Book Pick

When a Daughter of St. Paul recommends a book...

And I got this book on Sr. Julia Mary's recommendation, so this recommendation counts double. (I have to admit, Sr. Julia is terrific when it comes to keeping up with books and recognizing the really good ones.) It is for Robert Barron's "The Strangest Way: Walking the Christian Path" (Orbis Press, 2002). After our conversation yesterday on books and bookstores, I realized that this book is a combination of the classic "Catholic" book (spiritual reading and doctrine) and the classic "Evangelical" book (Christian living). Which makes it a catholic book in the widest sense, of course, blending faith, prayer and practical life. Barron does a great job of presenting Christian living in a spiritual context; the book is almost a summary of spirituality, but not an esoteric type of spirituality which would be quite suspect anyway. And he doesn't just draw from classical "spiritual" sources, but, as is his wont, brings in literature: the kind of literature that itself sums up spiritual sources (Brideshead Revisited, Dante, Flannery O'Connor). The only problem I had with this book was that Barron likes to use really big words sometimes. I have a fairly decent vocabulary myself, but there were a few pages in which I really had to ask what on earth he was talking about, or why he had to say it in Latin or Greek or French... But a bit of stretching is always good. So run, don't walk, to your favorite bookstore (even Borders!) and look for this book, and if you don't find it, ask them to order it!