Dressed In A Suit And Tie

Wolfish: The Stories We Tell About Fear, Ferocity And Freedom by Erica Berry

Upcoming hardback: Wolfish: The Stories We Tell About Fear, Ferocity And Freedom (2 March 2023) is a Financial Times Non-Fiction Book To Read in 2023 and the most anticipated book of 2023 for TIME, Los Angeles Times, Vulture, Salon, Lit Hub, Goodreads, Rumpus, Bustle, Reader's Digest, Book Riot, Debutiful and more.

Wolves abound through cultural folklore and through literature - vilified and venerated in equal measure. In Wolfish, Erica Berry examines these depictions, alongside her own research of the wolf for nearly a decade, to get to the heart of what our stories about the wolf reveal about our relationships with one another and ourselves: 'What does it mean to want to embody the same creature from which you are supposed to be running?'

The wolf is so often depicted as the male predator, preying on the vulnerable girl/woman who strays from the path; the she-wolf, meanwhile, depicts women who sit outside the accepted boundaries of feminine behaviour. Berry openly recounts her own uncomfortable and sometimes frightening experiences as a woman to try to understand how we navigate our fears when threat can seem constant.

Through it all, Berry finds new expressions for courage and survival: how to be a brave human and animal member of our fragile, often dangerous world.

About the author: Erica Berry is a writer based in her hometown of Portland, Oregon. She has an MFA from the University of Minnesota, where she was a College of Liberal Arts Fellow. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, New York Times Magazine, Yale Review, Outside Magazine, Catapult, Atlantic, Guernica and elsewhere. Winner of the Steinberg Essay Prize and the Kurt Brown Prize in Nonfiction, she has received fellowships and funding from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Tin House, the Ucross Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources. A former Writer-in-Residence with the National Writers Series in Traverse City, Michigan, she is currently a Writer-in-the-Schools with Literary Arts in Portland. Wolfish is her first book.

High Stakes by Danielle Steel

Paperback: High Stakes (2022) is a compelling and thought-provoking novel from the world’s favourite storyteller. Set around a New York talent agency, a group of accomplished women discover the high price of success.

Jane Addison is smart, young and ambitious. She is delighted to have landed a job with a prestigious talent agency, Fletcher and Benson. Hailey West, her boss, is dedicated to her authors, but her home life is chaotic and challenging as a single mother following her husband’s tragic death. Francine Rivers, the stern and bitter head of department, is also raising children on her own after an acrimonious divorce, and she has had to overcome financial hardship by paying the very highest price.

Meanwhile, Allie Moore seems to have it all: she relishes success and loves working with the talented actors she represents. But then a passionate relationship with one of her star clients risks derailing her career. And Merriwether Jones, the CFO of the agency, appears to have the perfect marriage until her husband’s jealousy over her career threatens her happiness.

Jane quickly realizes that there are damaging secrets behind the doors of the agency. She has the least power, but she is also the least willing to accept things as they are. And when she tries to put things right, the consequences will leave no one unscathed.

In this riveting novel, five women at the top of their game navigate the challenges of career and ambition, family and personal lives in a world where it’s necessary to fight for what is right.

About the author: Danielle Steel has been hailed as one of the world's most popular authors, with nearly a billion copies of her novels sold. Her recent international bestsellers include The High Notes, The Whittiers, and Without A Trace. She is also the author of His Bright Light, the story of her son Nick Traina's life and death; A Gift of Hope, a memoir of her work with the homeless; and the children's books Pretty Minnie in Paris and Pretty Minnie in Hollywood. Danielle divides her time between Paris and her home in northern California.

Rating: 5/5

Seen At Cauchi's Stationery Shop In Mosta, Malta

Strangers On A Pier: Portrait Of A Family by Tash Aw

Hardback: From the award-winning author of Five Star Billionaire and We, The Survivors comes a whirlwind personal history of modern Asia, as told through his Malaysian and Chinese heritage.

In Strangers on a Pier: Portrait of a Family (2021), acclaimed author Tash Aw explores the panoramic cultural vitality of modern Asia through his own complicated family story of migration and adaptation, which is reflected in his own face. From a taxi ride in present-day Bangkok, to eating Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1980s Kuala Lumpur, to his grandfathers' treacherous boat journeys to Malaysia from mainland China in the 1920s, Aw weaves together stories of insiders and outsiders, images from rural villages to megacity night clubs, and voices in a dizzying variety of languages, dialects, and slangs, to create an intricate and astoundingly vivid portrait of a place caught between the fast-approaching future and a past that won't let go.

Strangers on a Pier: Portrait of a Family (2021) was originally published as The Face: Strangers on a Pier in the United States in 2016.

About the author: Tash Aw was born in Taiwan to Malaysian parents and grew up in Kuala Lumpar.

He moved to England in his teens, and studied Law at the Universities of Cambridge and Warwick. He moved to London and undertook various jobs, including working as a lawyer for four years. He then studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.

His first novel, The Harmony Silk Factory (2005), won the 2005 Whitbread First Novel Award, and the Commonwealth Writers Prize (South East Asia and South Pacific Region Best First Book). It juxtaposes three accounts of the life of Johnny Lim, a Chinese peasant in rural Malay. His subsequent novels are Map of the Invisible World (2009), set in Indonesia and Malaysia in the mid-1960s, and Five Star Billionaire (2013). In 2019, he published We, the Survivors, with Fourth Estate.

His work of short fiction, Sail, won the O Henry Prize in 2013 and he has had pieces published in A Public Space and the landmark Granta 100, amongst others.

Ash Wednesday

Vanity Of Vanities, All Is Vanity

Meditations on Death: Preparing For Eternity by Thomas à Kempis

Hardback: “Remember That Thou Art Dust and Unto Dust Thou Shalt Return.”

Thinking on death is the most profitable meditation we can make.

Indeed, Our Lord’s most holy passion and death offers us the greatest meditation, but pondering our own imminent death can bring us great fruit as it prepares us for the most important thing we will do: enter into eternity.

By meditating on their deaths, many have renounced this fleeting world for the monastery and cloister. 

By meditating on their deaths, many have conquered the flesh, the world, and the devil. 

By meditating on their deaths, many have climbed the ladder of holiness in a brief time.

To keep death daily before your eyes is one of the greatest secrets to sanctity, for death is the only certainty in this life. And those who ponder the hour of their death daily will not be surprised when that moment comes; rather, they will have prepared for it their entire lives and will be ready to meet their Creator.

In this soul-jarring work, Thomas à Kempis guides the reader to consider the last four things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell. Meditations on Death (2022, English Translation) is like a mini-retreat that will redirect your heart to eternal things rather than passing things for to contemplate the hour of your death is to already have one foot in heaven. Meditations on Death us translated from the Dutch by Father Robert Nixon, OSB.

About the author: Thomas à Kempis (c1380-1471; German: Thomas von Kempen; Dutch: Thomas van Kempen) was a German-Dutch canon regular of the late medieval period and the author of The Imitation of Christ, written anonymously in Latin in the Netherlands c 1418–1427, one of the most popular and best known Christian devotional books. The Imitation of Christ is said to have made more saints than any other book - next to the Bible, of course. Countless saints from Thérèse of Lisieux to Ignatius of Loyola have kept this book on their nightstands, used it to direct their minds during adoration, and carried it in their pockets as a soldier carries his weapon into battle.

His name means "Thomas of Kempen", Kempen being his home town. He was a member of the Modern Devotion, a spiritual movement during the late medieval period, and a follower of Geert Groote (1340-1384) and Florens Radewyns (1350-1400), the founders of the Brethren of the Common Life. 

The other popular book, next to The Imitation of Christ and Meditations on Death, is Humility and Elevation of the Mind to God. The books are available on Amazon UK and USA and tanbooks.com

Happiness No 20223

Great Lent: Journey To Pascha by Alexander Schmemann

Paperback: This revised edition of a Lenten classic (1969) examines the meaning of the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, the Prayer of St Ephraim the Syrian, the Canon of St Andrew of Crete, and other neglected or misunderstood treasures of Lenten worship. 

Schmemann draws on the Church's sacramental and liturgical tradition to suggest the meaning of Lent in our lives. 

The Lenten season is meant to kindle a 'bright sadness' within our hearts. Its aim is precisely the remembrance of Christ, a longing for a relationship with God that has been lost. Lent offers the time and place for recovery of this relationship. The darkness of Lent allows the flame of the Holy Spirit to burn within our hearts until we are led to the brilliance of the Resurrection.

Let us receive with joy, O faithful, the divinely inspire announcement of Lent.

Like Ninevites of old, like harlots and publicans who heard John preaching repentance through abstinence, let us prepare for ht Master's communion performed in Zion.

Let us wash ourselves with tears for its divine purification.

Let us pray to behold the fulfillment of Pascha, the true Revelation.

Let us prepare for adoring the Cross and Resurrection of Christ our God!

Do not deprive us of our expectations, O Lover of Man!

(Cheese-Fare Week, Tuesday Vespers, Apostikha)

You can buy Great Lent (1969) on Amazon UK and US.

About the author: The Reverend Dr Alexander Schmemann (1921-1983) was professor of Liturgical Theology and Dean of St Vladimir's Seminary in Crestwood, New York.

Stolen by Ann-Helén Laestadius

Hardback: Louise Erdrich meets Jo Nesbø in this spellbinding Swedish novel that follows a young indigenous woman as she struggles to defend her family’s reindeer herd and culture amidst xenophobia, climate change, and a devious hunter whose targeted kills are considered mere theft in the eyes of the law.

On a winter day north of the Arctic Circle, nine-year-old Elsa - daughter of Sámi reindeer herders - sees a man brutally kill her beloved reindeer calf and threaten her into silence. When her father takes her to report the crime, local police tell them that there is nothing they can do about these “stolen” animals. 

Killings like these are classified as theft in the reports that continue to pile up, uninvestigated. But reindeers are not just the Sámi’s livelihood, they also hold spiritual significance; attacking a reindeer is an attack on the culture itself.

Ten years later, hatred and threats against the Sámi keep escalating, and more reindeer are tortured and killed in Elsa’s community. Finally, she has had enough and decides to push back on the apathetic police force. The hunter comes after her this time, leading to a catastrophic final confrontation.

Based on real events, Ann-Helén Laestadius’s award-winning novel Stolen (2023) is part coming-of-age story, part love song to a disappearing natural world, and part electrifying countdown to a dramatic resolution - a searing depiction of a forgotten part of Sweden.

Stolen is soon to be a Netflix film.

About the author: Ann-Helén Laestadius is an author and journalist from Kiruna, Sweden. She is Sámi and of Tornedalian descent, two of Sweden’s national minorities. In 2016, Laestadius was awarded the prestigious August Prize for Best Young Adult and Children’s Novel for Ten Past One, for which she was also awarded Norrland’s Literature Prize. Stolen is her first adult novel and was named Sweden’s Book of the Year.

Rating: 5/5

The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore

Hardback: The Garnett Girls (2023) is a brilliant debut full of heart and warmth about three very different sisters and their free-spirited mother who must grapple with life, responsibilities, and family secrets.

Forbidden, passionate and all-encompassing, Margo and Richard's love affair was the stuff of legend but, ultimately, doomed. When Richard walked out, Margo locked herself away, leaving her three daughters, Rachel, Imogen, and Sasha, to run wild.

Years later, charismatic Margo entertains lovers and friends in her cottage on the Isle of Wight, refusing to ever speak of Richard and her painful past. But her silence is keeping each of the Garnett girls from finding true happiness.

Rachel is desperate to return to London but is held hostage by responsibility for Sandcove, their beloved but crumbling family home. Dreamy Imogen feels the pressure to marry her kind, considerate fiancé, even when life is taking an unexpected turn. Wild, passionate Sasha, trapped between her fractured family and controlling husband, is weighed down by a secret that could shake the family to its core.

The Garnett Girls (2023), the captivating debut novel from Georgina Moore, asks whether children can ever be free of the mistakes of their parents.

About the author: Now Deputy MD of PR Agency Midas, Georgina Moore is an award-winning book publicist who has worked in the publishing industry for twenty years. She has worked with a huge variety of authors across all genres and at all stages of their careers - from debuts to household names. Her most recent PR campaign for Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet has won the FutureBook and PPC awards for campaign of the year and is Nibbies nominated.

The Garnett Girls is Georgina’s first novel and is set on the Isle of Wight where Georgina and her family have a holiday houseboat called Sturdy. Georgina’s main residence is a houseboat on Taggs Island in the River Thames, where she lives with her partner, two children and Bomber, the Border terrier.

Rating: 5/5

The Present Crisis Of The Holy See: A Warning About Antichrist by Henry Edward Cardinal Manning

Paperback: This book, The Present Crisis of the Holy See: A Warning About Antichrist, was compiled from four lectures given by Henry Cardinal Manning in 1861 on the present crisis of the Catholic Church. 

He correctly saw that a grave crisis was approaching and described the theological basis of the Great Apostasy and the more common speculations of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church on this most important subject. 

Further in several places, he cites the Universal Agreement of the Fathers of the Church, which we know to be an infallible guide in discerning the truth in doctrinal matters. 

This book is even more appropriate today, when many of these prophecies appear to be being fulfilled. 

This book is even more important today, when many fear the advent of Antichrist. 

Saint Pius X said: "Who can fail to see that society is at the present time, more than in any past age, suffering from a terrible and deep-rooted malady which, developing everyday and eating into its inmost being, is dragging it to destruction? You understand, Venerable Brethren, what this disease is - apostasy from God... When all this is considered, there is good reason to fear lest this great perversity may be as it were a foretaste, and perhaps the beginning of those evils are reserved for the last days; and that there may be already in the world the "Son of Perdition" of whom the Apostle speaks." (E Supremi, Encyclical On The Restoration Of All Things in Christ, n 3, 5; 4 October 1903).

About the author: Henry Edward Manning (1808-1892) was an English prelate of the Catholic church, and the second Archbishop of Westminster from 1865 until his death in 1892. He was ordained in the Church of England as a young man, but converted to Catholicism in the aftermath of the Gorham judgement. (Wikipedia)

Valentine's Day

The sTables Have Turned

Happiness No 10223

The Apparitions Of Garabandal by Francisco Sanchez-Ventura Y Pascual

Paperback: "Conchita, I bless you...and with me, the whole Church blesses you." - Pope Paul VI

The Apparitions of Garabandal (1965, 1966) is the definitive recounting of the extraordinary events which occurred in that remote village located in northern Spain. 

First published in 1965 and written while the apparitions were still occurring, Sanchez Ventura’s vividly detailed account of his own direct observations and those of the other first hand witnesses he interviewed, is the most authoritative on this subject. 

If you want to know what really happened at Garabandal — this is the one book you need to read.

The original book was published in Spain under the title Las Apariciones No Son Un Mito: el interrogante de Garabandal. The English translation was carried out by A de Bertodano. For more information on Garabandal, go to www.garabandal.org

About the author: Francisco Sanchez-Ventura y Pascual was a highly respected Spanish attorney, economics Professor, award-winning novelist, personal counsellor to Spanish royalty, and founder of various businesses. However, above all, Francisco was a warrior for the Virgin Mary. He founded the magazine Maria Mensajera (Mary Messenger), directed numerous courses specializing in Mariology and published more than 50 books — most of them investigative studies into mystical phenomena and Marian apparitions. He died 13 June 2007.

The Library: A Fragile History by Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen

Paperback: The Library: A Fragile History (2022) is longlisted for the Historical Writers' Association Non-Fiction Crown Awards 2022 and a Sunday Times Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2021.

Famed across the known world, jealously guarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes or filled with bean bags and children's drawings - the history of the library is rich, varied and stuffed full of incident.

In The Library: A Fragile History, the first major history of its kind, Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen explore the contested and dramatic history of the library, from the famous collections of the ancient world to the embattled public resources we cherish today. 

Along the way, they introduce us to the antiquarians and philanthropists who shaped the world's great collections, trace the rise and fall of fashions and tastes, and reveal the high crimes and misdemeanours committed in pursuit of rare and valuable manuscripts.

The Library: A Fragile History is essential reading for booklovers, collectors, and anyone who has ever gotten blissfully lost in the stacks.

About the authors: Arthur der Weduwen (b 1993) is a Dutch historian and writer. His work primarily focuses on the Dutch Republic, the history of the book and the emergence of the newspaper. Educated at the University of Exeter, der Weduwen took his doctoral degree at St Andrews University, where he currently works on the Universal Short Title Catalogue Project. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. 

Professor Andrew Pettegree (b 1957) is a British historian and an expert on the European Reformation, the history of the book and media transformations. As of 2022 he holds a professorship at St Andrews University, where he is the director of the Universal Short Title Catalogue Project. He is the founding director of the St Andrews Reformation Studies Institute.

Der Weduwen has collaborated with Andrew Pettegree on a number of books about the publishing industry in the Netherlands in the Dutch Golden Age. These include The Bookshop of the World. Making and Trading Books in the Dutch Golden Age (2019) in English and Dutch, and studies of the origins of advertising, The Dutch Republic and the Birth of Modern Advertising and News and Business and Public Information. Advertisements and Public Announcements in Dutch and Flemish Newspapers, 1620-1675. 

They also co-wrote The Library: a Fragile History (2021) which charts the history of the library from the ancient world to the modern era.

Revenge: Meghan, Harry And The War Between The Windsors by Tom Bower

Paperback: In 2018, the wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle was a dizzy success. Watched and celebrated all over the world, it was hailed as the beginning of a new era for the Windsors. Yet, within a few short years, the dream had become a nightmare. The Queen had passed, and the Sussexes were no longer working members of the Royal Family.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle continue to make headlines and divide opinion. With a new King on the throne, and the aftershocks of Megxit and the infamous Oprah Winfrey interview still being felt, what lies ahead for Meghan and Harry? And what of the royal family they are so determined to leave behind?

With extensive research, expert sourcing and interviews from insiders who have never spoken before, Tom Bower, Britain's leading investigative biographer, unpicks the tangled web of events that led the family here. 

With courtroom drama, courtier politics and thwarted childhood dreams, the paperback edition of Revenge: Meghan, Harry And The War Between The Windsors (2022) includes sensational new material and is an astonishing story of love, betrayal, secrets and revenge. Revenge is an instant No 1 internationally bestselling “explosive tell-all” and the No 1 Sunday Times bestseller.

About the author: Tom Bower is acknowledged as Britain's leading investigative writer. His 25 bestselling books encompass a remarkably wide range of subjects. He is best known for his unvarnished and unauthorised biographies of Britain's most controversial tycoons including Robert Maxwell, Richard Branson, Mohamed Al-Fayed, Tim Rowland, Bernie Ecclestone and Simon Cowell.

Good Morning

Unspoken Fellowship

The Tumbler of Our Lady and Other Miracles translated by Alice Kemp-Welch

Paperback: The Tumbler of Our Lady And Other Miracles (1908, 2023) is a collection of medieval Marian stories from the golden age of chivalry. 

Translated from Middle French by Alice Kemp-Welch (1856-1944), these tales offer a charming glimpse into the Marian piety of the High Middle Ages. 

The Tumbler of Our Lady and Other Miracles contains nine stories with original manuscript illustrations.

About the translator: Alice Kemp-Welch (1856-1944) was a British medievalist author and translator. Some of her writings included Of Six Mediæval Women; To Which Is Added A Note on Mediæval Gardens, The Chatelaine of Vergi and The Book of the Duke of True Lovers.

36 Islands: In Search Of The Hidden Wonders Of The Lake District And A Few Other Things Too by Robert Twigger

Hardback: Robert Twigger, poet, artist and travel author, is a lover of uninhabited islands. A lifelong passion for the Lake District led him to embark on a mission to visit all 36 islands of the region – some little more than rocks, some home only to wildlife, some the perfect spot for a night of wild-camping. 

Armed only with an inflatable canoe, and inspired by Arthur Ransome, Wainwright, Wordsworth and other writers of the region, he journeys beyond the tourists and the busy roads, beneath the surface, to islands both real and remembered. 

Here the low tide of the unconscious reveals itself through the strange flotsam that it leaves on the shore – a new sense of discovery, about himself and the world we live in.

36 Islands: In Search Of The Hidden Wonders Of The Lake District And A Few Other Things Too (2022) is a journey across the Lake District to discover the secrets of its 36 islands

About the author: Robert Twigger has won the Newdigate Prize for poetry, the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award and the Somerset Maugham Award. His twelve books have been translated into over twenty languages and cover both fiction and non-fiction, memoir and travel. He spent a year training with the Tokyo riot police, crossed Canada in a homemade birchbark canoe and was the first person to traverse entirely on foot the Egyptian Great Sand Sea. His quarterly comic of memoir and travel, This Simple Life, is available at roberttwigger.com

The Smoke Of Satan: How Corrupt And Cowardly Bishops Betrayed Christ, His Church, And The Faithful...And What Can Be Done About It by Philip F Lawler

Paperback: The sex-abuse scandal, which has erupted anew in 2018, poses the greatest challenge that the Catholic Church has faced since the Reformation. In The Smoke of Satan (2018), veteran Catholic journalist Philip Lawler explains why the crisis is even more severe than when it first commanded headlines in 2002, and how the failure of Church leaders goes all the way to the Vatican.    

In this unflinching look at the crisis threatening the Church and her members, Lawler shows how the sex-abuse scandal is not a question of paedophilia, but of homosexual activity within the clergy. He explains how Catholic bishops have developed a habit of covering up serious problems, to avoid the serious divisions that have developed within the faith since Vatican II. He demonstrates a catastrophic rupture in Church unity, causing a breakdown in morale and discipline among priests, bishops, and laity, paving the way for the current crisis.

He also reveals the growth of a faction within the Vatican that is ready to make peace with secularism and details the charges in the explosive "Vigano testimony," and the efforts by Vatican officials including Pope Francis himself to ward off a thorough investigation. He then concludes with a program for reform, led by faithful lay Catholics, demanding a new policy of candour and a forthright proclamation of Church teaching.  

This crisis, brought about by the failures of corrupt and cowardly bishops and clerics, has been allowed to fester long enough. It is well past time for serious action to be taken at every level before more lives are ruined, more souls are lost, and more fractures divide the Church.   

In these pages, Lawler details the problems besetting the Church and lays out a clear plan to overcome them in order that the Church and Her members may once again thrive and bring souls to Christ.

About the author: Philip F Lawler, the editor of Catholic World News, is one of America's most incisive Catholic journalists and commentators. A graduate of Harvard College, he has been the editor of Crisis magazine, the Boston Pilot, and Catholic World Report. He is the author of Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston's Catholic Culture (2008), a penetrating analysis of the scandals that brought the Church to its knees in America, and co-author of A Call to Serve: Pope Francis and the Catholic Future (2013). The father of seven and grandfather of twelve, Lawler lives in central Massachusetts with his wife, Leila, a popular Catholic blogger. 

Happiness No 2223

Franz Kafka (1883-1924), Czech Novelist and Short-Story Writer

Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi: Selected Revelations (The Classics Of Western Spirituality)

Paperback: Maria Maddalena De'Pazzi: Selected Revelations (2000) is translated and introduced by Armando Maggi.

Saint Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi (1566-1606) was one of the most important mystics of the Renaissance. Her mystical works are a fascinating meditation on the nature and purpose of language.

Born in Florence in 1566, Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi joined the Carmelite convent Santa Maria degli Angeli in August 1582, when she was sixteen. She took the veil the following year and soon after, began having daily visions. During these raptures, she conversed with Christ, whom she generally refers to as the Word.

Maria Maddalena believed that the Word wanted her to summon his being through her voice. Her visions, therefore, have a distinctly oral character, and the convent sisters who transcribed them carefully attempted to reproduce the mystic's oral style.

Maria Maddalena's long monologues were, in fact, repeated attempts to embody the Word through oral language, and her daily raptures bore similarities to solo mystical plays, which focused on Christ's passion and death.

The manuscripts containing the mystic's visions were edited in seven volumes from 1960 to 1966. Available here for the first time in English are a selection of de' Pazzi's most powerful and disturbing visions.

About the translator: Armando Maggi PhD is Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and a member of the Committee on the History of Culture at the University of Chicago. A specialist of Renaissance culture, he has published several essays on female mysticism, Renaissance theories on visuality, Neoplatonic treatises on love, seventeenth-century books on demonology, and Portuguese literature. He is the author of several books, including Satan's Rhetoric, a Study of Renaissance Demonology and The Resurrection of the Body: Pier Paolo Pasolini from Sade to Saint Paul, both published by the University of Chicago Press.