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We say that the style is the man. Style as the soul of wit and wisdom is the person. The aphorism points to this memoir’s author, Joseph Roccasalvo: refined, astute and ironic. Readers will envision him moving at a slight angle to family and friends, exuding his intelligence to wide benefit. He is at once scholar and believer. Although the events of his life may enlarge on his attainments, we value him best for his faith and hope. Like his namesake, Joseph, he’s accounted a blessing. He avoids being confessional by his cool, robust, somewhat distant stance. If he’s a practitioner of perfect prose, he’s also practitioner of the perfect pose: linguist, novelist and orientalist; priest ...
Twists of Faith is a captivating title for stories of the spiritual life, a phrase that might conjure up people at odds with the world. But these tales are the stellar opposite. In a phrase, they’re thrilling. These twenty-one action narratives, with twists and turns, project our inner struggles: epic accounts of our journey here below—our spiritual saga.
It Comes in Tides by Joseph Roccasalvo showcases a striking talent for the formal style in poetry. The collection is masterful for employing rhyme, meter, and the wordplay of puns and paradox. In the celebration of the highs and lows of romance and abiding friendship, the poems are subtle and emotional, complex but always comprehensible. They are so rhythmic that the image of tides hitting a shoreline best describes them. They share the gift for point and counterpoint in their musical precision. The playful wit, conspicuous in the love poems, captivates the astute reader. It Comes in Tides will inspire both poets and lovers who have a zest for romance in rhyme and meter.
Poems for Two Violins by Joseph Roccasalvo exhibits a striking talent for the formal style in poetry. The collection is masterful for employing rhyme, meter, and the wordplay of puns and paradox. In the celebration of love in mysticism, romance, and abiding friendship, the poems are subtle and emotional, complex but always comprehensible. They are so overtly musical that the tag, poetically Bach, best describes them. They share that composer’s gift for point and counterpoint in their symmetry and precision of choice. The playful wit, conspicuous in the spiritual poems, would captivate even the most secular reader. Poems for Two Violins will inspire both poets and lovers who have a zest for rhyme and meter.
Island of the Assassin is about two kinds of silence in conflict. A covert killer, Kai Landrie, contracted by the CIA to target Islamic terrorists, develops moral scruples. He shares his doubts in confession with Peter Quince, a priest, who gets renditioned for receiving classified information. The result: two unconditional secreciessacred and profanetragically collide.
Joseph Roccasalvo toasts two masters of the bon mot and the mot juste as he unleashes his own gifted command of the language in his two-part opus, Two for One. Roccasalvo celebrates his admiration for accomplished English satirist Evelyn Waugh in the first part, a two-act monologue starring Waugh himself at his confident best. Meanwhile, the second section introduces prominent Gospel stories in limerick form, countering the "breathless reporting" of the Bible by putting a twinke in each verse´s eye. He also toasts the master of the one-liner and timely quip, Jesus Christ, in this two-in-one literary show. For more information, please visit www.TWOFORONEBOOK.net
What is emptiness? This question at the heart of Buddhist philosophy has preoccupied the greatest minds of India and Tibet for two millennia, producing hundreds of volumes. Distinguishing the Views, by the fifteenth-century Sakya scholar Gorampa Sonam Senge, is one of the most important of those works, esteemed for its conciseness, lucidity, and profundity. Freedom from Extremes presents Gorampa's elegant philosophical case on the matter of emptiness here in a masterful translation by Geshe Lobsang Dargyay. Gorampa's text is polemical, and his targets are two of Tibet's greatest thinkers: Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelug school, and Dolpopa, a founding figure of the Jonang school. Distinguis...
One of the most influential Catholic figures of the of the twentieth century, Jesuit priest and activist Daniel Berrigan has inspired countless people of faith and conscience to pursue the gospel vision of a world without war. In 1968 he made national headlines as one of the Catonsville Nine, who destroyed draft files to protest the Vietnam War. In the nearly thirty years since then he has continued to challenge the conscience of both his country and the church by his uncompromising manner of Christian witness. In Apostle of Peace, reflective essays by forty fellow travelers celebrate Berrigan’s life and gifts as a peacemaker, prophet, poet, priest, and “keeper of the word.” These essa...
Home to the location where George Washington took command of the troops and to America's oldest Ivy League university, Cambridge is a city that feels like a town. Hasty Pudding meetings were enlivened with mock trials spoofing happenings in Cambridge and among the faculty; by 1860 the trials had evolved into shows. In a corner of the Cambridge Common, across from Harvard Yard, a Gilded Age statue of a Puritan has been toppled several times. Letters home from Robert Kennedy were found stashed on a high shelf in a college room he occupied, over 30 years after he graduated. From protests to the "Beer Garden Summit", author Jane Merrill shares the stories behind notable landmarks and some significant but little-known facts in and around town.
Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan (1921-2016), priest, poet, peacemaker, was one of the great religious voices of our time. Jim Forest, who worked with Berrigan in building the Catholic Peace Fellowship in the 1960s, draws on his deep friendship over five decades to provide the most comprehensive and intimate picture yet available of this modern-day prophet.