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The Best Catholic Writing
The admired Best Catholic Writing series continues with contributions from Peggy Noonan, Robert Ellsberg, Pope Benedict XVI, Thomas Lynch, John Allen, and twenty-two other essayists, poets, novelists, scholars, and journalists. The selections bring vivid Catholic personalities to life (Dorothy Day, Flannery O'Connor, Pope John Paul II), address ethical issues and spiritual problems (torture, medical treatment at the end of life, the problem of suffering), and ask provocative questions (Are young Catholics embracing orthodoxy? Does the Church condemn evolution? Was Shakespeare a secret Catholic?).
Notable essays in this year's edition include Kevin Cullen's profile of a former IRA terrorist now studying for the priesthood, Robert Lockwood's argument with the conventional wisdom about the Crusades, Colm Toibin's meditation on the public face of John Paul II, poetry by Mary Oliver and Seamus Heaney, and a Wall Street Journal portrait of nuns who finance their nursing homes by begging in the streets. The collection includes writing from the UK and Australia, as well as material first published on the Internet.
Notable essays in this year's edition include Kevin Cullen's profile of a former IRA terrorist now studying for the priesthood, Robert Lockwood's argument with the conventional wisdom about the Crusades, Colm Toibin's meditation on the public face of John Paul II, poetry by Mary Oliver and Seamus Heaney, and a Wall Street Journal portrait of nuns who finance their nursing homes by begging in the streets. The collection includes writing from the UK and Australia, as well as material first published on the Internet.
- GenresReligion
201 pages, Paperback
First published October 31, 2006
About the author
Brian Doyle
60 books739 followersDoyle's essays and poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, The American Scholar, Orion, Commonweal, and The Georgia Review, among other magazines and journals, and in The Times of London, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Kansas City Star, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Ottawa Citizen, and Newsday, among other newspapers. He was a book reviewer for The Oregonian and a contributing essayist to both Eureka Street magazine and The Age newspaper in Melbourne, Australia.
Doyle's essays have also been reprinted in:
* the Best American Essays anthologies of 1998, 1999, 2003, and 2005;
* in Best Spiritual Writing 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2005; and
* in Best Essays Northwest (2003);
* and in a dozen other anthologies and writing textbooks.
As for awards and honors, he had three startling children, an incomprehensible and fascinating marriage, and he was named to the 1983 Newton (Massachusetts) Men's Basketball League all-star team, and that was a really tough league.
Doyle delivered many dozens of peculiar and muttered speeches and lectures and rants about writing and stuttering grace at a variety of venues, among them Australian Catholic University and Xavier College (both in Melbourne, Australia), Aquinas Academy (in Sydney, Australia); Washington State, Seattle Pacific, Oregon, Utah State, Concordia, and Marylhurst universities; Boston, Lewis & Clark, and Linfield colleges; the universities of Utah, Oregon, Pittsburgh, and Portland; KBOO radio (Portland), ABC and 3AW radio (Australia); the College Theology Society; National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation," and in the PBS film Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero (2002).
Doyle was a native of New York, was fitfully educated at the University of Notre Dame, and was a magazine and newspaper journalist in Portland, Boston, and Chicago for more than twenty years. He was living in Portland, Oregon, with his family when died at age 60 from complications related to a brain tumor.
Doyle's essays have also been reprinted in:
* the Best American Essays anthologies of 1998, 1999, 2003, and 2005;
* in Best Spiritual Writing 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2005; and
* in Best Essays Northwest (2003);
* and in a dozen other anthologies and writing textbooks.
As for awards and honors, he had three startling children, an incomprehensible and fascinating marriage, and he was named to the 1983 Newton (Massachusetts) Men's Basketball League all-star team, and that was a really tough league.
Doyle delivered many dozens of peculiar and muttered speeches and lectures and rants about writing and stuttering grace at a variety of venues, among them Australian Catholic University and Xavier College (both in Melbourne, Australia), Aquinas Academy (in Sydney, Australia); Washington State, Seattle Pacific, Oregon, Utah State, Concordia, and Marylhurst universities; Boston, Lewis & Clark, and Linfield colleges; the universities of Utah, Oregon, Pittsburgh, and Portland; KBOO radio (Portland), ABC and 3AW radio (Australia); the College Theology Society; National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation," and in the PBS film Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero (2002).
Doyle was a native of New York, was fitfully educated at the University of Notre Dame, and was a magazine and newspaper journalist in Portland, Boston, and Chicago for more than twenty years. He was living in Portland, Oregon, with his family when died at age 60 from complications related to a brain tumor.
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July 7, 2008
This was an astounding collection! I loved every minute of it. Some of the pieces included count among the most moving writing I have ever read. I will not forget this collection.
Displaying 1 of 1 review