The Waters of Siloe, written by Thomas Merton in 1949, is the third of his works to be published after entering the Trappist monastery of Gethsemani, the first being his extraordinary autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain, and the second being…
Charles de Foulcauld, Writings Selected with an Introduction by Robert Ellsberg. Charles De Foucauld (1858-1916) was born into a French aristocratic family. As a student he was affable, agnostic, lazy, pudgy, and gluttonous. He surprised everyone with his success as…
A thousand years ago when I was a young man, I read Madame Bovary, Salammbo, and A Sentimental Journey. But it was not until I picked up Three Tales a few days ago that I remembered how truly great writer Gustave…
Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was a unique literary figure in the 20th century — perhaps so over a much longer span of time. A young man of letters living in New York City with a promising future as a poet and…
Resurrection, published in 1899, was Tolstoy’s last novel and the cause of his being excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church. It’s powerful and depressing and thought-provoking in the extreme. Resurrection fully embodies Tolstoy’s method of writing after his religious awakening;…