John Herreid
John Herreid is catalog manager at Ignatius Press. In addition to catalogs and ads, he has also worked on the cover design for many Ignatius Press books and DVDs. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and four children.
Posts from this author at the Novel Thoughts blog.
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Let’s Eat!
August 26, 2016 12:15 pm 1 Comment
Food crops up a lot in literature. The mushrooms and cakes in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the lovingly-depicted meal with the Beavers in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the extravagant descriptions of holiday dishes in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol all remind us that… Read more »
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Did Orwell Have It Wrong? Did Huxley Have It Right?
August 11, 2016 11:54 pm 3 Comments
George Orwell comes up regularly in political conversation. Often his invocation is apt, as when we speak of the twisting of language to favor the powerful. But often it isn’t, with attempts to portray any political opponents or governmental actions we happen to dislike as ruling with an iron fist…. Read more »
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A Lesson from Monsters
June 3, 2016 4:00 pm Leave a Comment
The other day I saw an article being shared on social media that stated that talent is a “myth”. The author, one of those marketing and sales gurus you see often in online business journalism, argued that with hard work, anybody can do anything. And those who insist otherwise are… Read more »
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When It Comes to Marriage and Family, Stories Matter
April 8, 2016 3:02 pm 6 Comments
I’ve finished reading Pope Francis’ new Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia. I’m sure there will be much discussion of the document over the next few weeks, and much reflection. As the Pope says in the introduction, “Given the rich fruits of the two-year Synod process, this Exhortation will treat, in different… Read more »
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An Elegy for the Used Book Store
March 18, 2016 12:44 pm 5 Comments
“The used book store, unlike the catalogue or even the library, puts us in a place where we can come across and buy some unsuspected title that turns out to get at the essence of what is.” —James V. Schall, S.J., Another Sort of Learning “We are all coming to… Read more »
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Addicted to Escape: A review of Tim Powers’ “Medusa’s Web”
March 2, 2016 12:23 pm Leave a Comment
Fear is underrated by most people. Fearlessness is what gets lauded. But fear is an essential part of a healthy perspective on life. If we don’t fear a hot stove, we may get burned; if we don’t fear wild animals, we may end up like one of those sentimental wilderness… Read more »
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Novels for Lent
February 12, 2016 6:04 pm 7 Comments
Many years ago, I came across a list of suggested disciplines to embrace during Lent. One of the things suggested was to refrain from reading novels during the forty days of Lent. It’s a discipline that I’m happy to say I have never engaged in. In fact, novels and fiction… Read more »
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The Truth is Out There…
January 29, 2016 2:11 pm 2 Comments
“You live in a deranged age—more deranged than usual, because despite great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing.” —Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos One of the paradoxes of the Information Age is that as ready access… Read more »
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Death vs The Doctor
January 15, 2016 7:49 pm 4 Comments
If you really come down to any large story that interests people or can hold their attention for a considerable time, the story is practically always a human story, it’s practically always about one thing isn’t it: death! The inevitability of death… There’s a quotation from Simone de Beauvoir that… Read more »
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Embedding the Question
December 31, 2015 5:56 pm 6 Comments
“The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.” —G. K. Chesterton The other day I was listening to an interview with an actor. He brought up the fact that he had been raised Catholic but fell away after reaching adulthood. His reasoning was something along the… Read more »