Open Book – June #anopenbook
Today, I’m joining Carolyn Astfalk and Catholic Mom for An Open Book. Here’s what I’ve been reading and/or working on for the past month.
Divine Threads: My Journey of Faith and Blessings by Pedro Camilo Simoes, SAC and Denise Mercado
Amazon Synopsis: Divine Threads: My Journey of Faith and Blessings is the life story of Father Pedro Camilo Simoes, SAC. Father Camilo, as he is best known, grew up in the Indian state of Goa. At a very young age, he responded to the call to become a priest. At that time, he was introduced to the Pallottine Fathers and began a long journey to his day of Ordination. Father Camilo’s story includes his service to the mission parishes in India as well as his nine-year tenure as a provincial for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Province of the Pallottine Fathers and Brothers in Bengaluru, India.
Father Camilo has traveled extensively bringing the love, dedication, and support of the Pallottines to distant lands. Discover, through Father Camilo’s story, the history of the Pallottine Fathers and the impact they have on our world today.
Father Camilo presents a sense of gratitude, despite the many ups and downs of his life. In all things, he acknowledges the presence of God. Through his writing, you, too, will experience a sense of gratitude and recognition for God’s goodness.
My review: I’ve been assisting the authors in copyediting, formatting and proofreading this wonderful book. A wonderful faith journey by Fr. Pedro Camilo Simoes. Highly recommend!
Ephphatha Catholic Fiction for Modern Times by Philip J Martin
Amazon Synopsis: Coming June 13 from FQP! In Ephphatha, award-winning author Philip J Martin pushes society’s predispositions and worldly leanings to their logical end in fiction form. Whether mercy, truth, or redemption finds a heart to grapple with depends on the alcoholic, the professor, the grave robber, or the missionary, to name a few. A young boy suffers through life and love when his actions have the power to create a gravitational pull. A teenage girl naively thinks she’s in for the experience of a lifetime when her brother finds backstage passes under his chair at a country music concert. An elderly woman blinded by nostalgia has her life upended by a child. And, in the previously unpublished winner of the 2015 Tuscany Prize in Catholic Fiction, a fraternity brother’s pranks seemingly backfire until the old farmer makes his greatest move. From the beautiful to the absurd and the simple to the grotesque, these stories lay bare secular underpinnings and the modern topsy-turvy of vice and virtue through whatever means necessary.
Amazon Synopsis: ON NOVEMBER 22, 1963, THREE SHOTS RANG OUT IN DALLAS, PRESIDENT KENNEDY DIED, AND THE WORLD CHANGED. WHAT IF YOU COULD CHANGE IT BACK?
In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King—who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer—takes readers on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it.
It begins with Jake Epping, a thirty-five-year-old English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching GED classes. He asks his students to write about an event that changed their lives, and one essay blows him away—a gruesome, harrowing story about the night more than fifty years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a sledgehammer. Reading the essay is a watershed moment for Jake, his life—like Harry’s, like America’s in 1963—turning on a dime. Not much later his friend Al, who owns the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to the past, a particular day in 1958. And Al enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession—to prevent the Kennedy assassination.
So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson, in a different world of Ike and JFK and Elvis, of big American cars and sock hops and cigarette smoke everywhere. From the dank little city of Derry, Maine (where there’s Dunning business to conduct), to the warmhearted small town of Jodie, Texas, where Jake falls dangerously in love, every turn is leading eventually, of course, to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and to Dallas, where the past becomes heart-stoppingly suspenseful, and where history might not be history anymore. Time-travel has never been so believable. Or so terrifying.
My review: I’ve already read this book two times and decided to read it again when I was unwell a few weeks ago. It’s a very long read, but well worth it.
I absolutely love this book. It has something for everyone: time travel, great characters, someone trying to stop the Kennedy Assassination, a love story, interesting plot. It’s a LONG read (900 pages), but after I finished the book the first time, I immediately ordered the DVD of the 2016 mini-series with James Franco. Highly recommend both the novel and the DVD!
My Grieving Hand: A Heavenly Way to Find Comfort in Loss by Keith Lilek
Amazon Synopsis: My Grieving Hand is a brief exploration into how to provide some comfort and perspective when someone close to you suddenly experiences the loss of a loved one. I found myself not knowing how to provide comfort and understanding to friends who suddenly and unexpectedly lost their child. I did not know what to say or do to ease their pain . . . or mine.
My Grieving Hand: A Heavenly Way to Find Comfort in Loss is my dive into the stages of grief, poetically and most gently exploring God’s plan to be better prepared to mentor anyone in need.
My review: I’ve been working with this author to promote his books from the Mentored from Above series. I highly recommend this beautiful book in which the author uses sonnets and stories to provide comfort and perspective when someone close dies. Check out Keith’s website at this link.
My Road Goes Ever on: Spiritual Being Human Journey by A.K. Frailey
Amazon Synopsis: My Road Goes Ever On Spiritual Being Human Journey (2nd Edition) by A.K. Frailey presents a collection of insightful and encouraging blog posts from the author. This book is a daily devotional style book, as the author blends articles that bring fresh inspiration for the day on life, love, and overcoming obstacles with faith. (CBM Christian Book Review)
My review: This is a beautiful collection of posts from homeschooling mom and author A.K. Frailey. Sometimes witty, sometimes heartwarming, these stories are perfect to read one per day or all of them in one sitting. Highly recommend.
Amazon Synopsis: First in a new series from bestselling author and famed O. J. Simpson trial prosecutor Marcia Clark, a “terrific writer and storyteller” (James Patterson).
Samantha Brinkman, an ambitious, hard-charging Los Angeles criminal defense attorney, is struggling to make a name for herself and to drag her fledgling practice into the big leagues. Sam lands a high-profile double-murder case in which one of the victims is a beloved TV star―and the defendant is a decorated veteran LAPD detective. It promises to be exactly the kind of media sensation that would establish her as a heavy hitter in the world of criminal law.
Though Sam has doubts about his innocence, she and her two associates (her closest childhood friend and a brilliant ex-con) take the case. Notorious for living by her own rules―and fearlessly breaking everyone else’s―Samantha pulls out all the stops in her quest to uncover evidence that will clear the detective. But when a shocking secret at the core of the case shatters her personal world, Sam realizes that not only has her client been playing her, he might be one of the most dangerous sociopaths she’s ever encountered.
My review: I prefer Clark’s non-fiction to her fiction. The story and characters are okay, but this book was hard to get into.
Without a Doubt by Marcia Clark and Teresa Carpenter
Amazon Synopsis: Marcia Clark takes us inside her head and her heart. Her voice is raw, incisive, disarming, unmistakable. Her story is both sweeping and deeply personal. It is the story of a woman who, when caught up in an event that galvanized an entire country, rose to that occasion with singular integrity, drive, honesty and grace.
In a case that tore America apart, and that continues to haunt us as few events of history have, Marcia Clark emerged as the only true heroine, because she stood for justice, fought the good fight, and fought it well.
My review: 25 years ago, I watched parts of the O.J. Trial and the verdict. By the time it was all said and done, I was tired of hearing about it. Since Simpson’s death a few weeks ago, this book came up as a suggested read. It was reasonably priced (5.99 for ebook), but at 700 pages, I wasn’t sure what I was getting into. Overall, it was an interesting read, although frustrating that the verdict came down to race. Justice wasn’t truly served and he got away with murder. This, despite all the blood evidence. Recommend.
