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Ralph C. Wood

Ralph C. Wood a former Century contributing editor, taught in the collegiate classroom for 50 years.

Books

A harrowing account of Soviet imprisonment

Alexander Podrabinek’s memoir sheds light on the oppressive underbelly of Leonid Brezhnev’s premiership.
Nativity scene, Senegal
Books

Which new books deserve a spot under the Christmas tree?

We asked our contributing editors to each pick two.
image of Anthony Domestico book on modernist poetry and theology
Books

The value of God-shaped art

T. S. Eliot and the other modernist theologian-poets knew that artists are makers of worlds.
Books

Inklings of good news

The proliferation of Inklings books is often prompted by Christian triumphalism. Carol and Philip Zaleski have something more interesting to say.
Books

Inexhaustible Lewis

"You'll never get to the bottom" of C. S. Lewis, said Tolkien. The books published for the 50th anniversary of Lewis's death reveal the truth of this statement.
Books

The Lion’s World, by Rowan Williams

Who would have thought that a new book on C. S. Lewis could bring fresh, even revolutionary insight to perhaps the most overstudied Christian writer in the anglophone world?...
Books

Blessed and dangerous

The spate of books on John Henry Newman shows that there is little hope of settling arguments about him—or about Benedict's understanding of him.
Feature

Mystery of evil: Sin in the novels of P. D. James

The archbishop of Canterbury recently observed that “P. D....
Books

Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy: The Making of GKC, 1874-1908

G. K....
Books

The liberal Chesterton

G. K. Chesterton as Controversialist, Essayist, Novelist and Critic. By John D. Coates. Edwin Mellen Press, 206 pp., $109.95...

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Feature

Mysteries and morals: The historical fiction of C. J. Sansom

"Man is wolf to man," said Roman playwright Plautus, and novelist C. J. Sansom seems to agree. The main character in his historical novels, detective Matthew Shardlake, repeats the ancient adage three times in Dark Fire, the second novel in the Shardlake series.Through the first-person narratives of a 16th-century lawyer, Sansom gives fictional life to a gloomy but not hopeless view of human nature.In Dissolution, the first book, King Henry VIII closes a Benedictine monastery on England's Cornish coast as part of a massive seizure of church lands and properties. In Dark Fire, Henry fears that Catholic forces may revolt with a magical concoction, a jellied petroleum akin to napalm. In the newest book, Sovereign, the king makes a grand tour of his kingdom as a display of royal might and a warning to Catholic forces in the north.
Feature

Good and terrible: The God of Narnia

The seven books of C. S. Lewis’s Narnia Chronicle, which sell 6 million copies annually, are being filmed by Walden Media, a subsidiary of Walt Disney Pictures....
Cover Story

What's changed? Reflections on September 11

Missed opportunity...
Books

Common Prayer, by Ramie Targoff

Preaching at St....
Feature

Classroom encounters: Teaching as if it really matters

The encounter that most decisively shaped my teaching occurred during my very first year in the classroom....
Film

Tolkien the movie

The first of three annual film installments of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1,500-page epic The Lord of the Rings, directed by New Zealander Peter Jackson, has many fine qualities....

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