Items from the Wish List: Joseph Pearce

Race With the Devil: My Journey from Racial Hatred to Rational Love by Joseph Pearce  (Author)

Before he was the world's foremost Catholic biographer, Joseph Pearce was a leader of the National Front, a British-nationalist, white-supremacist group. Before he published books highlighting and celebrating the great Catholic cultural tradition, he disseminated literature extolling the virtues of the white race, and calling for the banishment of all non-white from Britain.
Pearce and his cohorts were at the center of the racial and nationalist tensions—often violent—that swirled around London in the late-1970s and early 80s. Eventually Pearce became a top member of the National Front, and the editor of its newspaper, The Bulldog. He was a full-time revolutionary.
In 1982 he was imprisoned for six months for hate speech, but he came out with more anger, and more resolve. Several years later, he was imprisoned again, this time for a year and it spurred a change in his life.
In Race with the Devil: My Journey from Racial Hatred to Rational Love, Pearce himself takes the reader through his journey from racist revolutionary to Christian, including:

• The youthful influences that lead him to embrace the National Front and their racist platform
• His dark, angry, exhilarating but ultimately empty days as a revolutionary on the front lines
• His imprisonment and subsequent dark night of the soul
• The role that Catholic luminaries such as G. K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, and C. S. Lewis played in his conversion from racist radical to joyful Christian
• And his eventual reception in the Catholic Church

Race with the Devil is one man's incredible journey to Christ, but it also much more. It is a testament to God s hand active among us and the infinite grace that Christ pours out on his people, showing that we can all turn—or return—to Christ and his Church. – Amazon.

The Quest for Shakespeare by Joseph Pearce  (Author)

Highly regarded and best-selling literary writer and teacher, Joseph Pearce presents a stimulating and vivid biography of the world’s most revered writer that is sure to be controversial. Unabashedly provocative, with scholarship, insight and keen observation, Pearce strives to separate historical fact from fiction about the beloved Bard.

Shakespeare is not only one of the greatest figures in human history, he is also one of the most controversial and one of the most elusive. He is famous and yet almost unknown. Who was he? What were his beliefs? Can we really understand his plays and his poetry if we don t know the man who wrote them?

These are some of the questions that are asked and answered in this gripping and engaging study of the world’s greatest ever poet. The Quest for Shakespeare claims that books about the Bard have got him totally wrong. They misread the man and misread the work. The true Shakespeare has eluded the grasp of the critics. Dealing with the facts of Shakespeare s life and times, Pearce's quest leads to the inescapable conclusion that Shakespeare was a believing Catholic living in very anti-Catholic times.

Many of his friends and family were persecuted, and even executed, for their Catholic faith. And yet he seems to have avoided any notable persecution himself. How did he do this? How did he respond to the persecution of his friends and family? What did he say about the dreadful and intolerant times in which he found himself? The Quest for Shakespeare answers these questions in ways that will enlighten and astonish those who love Shakespeare s work, and that will shock and outrage many of his critics. This book is full of surprises for beginner and expert alike. - Amazon

The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde by Joseph Pearce  (Author)

Vilified by fellow Victorians for his sexuality and his dandyism, Oscar Wilde, the great poet, satirist and playwright, is hailed today, in some circles, as a "progressive" sexual liberator. But this is not how Wilde saw himself. His actions and pretensions did not bring him happiness and fulfillment. This study of Wilde's brilliant and tragic life goes beyond the mistakes that brought him notoriety in order to explore this emotional and spiritual search.

Unlike any other biography of Wilde, it strips away these pretensions to show the real man, his aspirations and desires. It uncovers how he was broken by his two-year prison sentence; it probes the deeper thinking behind masterpieces such as The Picture of Dorian Gray, Salome, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” and “De Profundis”; and it traces his fascination with Catholicism through to his eleventh-hour conversion.

Published on the 150th anniversary of his birth, this biography removes the masks which have confused previous biographers and reveals the real Wilde beneath the surface. Once again, Joseph Pearce has written a profound, wide-ranging study with many original insights on a great literary figure. – Amazon.

Monaghan: A Life by Joseph Pearce (Author)

Pizza mogul, sports owner, billionaire, devout Catholic, university founder, philanthropist.

These are just a few of the many words that describe Tom Monaghan. The man who built Domino’s Pizza into an empire, owned the Detroit Tigers, built a Catholic college, then moved it halfway across the country and turned it into a university surrounded by a growing city…is all of those things and more. Much more as both his admirers and detractors would say.
In short, like all humans, he is complex. But at his core is an unwavering Catholicism that has strengthened him amidst adversity and grounded him amidst prosperity. In this volume, Joseph Pearce, the preeminent Catholic biographer of our time, traces Monaghan’s life story from “the gutter to the stars” and, with his own deep knowledge of and devotion to Catholicism, is able to tell it in such a way that the reader will realize and appreciate that, despite missteps along the way, the subject is a man whose greatest desire is not to be among “the stars,” but rather among the saints in heaven at the end of his earthly pilgrimage. And that, ultimately, should be the desire of us all, flawed as we all are.

The life of Tom Monaghan is an inspiring story of success in the face of what, for many, may have been insurmountable odds, of determination to succeed when it would have been easy to quit, and of a childhood faith rediscovered that changed his life and the lives of so many others.

Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile by Joseph Pearce  (Author)

Based on exclusive, personal interviews with Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Joseph Pearce's book provides profound insight into a towering literary and political figure. From his pro-Communist youth to his imprisonment in the Gulags, his exile in America to his return to Russia, this is the story of a man who struggled with the most weighty questions of humanity. When a person has suffered the most terrible physical and emotional torture, what becomes of his spirit? Can politics and economics truly provide the answers a modern society needs? If peace and justice are never fully attained, what hope is there for the future? Arguably one of the most significant writers of the twentieth century, Solzhenitsyn, both before and after the fall of Communism, spoke out against the Russian regime. His faith deeply informed his literary approach and response to the excesses of modern materialism. On the spiritual, cultural, and socio-political level, his writings have much to teach the world. This biography contains previously unpublished prose poems written by Solzhenitsyn after his return to Russia, and a gallery of rare photographs. Pearce has grasped with great insight the spiritual core of Solzhenitsyn's achievement as a writer, and indeed as a prophet to Russia and the world. He writes with warm sympathy for Russia's greatest literary voice in modern times. --David Aikman, Author, Great Souls: Six Who Changed the Century. Joseph Pearce is best on what matters most about Solzhenitsyn: the centrality of the author's Christian faith. It is no wonder that Solzhenitsyn chose to . . . provide Pearce with fresh information. Newcomers to Solzhenitsyn should start with this biography. They will find here a highly readable rendition of one of the most sensational lives of the twentieth century. --Edward E. Ericson Jr., Author, Solzhenitsyn and the Modern World. – Amazon.

Unafraid of Virginia Woolf: The Friends and Enemies of Roy Campbell by Joseph Pearce  (Author)

Roy Campbell (1902-57) led an unquiet life marked by numerous affairs (both real and imagined), brawls (he once attacked Stephen Spender on stage during a poetry recital), and assorted stunts (with the help of Dylan Thomas, he once ate a vase of daffodils in celebration of St. David's Day). It was also marked by numerous scandals, often concerning Campbell's relationship with Virginia Woolf and her Bloomsbury group, about whom he remarked in "The Georgiad": "Hither flock all the crowds whom love has wrecked / Of intellectuals without intellect / And sexless folk whose sexes intersect...."
Capturing the imagination of the English intelligentsia with his romantic background and controversial style, Campbell was acknowledged as one of the finest poets of his generation. Joseph Pearce's biography vividly recounts the story of Campbell's wonderfully romantic life, including his youth in South America, his dangerous sojourn in revolutionary Spain during World War II, the literary friendship he forged with figures such as C. S. Lewis, T. S. Eliot, and the Sitwells, and his and his wife Mary's eventual conversion to Roman Catholicism. In Pearce's judgement, Campbell's poetry was "both perplexing and challenging - yet no more so than the poet himself." – Amazon.

Heroes of the Catholic Reformation: Saints Who Renewed the Church by Joseph Pearce

The Protestant Reformation began five hundred years ago, accompanied by an age of turmoil and secularism we can recognize even in our own time. Rather than shrinking from the crisis, the Catholic Church responded with even deeper, and more genuine, reform. We can do the same today.

This Catholic Reformation was accomplished by many defenders of the Faith whom we now know as saints. Their holiness, courageous deeds, and sacrifices during this renewal of the Catholic Faith demonstrate the true heroism of saintly action and provide models for defending the faith in the modern world.

Diverse as they are inspiring, these heroes and saints stood up to slay “the dragons of sin” while championing Church teaching. Their sacrifices left the Church — and the world — forever changed.

• Bishop John Fisher, Sir Thomas More, and priests Edmund Campion and Robert Southwell refused to submit to England’s secular tyranny and chose martyrdom instead.
  — Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, and Charles Borromeo, the reforming Archbishop of Milan, spearheaded the Catholic Reformation.
• Pope Pius V brought a spirit of asceticism to the papacy and ardor to the work of reform.
• Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross, despite enduring terrible suffering, surrendered themselves completely to Christ’s great mission of reform within the Church.

The Heroes of the Catholic Reformation is a scholarly and cultured celebration of the saints who responded to the fierce oppositions of their time with courage and an authentic and lasting Catholic Reformation. Author Joseph Pearce invites us look to these heroes for inspiration as we seek to live the fullness of Faith in our fallen world. - Amazon

Poems Every Catholic Should Know by Joseph Pearce  (Author)

This anthology provides some of the finest Christian verse written during the second millennium of Christianity.

All of the great ones are here: Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Dante and Chaucer from the High Middle Ages; Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross and John Donne from the Reformation; English and American Romantics such as Browning and Whittier; late nineteenth-century mystics like Dickenson and Hopkins, as well the great converts of that period like Newman and Chesterton.

A conscious attempt was made to meet both the standards of academia and the tastes and sensibilities of the faithful.

The selections are arranged chronologically to serve also as a history of verse.

Brief biographical and anecdotal introductions reveal the varied relationships of the poets with each other and with the trials and tribulations of their day.

This magnificent collection is essential for all poetry lovers for those who respond to the beauty of the written word penned in the service of spiritual truth. – Amazon.

Flowers of Heaven: 1000 Years Of Christian Verse by Joseph Pearce (Editor)

This anthology provides some of the finest Christian verse written during the second millennium of Christianity. All of the great ones are here: Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Dante and Chaucer from the High Middle Ages; Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross and John Donne from the Reformation; English and American Romantics such as Browning and Whittier; late nineteenth-century mystics like Dickenson and Hopkins, as well the great converts of that period like Newman and Chesterton; and, T. S. Eliot speaking out of and into our own times.

A conscious attempt was made to meet both the standards of academia and the tastes and sensibilities of the faithful. The selections are arranged chronologically to serve also as a history of verse. Brief biographical and anecdotal introductions reveal the varied relationships of the poets with each other and with the trials and tribulations of their day.

This magnificent collection is essential for all poetry lovers for those who respond to the beauty of the written word penned in the service of spiritual truth. – Amazon.

Beauteous Truth: Faith, Reason, Literature & Culture by Joseph Pearce  (Author), Raymond Burke (Author)

Beauteous Truth explores the inextricable connection between the Good, the True and the Beautiful. It is a book that makes the necessary connections between faith and reason and between theology, philosophy, history and literature. It presents a panoramic overview of Western Civilization, from Homer to Tolkien, and highlights the importance of the great figures of the Catholic cultural revival, including Newman, Wilde, Chesterton, Belloc, and C.S. Lewis. Ranging from Shakespeare to Solzhenitsyn, Beauteous Truth celebrates the marriage of sanity and sanctity, which is the fruit of the indissoluble union of fides et ratio. - Amazon

Celebrating Middle-earth: The Lord of the Rings as a Defense of Western Civilization by Joseph Pearce (Author), Peter Kreeft (Author), John G. West Jr (Editor)

Six talented writers and Tolkien scholars describe the role that J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings has in the literary, political, and religious traditions of Western civilization. - Amazon

Frodo's Journey: Discover The Hidden Meaning Of The Lord Of The Rings by Joseph Pearce  (Author), Jef Murray (Illustrator)

J. R. R. Tolkien’s magnum opus, The Lord of the Rings has been beloved for generations, selling millions of copies and selling millions more tickets through its award-winning film adaptations. The immense cultural impact of this epic is undeniable, but the deeper meaning of the story often goes unnoticed.

Here, Joseph Pearce, author of Bilbo’s Journey uncovers the rich—and distinctly Christian—meaning just beneath the surface of The Lord of the Rings. Make the journey with Frodo as he makes his perilous trek from the Shire to Mordor, while Pearce expertly reveals the deeper, spiritual significance.

Did you know that the events of The Lord of the Rings are deeply intertwined with the Christian calendar? Or what the Ring, with its awesome and terrible power represents? How do the figures of good and evil in the story reflect those forces in our own lives? Find the answers to these questions and much more in Frodo’s Journey. – Amazon.

Merrie England: A Journey Through the Shire by Joseph Pearce (Author)

Join Joseph Pearce on a journey into the real Shire—a voyage into the mysterious presence of an England which is more real than the one you are accustomed to seeing, the one which seems to be in terminal decline. The England Pearce wants us to know is an enchanted and unchanging place, full of ghosts who are as alive as the saints. It is an England that is rural, sacramental, liturgical, local, beautiful . . . a place “charged with the grandeur of God”.

In this wonder-filled journey, Joseph Pearce shows us the true England through the splendor of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. He shows us an England that can never die, not because it lingers like a fading coal in the memory of mortal men, but because it exists as a beautiful flower in the Gardens of Eternity. – Amazon.

Further Up & Further In: Understanding Narnia by Joseph Pearce  (Author)

Further Up & Further In: Understanding Narnia by acclaimed Catholic author Joseph Pearce invites readers to return with the eyes of an adult to C.S. Lewis’ magical land entered through that most important wardrobe in literary history.

Beloved by generations of readers, The Chronicles of Narnia are thought, erroneously, by some to be “mere children’s stories.” In this volume, Pearce thoroughly debunks the error as he skillfully explains why there is nothing “mere” about such stories.

Rather, the Narnia books contain profound insights concerning the human condition. Pearce, however, goes beyond even that and illuminates the deeper riches and profound truths found therein: the highest truths, in fact, those concerning God.

Join Pearce as he explores the “grown-up” themes that are so important for a proper understanding of Lewis’ magnificent creation, including the deep and profound Christian symbolism, extensive literary allusions, and the constant theme of temptation, sin, and redemption.

The author of numerous literary works and an authority on the writings of Lewis, Chesterton, and Tolkien, Pearce is uniquely qualified to examine the deeper theological, philosophical, and historical dimensions of the Chronicles.

With Pearce as your guide, “return to Narnia,” and come to understand in new and profound ways that place which has so marked the imaginative landscape of so many. Rediscover your love for Narnia, because “wardrobes are for grown-ups too.” – Amazon.