“The Wisdom of Father Brown” is a 1928 collection of mystery short stories by English writer G. K. Chesteron. Set in the early twentieth century, each of the stories centres around the cunning investigations of Father Brown, a catholic priest-cum-detective who uses his incredible intuition to solve a variety of perplexing mysteries. The stories include: “The Absence of Mr Glass”, “The Paradise of Thieves”, “The Duel of Dr Hirsch”, “The Man in the Passage”, “The Mistake of the Machine”, “The Head...
In the genre of the finely crafted English detective story, Chestertons Father Brown stories are wholesome and stimulating detective tales surpassed by few others, except perhaps Doyles legendary Sherlock Holmes. In contrast to the arrogant Holmes, however, Chestertons protagonist is rather quiet, unassuming and modest, and makes an unlikely hero – a catholic priest. Father Browns simple manner makes you quick to underestimate him, but the startling flashes of brilliance that spill from beneath...
Kind of weird but worth it – Kingsley Amis (writer of the introduction) says that it was the most thrilling book he has ever read. Chesterton weaves together a combination detective story, wierd dream (Nightmare as he says on his cover page), and social commentary. Its certainly not an apologetic book (as C.S. Lewis said, one cant always be defending the faith, sometimes one has to encourage those already converted), but elements of Christianity do come through (especially Chestertons sensible...
Entertaining, humorous, intelligent, and full of surprises: Portly, fun loving, witty G.K. Chesterton decided to write this book as a companion volume to his book HERETICS. Since HERETICS had criticised contemporary philosophies, ORTHODOXY was written to present an alternative viewpoint, and is therefore both affirmative in tone and autobiographical in many places. <p> A sampling of his chapter titles gives some idea of Chestertons sense of fun as well as his unusual approach to the...
