2022-12-19 22:21
One of the ideas that has animated this blog since its very beginning is that my understanding that a "Catholic reader" does not simply imply being a Catholic who likes to read nor that one… Read More
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A Catholic Reader Blog
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A blog about literature, reading, and their value in the modern world.
2021-02-07 03:50
After a year or two of particularly alarming and distressing events in the world and the Church, many of us have begun to think of the present day as something like the End of the World (at… Read More
2020-07-13 20:46
On Renewing “A Catholic Reader”I’VE BEEN WANTING to get back to writing on this blog for some time now, after several years of neglect. When I started it, ten years ago, I… Read More
2019-11-03 19:48
Flannery O'Connor and her peacocks
“Vain as a peacock,” we used to say, back when vanity was a vice rare enough to be remarked on. I used to have an aunt who, like Flannery O&rs&helli…Read More
2019-10-17 22:24
A very young Brad Dourif played Hazel Motes
in John Huston's incomparable film adaptation of Flannery O'Connor's Wild Blood.
Veiled Mystery
About forty years ago, I read the work of… Read More
2019-10-12 04:42
Some books I've edited, translated, and/or designed in the last few years.
I've been away from blogging for a while, and this blog has moved to an independent WordPress site and back to Goo… Read More
2017-03-13 21:26
In the previous installment in this series on the Great Flood in the literary tradition, we saw that the Biblical flood story, unlike its analogs in pagan literature, puts the emphasis on th… Read More
2016-12-27 03:56
When I started this reading exercise that I call “adventures in comparative mythology,” nearly two years ago, I said that one of the things I hoped to achieve was to get rea… Read More
2016-07-12 23:09
There is a figure in Greek mythology called Proteus, a minor sea god with two remarkable powers: shape-shifting and oracular utterance. To get the truth out of him, however, one must firs… Read More
2016-05-20 23:39
Second installment on the Great Flood in Ovid's Metamorphoses
Ovid artfully wove telling details into his poem.
It is up to us to notice them, if we would
understand the poem.
(If you h… Read More
2016-03-17 19:03
Illustration from Slate.com
As this article from Slate acknowledges, very few concrete facts about Ireland's patron saint have survived. Much that we think we know is merely legend. Keeping… Read More
2016-03-17 15:36
Illustration from Slate.com
As this article from Slate acknowledges, very few concrete facts about Ireland’s patron saint have survived. Much that we think we know is merely legend… Read More
2016-03-09 03:51
Third installment on the Great Flood in Ovid's Metamorphoses
I left the discussion of Ovid’s Metamorphoses by saying (as I often do) that, in literature, context is everything. We… Read More
2016-03-08 19:23
Third installment on the Great Flood in Ovid’s Metamorphoses
I left the discussion of Ovid’s Metamorphoses by saying (as I often do) that, in literature, context is everythi… Read More
2016-03-08 18:38
Second installment on the Great Flood in Ovid's Metamorphoses
Ovid artfully wove telling details into his poem.
It is up to us to notice them, if we would
understand the poem.
(If you h… Read More
2016-03-08 18:34
Want to visit far-off times and places? Read a book.
It's the cheapest, easiest form of travel.
If you have ever spent any extended time abroad, you probably know how odd it is to live amo… Read More
2016-03-08 18:34
About a year ago, I went to see Darren Aronofsky’s Noah not long after it hit the cinemas. I always cringe whenever Hollywood produces anything vaguely Biblical, and probably would n… Read More
2016-03-08 18:33
Today we come to the second part of our examination of the story of the Great Flood found in the Epic of Gilgamesh — wherein we will look at the story itself. I'm actually going to b… Read More
2016-03-08 18:32
The real test of literature is whether it continues to speak to us, after generations or even millennia. We’ve almost finished our examination of the Epic of Gilgamesh and its accoun… Read More
2016-03-08 18:32
In the past couple of posts in this series, we’ve been looking at the Great Flood narrative found in the Epic of Gilgamesh, trying to put the flood story into context, both within th… Read More
2016-03-08 18:31
Without context, we can't tell where we are,
or what we're looking at.
Recently, we took a close look at the account of the Great Flood that appears in the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh and fou… Read More
2016-03-07 21:52
As I start looking at Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII's famous 1891 encyclical, I'll first summarize/paraphrase what the encyclical says, paragraph by paragraph, then analyze the way Pope… Read More
2015-12-09 23:59
Liberty has long been the emblem of our country,
but do we even understand what true freedom is?
Today is July 4, when we commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence and all… Read More
2015-11-01 22:47
This guy looks more like a Texas cowboy
than a Connecticut Yankee, if you ask me,
but he got me hooked on time travel.One of my favorite kinds of speculative fiction is the time travel t… Read More
2015-10-31 19:46
Who would have guessed that
a papal encyclical with an
untranslatable Latin title would change
not just the Church but the world?
Remember the Year of Faith decreed by Pope Benedict XVI?… Read More
2015-10-31 19:36
Res novae
Pope Leo XIII wrote his encyclical Rerum Novarum at the end of the nineteenth century. The previous hundred years had seen a huge upheaval in the way people in the Western world l… Read More
2015-10-29 20:21
Nota Bene: I originally published this post back in 2012, and it has been one of the most-read posts on this blog ever since. In fact, it sums up pretty well my defense of the necessity o… Read More
2015-10-27 22:28
This guy looks more like a Texas cowboy
than a Connecticut Yankee, if you ask me,
but he got me hooked on time travel.
One of my favorite kinds of speculative fiction is the time travel… Read More
2015-10-20 17:58
Were Homer's epics inspired
by ancient tales of Gilgamesh?
Yesterday, by a piece of serendipity, I discovered that there's a revised edition of Charles Rowan Beye’s Ancient Epic P… Read More
2015-06-04 13:22
The Asian parable of the blind men and the elephant
is as potent as Plato's myth of the cave.
I don’t usually touch on hot button issues on this blog, preferring instead to focus on p… Read More
2015-05-30 21:22
The Asian parable of the blind men and the elephant
is as potent as Plato’s myth of the cave.
I don’t usually touch on hot button issues on this blog, preferring instead to foc… Read More
2015-05-27 02:56
In case the title of this post is too cryptic for you, let me explain: the “it” I think I've got is the way forward for this blog. For the past couple of years, I’m been c… Read More
2015-05-27 02:55
In chapter 8 of the Book of Proverbs, Lady Wisdom says, “Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold; for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that… Read More
2015-05-27 02:53
I love St Patrick's Day, not because I love green beer, parades, or even corned beef, but because it reminds me of the great prayer attributed to the saint who drove the snakes (and th… Read More
2015-05-27 02:49
Okay, I know I got all the Trekkies hooked when I put up that post about Captain Picard and the Tamarian (you all subscribed to this blog, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU?)
Well, read this to find o… Read More
2015-05-27 02:36
This week, in deference to Holy Week, I’m taking a break from ancient epic to consider the Passion of Christ. I'll start by asking two leading questions, the first of which is a kind… Read More
2015-05-27 02:36
I think in many ways Holy Saturday is my favorite day of the Sacred Triduum, chiefly because of this ancient homily, which is traditionally read on the morning of this day. Try reading this… Read More
2015-05-27 02:36
I've talked quite a bit on this blog about the importance of good stories, and how sad it is that our culture no longer seems interested in stories that enlarge us, that take us out o… Read More
2015-04-22 20:19
On my way back from a recent meeting of the Dallas/Fort Worth Catholic Writers Group, I caught a snippet of Al Kresta’s interview with John G. West, editor of a new book called The… Read More
2015-04-22 20:19
In my most recent post, I talked about the problems created when we insist on “facts” rather than truth – the modern obsession with being “scientific,” as if t… Read More
2015-04-22 20:17
Welcome to the new and (I hope) improved look for this blog. Please look around and check things out -- let me know if anything is not working properly.
I've created the refurbished look… Read More
2015-04-22 20:17
Welcome to the new and (I hope) improved look for this blog. Please look around and check things out -- let me know if anything is not working properly.
I've created the refurbished look… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
I've been writing and revising my novel, which accounts for the long hiatus from this blog, but also reading things that I'll eventually want to discuss here. Meanwhile, here is a very ni… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
Members of the Dallas Chapter of the
Saint Thomas More Society, with
local bishops after the annual Red Mass.
About a month ago, I presented an address to the local Saint Thomas More Socie… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
Here I am, ruminating on The Father's Tale
In Book Ten of his Confessions, Saint Augustine of Hippo
refers to the memory as “the stomach of the mind” – an image that pro… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
A few weeks ago, I promised a review of Cyril Jones-Kellett's Ad Limina: a novella of Catholics in space, and I've written and posted it over on my science fiction blog. What I’d li… Read More
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