P. D. James

Guests on Volume 100: Jennifer Burns, on the life and legacy of Ayn Rand, "goddess of the market" and entrenched enemy of altruism; Christian Smith, on the aimless cultural world of "emerging adulthood" and on how it makes the idea of objective moral order implausible; and Dallas Willard, on why it's important to recover the conviction that religious beliefs involve real knowledge. In honor of the five score milestone, part two of the issue features a look back at the beginnings of the Journal and a few special excerpts of conversations with those early guests, including Peter Kreeft on Lewis, Huxley, and J.F.K. after death; P. D. James, on good and evil in fiction; James Davison Hunter, on culture wars; Paul McHugh, on when psychiatry loses its way; Ted Prescott, on nudity in art and advertising; Ed Knippers, on the powerful presence of the body; Martha Bayles, on pop and perverse modernism; Dominic Aquila, on Christopher Lasch; Gilbert Meilaender, on random kindness; Neil Postman, on technology and culture; and Alan Jacobs, on being maudlin in Madison County.

Guests on Volume 54: Robert P. Kraynak, on Christian Faith and Modern Democracy: God and Politics in the Fallen World; Mitchell L. Stevens, on home schooling and the individuality of children; Ralph C. Wood, on the Christian achievement of detective novelist P. D. James; Mark Henrie, on the films of Whit Stillman and the overcoming of irony; Terry Lindvall, on the responses of American churches to the advent of motion pictures; Richard J. Mouw, on sin, culture, and common grace; and Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, on her book In Quiet Light: Poems on Vermeer's Women.

Guests on Volume 3: Andrew Kimbrell, on the bioethical issues discussed in The Human Body Shop; Allan C. Carlson, on From Cottage to Workstation: The Family's Search for Social Harmony in the Industrial Age; Larry Woiwode, on Flannery O'Connor, John Updike, and what fiction is good for; Peter Kreeft, on the reasonableness of faith, the devilishness of deconstructionism, and The Snakebite Letters; Alan Jacobs, on The Children of Men by P. D. James; Thomas Morris, on Blaise Pascal and why people still ask the Big Questions; Jay Tolson, on how Walker Percy's search for authenticity led to his conversion; and John Hodges, on the popularity of Henryck Gorecki's Third Symphony.

Guests on Volume 2: P. D. James, on why evil characters are easier to depict than good characters, and why some people like mysteries while others don't; William Kilpatrick, on Why Johnny Can't Tell Right from Wrong: Moral Illiteracy and the Case for Character Education; James Schall, on what sports and games tell us about human nature; A. N. Wilson, on how writing the biography of C. S. Lewis led him to renounce belief in Christianity; Michael Aeschliman, on why A. N. Wilson is wrong about C. S. Lewis; Russell Hittinger, on the Supreme Court's decision in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey; and Richard Crawford, on composer William Billings, one of the first important American composers of sacred music.