A phone call from out of the blue last week was the latest of several events that have sent me on a genealogical journey to once again dig into family history. It’s almost like God has been dropping little hints lately that it’s time to get back to researching my ancestors’ roots. First, a few weeks ago, my uncle discovered that my grandfather wrote a song in the 1930s, so Mom’s been sending me updates on his progress in finding the lyrics and sheet music. That got me...
These are the best ten books I read this year in rough order of how enriching and enjoyable they were: The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything by Fr. James Martin, SJ The Road by Cormac McCarthy The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton Heaven: The Heart’s Deepest Longing by Peter Kreeft Into the Silent Land by Martin Laird The Children of Hurín by J.R.R. Tolkien Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer by Fr. Thomas Dubay A Travel Guide to...
I came across this moving testimony to the of the Liturgy of the Hours in Thomas Merton’s autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain: Presently [my brother] said: “What’s that package you’ve got under your arm? Buy some books?” “Yes.” When he had unlocked the car, I ripped the paper off the package, and took out the cardboard box containing the set of four books, bound in black leather, marked in gold. I handed him one of the volumes. It was sleek and smelled new. The pages were edged in...
iBreviary is the perfect app for anyone who desires the pray the Liturgy of the Hours but has a difficult time finding the correct readings in the four thousand pages that make up the printed prayer books. The four volume set of books that makes up the full text of the Divine Office is beautiful to behold, but is also heavy, cumbersome and costs well over one hundred dollars. iBreviary, on the other hand, is as light as your iPod Touch or iPhone, fits easily in your...
Having just finished Peter Kreeft’s book Heaven: The Heart’s Deepest Longing, I find myself aching for the numinous: Have you ever felt it–the haunting of the world?…The haunting has been called the sense of the “numinous.” It is the sense that the world we see is haunted by something we do not see, an unseen presence.” Kreeft goes on to discuss this haunting in the human face, romantic love, pictures, stories and music. I think I have lost touch with the numinous in my daily life as practical...
In reverse order, here are the best 10 books I read this year: Quest for the Living God by Elizabeth Johnson – an intelligently written survey of where modern theology is heading, for good or ill; I can tell that one reading of this book is not enough His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik – great mixture of history and fantasy Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza – hard to believe a genocide like this took place in my lifetime; with all its tragedy, still an uplifting testament...
These are the best books I read this year: Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz – Fantastic thriller Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick – Great for junior high students Five Pillars of the Spiritual Life by Fr. Robert Spitzer – Grow spiritually in the midst of a busy life What’s So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D’Souza – Explains Christianity to modern skeptics Praying the Word: An Introduction to Lectio Divina by Enzo Bianchi – Learn how to pray with the Bible using this small but powerful book...
I finished Gene Wolfe’s The Knight today. My Wolfe gene must be missing, because I don’t get it. I understand that his books are often obscure on a first reading, and that this is just the first of a two-book series, but nothing in the book really moved me. Some of the scenes were beautifully written, and I liked the main character, Able of the High Heart, but the story left me flat. It just didn’t seem worth the effort. I thought I’d search the web for other...
Simon Vance does a superb job reading every character in Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander except one: the central character Jack Aubrey. I just finished listening to Blackstone Audio’s unabridged version of Master and Commander, and the book keeps getting better each time I experience it. I first read it about ten years ago, then a few years after that I listened to Patrick Tull’s unabridged audio recording from RecordedBooks.com. This time around I didn’t get so bogged down trying to understand the naval jargon, so I was...
One of the comments I often get from people who have read my book ROMAN Reading is “I could never write in my books.” It’s hard to get people to understand the value and pleasure of writing comments, thoughts and reactions in their books. But now I have a book to recommend to them: Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books by H. J. Jackson. I found this book in the Notre Dame bookstore, and I couldn’t be more excited to read it. From the back cover: Imaginative and amusing,...
Fred Saberhagen , one of my favorite science fiction writers, passed away from cancer on June 29, 2007 at the age of 77. Saberhagen is probably best-known as the author of the Berserker series, a set of science fiction stories about humanity’s war against self-repairing killing machines that roam the universe with the sole purpose of eliminating all life. Saberhagen used his Berserker stories to explore what it meant to be human, and several of them were based on works of literature such as Poe’s “Masque of the...
I’ve been playing around with StumbleUpon, and I came across The Modern Library’s List of 100 Best Novels. There are two lists, actually. The first was created by the Board of The Modern Library, and the second compiles the results of their readers’ poll. What first struck me is how at odds the Board seems to be with the readers. Take a look at the first five positions, with the Board’s choice listed first, the readers’ choice second: Ulysses by James Joyce vs. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand...
Aubrey/Maturin Read-along 2021-2024
Classics Club #32: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevesky
January 20, 2020
Classics Club #21: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
December 28, 2018
Classics Club #20: She by H. Rider Haggard
May 17, 2018
Notes from the Upside Down by Guy Adams
April 4, 2018
Cries from the Earth by Terry C. Johnston
March 20, 2018
Books and Reading / Chapter-a-Day Read-Along
A New Home for the Chapter-a-Day Read-Along
November 28, 2024
Books and Reading / Chapter-a-Day Read-Along
Announcing the 2019 Chapter-a-Day Read-Along
December 26, 2018
