How to Read (and Write) Like a Catholic

Joshua Hren is founder of Wiseblood Books and co-founder of the Honors College at Belmont Abbey where he teaches and writes at the intersection of Christianity and culture. He has published essays and poems in such journals as First Things, America, and LOGOS. His books include the short story collections This Our Exile and In the Wine Press, as well as Middle-earth and the Return of the Common Good: Tolkien and Political Philosophy. Joshua’s first novel is forthcoming.
 

"Joshua Hren’s How to Read (and Write) Like A Catholic pays tribute to a wide range of notable authors from the Catholic literary tradition. But what follows Hren’s exquisite and original exploration of literary texts is a quiet challenge: a Catholic writer whose work finds deep relevance in our age will be one who shrugs off easy platitudes and instead pursues an unflinching moral, intellectual, and artistic engagement."
 
--Christine Flanagan, author/editor The Letters of Flannery O’Connor and Caroline Gordon
 
"Joshua Hren shows us how to read well by delving deeply into the well of living meaning to be found in great literature. Learning to read (and write) like a Catholic is to leave the shallows to swim in the depths and to step out of the shadows into the light. It is life changing."
 
--Joseph Pearce, author of Catholic Literary Giants: A Field Guide to the Catholic Literary Landscape, and many more

 
Joshua Hren’s How to Read (and Write) like a Catholic is not just another thick, square book. It
is a catechism that will guide you through the long Catholic literary tradition, stopping along the
way to introduce you to its best authors and to examine the great questions of judgment and craft
that every reader and every writer must consider. This is not just a new book by an important
young author; it is the fruit of an entire tradition. It is no mere survey; it is an introduction to a
way of living well within the human drama of Christianity.
-James Matthew Wilson, Poet-in-Residence, Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine
Liturgy
Catholic literature is, for many people today, at best a minor genre, at worst an impossibility, since they think religious commitment stunts the imagination. In this wide-ranging survey, Joshua Hren shows how very wrong those prejudices are by an examination of some of the great Catholic writers of the past. In addition, while there are no sure rules for creating literature that deeply engages faith, he offers some valuable insights into how writers can further the Catholic literary tradition in their own work, even in our unfavorable circumstances.

—Robert Royal, president of the Faith and Reason Institute and author of Dante Alighieri: Divine Comedy, Divine Spirituality and A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century.