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September 2021 BOTM - Voting
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How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, by Thomas Woods, Jr.Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by Mark Twain
1. The Mystery of Joseph 2. From Fire By Water
What an interesting and thoughtful list, great compilation. My choice would be, 'Poor Banished Children' by Fiorella De Maria, it's August 15th after all, and I felt drawn to that work.
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc: By the Sieur Louis de Conte
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc+
The Reed Of God
I vote for Efeilheim by Michael Flynn and Poor Banished Children by Fiorella Nash.
Poor Banished Children, by Fiorella De MariaWith Two Eyes Into Gehenna, Jane Lebak
I’m new to the group. (Thanks for the invite,Fonch!). I vote for A Time to Die: Monks on the Threshold of Eternal Life by Nicholas Diat. Great list of books for my to-be-read stack!
Mystery of Joseph has my vote in this Year of Saint Joseph. and The Reed of God seems like a good pairing.
curious there are so many brand-new choices on this list...From Fire by Water
The Mystery of Joseph
The Day is Now Far Spent, by Robert SarahThe Mystery of Joseph, by Marie-Dominique Philippe
Mod
The Reed of GodPersonal Recollections
Two Eyes Into Gehenna; andThe Wild Orchid.
The Reed of GodHow the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
The Day is Now Far Spent, by Robert SarahThe Wild Orchid, by Sigrid Undset
From Fire by WaterHow the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
The Day is Now Far Spent, Robert SarahA Time to Die: Monks on the Threshold
The Catholic Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
The Day is Now Far Spent (other topics)Prison Journal, Volume 1 The Cardinal Makes His Appeal (other topics)
The Servile State (other topics)
Eifelheim (other topics)
The Day is Now Far Spent (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Hilaire Belloc (other topics)Michael Flynn (other topics)
Robert Sarah (other topics)
Michael Flynn (other topics)
Sohrab Ahmari (other topics)
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Voting will end at approximately 11:00 AM Eastern Time on Wednesday, August 18.
Champion of Valdeor, by Sandralena Hanley, Fonch
Alloryn faces a mythical creature to win a fabled sword, is taken under the wing of a mysterious mentor, and sets out to find the lost Princess Lauressa. Her quest is to free the land from cruel rulers and the evil warlord over them all who usurped her throne. Together they search for stones of power, which they win by practicing a corresponding virtue, while facing foes and dangers from every side. During their travels they make many allies, who join with them against the tyrannical warlord in the final battle for the kingdom.
Voting history: July 2021 - 2
The Day is Now Far Spent, by Robert Sarah, nominated by Mariangel
Robert Cardinal Sarah calls The Day Is Now Far Spent his most important book. He analyzes the spiritual, moral, and political collapse of the Western world and concludes that "the decadence of our time has all the faces of mortal peril."
A cultural identity crisis, he writes, is at the root of the problems facing Western societies. "The West no longer knows who it is, because it no longer knows and does not want to know who made it, who established it, as it was and as it is. Many countries today ignore their own history. This self-suffocation naturally leads to a decadence that opens the path to new, barbaric civilizations."
Voting History: May 2021 - 3; July 2021 - 2
Eifelheim, by Michael Flynn, nominated by Fonch
In 1349, one small town in Germany disappeared and has never been resettled. Tom, a contemporary historian, and his theoretical physicist girlfriend Sharon, become interested. Tom indeed becomes obsessed. By all logic, the town should have survived, but it didn't and that violates everything Tom knows about history. What's was special about Eifelheim that it utterly disappeared more than 600 years ago?
Voting History: December 2020 - 5; January 2021 - 5; February 2021 - 5; March 2021 - 5; April 2021 - 2; May 2021 - 6; July 2021 - 3
From Fire, by Water: My Journey to the Catholic Faith, by Sohrab Ahmari, nominated by Sohrab and John
Sohrab Ahmari was a teenager living under the Iranian ayatollahs when he decided that there is no God. Nearly two decades later, he would be received into the Catholic Church. In From Fire, by Water, he recounts this unlikely passage, from the strident Marxism and atheism of a youth misspent on both sides of the Atlantic to a moral and spiritual awakening prompted by the Mass. At once a young intellectual’s finely crafted self-portrait and a life story at the intersection of the great ideas and events of our time, the book marks the debut of a compelling new Catholic voice.
Voting History: February 2021 - 3; March 2021 -8; April 2021 - 9; May 2021 - 2; July 2021 - 2
How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, by Thomas E. Woods Jr., nominated by Manuel
Ask a college student today what he knows about the Catholic Church and his answer might come down to one word: "corruption." But that one word should be "civilization." Western civilization has given us the miracles of modern science, the wealth of free-market economics, the security of the rule of law, a unique sense of human rights and freedom, charity as a virtue, splendid art and music, a philosophy grounded in reason, and innumerable other gifts that we take for granted as the wealthiest and most powerful civilization in history. But what is the ultimate source of these gifts? Bestselling author and professor Thomas E. Woods, Jr. provides the long neglected answer: No institution has done more to shape Western civilization than the two-thousand-year-old Catholic Church—and in ways that many of us have forgotten or never known.
Voting History: None
I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, René Girard, nominated by John
"Thank you, my Father, for revealing to the little ones what you have hidden from the wise and the intelligent". Since then, the wise and the intelligent have not ceased to take revenge: by dint of shredding the Gospels, they have made of them a heap of parts and fragments too heteroclite to mean anything....
But René Girard affirms that they will not have the last word: like Simone Weil, he thinks that the Gospels, before being a theory of God, are a theory of man. A map of the violence in which the pride and envy of men imprison humanity. To discover this theory of man and to accept it is to breathe life into the great evangelical questions - from Satan to the Apocalypse - concerning evil, forgotten and eliminated by believers. And it is also to revive the idea of the Bible in its entirety as prophetic of Christ. That is why the Gospels, far from being a "myth like any other", as has been repeated for two centuries, in this "intellectual rehabilitation of the Bible and the Gospels under the angle of anthropology" would constitute the key to all the mythology that precedes us and that which lies before us, the key to the unprecedented history that awaits us. (Translated from a Spanish summary (to the English translation of the book) with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version))
Voting History: None
The Mystery of Joseph, by Marie-Dominique Philippe, nominated by John
In this illuminating book, Fr. Philippe leads you deep into the beautiful mystery of St. Joseph -- revealing the greatness of the apparently unremarkable man who was the guardian of Jesus and Mary, and who is now the Guardian of the Church, ''overflowing with immeasurable wisdom and power.''
Voting History: None
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc: By the Sieur Louis de Conte (her Page and Secretary) freely translated out of the ancient French into modern ... Archives of France by Jean Francois Alden, by Mark Twain, nominated by Mariangel
Regarded by many as the most luminous example of Mark Twain's work, this fictional biography of Joan of Arc was purportedly written by Joan's page and secretary — Sieur Louis de Conté. (Twain's alter ego even shared the author's same initials — S. L. C.) Told from the viewpoint of this lifelong friend, the historical novel is a panorama of stirring scenes and marvel of pageantry — from Joan's early childhood in Domremy and her touching story of the voices, to the fight for Orleans, the taking of Tourelles and Jargeau, and the splendid march to Rheims.
Voting History: None
Poor Banished Children, by Fiorella De Maria, nominated by Fonch
An explosion is heard off the coast of sixteenth-century England, and a woman washes up on the shore. She is barely alive and does not speak English, but she asks for a priest... in Latin. She has a confession to make and a story to tell, but who is she and where has she come from? Cast out of her superstitious, Maltese family, Warda turns to begging and stealing until she is fostered by an understanding Catholic priest who teaches her the art of healing. Her willful nature and hard-earned independence make her unfit for marriage, and so the good priest sends Warda to serve an anchorite, in the hope that his protege will discern a religious vocation.
Voting History: August 2020 - 1; September 2020 - 5; October 2020 - 3; November 2020 - 2; December 2020 - 4; ; January 2021 - 3; February 2021 - 4; March 2021 - 2; April 2021 - 4; May 2021 - 4; July 2021 - 3
The Reed of God: A New Edition of a Spiritual Classic, by Caryll Houselander, nominated by Connie
First published in 1944 and now a spiritual classic for Catholics across the globe, The Reed of God contains meditations on the humanity of Mary, Mother of God. British Catholic writer and artist Caryll Houselander lovingly explores Mary’s intimately human side, depicting Our Lady as a musical instrument who makes divine love known to the world.
Voting History: May 2021 - 3; July 2021 - 2
The Servile State, by Hilaire Belloc, nominated by John
Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) was one of the most respected men of his day for his learning, insight, wit, and brilliant literary style. Author of over a hundred books and articles, Belloc was a journalist, polemicist, social and political analyst, literary critic, poet, and novelist.
The Servile State has endured as his most important political work. The effect of socialist doctrine on capitalist society, Belloc wrote, is to produce a third thing different from either—the servile state, today commonly called the welfare state.
Voting History: None
A Time to Die: Monks on the Threshold of Eternal Life, Nicolas Diat, nominated by Robert Bruening
Behind monastery walls, men of God spend their lives preparing for the passage of death. Best-selling French author Nicolas Diat set out to find what their deaths can reveal about the greatest mystery faced by everyone—the end of life.
Voting History: None
War Demons, by Russell S. Newquist, nominated by Fonch
When he came home, so did they...
Driven by vengeance, Michael Alexander enlisted in the Army the day after 9/11. Five years later, disillusioned and broken by the horrors he witnessed in Afghanistan, Michael returns home to Georgia seeking to begin a new life. But he didn't come alone. Something evil followed him, and it's leaving a path of destruction in its wake.
Voting History: None
The Wild Orchid, by Sigrid Undset, nominated by Fonch
The novel is about a young man, Paul Selmer's journey from freethinking to Catholicism, but before he reaches that point, he goes through several stages in his life: divorce of his parents, remarriage of his father, his development from a student to a mature man. The title is taken from the protagonist's mother's garden - a white, fragrant orchid called gymnadenia in Latin. Paul, as a boy, is fascinated by the name and is disappointed to see a flower with small, inconspicuous flowers. (Translated (from the Estonian summary to the English language translation) with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version), which also identified the original language)
Voting History: None
With Two Eyes Into Gehenna, Jane Lebak, Steven R.
Sister Magdalena never heard of the Catherinite nuns until the day she faced her own death sentence. Rome, 1562. It’s the era of the Index of Banned Books and the Roman Inquisition. Kings still burn heretics. The worst threats come from within the Church itself.
Voting History: April 2021 - 2; May 2021 - 2; July 2021 - 4
And from the Current Interest List:
Prison Journal, Volume 1 The Cardinal Makes His Appeal, by George Cardinal Pell, John
Innocent!That final verdict came after George Cardinal Pell endured a grueling eight years of accusations, investigations, trials, public humiliations, and more than a year of imprisonment after being convicted by an Australian court of a crime he did not commit.