When I wrote the post about Anne Pellowski’s Latch Valley Farm series (the Catholic Little House books), I said that I would write another about a sort of Jewish Little House books. This is it. When I was about 8 years old, The All-of-a-Kind Family books by Sydney Taylor were my favorites. I fell in…

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“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly” said Gilbert Keith Chesterton and that gives me the strength to tackle this post, when a fear of not being able to do it well enough would prevent me from even starting. From 6-8 August, I attended the American Chesterton Society's (ACS) Conference in San Antonio, Texas (a…

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Marion Montgomery (1925-2011) authored three novels, three books of poems, and several short stories, a few of which were award winners. He is best known, however, as the author of some 20 or so books of literary and cultural criticism, based on a Thomist reading of philosophy, history and literature. At the root of his…

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I have met few people who have read Thomas Mann extensively, and, among those few, fewer still who hold him in as high regard as I do. The problem, therefore, seems to be one mostly of neglect, and only secondarily of poor judgement. My own view is that he ranks with the finest novelists of…

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I am not a Newman enthusiast. I find his prose to be dense, difficult, and often obtuse, not to mention unnecessarily long-winded. This is probably one of those differences in sensibilities between 19th century Victorians and 21st century blog readers. I find much more pleasure reading Lewis. That being said, Newman is one of the…

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William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) has the distinction of being a significant poet of both the 19th and 20th centuries. Had he died in 1900—or, blurring the century line to include 1904's In the Seven Woods—he might not have been considered a major poet, but he certainly would have been remembered. “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”…

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I love mysteries. My affection for a good mystery began with Nancy Drew when I was in the third grade (Nancy Drew was better then.), and has continued for 57 years unabated. There are some authors currently writing mysteries that I enjoy, but my very favorite authors are the women who began writing in what…

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