The thread running through Michael Brendan Dougherty’s book My Father Left Me Ireland: An American Son’s Search for Home (Sentinel/Penguin Random House, 2019) is the author’s spiritual development, which culminates in the discovery of his own vocation as a father. Boston College Philosophy Department faculty member Santiago Ramos, who received his doctorate from BC, reviews Dougherty’s book for Commonweal magazine.
Searching for home
Posted in Boston College Book Reviewer
Tagged Ireland, memoir, Philosophy Department
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Portraits of the American West
Frank Bergon, a novelist, critic, and essayist who grew up on a ranch in California’s San Joaquin Valley, brings his intimate knowledge of the area and writing talents together in his new book, Two-Buck Chuck & The Marlboro Man: The New Old West (University of Nevada Press, 2019). Bergon’s book is a collection of essays about real-life figures from the American West, a diverse area of ethnicities and lives that straddle the Old West and 21st century realities. Their stories are often unheard and their region of the country often misunderstood. Bergon is a Boston College alumnus who has taught at the University of Washington and Vassar College and is a member of the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. His other books include Jesse’s Ghost, Shoshone Mike, and Wild Game.
The tale of Arthur the Theologian
Arthur the Theologian and his encounter with Burns Library’s copy of the Douai Bible, the first Modern English bible, gained some modest fame in 2013 thanks to a post in the Burns Library’s blog. Arthur the Theologian returned to the spotlight this summer when artwork from Burns Library Conservator Barbara Adams Hebard was featured in the Annual Print and Paper Exchange exhibit from the New England Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers. Hebard’s whimsical collage, titled “A Transformed Arthur the Theologian is greeted by St. Peter at the Gate of Heaven,” brings the tale of Arthur the Theologian to its conclusion.
Amy Lynch mysteries
Paula Kane Norton, a Boston College alumna who worked in the insurance industry for more than 30 years, has tapped into that experience to create the character of Amy Lynch, an investigator for New England Casualty and Indemnity and star of Norton’s series of mystery novels. Writing under the name P.K. Norton, the BC grad has published her latest Amy Lynch mystery, titled Deep Secrets (Stillwater River Publications, 2019), which has Amy looking into the circumstances that put her friend Tom Griffin into a coma and a possible connection to a top-secret government project. Norton is a member of Sisters in Crime and the Cape Cod Writers Center.
Zyratron
Zyratron is the main character in a series of sub-par black & white horror movies from the 1960s. The film’s producers tried to market a line of Zyratron figurines that went nowhere. Decades later, television studios desperate for programming broadcast the Zyratron films in the middle of the night. Soon a small but dedicated following grows and the Zyratron figurines become valuable collectibles. So valuable, that someone is willing to kill for them. That’s the premise of The Zyratron Affair, a mystery novel written by Boston College graduate Joe Nowlan. Nowlan is an author and freelance business writer and editor. His previous novel is Media Blitz.
Wounded healer
For nearly 50 years, Boston College graduate Edward Smink has worked as a caregiver in multiple healthcare and leadership roles. He also has experienced compassion fatigue and burnout. Smink has tapped into these experiences for his book, The Soul of Caregiving: A Caregiver’s Guide to Healing and Transformation. Smink’s goal is to share his insights and wisdom with other caregivers. “I learned the hard way in setting appropriate boundaries and the need for self-care,” he writes on his website. “Through the compassion of a skillful counselor, I soon learned how to build the skills of compassion resilience. The ancients of old would call me a wounded healer. I like that because it reminds me of not only my skills as a caregiver, but also that I as a caregiver have limitations. I learned that understanding my own woundedness helps me to be hospitable to the woundedness of another.”
Gore in the Garden
Colleen Shogan‘s mystery series featuring Congressional staffer and amateur sleuth Kit Marshall continues with Gore in the Garden (Epicenter Press, 2019). A high-ranking government official is found at the United States Botanic Garden, and Marshall is asked to investigate. According to Shogan, “The search for the killer requires [Kit] to tussle with an investigative journalist right out of a noir novel, a congresswoman fixated on getting a statue of James Madison installed on the Capitol grounds, and a bossy botanist who would do anything to protect the plants he loves.” Shogan, who works at the Library of Congress, is a graduate of Boston College. Gore in the Garden is book #5 in her Washington Whodunit series.
The caretakers
Stephen Paul Sayers, a Boston College alumnus, is a research professor and an author of supernatural thriller/horror fiction. His Caretaker Series debuted last year with the novel A Taker of Morrows (Hydra Publications, 2018). Set in his home state of Massachusetts, A Taker of Morrows introduces readers to Richard Granville who finds out he has 24 hours to live. His attempts to stay alive put him on a collision course with a dark and vengeful killer from the afterlife. This sets up the series as a battle between the caretakers, who protect earthly souls, and jumpers, who prey on them. In Sayers’ second novel, The Soul Dweller, Richard and his wife Kacey work to protect youngsters from the jumpers who are snatching up children and taking them back time. The Immortal Force, the third book in Sayers’s series, is scheduled for release this fall. Read an interview with Sayers in the Columbia Missourian.
CPA Book Award winners
Publications written or edited by faculty members from the School of Theology and Ministry and the Theology Department are recipients of 2019 Catholic Press Association Book Awards, including two first-place honors. The Paulist Biblical Commentary (Paulist Press) received a first place award in the Scripture: Academic Studies category. School of Theology and Ministry Dean Thomas D. Stegman, S.J., and STM Professor Emeritus Richard J. Clifford, S.J., are two of the volume’s co-editors. Also earning first place honors was By What Authority? Revised and Expanded Edition (Liturgical Press) by Joseph Professor of Catholic Systematic Theology Richard Gaillardetz, winning in the Pastoral Ministry: Parish Life category. Others receiving recognition were: STM Associate Professor of the Practice Theresa O’Keefe‘s book Navigating toward Adulthood: A Theology of Ministry with Adolescents (Paulist Press) [second place in the Pastoral Ministry: Catechetical category] and Knowing Christ Crucified: The Witness of African American Religious Experience (Orbis Books) by Emeritus Professor of Theology M. Shawn Copeland [third place in Theology: Morality, Ethics, Christology, Mariology, and Redemption]. More from BC News.
Faith for the Heart
Renowned author and religious education expert Thomas Groome, a professor in BC’s School of Theology and Ministry, has written a new book “especially for the ‘nones,’ for the ‘spiritual but not religious,’ and for anyone challenged in their faith at this time.” Faith for the Heart: A “Catholic” Spirituality (Paulist Press, 2019) is a book about the rewards of a life lived with faith. Groome writes that in this post-modern, secular world we can turn to the truths, values, and spiritual wisdom of Christian faith to to help satisfy the deepest desires of the human heart: fullness, love, happiness and a reliable way to achieve it, freedom, and a wholesome holiness of life toward authenticity as human beings. While Groome relies on his own Catholic Christian faith as a resource, he notes that the Catholic in the subtitle is in quotes because “people in any faith community can benefit from its spiritual wisdom to enrich their own.” Groome also is the author of What Makes Us Catholic: Eight Gifts for Life and Will There Be Faith?: A New Vision for Educating and Growing Disciples, among many other titles.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged Catholic, faith, School of Theology and Ministry
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