The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves Alexandra Hudson (St. Martin’s Press, $39, 416 pages) Alexandra Hudson wrote her book about civility after witnessing first-hand the incivility in Washington D.C. first hand while working for the Department of Education. Her hardship in government is a blessing for readers, for Hudson might not have written about civility had she [...]
Rabble, Riots, and Ruins: Twelve Ancient Cities and How They Were Evangelized Mike Aquilina (Ignatius, $23.50,206 pages) Mike Aquilina is the best-selling author and president of the St. Pauls’ Center for Biblical Theology. His latest book, Rabble, Riots, and Ruins, is an examination of how a dozen famous ancient pagan cities were Christianized: Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, Alexandria, Ephesus, Edessa (Urfa, Turkey), Lugdunum [...]
The Chicago Manual of Style 18 University of Chicago Staff (University of Chicago Press, $97.50, 1180 pages) The offices of The Interim have used the latest Chicago Manual of Style since its present editor took charge of the paper in 2000. While the paper does not adhere to its stylistic conventions (we follow Canadian Press style), it is a regularly consulted guide. [...]
Paul Tuns, Review: Pierre Poilievre: A Political Life (Sutherland Books, $35.95, 212 pages) Former Interim columnist Andrew Lawton has written a biography about Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, a book which will help readers understand how an adopted, middle class, politically obsessed kid from Calgary rose to become leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Lawton’s book is a well-researched, based on newspaper stories [...]
Paul Tuns, Review: Ethics for Beginners: Big Ideas from 32 Great Minds by Peter Kreeft (Word on Fire, $32.50 pb, 260 pages) Peter Kreeft may be the best living explainer of philosophy and in his most recent book he examines what some of the greatest minds in history had to say about ethics. Ethics for Beginners is a book for “intelligent beginners” who [...]
On Heroes: The Annotated Carlyle Thomas Carlyle, edited by Edward Maxwell III (Imperium Press, $11 pb, 332 pages) Thomas Carlyle was a 19th century historian, philosopher, and social critic best known for his Great Man Theory of History which argues that history is shaped by exceptional individuals who take command of events. The argument was first made in his lecture “On Heroes,” [...]
Sarah Stilton, Review: Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler (Knopf, $37, 320 pages) Judith Butler is a famous, or infamous, feminist and leading influence on gender theory through her earlier works such as Gender Trouble, Undoing Gender, and Bodies that Matter. This year she returns to the topic in Who’s Afraid Gender? which undermines many of her earlier arguments. Three decades ago, [...]
Paul Tuns, Review: Hockey Priest: Father David Bauer and the Spirit of the Canadian Game by Matt Hoven (Catholic University of America, $38.95 pb, 339 pages) Fr. David Bauer was born in Waterloo, Ont., in 1924 and would later attend St. Michael’s College School in Toronto, which was run by the Basilian Fathers. He joined their religious community and coached the St. Michael’s [...]
Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will Robert M. Sapolsky (Penguin Press, $48, 511 pages) Robert M. Sapolsky is a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford and the author of the bestselling Behave. In Determined he delves into the scientific case against free will by explaining both the science of the brain and the epigenetic influences on how the brain [...]
Oswald Clark, Review: Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men and Women by Batya Ungar-Sargon (Encounter, $30, 225 pages) White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman (Random House, $42, 299 pages) Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream by David Leonhardt (Random House, $42, 492 pages) Since Donald Trump’s surprise [...]
Rick McGinnis: Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements While promoting her new book, Nuclear War: A Scenario, journalist Annie Jacobsen landed a choice spot on Joe Rogan’s podcast where she laid out the dismal story she tells in her book. “One of the reasons why nuclear war is not spoken about by the general public,” Jacobsen told Rogan, “is that it’s [...]
Paul Tuns, Review: Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law by Neil Gorsuch and Janie Nitze (Harper, $39.50, 291 pages) In Over Ruled, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and his former clerk Janie Nitze, make the case that there are way too many laws and regulations that carry criminal punishments in the United States, and that this excess is a [...]
The Occasional Human Sacrifice: Medical Experimentation and the Price of Saying No Carl Elliott (Norton, $39.99, 355 pages) Medical ethics professor Carl Elliott’s The Occasional Human Sacrifice is unlikely to engender greater trust in the medical profession as it explores six controversial cases in which medical researchers treated human beings as guinea pigs. Often the patients consented to the interventions, albeit without [...]
On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service Anthony Fauci, M.D. (Viking, $48, 464 pages) The autobiography of Anthony Fauci, the public face of both the Trump and Biden White House responses to COVID, provides plenty of fodder for both fans and critics of Fauci’s handling of the pandemic. The books’ errors of fact and evasion of controversies might be forgivable but [...]
Why Does Everything Come in Threes: A Short Book About Everything Peter Kreeft (Ignatius, $22, 146 pages) Peter Kreeft, a modern-day G.K. Chesterton, has a delightful meditation on the persistence of important things coming in threes, modeled on the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Trinity, asserts Kreeft “is the most practical thing in the world,” the First Cause, the [...]