Father Elijah in a Nutshell
One of the particular strengths of Father Elijah is the way in which O’Brien brings his eponymous hero to fully-fledged and fully-fleshed life.
Declare in a Nutshell
Tim Powers, the author of “Declare,” stands out from the crowd of contemporary novelists because he is a faithful Catholic who has somehow managed to swim in the toxic mainstream without compromising his faith or principles.
Vinland in a Nutshell
Some authors and some books are not as well-known as they should be. This is indubitably the case with George Mackay Brown and his tour de force of a novel: Vinland.
The Violent Bear It Away in a Nutshell
Flannery O’Conner’s modus operandi as a writer was the employment of violence and the grotesque to shock her readers out of their somnambulant indifference to truth.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in a Nutshell
There can be few more worthy winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature than Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who illustrates in his life and work the power of literature to transform society.
Till We Have Faces in a Nutshell
C.S. Lewis called Till We Have Faces “my best book” and “far and away the best I have written.” He said it was the “favourite of all my books.”
The Lord of the Rings in a Nutshell
According to its author, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings “is, of course, a fundamentally religious and Catholic work.”
The Hobbit in a Nutshell
At its deepest level, The Hobbit can be seen as a parabolic commentary on the words from St. Matthew’s Gospel that where our treasure is, there our heart will be also.
C in a Nutshell
“C” by Maurice Baring is little known, but received the highest of praise from the French novelist André Maurois, who wrote that no book had given him such pleasure since his reading of Tolstoy, Proust, and certain novels by E.M. Forster.
Brideshead Revisited in a Nutshell
The theme of Bridesmaid Revisited is the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters.
Kristin Lavransdatter in a Nutshell
The power and profundity of Kristen Lavransdatter has as its source the author’s profound understanding of the meaning of life.
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.
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.