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Books

Reviews of books written on subjects/themes of interest to ICN readers - reviewed from a Catholic/Christian perspective.


Book: The Church, the Far Right and the Claim to Christianity

This important and helpful book is a response to the rise of the Far Right in Europe, including Britain, and particularly to the growth of specifically Christian justifications for Far Right activity. It is the result of conversations between a number of academics about a 2020 publication, The Claim to Christianity, by Hannah Strømmen and Ulrich Schmiedel. Both books concentrate heavily on the Fa... Read More


Giving Flesh To God's Word In Our Today - The Challenge of Oscar Romero's Preaching

Todd Walatka, Words of Life. The Preaching of Saint Oscar Romero. Publisher: Maryknoll Orbis Books, 2026 At the beginning of March, Professor Todd Walatka came to the UK to speak at a series of events organised by the Archbishop Romero Trust during 'Romero Week', ahead of the 46th anniversary of his martyrdom on March 24, 1980. Walatka is a real expert on Romero's theology and witness, being the f... Read More


Diary from Gaza: Pages from a Tent ...

Diary from Gaza: Pages from a Tent in the Gaza War by Mohammed Hussein, published by Beacon Books. What does a father write when the world around him is collapsing? In Pages from a Tent in the Gaza War, Mohammed Hussein offers a raw and deeply human diary from inside one of the darkest chapters of modern history. Written from a fragile tent in Gaza while bombs fall and families struggle simply to ... Read More


Finding Beauty Behind Bars - a climate activist's enforced retreat

Climate activist Tim Hewes, a retired dentist and Anglican priest in his seventies, was accused of conspiring to bring the M25 motorway to a standstill in a protest against climate change. On a quiet Sunday afternoon, his home in rural Oxfordshire was raided by eight officers from the Metropolitan Police. Tim was handcuffed and taken to court, then imprisoned on remand for six weeks. Finding Beaut... Read More


Book explores medicine as a vocation of faith and service

Domina Nostra Publishing announces the publication of Saints and Healers: Models of Faith in Medicine, a revised and expanded edition of the respected work by Edgar A Gamboa, MD, FACS. First published in 2008 under the title Virtuous Healers, the book returns in a timely new edition addressing the moral, spiritual, and vocational dimensions of healthcare today. Saints and Healers examines medicine... Read More


Sisters of St Joseph of Peace celebrate release of Easter in Disguise by Liz Dodd CSJP

The Congregation of the Sisters of St Joseph of Peace (CSJP) is pleased to announce that Easter in Disguise, the 2026 Bloomsbury Lent Book, by Liz Dodd, CSJP, is now available for purchase. Rooted in the Congregation's charism of pursuing peace through justice, Sister Liz invites readers to rediscover Lent as a "radical, subversive season of resistance" and a time for genuine liberation. In Easter... Read More


Translation of 'Hellenism and Christianity: The Meeting of Two Worlds' published

Presentation ceremony. Photo by Volos Academy

The World Council of Churches, in collaboration with the Volos Academy for Theological Studies, has released a translation of Hellenism and Christianity: The Meeting of Two Worlds, by John D Zizioulas, the late Metropolitan of Pergamon (Ecumenical Patriarchate). The publication was translated by Fr Gregory Edwards and edited with an introduction by Dr Nikolaos Asproulis. As a delegation from the H... Read More


Book: At the Foot of the Cross

Author Caris Grimes is a Consultant Surgeon, so she is clearly not someone who underestimates the importance of physical intervention in the healing of illness. But this is a book about praying for the sick. Written for the hesitant doubter, At the Foot of the Cross invites the reader to embrace the courage to pray for others' healing and wholeness while trusting in a God who works through our pra... Read More


The Mole of Vatican Council II - the true story of 'Xavier Rynne'

This is a historic novel telling the story of Redemptorist priest Francis Xavier Murphy's involvement with the Second Vatican Council. Murphy was at the Council as an assistant to one of the American bishops present, but unbeknown to the bishop - or to almost anyone else - Murphy was writing articles for the New Yorker magazine about the confidential sessions of the Council and the attempts of pow... Read More


Mayor of the Tenderloin

Anyone attending a church in the UK knows that in almost every community, the clergy and volunteers are confronted by the enormous unmet needs of homeless people. Some churches keep their doors open all winter, offering a safe, heated space for people to sleep during the day. Others provide food or vouchers, referring "the unhoused" to the relevant council services or charities. A few provide prac... Read More


Book review: The Failed Franciscan

Author Tim O'Brien trained for the Catholic priesthood before becoming a primary school teacher, then a residential social worker and finally a police officer before retiring. In 2024 he published this short 87-page work in celebration of his favourite saint, Francis of Assisi. Franciscan spirituality has attracted him since his youth, but with characteristic honesty and humility Tim notes the dif... Read More


Don't Burn Anyone At The Stake Today

Image:  Penguin Books

Naomi Alderman's book has surely one of the most arresting names to appear in bookshops in the last year. However, the full title indicates why it is not just eye-catching but also has important things to teach us a quarter of the way through the twenty-first century: Don't Burn Anyone At The Stake Today (And Other Lessons From History About Living Through An Information Crisis). Her basic thesis ... Read More


Book: The Romero Rosary

Archbishop John Wilson begins this beautiful devotional book wondering whether people have picked it up because they love the holy Rosary or because they love St Oscar Romero or because, like Archbishop Wilson, they love both. I picked it up because I love St Oscar Romero. He played a major role in my decision to join the Roman Catholic Church in 1982, when I was 22. I had learnt about Oscar Romer... Read More


Leo XIV - An Augustinian Life in Context

What forms a Pope? Who is Robert Francis Prevost, the until-recently relatively unknown Augustinian who now leads nearly 1.5 billion Catholics as Pope Leo XIV? A new concise biography: Leo XIV - An Augustinian Life in Context, by Brian Heffernan, an expert on Augustinian history, looks at the successive contexts in which Prevost lived and worked before his election as pope: Chicago, Peru, Rome, an... Read More

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