Leah Libresco's Blog, page 37

Struggling to Offer an Open House

I picked up Robert Farrar Capon’s Bed and Board: Plain Talk About Marriage after reading Melanie’s post on The Wine Dark Sea on “What has Beatrice to do with Bed?”  The quotes she assembled were easily enough to get me to order the book for myself. And I suspect they’re a little more generally appealing than the quote [Read More...]

Ethical Edge Cases So Sharp You’ll Cut Yourself

I’ve run into three considerations of hypotheticals (two of them in the last week) that all seem to fall into a pattern.  First up. there’s this dialogue, related to me by a friend who teaches a second grade catechism class. (They were discussing how the disciples of Christ spread the gospel). Teacher: If you had [Read More...]

Shortlist for my 2015 Blogging Book

Today marks the start of the On Christian Doctrine Augustine bookclub, so, if any of you are interested in joining, you’ve actually only got three paragraphs from the preface to read today in order to get all caught up with the rest of us.  And one of those three grafs goes like this: To those who [Read More...]

Discussing Continuing Conversion & Prayer with Mark Shea

Last week I joined Mark Shea on his radio show to chat about my conversion, and my forthcoming book on prayer, including what I described as “probably a non-heretical approach to lectio divina,” which was originally inspired by the advice my vocal teacher gave me when I kept messing up Sondheim’s “Good Thing Going.”  She’d [Read More...]

Books on deck for me in 2015!

It turns out that Goodreads has a nifty feature that plots the publication date of books you read against when you read them.  (I think it gets confused by second editions and reissues, though).  It was fun to see my year’s (well, half-year’s — I started using Goodreads this summer) reading plotted out in this [Read More...]

Seven Quick Remixes: Shakespeare, Star Wars, and Sweeney!

— 1 — I’m sure I’ll write something longer later, but I just want to give you all the heads up that I really enjoyed the Into the Woods movie. It’s like a lot of book-to-movie adaptations, where there are nuances and characterizations that are flattened or telescoped for film, but you still really enjoy seeing the [Read More...]

Beginning as I’ll Go On in 2015

Leigh Bardugo, author of the Grisha Trilogy (and cause of my Halloween costume) is running a series of creativity sprints, starting at noon today.  The goal is to “Begin as You Mean to Go On” in the new year (she has a FAQ here). This doesn’t necessarily mean, if you plan to clean your garage this [Read More...]

Celebrate the New Year by reading Black Lamb, Grey Falcon!

My family often celebrates New Year’s Eve by watching a very long movie (i.e. Gandhi) on New Year’s Eve, when we’re committed to staying up to finish it. If you’d like to pick up that tradition but in a literary vein, why not welcome in the new year while reading Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey [Read More...]

Catching the Joy of Others [Pope Francis Bookclub]

In 2014, I read and blogged through Pope Francis/Cardinal Bergoglio’s Open Mind, Faithful Heart: Reflections on Following Jesus.  Every Monday, I wrote about the next meditation in the book, so you’re welcome to peruse them all and/or read along. This is the last installment of our Pope Francis bookclub (and I’ll post either a shortlist or a final [Read More...]

Christ is an Outlier and Should Have Been Counted [Pope Francis Bookclub]

In 2014, I’m reading and blogging through Pope Francis/Cardinal Bergoglio’s Open Mind, Faithful Heart: Reflections on Following Jesus.  Every Monday, I’ll be writing about the next meditation in the book, so you’re welcome to peruse them all and/or read along.   In the second to last chapter of Open Mind, Faithful Heart, Pope Francis draws heavily on the letter [Read More...]