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Books

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


Parish priest to launch animal welfare book

Father Terry Martin, parish priest at St Mary of the Angels RC church in Worthing, will be holding a book launch next month, to mark the publication of his new book 'Animals in Heaven?' The launch and signing ceremony will take place at the church on Saturday 16th November at 10.45am, and will include a short musical recital, and a brief introduction to the book, followed by vegan refreshments, ch... Read More


The Racket: A chronicle of chaos wrought by the US empire around the globe

The Racket by Matt Kennard, published by Bloomsbury Press. Leila Sansour is a Catholic Palestinian-British filmmaker and TV producer. She is the founder and Chief Executive of Open Bethlehem, an initiative dedicated to promoting and preserving the life and heritage of Bethlehem. Additionally, she works as a regular freelance producer for ITN News. She writes in Middle East Eye: Matt Kennard's The... Read More


The Oppressor's Playbook: Yet another apartheid history lesson

In the late 1980s, whilst completing a post-grad journalism course in London, I came across a remarkable reference set published by the venerable Zed Books, publisher of independent academic analyses of global human rights and political issues. The two-volume publication was an effective guide to apartheid, the world's most minutely legislated racist oligarchy. The publishers had taken the aparthe... Read More


The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence

The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, by John Pring. Published by Pluto Press. Disabled people consider this book so important that they crowdfunded the money to pre-order 650 copies and have them delivered to every MP in Parliament. It is a vital record of disturbing events, and an example of outstanding investigative journalism. The author ha... Read More


Book: Sufferance by Charles Palliser

Sufferance, by Charles Palliser. Publisher: Guernica Editions From the author of the best-selling The Quincunx, comes this novel about an unnamed country occupied by an unnamed foreign power. An unnamed middle class family take in a vivacious girl from an opulent background, separated from her parents by the war. The father of the host family is a none-too-bright accountant, and the story is his a... Read More


Finding Margaret: An afternoon with Andrew Pierce and Paddy O'Connell

Andrew Pierce and Paddy O'Connell

St Mary's Church, Hampstead, north London, will host 'Finding Margaret: An afternoon with Andrew Pierce and Paddy O'Connell' next Sunday, 15 September from 4-5pm, in-person and online. This will be unique opportunity to hear the courageous and heartrending journey of a son's search for his birth mother. In his new book, Finding Margaret: Solving the Mystery of My Birth Mother, the journalist and b... Read More


The Reality of Assisted Dying: Understanding the Issues

On Tuesday, 3 September, the book The Reality of Assisted Dying: Understanding the Issues will be published by Open University Press. The book, which is edited by Professor Julian Hughes and Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, appears at a critical moment in the UK debate. It provides up-to-date reflections from a broad variety of international experts on the profoundly important issues that surround cha... Read More


Write your own life story

Greg Watts

Would you like to turn the story of your life, or of someone in your family, into a book? Greg Watts has over 30 years' experience as a journalist and author, and he has ghost written numerous memoirs and autobiographies. His books include From Gangland to Promised Land, with former gangster John Pridmore, Don't Drop the Coffin, with undertaker Barry Albin-Dyer, and Meeting the Guv'nor, with box... Read More


Thomas Gumbleton - A True 'Doer Of The Word'

No Guilty Bystander. The Extraordinary Life of Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, by Frank Fromherz and Suzanne Sattler IHM. Orbis, Maryknoll (NY), 2023 270 pages plus notes. On April 4, 2024 Bishop Thomas Gumbleton died in Detroit, the city where he had served as an auxiliary bishop from 1968 until his rather brutal forced resignation in 2006. Throughout that time and right down to his death, his motto was... Read More


Sacred Space: The Prayerbook 2025

A slight chill in the evening air, the first few leaves falling from trees - and the arrival of Sacred Space: The Prayerbook: all annual harbingers of Autumn, some more eagerly anticipated than others. And so, the 2025 Prayerbook, published by The Irish Jesuits is out now, and will be welcomed by the many devotees of this trusted and accessible spiritual guide. Sacred Space, as a book and a webs... Read More


A PEOPLE BETRAYED - Linda Melvern, Zed Books

It is easy to despair of the United Nations while mass atrocities occur around the world. However, Linda Melvern's authoritative study of the 1994 Rwandan genocide reminds us that it is the individual states on the UN Security Council that choose to prevent it from enforcing its own resolutions. In the case of Rwanda, diplomats representing the UK, US and France actively stopped its own peacekeepi... Read More


Book: Christ, Science and Reason

At a time when truth is ever harder to distinguish from lies, Father Robert Spitzer, SJ takes his mastery of the inextricable ties between science and faith to a new level in his new book: Christ, Science and Reason: What we can know about Jesus, Mary and Miracles, published by Ignatius Press, which lays out scientific evidence for Christ as well as affirms the inexplicable miracles at major fait... Read More


American Prometheus: the triumph and tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer

American Prometheus: the triumph and tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer, by Kai Bird & Martin J Sherwin. Each August, the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is debated by those who considered it essential to prevent the loss of more life during a conventional assault on Japan, and those who believe Tokyo would surrender anyway when the Soviet Union attacked Manchuria. The 2023 Hollywood biopi... Read More


Author reflects on Christian-Muslim marriage

Helene Ijaz PhD

Helene Ijaz PhD, is an educator, mediator, and consultant in cross-cultural, interracial, and interfaith relations. She's the author of 'Your Heart Knows the Way: A Guide to Christian-Muslim Marriage'. A Roman Catholic Christian, she has been married to a Muslim for over fifty years. In her conversation with Joseph Victor Edwin SJ, she shares the graces and challenges of interfaith marriages that ... Read More

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