Novel Thoughts blog
  1. John Herreid

    Sigrid Undset and the Hard Case of Ida Elisabeth

    September 18, 2015 1:53 pm 4 Comments

    One of the most painful things in art is realism. Grotesquerie, exaggeration, wish fulfillment, romance: all of these allow a generalization of human behavior that may portray some truth, but they don’t cut to the bone in the same way that a stark portrayal of real, honest, human behavior does…. Read more »

    Tags: book review Ida Elisabeth marriage Sigrid Undset

  2. John Herreid

    Reading On a BART Train

    September 10, 2015 11:15 pm Leave a Comment

    I recently found out that I am a “super commuter”, a term which sounds as if it should be referring to a superhero with the power to clear up traffic jams or remove odors from a bus or to perform some other such unrealistic miracle. However, it just means someone… Read more »

    Tags: musings public transit reading

  3. John Herreid

    From an eccentric book I came across online, The Walking-Stick Papers by Robert Cortes Holliday, comes this vivid short portrait of G.K. Chesterton as a young man. Holliday, an American writer, decided to visit England and wrote to a number of authors to arrange meetings. Here is his account of… Read more »

    Tags: G.K. Chesterton writing

  4. First Chapter: We’ll Never Tell Them

    August 28, 2015 6:02 pm Leave a Comment

    Read the first chapters of the novel We’ll Never Tell Them by Fiorella de Maria. If you like what you’re reading, visit the novel’s page to learn more or order! PROLOGUE She had been to this place before. That was why, in her darkest hour, Kristjana had returned; she remembered… Read more »

    Tags: Fiorella de Maria First Chapter We'll Never Tell Them

  5. T. M. Doran

    How Atticus Finch Went Off the Rails

    August 24, 2015 1:55 pm 5 Comments

    More than a few have told me to let go of the subjects of Atticus Finch, Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman. The books are published. It’s history now. Atticus Finch is a fictional character. And who cares? I care because this involves an artist… Read more »

    Tags: Atticus Finch Go Set a Watchman Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird

  6. Sincerity in a Nuns’ Cemetery

    August 21, 2015 1:19 pm 2 Comments

      The Vale of Rest, a painting by John Everett Millais, 1858-59 No quality in art and fiction writing is more elusive and perplexing than sincerity. No cemetery is quieter than one where nuns lie buried. No school memories are richer or more compelling than those the Sisters left for… Read more »

    Tags: art Da Vinci Code Fifty Shades sincerity writing

  7. Ignatius Press Novels

    An Interview with Fiorella De Maria

    August 10, 2015 12:04 pm 2 Comments

    Fiorella De Maria is a novelist as well as an advocate for pro-life causes. Her novels include Poor Banished Children, Do No Harm, and her latest, We’ll Never Tell Them. She will be speaking in San Francisco later this month at the annual conference of the California Association Natural Family… Read more »

    Tags: author interviews Do No Harm Fiorella de Maria Poor Banished Children We'll Never Tell Them

  8. Ignatius Press Novels

    Fiorella De Maria is speaking in California!

    August 5, 2015 5:05 pm 2 Comments

    Ignatius Press author Fiorella De Maria Nash will be speaking in Northern California later this month! In addition to her immense talent as a writer for fiction, Fiorella Nash is also an eloquent advocate of the Church’s teaching on sexuality and is a powerful speaker on pro-life issues. Here is… Read more »

    Tags: author appearances Fiorella de Maria

  9. John Herreid

    “The road to Auschwitz isn’t so long…”

    August 3, 2015 12:20 pm 1 Comment

    From time to time people will ask me if there are any specific movies that Ignatius Press has released on DVD that I really think highly of. There are several, but there’s one of them in particular which came to mind in these past few weeks. It’s a chilling German… Read more »

    Tags: After the Truth movie reviews Nazism

  10. John Herreid

    The Wound that Heals

    July 31, 2015 7:15 pm 3 Comments

    The other day my six-year-old daughter said something very striking. I had asked my three children what kind of music they would like to listen to.  She told me that she didn’t want to listen to classical right now, and requested pop music instead. “Why?” “Because classic music is so… Read more »

    Tags: art Benedict XVI Joseph Ratzinger

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