents. But one thing about my reading deviates sharply from theirs. Whereas they keep their library in good shape, its shelves lined handsomely with hardbacks, my library mostly carries secondhand paperbacks. Whereas their books are clean: no

The Reader's Advantage The headlines were sensational: “Archbishop wants women stoned for adultery,” “Archbishop supports female circumcision,” “Archbishop advocates death penalty for people who dis the Prophet!” Okay, it wasn't that bad, but the fury over Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' call for “constructive accommodation”

"An eighth and eternal day, consecrated by the Resurrection of Christ. . . there we shall rest and see, see and love, love and praise." That's St. Augustine's City of God. I found it in a forgotten treasure: The Eighth Day Books [http://www.eighthdaybooks.com/

My son Alex bought me a Benedict Groeschel book for Christmas: Spiritual Passages: The Psychology of Spiritual Development [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0824506286/thedailyeudem-20]. I've only read the first twenty pages, but so far it has all the markings of an Eric Classic, which I

The last half of the Chesterbelloc isn't nearly as quotable as the first half, but if I had to pick the book with most quotables, it'd be The Path to Rome. “[I]f there is difficulty it is in the whole launching of a thing, in