3 comments about No Turning Back: My Summer With Daddy King.

1. I'll admit to my bias: Rev. Brewster is the pastor of the Episcopal church I currently attend. He's a lovely, humble man, who for many years didn't talk much about his experiences with Daddy and Dr. King. We, his parishioners, only knew tidbits of his summer in Atlanta in '61. Needless to say, after reading this book, it is with both surprise and awe when I say how his story is both profoundly moving and important to read. We know so much about MLK Jr. but here is where you read about Daddy King's life, and his own struggle with civil rights as a sharecropper's son. You also learn of the wonderful people who surround the Kings at Ebenezer Baptist Church.



2. Given the subject matter, one hopes for more in the way of insight and emotion than this well-meaning book ultimately delivers. It has its moments, to be sure, moments that move one to tears. And Daddy King does come across as a powerful spiritual figure. But the author's limitations as a writer seriously compromise the ultimate effectiveness of the book, which seems to have enough real content for a good long article. In the end one admires Daddy King and Mrs. King, one has a certain affectionate respect for the author, but one (at least this one) leaves unsatisfied. The author was not well-served by his apparently over-indulgent editor(s).



3. While I agree with the reviewer who wishes for more of the author's emotional experience in his account, this is an engaging read, a page-turner. On the other hand at times he is refreshingly frank, honest, and revealing of just how innocent and naive he was as a bright-eyed and bushey-tailed seminarian.
   
   There are moments when one wonders how Brewster ever lived to tell this tale. It is a total wonder that this young white outsider wasn't killed by bigoted Red Necks in the Atlanta area. It could have happened at the roadside gas & grocery, or at the community pool, or at a church parking lot one evening. In all three instances it was but for the grace of God that Gurdon Brewster made it through the Summer of 1961.
   
   The world is a better place because people such as Reverend Brewster are in it!

No comments about The Burning of the Vanities: Savonarola and the Borgia Pope.

5 comments about Do Not Go Gentle: My Search for Miracles in a Cynical Time.

1. I met Ann Hood one November night at Baker Books in Dartmouth, MA, when she came to give a reading of "Do Not Go Gentle". It was enjoyable. As an Italian, I could identify with Mama Rose, and her methods to ward off the effects of "mal'occhio" (evil eye) for my grandmother did the same thing, only with drops of olive oil. Nonna passed away last April, but the memory lingers. As a religious priest, I could identify with her Catholicism, and I am sure the Franciscan brothers also present had much to share with her that evening in that regard. I regret that I didn't spend some time with her. After her dialogue with the Franciscans, I just stepped up, asked her to dedicate the brand new book to me, and left. I had not read the book yet. Feeling dumb, I did not pursue a conversation. I enjoyed the work. It reads smoothly, like a river. The text is not taxing to the reader, but is easy to follow, taking the reader to many places, stories and ideas. The story is the faith journey of a woman, who is trying to square the death of her father with her faith system. Faith is more than a packaged set of beliefs. Faith is that sometimes. Dogmatic faith. Other times faith is dynamic. Ann Hood's faith journey is to answer the question about how her father's death relates to her sense of meaning. And journey she does to many places, externally and internally. It is a human journey, maybe at times a little wrapped up in a sentiment, or in magic, or superstition. Still it is a human journey. And a theological journey, if we can remember that the classical definition of theology is "fides quarens intellectum" (faith seeking understanding). I finished the book hoping that she would at some point visit her Catholicism again. I am grateful for her portrait of Italian life. I like her sense of humor. I would have liked to read more about her mother. While I am taking basic Italian classes on Federal Hill every Saturday morning until June, I hope to run into her at Tony's, or Dolce Vita or Venda Ravioli. Now I have a few questions to raise. They would go well with some bruschetta and red wine.



2. I had a hard time extrapolating the author's experiences into a useful context. She is a talented writer, and her prose is easy to follow. But her accounts are a bit too personal, and at times i felt almost like i was reading her diary. I was most disappointed at the end, when her search for explanations to her father's death takes her around Europe. For one thing, how could she pretend to find answers for faith? What really killed me was the episode with the contact lens: "If you believe it is there, you will find it". I couldn't help but think about Kevin Costner: "If you build it, they will come".



3. This book is the memoir of an Italian-American woman's emotional, difficult quest for faith. Strong themes are family, the death of her father, the supernatural, the Old Country, and miracles. The story is engrossing and educational with some slight repetition, especially toward the end, that could have been done away with by a skilled editor. Recommended.



4. *Spoilers*
   
   Ann Hood's "Do Not Go Gentle" has good intentions. It is a sad story: the author's beloved father is dying and the author goes off in search of a miracle. She believes she gets one when blessed dirt from New Mexico seems to cure a tumor. Sadly, the tumor's disappearance isn't enough to save him. He dies anyway.
   
   The book works best as a portrait of fathers and daughters. I'm not sure I've ever read about (or experienced) a father/daughter bond like this one. But at times the memoir reads too much like an overly idealized eulogy. It's hard to believe anyone could be as perfect as Hood makes out her father to be. There is also a poignant section on the author's deceased brother. Unquestionably she has suffered unimaginable loss. But, I'm sorry to say, that doesn't make this a good book.
   
   My biggest complaint about this book is that its conclusions seem forced. Hood ties a family trip to Italy with a belief in St. Anthony... she prays to him and finds her contact lens. You've got to be kidding me. A faith journey of 1000 miles begins with this single step? I doubt it. More likely the author wants to end the book on a high note.



5. Once I got into the book I had a hard time going to work, or doing anything but reading it morning, noon and night. I liked it a lot.

5 comments about The Tulip and the Pope: A Nun's Story.

1. My wife ordered this book and loves it. The book seems to cover the subject well.



2. This was an autobiographical story of a former Sister which brought back memories of my early life as a Sister. I was sorry to read that the author left her community because it seemed as though she had great potential.
   
   aAyone who wants a "bird'eye" view of convent life will enjoy this work



3. Rarely do I read a book as quickly as I tore through this one. It took me four bedtime readings to read this book, which is extremely rare for me. Since, as a child and early teen, I longed to be a nun myself, I found this book to be compelling and intensely interesting. I spent many years amongst the cloistered nuns (what an honor!) at the Benedictine convent near my childhood home, and I yearned to become one of them myself. By the time I was old enough to consent, I had found my commitment to God outside of this arena. Besides, I wasn't even Catholic! But I digress. This book gives a very personal glimpse inside the convent of cloistered nuns in the early `60's - a turbulent time within society and within the Church. I was very glad that there was an epilogue that told of her life forty years later, and how she lives her life now.
   
   I found the writing to be lacking at times - she writes as she probably speaks, and sometimes I can't follow her though process. However, this is a book NOT to be missed, regardless of your religious orientation.



4. When 19 yr-old Mary Deborah Maertz entered the convent in Dubuque, Iowa, in the early sixties it was with every intention of staying. But the best-laid plans and all that. Times changed, the Church changed, but most of all, she changed. After five years - in Dubuque and Chicago - Sister Mary Deborah left the convent, emerging into a radically changed world, once again just Deborah Maertz, older and wiser. But this is an intimate and detailed look back at those days of habits, daily prayers and rigid rituals, and what she thought then - and thinks now - about those times. I spent a year in a minor seminary once at the end of the fifties, when I was only fourteen, so maybe I could relate to Larsen's THE TULIP AND THE POPE better than some. The most unexpected aspect of Larsen's memoir was the dry wit and humor which kept cropping up on nearly every page. I chuckled through much of the book. Here's a small sample in which Larsen briefly outlines some of the convent's rules of pesonal conduct and comportment, as listed in a printed handout to the postulants -
   
   "Avoid throat clearing, scratching, cleaning out the ears, picking the face or teeth, spitting and similar unpleasant acts in public. All those gross acts named in one patch of prose on a convent handout struck me as funny. The handout may as well have read, 'This is not a zoo, girls.' ..."
   
   And there's plenty more of this kind of stuff. Of course there is all the expected serious stuff too, about how Larsen came to gradually question her vows of poverty, chastity and obedience as the months and years wore on. Make no mistake, Deborah Larsen is a gifted writer who knows how to keep her story moving. I read this book in just a couple of sittings. If you are a Catholic, an ex-Catholic, an anti-Catholic or a "recovering Catholic," you will relate to Larsen's story. An excellent memoir. - Tim Bazzett, author of Reed City Boy



5. This book had a lot of unexplored potential. To be fair, I think writing a memoir about one's time as a nun (after the fact) must be a very difficult task. Karen Armstrong expresses this in her preface to The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness, her account of leaving her convent and a sequel to her memoir of her experiences as a nun (Through the Narrow Gate, Revised: A Memoir of Spiritual Discovery). Armstrong says:
   
   Writing Through the Narrow Gate, some twelve years later, was a salutary experience. It made me confront the past, and I learned a great dal. Most important, I realized how precious and formative this period of my life had been, and that despite my problems, I would not have missed it for the world. Then I attempted a sequel: Beginning the World was published in 1983. It is the worst book I have ever written and I am thankful to say that it has long been out of print. (xvii)
   
   Deborah Larsen's account of entering the convent of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1960 is a conflicted memoir--not in her feelings about her time as a nun, but in her choice of narrative voice. She has tried to accomplish in one memoir what Armstrong struggled to do in three. She explains in her author's note: "My remembrance of 1960-1965 never felt like a conventional narrative, thought it had progressions. My sense was more of a string of paper lanterns...lit spottily against the dark along a dock, where some days, even now, waves dash." This explains, but does not ameliorate the odd sense of detachment for the reader.
   A lot of value in memoir is hindsight. Larsen's reluctance to allow herself deeper reflection upon the events of the 60s left this reader disappointed. It isn't until Larsen considers leaving the convent that the narrative becomes potentially more interesting. Not only has she been released to re-engage with the world in the memoir, but it seems that Larsen-as-author releases her cloistered style as well and the reader begins to understand the point of the first two-thirds of the book:
   
   If you are capable of pushing, then a you is assumed; you must exist if you can push.
   Maybe that was it.
   There must be an identity or at least an entity; there must be a you.
   Or was it the act of pushing, your choosing, your summoning up courage, created the you? (205)
   
   I'm not sure Larsen's switch in style was conscious, but it makes for a disparate reading experience with the first part of the book.
   
   What Larsen does accomplish however, is a beautiful set of vignettes from both inside and outside the community. She appreciates the nuns' aesthetic sense: "Black became us almost thrillingly, I thought. Clerical, but classy." Moments like this make the reader smile as she recognizes the nineteen year old in the nun.
   For some, this memoir will feel remarkably undramatic--Larsen moves from a state of naive obedience to disciplined questioning. However, it is this lack of drama that gives the book a good part of its value. Larsen has demystified the choice to enter a convent, and reveals obedience, chastity, and poverty to be simply another set of options in the lives we choose to lead.

1 comments about John and Therese: Flames of Love : The Influence of St. John of the Cross in the Life and Writings of St. Therese of Lisieux.

1. Flames of Loves is really a great book. It will give you such desire to go beyond the contemplative dimensions of the soul and spirit. It will make you realize the sense of "nothingness" in everything. That for us to arrive at everything...desire to possess nothing. It will really make your heart a living flames of love. Such spirit is pure and simple to understand God's wisdom and His Divine Love. Truly an excellent book!

No comments about Joshua, Judges, and Ruth (OT Daily Study Bible Series).

4 comments about Unshakeable: The Steadfast Heart Of Obedience.

1. UNSHAKABLE is brimming with stories of how the narrow path of obedience leads to freedom and contentment. Jan Colman provides an excellent framework for common weak spots: marital issues, prodigal children, financial struggles and personal integrity. She lays out the problems and the Biblical solutions in a way that is both motivating and engaging. This book has a nice balance of insights and examples it's not heavy-handed or preachy.
   
   My favorite quote: "Obedience often means walking away from a comfortable lifestyle, letting go of a former identity, but when we nod to the vision and turn our steps toward it, the benefits are a stronger character, a deeper commitment, and an enhanced love for the one who leads the way."
   
   As the author of "Avoiding the Greener Grass Syndrome: How to Grow Affair Proof Hedges Your Marriage" I highly recommend this book's focus on accountability and integrity.
   
   Very inspiring!



2. I'm writing today from inside the parenting-an-adult-child meat grinder. I've been so busy teaching my daughters the lessons of life that I've neglected my own heart issues. "Unshakeable" has reminded me I must be on my own quest toward obedience. I love Jan's writing style - fun and sassy - her honesty and the great stories she tells to drive home the point.



3. ...it's the right thing--choosing God over that which would draw us away from Him. That's at the heart of Jan Coleman's message in Unshakeable, a fun, easy read, despite its challenging topic. I loved her remark at the end of the book: "There is always a way back to God. His unending love is the inner circle of safety. He doesn't care where we've been or what we've done, only where we are heading now." Jan gently leads us to that point where we can nod our heads and then walk in the same direction--toward Christ. I recommend this highly.



4. Jan Coleman has done it again! She writes with warmth, truth, and encouragement, inspiring us to see for ourselves that obeying God is the only way we will achieve our purpose in life and have the assurance of complete protection in all our affairs. Personal stories abound, providing practical illustrations that will elevate our faith and trust in the one who loves us with an everlasting love.

3 comments about Walking With A Shepherd.

1. In this book, Traci Vanderbush tackles some of the hardest situations that face pastor's wives with great care and honesty. Using examples from her own difficult journey as a pastor's wife and peratining scriptures, she brings up many valuable and comforting truths that all pastor's wives should hear. When you read the statitics she includes about how many of these women are battling with depression and other factors, you will be amazed. I think this book is important, not only for pastor's wives, but every Christian. I hope it can open people's eyes to what their shepherd families go through, and how much they sacrifice. It sertainly did mine.



2. This book puts down on paper what so many pastor's wives feel. It's a great reference for PWs or for church members who wonder what their pastor's wife's life is like.



3. A few weeks ago I was talking to a friend who had recently become a pastor's wife. She said, "Before becoming a pastor's wife myself, I could never figure out why other pastors' wives talked about ministry being so hard. I didn't understand what could be so hard about it....but now I know."
   
   It is hard. And I don't think I've met a pastor's wife who wouldn't agree. But try to explain to someone who's not a pastor's wife what makes it hard, and it's not so easy to put into words.
   
   Traci Vanderbush has done just that. She recounts her personal experience as a pastor's wife, describing the joys and struggles accompanying it. She talks about the excitement of starting ministry with a heart full of hopes and dreams. She talks about a heart aching from gossip, criticism and broken relationships. And she talks about the pain of recognizing it is time to resign and move on.
   
   There are a few things about Traci's book that I personally appreciate. First, it is packed with Scripture. She quotes verses freely and purposefully, weaving God's Word into every chapter. She reminds us that the Bible is not only important but relevant.
   
   Second, Traci has an obvious desire to help other pastors' wives and encourage them to grow in faith. Her story, while honest, is not a "Woe is me" story. She offers lots of practical advice and insight about how pastors' wives and their families might better cope with the pressures of ministry life.
   
   Lastly, the end of her book includes journal entries written by her husband Bill during the same time period. It is helpful and enlightening to see Bill's perspective as he wrestled through the issues he faced as a pastor.
   
   I think every pastor's wife would be able identify with some aspect of Traci's story. And for pastors' wives--individuals who so often feel isolated and alone--the knowledge that someone else has been there, is enormously comforting.

5 comments about Thomas More: A Biography.

1. Marius presents More "worts and all" and he certainly did have some worts by moderern standards, such as advocating the burning of heretics. But as John Adams said, facts are stuborn things. More wrote and did things of which we cannot approve--as well as a great many things of immortal value. Unlike us, those in times past were frequently wrong and misguided. We must learn to admire More (and any other historical personage, such as Jefferson) despite their flaws.

   Marius presents More in the intellectual context of the day. The reader will learn as much about the Reformation as More, and you will learn More than in all the other biographies combined.

   By no means do I agree with all of Marius's judgements, but he gives you the facts and you can think for yourself. No More can a serious biogapher do.




2. This biography often reads more like a novel. Although Marius can lay a claim to scholarship as the editor of More's Collected Works at Yale, his writings on historical figures lack for objectivity and attention to avoiding basic prejudices and popular suppositions.

   Louis Martz, the great More scholar at Yale, was moved to write a "defense" of More's humanism and some of the basic facts of More's life, commonly known to all More scholars, subsequent to Marius' biography.

   What is interesting is that Marius is equally poor is writing about Martin Luther, one of More's literary adversaries. So much so that in the recent reviews of the Luther biography, Marius is accused of the "catholic" view of Luther, when in fact Marius is a protestant.

   I believe that the trouble arises when one does not stick to the scholarship and the facts, and allows oneself to put in imaginary thoughts and conversation and personal biases. Then you just have a work of fiction.

   Better to stick to a readable and sound biography such as that of Peter Ackroyd.




3. This is biography of Thomas More lacks scholarship, and contains a surprising number of passages in which Marius shows his lack of depth as an objective scholar with a broad range of learning in this field.

   Do yourself a favor and read Peter Ackroyd's book.




4. Among the several recent More biographers, Marius is the best qualified, having served as an editor of the Yale Complete Works of Saint Thomas More. More was an exceedingly complex person whose personality is very, very difficult to capture. Of the three serious biographies of More written in the last 20 years (by Alistair Fox, Marius, and Peter Ackroyd) I found Marius's biography the most rewarding.
   
   
   
   More remains a controversial figure: to Catholics he is a Saint, the patron saint of politicians and statemen. But then again, he was an enthusiastic prosecutor of heretics: more than 30 were burned under More's authority as Chancellor of England. The idea that the brilliant, virtuous More (now frozen in the form of Paul Scofield) could have done this is repellant to some. I believe this accounts for the bile heaped on Marius's book by some reviewers here. Frankly, criticisms of Marius's SCHOLARSHIP are just ridiculous; they say more about the commentor than the subject.
   

   
   
   That said, Marius's bio is not perfect. It has ideas and makes excellent connections; but I found that reading all three of these bios gave me a better sense of Thomas More than any one. Yet as in Rashomon, just when one thinks one has the missing piece needed to know More, one gets the annoying sense that the pieces do not quite fit and one despairs of ever knowing him. He is that deep.
   
   
   
   Still, if one will read only one More bio, I say read Marius's. (Unless, that is, you are looking for outright hagiography -- in which case, read Monti's book.)




5. This is a detailed, well-researched and thouroughly conventional biography of the life of Thomas More, Lord Chancellor under Henry VIII, Catholic apologist and saint, man of letters, London lawyer and model father.

   In painting More's portrait, Richard Marius not only describes all aspects of his busy life, including his family life, but also strives to make us acquainted with some of the prominent figures of the time. Erasmus receives special attention and both his works and the correspondence between him and More is treated at great length. Luther is another important character, along with other Reformation figures.

   The author describes meticulously the content of More's main works starting with his account of the life of Richard III and ending with the treatise on death he wrote when he was imprisoned in the Tower. Each book is analysed in depth both as to its philosophical, theological and political import and as a reflection of More's character and beliefs. In fact, the discussion of More's literary production takes up about half the book, so that "Thomas More: A Biography" could appropriately be renamed "Thomas More's Literary Career".

   Another reviewer has torn into this biography, accusing Marius of "deconstructionism". At first I found that Marius's view of Thomas More was surprisingly free of many modern prejudices. Let us not forget that More is a man who should be thouroughly repellent to any liberal scholar: he persecuted heretics relentlessly. He seemes to have been what we now call a religious fanatic, a XVIth century version of Khomeini.

   Now, except for the odd passage, there are no such cynical or condescending remarks as one often finds under the pen of many modern historians when discussing the Middle Ages or Catholicism in this biography. Sometimes I even suspected that Marius might be a crypto-Catholic, for he shows more than disinterested objectivity in his treatment of the causes that More passionately espoused. Sometimes he even vents his repulsion for some Protestant doctrines or the behavior of More's adversaries, describing for example the King at the time of his infatuation with Anne Boleyn as "a boar in rut" and the woman herself as "a strumpet".

   But when I finished the book I was struck by the fact that it had left in my mind a rather negative image of Sir Thomas More. In any case, I didn't think he deserved to be considered as a saint by the Church. In his depiction of him, Marius seems to focus more on the somber aspects of his personality and he certainly doesn't dwell on the likeable or admirable ones.He goes even so far as to compare him with the hateful Torquemada.

   Marius provides a general psychological explanation for More's course of action. It is not specially far-fetched or outrageous, just slightly Freudian: More, says Marius, was obsessed with death and fought against his own sexual drives, traits which were common enough among his contemporaries. Fortunately, Marius does not dwell heavily on his psychological theories and when he does attempt an explanation, refrains from using any pseudo-pschoanalytic jargon.

   "Thomas More: A Biography" is specially valuable for the light it throws on the doctrinal issues that were at the center of the Reformation and I gained many an insight from Marius'clear and profound reflections. The only thing which I found lacking is a detailed description of political events, economic life(More lived in an age of three-digit inflation!)civilization and daily life in 16th century England but then the book might easily have been twice as long. To put it briefly, this biography is more a discussion of ideas than of events, which is understandable since More was a rather second-rate political figure (at least this is how he appears in this work).

   What one will not find either in this book is evocative descriptions of XVIth century London or of King Henry's court. You will not be apprised here of the name of More's dog or find a description of the furniture of his house. Marius doesn't try to recreate the age with a wealth of details: he focuses on More, his books, and on the religious issues and controversies of the time.

   The book is long and does contain a few lengthy and dull passages, especially in the beginning and when Marius goes in great detail into More's books and correspondence but the narrative gets more and more interesting toward the end. One aspect of the book which I found confusing is the author's inability to tell us what was the real state of public opinion in More's time. He often says that the English people were fiercely anticlerical but also states that they were overwhelmingly for Catherine of Aragon and against the Henry's divorce. To me this seems to be a blatant contradiction. Apparently, Marius has failed to make a distinction between the intelligentsia and the popular classes and between London and the rest of the country.

   All in all, I still think that this is a worthy book. I don't think Marius could have been more sympathetic to More without sounding as a Catholic hagiographer. In addition to it and for people who want a more Catholic view of the period, I recommend Hilaire Belloc's books on the Reformation. People interested in a scholarly work about English Catholicism at the time of Thomas More should read The Stripping of the Altars.

No comments about The Achievement of John Henry Newman.