Forget the metaphor of the egg—or the shamrock. Water (three states but one substance!) is worse. Equally bad is the typical man who plays the roles of father, son, and husband. Why beware such popular images? They each foster one or another of the heresies plaguing the Church in the first four centuries, heresies that were dealt with authoritatively at the Council of Nicea—whose 1700th anniversary we celebrated last year. (You joined that celebration, didn’t you?) Not ev

Rarely have I felt such a strong combination of delight and disappointment as rendered by Margaret Atwood’s new Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts (McClelland & Stewart, of course, 2025). It gives fans so much—and yet withholds so much as well. Lady Margaret (in Britain she would surely have been elevated to the peerage: she is a Companion of the Order of Canada, that order’s highest degree) gives us a thoroughly charming overview of her life and letters. Her cats’ eyes roam