If you're Catholic, either as a convert or a cradle Catholic, then you should definitely read Arriving at Amen by Leah Libresco. In this book, the author goes through seven different "prayers" of the Catholic church - Mass, Confession, Petition, Examen, Lectio Divina, the Rosary, and the Divine Office, one in each chapter. In each chapter, Leah discusses how she incorporated that prayer into her life, especially as it affected her on her journey from an atheist to a convert.
It is evident that the author is intelligent and very well read; however, nothing in the book talks over the heads of anyone who might not be. A pet peeve of mine is authors who use Latin or French phrases and just assume that the reader understands them. None of that in this book, Ms. Libresco defines her terms and the back of the book has a study guide that is useful for either a group or just one person.
This is actually a book I own. I can't wait to tell those who don't read this blog about this book. I hope you find it and enjoy it.
Monday, January 16, 2017
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
A surprisingly good book.
Let me just put this out there first. I play World of Warcraft as a Draenei Paladin. So, when I saw this book, Ordination at my local library, I picked it up and looked at but passed it by at first. I had never heard of the author, Daniel M. Ford and have become a bit weary of small publisher type books. I recently picked it up, needing a break from non-fiction books. I just finished reading it and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Ordination , subtitled "Book One of the Paladin Trilogy", tells the story of Allystaire, a former knight, who has left the service of his former lord due to what he perceived as injustices in the current system. As the story proceeds, he comes upon a small village whose people, with an exception, have been taken by slavers. Being led to find a young girl, he sets off to rescue the villagers from the slavers. Along the way, he draws the attention of a long forgotten goddess of mercy, " the Mother" and is ordained as her "Arm:" ( or paladin). The Mother also calls others to be her "Voice", "Shadow" and "Wit" with a "Will" yet to come. As the Arm goes forth, trying to bring the Mother's message to the world, other powers aren't interested in any message of mercy that might lessen their power over the populace. These other powers include the rulers of the various factions as well as servants of other gods in the world.
The writing style is smooth, no stilted language or awkward sentences - much what you'd expect from someone with the author's MFA in Creative Writing. The book is very readable - There are plenty of chapters and most of the chapters are broken into smaller sections. At almost 500 pages, this makes it much easier to handle the reading load. I'm looking forward to the 2nd book in the trilogy Stillbright due out sometime this year.
This book is available at Amazon, or if you're lucky, your local library.
Ordination , subtitled "Book One of the Paladin Trilogy", tells the story of Allystaire, a former knight, who has left the service of his former lord due to what he perceived as injustices in the current system. As the story proceeds, he comes upon a small village whose people, with an exception, have been taken by slavers. Being led to find a young girl, he sets off to rescue the villagers from the slavers. Along the way, he draws the attention of a long forgotten goddess of mercy, " the Mother" and is ordained as her "Arm:" ( or paladin). The Mother also calls others to be her "Voice", "Shadow" and "Wit" with a "Will" yet to come. As the Arm goes forth, trying to bring the Mother's message to the world, other powers aren't interested in any message of mercy that might lessen their power over the populace. These other powers include the rulers of the various factions as well as servants of other gods in the world.
The writing style is smooth, no stilted language or awkward sentences - much what you'd expect from someone with the author's MFA in Creative Writing. The book is very readable - There are plenty of chapters and most of the chapters are broken into smaller sections. At almost 500 pages, this makes it much easier to handle the reading load. I'm looking forward to the 2nd book in the trilogy Stillbright due out sometime this year.
This book is available at Amazon, or if you're lucky, your local library.
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