The Feasts: How the Church Year Forms Us as Catholics by Donald Cardinal Wuerl My rating: 5 of 5 stars The Church’s calendar is an intricate, complex, and beautiful technology. It is the work of many human hands and human minds trained to deal with holy things. The seasons turn […]
Booktalk: Jane Austen and Me
NORTHANGER ABBEY. It began with Northanger Abbey. I’m considering reading this on my podcast so I reread it after having done so many years ago. (And then Jesse from SFFaudio asked if I wanted to discuss it in November. Hey, I can tell when a book is haunting me.) I […]
Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? – Guy Consolmagno, SJ, and Paul Mueller, SJ
Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial?: . . . and Other Questions from the Astronomers’ In-box at the Vatican Observatory by Guy Consolmagno My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book is structured around a half dozen particular questions we’ve been asked time and again—questions that are interesting in themselves but […]
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan My rating: 3 of 5 stars “[…] We keep a record for every member, and for every customer who might yet become a member, in order to track their work.” He paused, then added, “Some of them are working very hard indeed.” “What […]
Children’s Books: Women of the Bible by Margaret McAllister
Women of the Bible by Margaret McAllister My rating: 5 of 5 stars “Rescuing animals is only the start of it,” said Mother Noah. She scooped up a handful of seeds and placed them carefully in her pocket. “If God wants to send a flood, it’s very good of him […]
Children’s Books: “The gospel according to… dog” by Peter D. Ward
The gospel according to… dog: ‘the greatest story ever told’… by a dog by Peter D. Ward My rating: 4 of 5 stars ‘Come Lazarus!’ I have never heard the Wisest One shout so loudly. ‘Come, Lazarus… come out to me!’ again he shouted. The Great Ones [men] all looked […]
The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov My rating: 5 of 5 stars Like most people on the over-populated Earth, New York City police detective Elijah Baley has little love for either the arrogant Spacers or their robotic companions. But when a prominent Spacer is murdered under mysterious circumstances, Baley […]
On the Shoulders of Hobbits by Louis Markos
On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis by Louis Markos My rating: 5 of 5 stars We need the truth, but we also need to know how to live in and through and by that truth. What we need, in short, are stories. Louis […]
Grandma’s on the Camino by Mary Wyman
Grandma’s on the Camino: Reflections on a 48-Day Walking Pilgrimage to Santiago by Mary O’Hara Wyman My rating: 3 of 5 stars I included this in my “pilgrimage” reading although I’m planning to go to the Holy Land which is a quite different sort of pilgrimage. Mary Wyman has an […]
The 13 Clocks by James Thurber
The 13 Clocks by James Thurber My rating: 5 of 5 stars Once upon a time, in a gloomy castle on a lonely hill, where there were thirteen clocks that wouldn’t go, there lived a cold, aggressive Duke, and his niece, the Princess Saralinda. She was warm in every wind […]