What book are you reading? #3

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I’m reading The Saint Gemma Galgani Collection, which is a short bio, her autobio, her diary and the bio by Fr. Germanus.

I asked this elsewhere on CAF, but has anyone here read The Voices of Gemma Galgani: The Life and Afterlife of a Modern Saint by Rudolph Bell and Cristina Mazzoni? I believe it came out in 2003…
 
I have started Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives by Pope Emeritus Benedict VI on kindle. I’m also reading Harbingers: A Repairman Jack Novel by F. Paul Wilson in hardback, as I’ve been following that book series for some time now.
 
“Innocents Aboard,” a collection of Gene Wolfe’s fantasy stories. At least two so far are explicitly Catholic - “How the Bishop Sailed to Inniskeen,” a Christmas ghost story in Ireland with a stunning ending, and “Queen,” about an event every Catholic should think about on August 15.
 
I just read The Shack. If anyone’s read it, I’d appreciate it if you’d check my review and leave comments there with your opinion. I’m submitting the review to catholicfiction.net, and I’d like to give them my best. Thanks.
 
Linusthe2nd said:
I’m sure I read it. How does it go?

Linus2nd
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In Hallowe’en Party, a teenage girl is murdered by someone holding her head in the apple-bobbing water bin while at a Halloween party. Earlier she had been bragging about not knowing it at the time, but she had witnessed a murder.

It’s a Hercule Poirot mystery.
 
Dandelion_Wine said:
In Hallowe’en Party, a teenage girl is murdered by someone holding her head in the apple-bobbing water bin while at a Halloween party. Earlier she had been bragging about not knowing it at the time, but she had witnessed a murder.

It’s a Hercule Poirot mystery.
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Well, I don’t remember that one, so I have a good one to read. BTY, it is not so easy to drown a healthy person that way. It would be a mighty struggle, we are much harder to kill than most people imagine.

Linus2nd
 
I am always reading a few at a time, Today it is American Caesar: The Life of Douglas MacArthur by Manchester, along with The Church Visible by Noonen. I am also half way through Fr. James Martin’s The Lives of the Saints.
 
I have just started reading “Life of Sister. Rita of Cascia of the Order of St. Augustine” by Jose Sicardo.

Also Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament. By Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch.
 
I’m reading the Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, by Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter). I’m just finishing the 6th of 20 in the series, The Virgin in the Ice.

I’m also reading *Will and Spirit *by Gerald May, and Seeking God, the Way of St. Benedict by Esther de Waal.
 
Just read “Conditionally Human,” a 1950s short story by Walter M. Miller. Miller was a Catholic convert best known for his award-winning SF novel “A Canticle for Leibowitz,” about the Church preserving knowledge after a nuclear holocaust, just as it did after the fall of the Roman Empire.

Like “Leibowitz,” “Conditionally Human” focuses on issues of human dignity - including abortion, contraception, and euthanasia, as well as a prescient look at animal rights. Recommended.
 
I’m now reading “Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation,” by Martin Laird. Highly recommend. Not lengthy; clear and down-to-earth writing. 👍
 
DHC1Chipmunk said:
I’m now reading “Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation,” by Martin Laird. Highly recommend. Not lengthy; clear and down-to-earth writing. 👍
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👍 Laird’s books are great! I read *Into the Silent Land *a few years ago, and also A Sunlit Absence. Highly recommended, indeed!
 
I recently finished Victoria Roth’s “Divergent” series. A movie based on the first of the three book trilogy is coming out this year.

It was a post-apocalyptic series like the “Hunger Games”. The interesting thing about this series is that society is divided up based on a person’s aptitude for certain personality traits. The book then explores the upside and downsides of the personalities.

There were 5 personality traits discussed in the book:

Abnegation (selfless but also some could be “stiff”)
dauntless (brave but also some could be reckless / ruthless)
erudite (full of knowledge but some could also tend to be weak on empathy)
amity (favoring peace and friendship but some could be weak on moral courage)
candor (favoring honesty sometimes at the expense of the feelings of others)

I think people reading these series identify with at least one if not two of the personalities.

So it makes you think about areas where you are vulnerable and could do better.

I identify more with erudite and abnegation.

Sometimes I am stiff, for sure.
 
I’ve decided to ‘reboot’ and read Agatha Christie’s murder novels in the order she wrote them.

So #1 - The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

I’ve got a bunch of paperbacks that I’ve picked up a long the way. I noticed that I don’t have #2 though! So I’ll have to see if I can find it.
 
Angels & Demons - Dan Brown and General of Dead Army - Ismail Kadare
 
CatholicAlbo said:
Angels & Demons - Dan Brown and General of Dead Army - Ismail Kadare
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It was my feeling Angels & Demons (which was written first and re-released to great fanfare after the success of The Da Vinci Code) was the better written of those two Dan Brown novels.
 
dedo said:
I recently finished Victoria Roth’s “Divergent” series. A movie based on the first of the three book trilogy is coming out this year.
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I just finished it. My daughter read Divergent and Insurgent. My wife read all three, (including Allegiant).

I didn’t care much for it. Suspension of disbelief can only go so far. I’m willing to believe in the dystopic world. The characters, however, don’t have superpowers, and without superpowers there’s no believable way they could survive jumping from trains, or the brutally way they beat each other. They’d all be dead within the first few chapters.

WARNING: The third book completely wrecks the story. For whatever reason, the author chose to crash the whole thing. 🤷 :mad: (my wife told me what happens, but only after I promised her that I really, really wanted to know).
 
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