pre-Reformation Norway, and tells the story of the life of a daughter, wife and mother, and much pain, prayer and pilgrimage. (The Tiina Nunnally translation is more accessible.) Katherine Hulme - The Nun’s Story. A novel about interiority. Hard to get, and beautifully adapted to film by Fred Zinnemann in 1959, starring Audrey Hepburn. Alessandro Manzoni - The Betrothed: in seventeenthcentury Lombardy, Renzo and Lucia are in love and wish to marry, despite many obstacles. Flannery O’Connor called this the great Catholic novel. G. K. Chesterton - anything of his, but the novice could begin with his Father Brown stories. Honourable mentions: Robert Hugh Benson - The Lord of the World and Come Rack! Come Rope! Willa Cather - Death Comes for the Archbishop Georges Bernanos - Diary of a Country Priest and Under the Son of Satan J. F. Powers - many short stories, and two novels. Lots of priests. John Henry Newman - Loss and Gain Gerard Manley Hopkins - poetry dappledthings.org - Catholic art and literature in a world thirsting for beauty leavenmagazine.ie - from Ireland, intelligent Catholic commentary on everything thelampmagazine.com - the same, but from the USA catholicpoetryjournal.com jamesmatthewwilson.com danagioia.com reidsreader.blogspot.com - Nicholas Reid, reviewer, historian, bibliophile, Catholic, local. Not always, or even often, on Catholic themes, but very good when the need arises. And do read this from 2013: danagioia.com/essays/writing-and-reading/the catholic-writer-today
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