Böcker av Gracjan Kraszewski

This is a story about a coming, slowly creeping, once in a millennium climatological disaster event. Yet the residents of a small Pacific Northwest town, especially their Mayor, seem more concerned with the taking up of a homeless man and his cohort in downtown, a development threatening to ruin their idyllic self-perceptions. Even as the storm readies to deliver a direct hit, many view the homeless men as the true "plague" rather than a dust storm, acid spitting, Tornado funnel-front that has reduced Syracuse and Chicago to utter ruin. Ultimately, it is a story about what it means to love one's neighbor, what it means to sacrifice, what it means to trust in God's providential, often unseen, plans.

The Hippo Lectures is a book of essays that were first given as live audience, public talks. Catholicism being a "both/and" faith, this work is both fiction and non-fiction; speech and story; serious and absurd; broadly maximal and microscopically focused. It's singular glue, however, is the Catholic Faith. All the essays-whether about the environment, beauty, athletics, beer, sex, economics, film, or American politics, to name but a few-are viewed through a Catholic lens. Now nearly past the first quarter of the 21st century, deep into postmodernity, Catholics need books that take societal challenges head on, resisting the temptations to accommodate error, look the other way, or seek answers in the 13th century. Head on, and using postmodern tools and techniques, as we are meant to use all things, for the glory of God. This is that book.

The Hippo Lectures is a book of essays that were first given as live audience, public talks. Catholicism being a "both/and" faith, this work is both fiction and non-fiction; speech and story; serious and absurd; broadly maximal and microscopically focused. It's singular glue, however, is the Catholic Faith. All the essays-whether about the environment, beauty, athletics, beer, sex, economics, film, or American politics, to name but a few-are viewed through a Catholic lens. Now nearly past the first quarter of the 21st century, deep into postmodernity, Catholics need books that take societal challenges head on, resisting the temptations to accommodate error, look the other way, or seek answers in the 13th century. Head on, and using postmodern tools and techniques, as we are meant to use all things, for the glory of God. This is that book.

THE HOLDOUT is a philosophical novel set in modern-day Mississippi treating religion, sexuality, academic life and academic freedom, sports and sports culture against the backdrop of the quotidian daily malaise (named 'torpor' in the work) afflicting all people. The story is told through the first person viewpoint of Rhett Lawson, an ex-NFL player finishing up graduate school. Rhett is a sincere Catholic although obsessed with women and sex and finds himself often trapped in "the torpor." His two main companions are his friends Brent (an atheist) and David (an Evangelical Protestant). The three have wide-ranging discussions on various topics throughout the narrative. Additionally, issues of race (Rhett is white, his aunt Shelby, a central figure to the story, is black), the nature of contemporary academia, and commentary on life in twenty-first century Mississippi (something largely unplumbed in comparison to the plethora of works that have tackled the Civil War South of the 1860s or the Civil Rights Era South of the 1960s) underpin the story.