Paradise News

Paradise News
by David Lodge
Viking, 1992
ISBN 0670842281
 
A cultured, British academic joins a tourist group on a “Hawaiian Paradise” vacation package so his father can visit his dying sister.  The British academic also happens to be an ex-priest who is barely making a living as what we would call a part-time adjunct at a second or third [...]

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Jon Hassler

Even though I’ve already suggested one book by Jon Hassler (Dear James), since he has recently passed away, I would like to honor him with another entry.  All of Hassler’s works are eminently worth reading, but three of my personal favorites are The Dean’s List, Simon’s Night, and North of Hope.
The Dean’s List is the [...]

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The Poems of Alice Meynell

The Poems of Alice Meynell
Scribner’s, 1925
April is National Poetry Month, so even though Alice Christina Meynell did not write fiction, I’m going to recommend her Catholic writings anyway.  The first time I ran across Meynell, I was in a gift shop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I discovered a delightful little book of love [...]

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Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy

Circle of Friends
by Maeve Binchy
Delacorte Press, 1991
ISBN: 0385301499
When I first read Circle of Friends many years ago, I had planned to read a little bit while I was eating my lunch and then go back to the paper I was working on.  I stopped to eat lunch about noon.  I finally put the book down [...]

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Dear James by Jon Hassler

Dear James
by Jon Hassler
Ballantine Books 1993
ISBN: 0-345-41013-0
  
Young women who recognized themselves in the brainy Hermione Granger may also see themselves – or at least themselves at 70 – in the character of Agatha McGee. 
Agatha is a perfectionist; she has extremely high expectations of others, especially of the clergy and her sixth grade students, but [...]

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