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| Recommendations by Amy Welborn |
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The Habit of Being Letters of Flannery O’Connor Flannery O'Connor, Sally Fitzgerald (Editor) First published in 1979, the collected letters of O'Connor, one of the great American writers, are a joy and a solace to read. O'Connor (1925-1964), a self described "hillbilly Thomist," is known for her startling, deeply focused short stories centering on faith, pride and doubt as reflected through the lives of mostly Southern characters always up to strange doings. O'Connor's letters reflect her brilliant mind, her deep Catholic faith and her humbling humor and courage in the face of lupus, the terminal illness that killed her at the age of 39. See Amazon’s discounted price |
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Teresa of Avila The Progress of a Soul Cathleen Medwick A former features editor for Vogue and Vanity Fair is the last person on earth you'd expect to write a biography of St. Teresa of Avila, much less a decent one. But when that same editor also has a degree in comparative Renaissance literature, the result is a pleasant surprise. Teresa of Avila, as it turns out, is an excellent popular biography. Medwick treats everything about the saint - her ecstatic visions, her writings and her astonishingly energetic and courageous efforts to reform religious life in Spain - with clarity and, most importantly, respect. You won't find any psychoanalyzing or deconstructing here - just solid information about this Doctor of the Church, gracefully and compassionately presented. See Amazon’s discounted price |
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The Life of Thomas More Peter Ackroyd Ackroyd, perhaps best known to American readers as the biographer of Charles Dickens in, naturally, Dickens, here gives us a marvelous biography of the Man for All Seasons, Thomas More. What Ackroyd does so beautifully is to rip to shreds all of our stereotypes of pre-Reformation England, clearly setting out the truth that religious life in England in the early 16th century was vibrant, rich and deeply felt, and that this is the context in which More and King Henry VIII must be seen. Ackroyd doesn't whitewash More's faults, either. Readers might be dismayed to learn of his role in the execution of more than one prisoner accused of heresy. But in the end, what we have in this book is a fascinating portrait of a brilliant, complex man, offered to us in rich historical context. (Doubleday) See Amazon’s discounted price |
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Signatures of Grace Catholic Writers on the Sacraments Thomas Grady and Paula Huston (Editors) A lovely collection of essays - one on each sacrament, plus an additional piece by the late Andre Dubus on the sacraments in general. The writers were given the task of weaving their personal experiences and reflections on a particular sacraments with an account of that sacrament's history and theology. Six of the seven pull it off - Mary Gordon on the Anointing of the Sick is by far the weakest. Of the rest, Patricia Hampl writes a piece of aching beauty on the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and, in my favorite, Paula Huston writes of the grace of Matrimony as it is discovered and clung to for dear life in the midst of her messy second marriage and her conversion to Catholicism. A solid, affecting group of essays. (Dutton) See Amazon’s discounted price |
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The Power and the Glory Graham Greene. What would summer reading be without a novel? This book should be required reading for everyone who is Catholic or wants to be. Rooted in Greene's own experience of traveling through the miseries of 1930's post-Revolutionary Mexico, The Power and the Glory is the story of a never-named priest who journeys through the country where the practice of Catholicism is illegal, ministering to those he finds and hiding from the police. He is no plaster saint though - he is a "whiskey priest" - an alcoholic, the father of an illegitimate child, a man who hangs onto the slimmest of faith, not sure why he continues his ministry, but not able to turn himself in and turn his back on that call, either. Complex and challenging, just like real faith. (Penguin USA) See Amazon’s discounted price |
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Amy Welborn has been published in many Catholic publications including Liguorian, Catholic Parent and Our Sunday Visitor. Welborn spends her time reading, writing, parenting. Right now the bulk of her energy is directed at books. She has finished two this year and is working on a third. Check out Amy Welborn’s website to read her collection of articles, columns and reviews. www.geocities.com/amywelborn/current.html |
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