“So, what are you reading, Edward Mulholland?”

[Aleteia loves books but recognizes that a world busy with social media doesn’t afford many prompts to that old conversation-starter, “Read any good books lately?” So, we’re asking it in this space. Here, Benedictine College Assistant Professor, (and sometimes contributor to Aleteia) Edward Mulholland shares what he’s up to, bookwise. – Ed.]

“The beard,” Eddie informs us, “is a tradition at Benedictine College. “Beard Season” goes from November 1 until February 13 (the women demanded it end before Valentine’s Day.) The final test is seeing how many pencils the beard can hold!”

Of his titles: “I’ve been reading a trilogy of historical novels (Imperium, Conspirata and Dictator) by Robert Harris, centered on the life of Cicero, which I got with an Amazon gift card my dad gave me for my birthday in early December. They helped me put a lot of things I have read and studied about Cicero not only into their order in time, but into a tapestry whose warp and woof are the conflict-ridden politics of the age. I followed up with Harris’ novel about the Dreyfus Affair, told from the perspective of the man who fought to have him declared innocent, Colonel Georges Picquart entitled An Officer and a Spy.

I’m also reading Walker Percy’s mock self-help book Lost in the Cosmos, which I got for Christmas from my dear friend and colleague Dr. Susan Traffas. Percy’s insights into how our culture shows us to be adrift and keeps us that way are as timely now as when it was published in the early 1980’s.

So much of our world has to get beyond futile searches and return to our mutual connectedness as creatures of the Father and, through grace, brothers and sisters in the Son.”