book review

When Dorothea von Ertmann, a friend and student of Beethoven’s, lost her only young child, Beethoven learned of her inconsolable grief. Instead of offering words of consolation, he sat at the piano and played for her, improvising for an…

They call themselves the New Right. They’re also known as the Online Right, and during Trump’s first term, the Alt-Right. Many of them are proud provocateurs with questionable pseudonyms – Bronze Age Pervert, Endlessbonerz, Raw Egg…

The first red flag with Nicholas Carr’s new book is the subtitle: “How technologies of connection tear us apart.” It’s beyond banal, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. After all, his book The Shallows is still the definitive treatment…

“We are believers in the myth of World War II,” wrote history scholar Alec Ryrie in a recent piece for First Things. It is “our religion.” By this, Ryrie means that in the absence of a unifying faith in our increasingly post-Christian age,…

For many decades, the notion of a child-centered politics has traditionally been relegated to the social conservative wing of the Republican Party. And for much of that time, social conservatives were always the shorter leg of the wobbly…

“Marriage is an inherently negligent activity. It’s like owning a lion. The likelihood of someone getting hurt is very, very high.” Those are some cynical words of wisdom from James Sexton, a divorce attorney who appears on an episode of…

“A man’s what God made you to be, son. So be that, and while you’re at it, you might as well go ahead and be the best one you can be.” So embarks Jack Zulu on his latest quest to protect, defend and lead amidst warring worlds and against an…

The first thing you notice when picking up Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, Salman Rushdie’s account of surviving an assassination attempt two years ago, is the photo. The iconic image of the legendary writer — eyebrows cocked…

The classical schooling movement has become a source of retrieval, revival even, of so many sources of knowledge and human flourishing abandoned by modernity. The classical Christian school can also renew the rich Christian heritage and…

If you were to watch “Moneyball” today, you might find it quaint. You may recall the premise: In a world before “data-driven decisions” was a cliché, a likable nerd played by Jonah Hill helps craft a baseball roster from a spreadsheet,…