Ten years of Catholicism by the book.

Can you remember all the books you've read in the past ten years? Jerry Costello does. In this final of 113 columns he reviews the reviews he's provided so faithfully to U.S. CATHOLIC readers. Scanning his bookshelf he spots some winners that have stood the test of time.

Jerry's many loyal fans will be glad to know the editors already have him working on feature articles that will appear in future issues.

Column number one in this series of monthly book commentaries appeared nearly ten years ago, following an invitation from then executive editor, Kevin Axe. I had done a number of articles for U.S. CATHOLIC (the first of which, if my somewhat suspect records can be trusted, was on the church in Latin America and appeared in December 1979) and Kevin wondered if I'd like to do something on books each month. Would I? No need to ask twice.

And so here we are at column number 113--which, as it happens, will be the last in the series. This space will change focus a bit beginning next month and expand its horizon to include a broader look at the arts.

It will seem strange not to have a "U.S. CATHOLIC book" always at hand. With a monthly deadline popping up (with astonishing speed), there was always a book to be read and notes to be taken.

No travel has been undertaken these ten years without a U.S. CATHOLIC book in tow, and for heaven knows what reasons, particular books stand out for the settings in which they were read.

Most of Father Henri Nouwen's The Road to DaybreaK: A Spiritual Journey was finished in a tiny room in Rome's Hotel Atlante Star between sessions of the World Synod of Bishops (which I was covering for Catholic New York).

I got through a fascinating book on General George Armstrong Custer, Son of the Morning Star, by Evan S. Connell, in a run-down motel in Managua, Nicaragua, awaiting word on chances for an interview with Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega. (Press conference, yes; private interview, no.) And while a three-day nor' easter howled around an outrageously expensive oceanfront rental cottage in Bay Head, New Jersey, I was holed up with Andrei Sakharov's Memoirs. Fortunately it was a very thick book.

Between the editors and myself, we've tried to come up with the kind of mix that we thought would appeal most to U.S. CATHOLIC readers. Many of the books discussed here were about the church itself or faith in general. More than a few focused on other religions. We'd look for some good quality fiction every fourth month or so, as well as an occasional biography.

But looking over the 113 columns, it's clear that most often the books dealt with social and cultural issues that we felt U.S. CATHOLIC readers would be concerned about: racism, anti-Semitism, war and peace, and societal problems that ranged from pornography to the future of the American farm.

At this point I'd like to look back at all of these books (about 130 of them, I'd guess, filling a six-foot set of shelves in my home office) and list those that I found most memorable. Picking out the best from a group of books that was, by and large, pretty good to begin with was difficult--except for my overall favorite.

Biography subjects ranged from saints (Thomas More) to popes (John XXIII and Paul VI, both written with style, affection, and insight by Peter Hebblethwaite) to presidents (Harry S. Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt). The Truman book was David McCullough's, and it was a winner. Even more enjoyable was FDR: The New Deal Years--1933-1937, third in a four-volume series by Kenneth S. Davis.

Topping my personal list of biographies reviewed (in December 1986) was A. M. Sperber's Murrow: His Life and Times, a solid account of the career of radio and television broadcaster Edward R. Murrow. Sperber not only captured the excitement of Murrow's wartime broadcasting but also caught the prophecy behind his warnings against the waste of the gift that is television--warnings, clear even during his life, that the industry preferred to ignore.

I enjoyed the occasional turn to fiction over the years, especially the quirky stories of Anne Tyler (The Accidental Tourist, Breathing Lessons, Saint Maybe). My two favorites, though, had a little more meat on their bones.

One was Thomas Flanagan's The Tenants of Time, a novel about 19th-century Ireland reviewed here in November 1988. I wrote then about this tale:

It is told with such elegance, per-

ception and depth that a reader--

this reader, at any rate--simply sur-

renders to the story. Rarely have I

read a work of fiction that is so

deeply satisfying and instructive at

the same time. Anyone who would

try to understand the bewildering 

patterns of life in present-day Ire-

land could start right here and be

well-off for the reading.

I was just as enthralled with Annie Dillard's The Living, a sweeping account of two generations of pioneer settlers in America's Northwest.

Books about other religions? An easy choice here. It's A History of the Jews by Paul Johnson, reviewed in December 1987. At the time I wrote:

This is a panoramic work, a thor-

oughly readable retelling of the story

of the Jewish people from the time

of Abraham to the present. It is con-

stantly informative, entertaining,

compelling; steering a reader...to

the wisdom of looking at the

morning's headlines in the light of

history's lessons.

Of special value was the dispassionate account of past persecution of Jews by those who carried out their persecution in Christ's name. "I have not read a book for years that occasioned more personal reflection than A History of the Jews," I wrote. I still feel that way.

Books related specifically to Catholicism had a wide range--some history, some spirituality, and a few observations about the state of the church. One favorite, written by an old friend, was Lovely in Eyes Not His: Homilies for an Imaging of Christ by Jesuit Father Walter Burghardt (reviewed December 1988). Burghardt is a superb homilist and has an uncanny knack for making his homilies read as good as they sound.

I particularly liked The Catholic Moment by Richard John Neuhaus--then (August 1988) a Lutheran pastor, now a Roman Catholic priest. I wrote:

If Richard John Neuhaus has his

say, we Catholics would seize the

opportunity, this uniquely Catholic

moment, to lead all of Christianity

into a new age of unity. If that sounds

like a tall order for a crippled ship,

Neuhaus has a way of making it

seem not only possible but almost

foreordained.

And a most unlikely category--diocesan histories--produced two strong winners: The Catholic Church in Tennessee: The Sesquicentennial Story by Thomas Stritch and Faith and Friendship: Catholicism in the Diocese of Syracuse 1886-1986 by David O'Brien. A joint review (February 1988) pointed out that Stritch, a veteran journalist and teacher, and O'Brien, a professional historian, elevated the form of diocesan history not only through their writing skills but also by concentrating on the faith as it was lived by individual Catholic men and women.

J. Anthony Lukas' Common Ground, reviewed here in May 1986, was one of many exceptionally good books on social and cultural issues that appeared during the past ten years. This account of Boston school's busing crisis of the '70s benefited from an imaginative approach, solid research, and Lukas' superb reporting skills.

Two other favorites both dealt with the future of the American farm--a vital issue that hasn't yet made the impact that it should. Andrew H. Malcolm's Final Harvest: An American Tragedy about the failure of a family farm in Ruthton, Minnesota was described in October 1986 as "a gripping account of the American dream--rural version--gone haywire." The subtitle says it all in Farm: A Year in the Life of an American Farmer by Richard Rhodes, reviewed in January 1990. "Most readers will get to know more about farming than they ever knew before," I wrote. "More important, they will get to know how one family works together to make it all tick."

I mentioned earlier that it was no contest to select the one book I most enjoyed reviewing over these last ten years. It's the sweeping study of the nation's segregation crisis by Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63, and even now--five years after the review appeared in May 1989--I recall clearly what a wallop it packed when I first read it. This was, in large measure, a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the first of a two-volume series. But it was much more, as I wrote at the time:

...an engrossing new book that

tells the story not only of King him-

self but of the civil-rights move-

ment that, for most of us, he came to

symbolize ... It is so thoroughly

researched and exhaustively re-

ported that no part of those tumul-

tuous years--good or bad, enno-

bling or degrading--slips by unno-

ticed.

Parting the Waters did something especially well, I remarked, it stirred up detailed memories of the years it covered, forcing a reader to think back and place that period in perspective:

Along with Northern whites at the

time, I knew segregation was terri-

bly wrong, and I was appalled at

the thought of the inferiority that

separation of that sort implied. But

I didn't live it. Branch does that for

his readers here in small and not-

so-subtle ways.

I loved the power of Branch's style. Take just one paragraph about the impact of King's first protest speech as an example:

King would work on his timing, but

his oratory had just made him for-

ever a public person. In the few

short minutes of his first political

address, a power of communion

emerged from him that would speak

inexorably to strangers who would

both love and revile him, like all

prophets. He was 26 and had not

quite twelve years and four months

to live.

Volume two will deal with the Johnson years, Vietnam, and, in the publisher's words, "the eclipse of American liberalism." I await its appearance with great anticipation.

Now if I may end this very personal recollection with an even more personal comment, I'm more grateful than I can say to U.S. CATHOLIC for the opportunity to immerse myself in so many good books--and the chance to tell readers about them--during the last ten years.