Hell And Other Destinations A Novelist's Reflections on This World And the Next

by Read, Piers Paul

• ISBN13: 9781586171612
• ISBN10: 1586171615
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-06-29
• Publisher: Ignatius Press

Summary

The famous British novelist and playwright Piers Paul Read presents his lively, thought-provoking reflections on wide ranging spiritual topics with his usual brilliance and insight. When this best-selling writer turns his attention to a subject he holds most dear, his Catholic faith, as well as to religious and cultural issues of our times, he provokes delight and inspiration, as well as some fury and controversy. This illuminating volume presents a selection of Read's most elegant and memorable writings on subjects ranging from Christians and Jews, liberation theology, and The Da Vinci Code to sexual desire, saints and Pope Benedict XVI. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Piers Paul Read is a best-selling novelist, writer and playright with numeous popular books including Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors, Ablaze: The Story of Chernobyl, Alec Guinness: The Authorised Biography, The Templars, Monk Dawson, A Patriot in Berlin and Alice in Exile. Read is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of the Council of the Society of Authors. He has also written a number of television plays, and several of his novels have been filmed for cinema and television. He lives in London.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(12)
FAITH
1. Hell	13	(35)
2. Upon this Rock	48	(14)
3. The Book of God	62	(4)
4. Jesus as a Character in Fiction	66	(4)
5. A Reasonable Man	70	(3)
6. Two Travellers: St Paul and A.N. Wilson	73	(3)
7. Screwtape Returns	76	(7)
THE CHURCH
8. A Time of Trial	83	(10)
9. Modern Catholicism	93	(4)
10. The Inquisition and Dr Kiang	97	(7)
11. The Theology of Benedict XVI	104	(4)
12. The Worlock Archive	108	(4)
13. Pilgrim Cormac	112	(5)
LIBERATION THEOLOGY
14. Rich and Poor	117	(6)
15. Catechists and Commissars	123	(24)
HISTORY
16. Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code	147	(3)
17. Christians and Jews	150	(9)
18. Misunderstanding Islam	159	(4)
19. A New Look at the Crusades	163	(6)
SEX AND MARRIAGE
20. Wine and Kisses	169	(9)
21. Reconciliation	178	(5)
22. Sex, Predestination and the Working Wife	183	(8)
23. Men	191	(8)
WRITERS
24. The Catholic Novelist in a Secular Society	199	(14)
25. Eros Defended	213	(3)
26. The Quest for Graham Greene	216	(3)
27. The Riddle of Greene's Catholicism	219	(8)
SAINTS
28. Margaret Clitherow	227	(16)
29. Ignatius of Loyola	243