Book Reviews

Book Review: Tremendous Trifles

by: GK Chesterton             I went in search of this book after reading a quote attributed to it – “A baby is the kingdom of God.”  (Thank you American Chesterton Society!).  I suspected if the rest of the book came anywhere near to as good as that small sample, it...

Book Review: The Way of the Cross

by: Caryll Houselander             This probably goes without saying, but this was an excellent book to read for Lent.  There is an overview of the Via Crucis and then a chapter dedicated to each...

Book Review: Happy Are You Poor 

by Thomas Dubay I follow a Franciscan monk who recommended this book.  He said he found it particularly challenging.  It intrigued me that a man who has given up everything to live a life in service of God found a book on spiritual poverty...

Book Review: Utopia

by Thomas More             I wasn’t sure what to expect when reading this book.  I’d read it was a satire and then the guy who wrote the introduction to the version I was reading insisted it wasn’t...
Book Review: Bound for Oregon

Book Review: Bound for Oregon

Jean Van Leeuwen             This was based on the true story of a girl named Mary Ellen Todd who made the journey on the Oregon Trail from Arkansas to Oregon with her family.  (Her family was related to President Lincoln's wife.). This was a fascinating book.  There...

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The Door in the Wall

The Door in the Wall

by Marguerite De Angelo             This was a very readable book about a young boy named Robin who was the son of a nobleman.  His father was off at war and Robin, at the ripe old age of 10, was to...

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Saint Dominic and the Rosary 

Saint Dominic and the Rosary 

by Catherine Beebe             This was a great biography.  It read well and was really helped along by the fact that Saint Dominic had a very fascinating life.  He was born to older parents after his other brothers and sisters were grown-up and moved out.  He knew he...

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To Know Christ Jesus

To Know Christ Jesus

by FJ Sheed             I read this book for Lent.  It was a nearly perfect Lent book.  It even had 45  chapters so you could read one per day and be finished by Holy Week....

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Francis and Clare

Francis and Clare

by Helen Walker Homan             This was an engaging biography on Saint Francis, though not so much on Saint Clare – she kind of pops up at the beginning of the book for a minute and then again at the end.  Saint Francis, whose father was a successful merchant, came...

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Adam of the Road

Adam of the Road

by Elizabeth Janet Gray             In 13th century England,  Adam, the son of Roger the minstrel, is ready to live life on the road with his father so that one day, he too can become a...

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The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden

by Francis Hodgson Burnett What an excellent book!  A bossy, spoiled girl named Mary is living in India until she is sent to Yorkshire England to live with her very rich uncle in his mansion when her parents die in an epidemic.  The whole place...

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Away Goes Sally

Away Goes Sally

by Elizabeth Coatsworth             Sally is a young orphan that lives with her aunts and uncle in late 18th-century Massachusetts.  After receiving a letter from their cousin that had settled in...

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Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

by GK Chesterton             This was a near perfect biography.  If I were Charles Dickens, I would have been waiting for Chesterton at the gates of heaven to hug the stuffing out of him for writing...

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