Book News
{mosimage}Catholics and Slavery: A Compromising History by John Perry (Novalis, soft cover, 204 pages, $24.95).
We live in a world in which the human rights of a large majority are trampled daily. This world did not emerge from nothing, and Christians are part of this history.
Through much of its history the Catholic Church condoned, promoted, supported and engaged in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Jesuit John Perry鱿鱼视频app account of this in Catholics and Slavery is comprehensive and unflinching. He believes the church was part of the problem in its complicity in slavery, but has remade itself as part of the solution.
Into the future, darkly
By Brian Welter, Catholic Register Special{mosimage}Emerging from the Dark Age Ahead: The Future of the North American Church, by Charles Fensham (Novalis, softcover, 226 pages, $24.94 list).
If Donald Rumsfeld was good for anything, it was savage mockery of pessimistic liberals. 鈥淗enny Penny the sky is falling,鈥 he once jeered to their flagellations. 鈥淪ometimes even liberals themselves tire of liberal negativity.鈥
The planetary secrets of C.S. Lewis
By{mosimage}Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis by Michael Ward (Oxford University Press, 347 pages, hardcover, $31.95).
Planet Narnia is one of the most creative works of scholarship I have read since I fled the murky world of graduate studies in English literature. Michael Ward sets before us one of the great mysteries of C.S. Lewis studies, i.e. what is the underlying unity among the seven Narnia stories, and solves it. It鱿鱼视频app the kind of thing that makes a rival PhD student throw her laptop across the room and take to drink. Ward has made a brilliant discovery.
Christ has implications in today's politics
By Michael Swan, The Catholic Register{mosimage}Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw (Zondervan, 355 pages, softcover, $19.99).
If Christianity isn鈥檛 radical, isn鈥檛 subversive, isn鈥檛 dangerous and can鈥檛 get you into trouble it isn鈥檛 really following Christ. The established powers of Roman-occupied Palestine tortured and killed Jesus for a reason. It wasn鈥檛 because he was a safe, earnest, harmless reformer.
The progression of Orthodoxy
By Noel Cooper, Catholic Register Special{mosimage}Encountering the Mystery: Perennial Values of the Orthodox Church by Patriarch Bartholomew I (Doubleday, 254 pages, hardcover, $25).
Before reading Encountering the Mystery, I could not have told you the name of the patriarch of Constantinople, but still considered myself adequately informed about the history and practices of Orthodox Christianity. I understood the Orthodox Church to be truly ancient in both the commendable and the less welcome senses of the term 鈥 faithfully continuing the apostolic tradition in a way that has avoided innovation for many centuries.
A new look at international development
By Simon Appolloni, Catholic Register Special{mosimage}Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail by Paul Polak (BK Currents, hardcover, 232 pages, $32).
Paul Polak is convinced he has found the solution to help some 800 million dollar-a-day farmers climb out of poverty. So, he wrote a book about it for all to learn: Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail.
Tolle's 'New 'Earth' pains the body
By{mosimage}A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life鱿鱼视频app Purpose by Eckhart Tolle (Plume, 315 pages, $15.50).
A New Earth has attracted notoriety thanks to the patronage of TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey. It is a profoundly non-Christian book that exploits the Holy Name of Jesus to bamboozle Oprah鱿鱼视频app mostly Christian audience.
You must read 'I Don't Believe in Atheists'
By Peter Kavanagh, Catholic Register Special{mosimage}I Don鈥檛 Believe in Atheists, by Chris Hedges (Anansi, 224 pages, $24.95 hardcover).
It鱿鱼视频app the emphasis on sin and the direct link with Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens that makes you sit up with a start while reading Chris Hedges' new book, I Don鈥檛 Believe in Atheists. The honest and exquisitely argued linkage creates that magical compulsion to seek out others so you can read them an excerpt. It is a pleasure too seldom found in a book, let alone one that wants to argue that scientists can be more fundamentalist than arch creationists.
Great minds don't always get it right
By Catholic Register Staff{mosimage}The Lost Massey Lectures: Recovered Classics from Five Great Thinkers, introduction by Bernie Lucht (Anansi, 399 pages, $24.95 softcover).
In 1965 a single computer filled the space of a commodious living room. In 1966 we had not yet landed on the moon, let alone invented the Internet. In 1967 rock icons Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison were still alive, though not for much longer. In 1979 reality TV was the evening news. In 1983 there was such a thing as a Cold War and we were still fighting it.
Generosity is the art of living right
By Claire-Monique Lerman, FMM, Catholic Register Special{mosimage}Being Generous: The Art of Right Living by Lucinda Vardey and John Dalla Costa (Knopf Canada, hardcover, 320 pages, $25).
The title of this book caught my eye. I had to stop and ponder what I understood by the expression 鈥渂eing generous.鈥 I discovered, as the authors so clearly point out, that I had a very limited notion of this very rich and transforming phrase.
Real, raw, rugged life stories - book cover
By Andrew Santos, The Catholic Register{mosimage}I Choose God, by Chris Cuddy, Peter Ericksen (St. Anthony Messenger Press, 130 pg., $10.99).
The novel I Choose God is an enjoyable read of 21 testimonies by young people about how they struggled to overcome difficult situations and find God.