Authors /
Ralph C. Wood
Ralph C. Wood is professor of theology and literature at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and the author of Chesterton: The Nightmare Goodness of God (Baylor University Press).
Which new books deserve a spot under the Christmas tree?
We asked our contributing editors to each pick two.
November 26, 2018
The value of God-shaped art
T. S. Eliot and the other modernist theologian-poets knew that artists are makers of worlds.
October 25, 2018
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.
August 24, 2015
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.
November 19, 2013
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?...
April 24, 2013
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.
July 17, 2012
Mystery of evil: Sin in the novels of P. D. James
The archbishop of Canterbury recently observed that “P. D....
May 4, 2010
The liberal Chesterton
G. K. Chesterton as Controversialist, Essayist, Novelist and Critic. By John D. Coates. Edwin Mellen Press, 206 pp., $109.95...
May 5, 2008
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.
May 1, 2007
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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....
December 27, 2005
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....
February 13, 2002
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....
January 1, 2002
Frodo lives
J.R.R Tolkien: Author of the Century. By Tom Shippey. Houghton Mifflin, 328 pp., $26.00....
November 20, 2001