books
11 Questions: IRL by Chris Stedman
IRL takes the shame out of our dependence on the internet and helps us imagine new kinds of consolation and community for a fragmented and sometimes lonely world.
11 Questions: The Secret Life of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
“My mother made a peach cobbler so good, it made God himself cheat on his wife.”
Goodbye, Tim LaHaye
When I first encountered Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’ Left Behind (1995), I was sitting on the a sage-colored corduroy coach at my mom’s house. Left Behind rested on a nearby table. It was 1998. I was in my first year of college and already determined to take courses on world religions. My determination proved…
Not Weird Enough
According to the author of a new Catholic handbook, eucharistic adoration should be the new yoga.
Words to Live By
I got another tattoo. A black and gray owl with wise eyes rests on my right bicep. A locked heart lays on its chest. Its claws grasp the key. I get tattoos to mark the transitions, those shifts in my life that suggest nothing will ever be the same. Tattoos make endings and beginnings concrete.…
A Conservative Who Was Right About Occupy
In the heady early days of Occupy Wall Street, there was a lot of talk about whether this thing was really a movement or something else, something presumably less worthy of attention. In an early Room for Debate discussion at The New York Times, for instance, the eminent social movement scholar Stephen Zunes stressed that…
Believer, Beware! Resurrected
Believer, Beware is now available for the first time as an e-book! The 2009 anthology of the best of the first incarnation of KtB features irreverent yet heartbreaking personal essays from some of our favorite writers, including Jeff Sharlet, Peter Manseau, Laurel Snyder, Stephen Prothero, Patton Dodd, and Mary Valle. See the full list below.…
Happy New Year from KtB!
Herewith, in the spirit of the season, a highly subjective New Year’s Eve countdown of our favorite KtB moments of 2013. 10 Illustrated posts by Communicant Mary Valle. 9 New books by Buddha-killers. 8 hot tips on new Buddha-killing movies by Becky Garrison. 7 Habits of a Highly Effective Philosopher. 6 Pieces of original reporting…
Buy Buddha-killing Books!
So we’re not big on holiday themed lists at KtB, but we promise this one’s for a worthy cause: our contributors! Many of the excellent writers who have published here also came out with books this year, and we think they all make excellent gifts. But, as they used to say on Reading Rainbow, you…
Zen and the Art of Zen and the Art of Books
Anything can be done gracefully. Consider: one can peel an orange such that the rind is removed in a single, spiraling helix of citrus. Or, one can carelessly stab at the rind with stubby fingers, extracting chunk by little chunk, ending up sticky and frustrated. Similarly, one can write a Zen and the Art of…
