I originally posted this column at my personal blog, as part of a book review on behalf of The Catholic Company. The review is at the bottom of the page, but I need to lay out some preliminary matter first. And this is a post concerning sex. Not for children. To be Catholic is to be aware of a long list of my own faults. Let’s review a few of them: I goof off too much (not just on the... Read more
Twilight Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko My rating: 5 of 5 stars Sergei Lukyanenko is back to full form in the third of the books looking at the Light versus the Dark. Intriguingly this book begins with the joint statements: This book is of no relevance to the cause of the Light. — The Night Watch This book is of no relevance to the cause of the Darkness — The Day Watch Those statements seem like a clever follow up to... Read more
I’m always a little scared, lately, when I agree to read something that is either biography or memoir. Though they can be well-done (and often are), they can also represent a genre that, well, sends me packing and screaming and launching a book across the room. I was unable, though, to turn down the chance to read Colleen Carroll Campbell’s new book, My Sisters the Saints: A Spiritual Memoir. And then, about halfway through, I was unable to put it down.... Read more
I’ve been fascinated with C.S. Lewis in a arms-length sort of way for quite some time. I read the Chronicles of Narnia in late grade school and loved them. I rediscovered and reread them with my husband when the first movie came out in 2005 and loved them even more. His fiction has continued to fascinate me since my childhood, though I didn’t start really reading it until The Screwtape Letters in 2006 and then following with an immersion in the Ransom (Space)... Read more
Lectio Divina Bible Study: Learning to Pray in Scripture by Stephen J. Binz My rating: 5 of 5 stars As I have mentioned before, Stephen Binz is a passionate advocate of Lectio Divina, the ancient practice of studying and praying using Scripture. Learning to Pray in Scripture is part of Binz’s Bible Study series, which I actually may prefer to his liturgical season guides, though I like those also. Focusing on different topics such as the Creed, the Mass, the Sacraments,... Read more
The Earth is crowded and food is rationed, but a colony on Ganymede, one of the moons of Jupiter, offers an escape for teenager Bill Lermer and his family. Back on Earth, the move sounded like a grand adventure, but Bill realizes that life on the frontier is dangerous, and in an alien world with no safety nets nature is cruelly unforgiving of even small mistakes. I have always enjoyed Heinlein’s tales for juveniles more than his other writing. Having... Read more
This is a book written by someone who discovered Lewis through his writings, for others who have come to know Lewis in the same way. … Why so? As Lewis emphasized throughout the 1930s, the important thing about authors is the texts that they write. What really matters is what those texts themselves say. Authors should not themselves be a “spectacle”; they are rather the “set of spectacles” through which we as readers see ourselves, the world, and the greater... Read more
Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey My rating: 4 of 5 stars I finished this book today, the same day that the Wall Street Journal had a piece about author Hugh Howey’s “Underground Hit.” See that’s a joke because he’s making a fortune self-publishing it as an e-book and the story is about people living underground in a silo underground … oh never mind. I enjoyed the piece, happy to see that a paperback version will be available soon, and Howey... Read more
Downpour.com, Blackstone Audio’s online audiobook store, is a genuine competitor to Audible.com. It offers audiobook downloads of titles, from Blackstone Audio’s extensive catalogue, and also those from many other audiobook publishers like Recorded Books, Harper Audio, Penguin Audio, Hachette Audio, and AudioGo. Their subscription service is almost identically priced to Audible’s, each offers one credit per month for about $15. And, like an Audible credit Audible.com, a Downpour credit almost always gets you one audiobook. And they have no DRM.... Read more
Continuing now with my chapter-by-chapter review of Introduction to Catholicism for Adults by Rev. James Socias, which you’ll recall is hefty enough that yes, it is necessary to review the book in bits. Chapter 2, aptly titled “The Existence of God and Divine Revelation” is about . . . yep, that. The chapter can be divided neatly into two sections, per the title. For use in RCIA or another course, I’d recommend teaching the chapter over two sessions, as either... Read more
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