Was Shakespeare Catholic? (Guest: Joseph Pearce)
William Shakespeare is the greatest playwright of all time. Was he also a secret Catholic?
The Waste Land in a Nutshell
The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot is probably the most influential poem of the twentieth century.
The Ball and the Cross in a Nutshell
The overarching spirit of “The Ball and the Cross” can be encapsulated in a comment that Chesterton made of his relationship with his brother: we were always arguing, but we never quarreled.
From Racism to Catholicism – One Man’s Journey
Joseph Pearce recounts how he went from being a leader in a white supremacist organization to a committed Catholic.
The Man Who Was Thursday in a Nutshell
The Man Who Was Thursday shows us the paradoxical truth that it takes a big man to know how small he is.
Lord of the World in a Nutshell
Lord of the World foresees with astonishing prescience the rise of the cult of personality, long before the rise of Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler
By What Authority? in a Nutshell
“By What Authority” brings the period of the Tudor Terror to life in a way that is hardly possible in a non-fictional historical narrative. We get to know the characters as they come to terms with the tyrannous time in which they’re living.
The Four Men in a Nutshell
Home, like Rome, is a “holy place,” and The Four Men is full of spiritual premonitions of “the character of enduring things” amid the decay of time.
The Path to Rome in a Nutshell
The Path to Rome by Hilaire Belloc is a work of humility and awe, of gratitude and hope, of faith and love.
The Picture of Dorian Gray in a Nutshell
There are indeed such things as moral and immoral books, whether well written or badly written. Moral books show us ourselves and our place in the cosmos.
A Tale of Two Cities in a Nutshell
Charles Dickens is arguably the finest writer in the English language after Shakespeare, and his “Tale of Two Cities” is by far his most popular work.
A Christmas Carol in a Nutshell
It may be Eastertide, but Christmas is in the air as Joseph Pearce continues his review series on the classics of Western literature.
Wuthering Heights in a Nutshell
The darkness of Wuthering Heights is driven by the refusal of the novel’s principal protagonists to love their neighbors or to forgive those who have sinned against them.
The Pillaging and Plundering of the English Monasteries
The dissolution of the English monasteries is a blight on English history, and an example of a State grown out of control.
The Betrothed in a Nutshell
“The Betrothed” by Alessandro Manzoni is little known, but could be acclaimed as the greatest ever novel.
Frankenstein in a Nutshell
Mary Shelley seems to have learned the hard way that iconoclastic “freedoms” do not make men into gods, or women into goddesses, but that they turn men into monsters and women into their victims.
Pride and Prejudice in a Nutshell
Whereas sense and sensibility can be separated, with disastrous consequences, pride and prejudice are always inseparable, the former always resulting in the latter.
The Voice of a Prophet: Solzhenitsyn on the Ukraine Crisis
Solzhenitsyn insisted on the rights of localities to determine their own destinies, free from the coercive force of alien and alienating central government, whether that government was in Moscow or Kiev.
Sense and Sensibility in a Nutshell
Jane Austen is a giantess among giants, towering above the greatest writers of her own sex and indeed of both sexes. She holds her own among the greatest of all time.
