Paul Lakeland is the director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Fairfield University and the author most recently of The Wounded Angel: Fiction and the Religious Imagination.

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Book Review

Tentler's 'American Catholics' book is a reliable, entertaining history

Book review: The best things about American Catholics: A History are the attention given to North America's early years, and the careful focus on ordinary Catholics, rather than the exploits of bishops and clergy.

Book Review

In Marilynne Robinson's fourth Gilead novel, grace gets the last word

Book review: Jack is a beautiful if improbable biracial love story, full of joy and sadness, but complicated from the start by its setting in Southern cities in the days of Jim Crow.

Book Review

Author hopes to trace 'an evolution of Catholic storytelling'

Book review: In Longing for an Absent God, Nick Ripatrazone makes a good case for at least the vestiges of Catholic impulses in the work of his selection of novelists. But he doesn't quite connect the dots.

Book Review

Clearer Vatican II vision

Book Review: This book is recommended to anyone who struggles to understand the meaning of the Second Vatican Council and who is not enlightened by the polarized antagonisms of recent decades.