Piers Paul Read, the Catholic novelist and historian, has just released his new one-volume book A History of the Catholic Church (which can be bought here). Read is no stranger to non-fiction, having famously written Alive; The Story of the Andes Survivors (1974) as well books on the Templars, the Dreyfus Affair and Chernobyl. These historical investigations have been produced alongside numerous novels, from the early Game In Heaven With Tussy Marx, through A Married Man, Monk Dawson, The Upstart, Polonaise, A Season in the West and many others. The novels depict with clarity the operations of grace in the lives of the characters and the results of its rejection or acceptance. Read's thoroughly researched and very readable historical works, like the novels, depict characters who stay with you long after reading about them. I caught up with him to talk about his latest book, whose subject is nothing less than the Catholic Church itself.