World Communication Day & Promote Catholicism Day, part 2

Time for part 2 of the  Catholic media fest:

Then, on Thursday, May 24, please share the fruit of that day of prayer and silence with everyone, by posting your answer to the question: “What in Catholic Media has had an impact on me during the past year?” Share it on the New Evangelizers website at: http://newevangelizers.com/forums/topic/catholic-media-promotion-day-2012/

Half of you may have noticed, my efforts at internet silence were not so successful.  So this will be fruit-of-the-noise as well.

1.  Have I mentioned how much I love the printing press?

I’ve got an old version of one of these guys, not the hardback, and the spine’s peeling away.  I think most of my friends who do book repair are also solidly anti-Catholic, which makes it awkward to ask for advice.

2. SuperHusband swears by the iBreviary. It is indeed super cool.  I mean, yes, wow.  But I still prefer paper.

3. Review Books.  Yesterday in my failure to sit on my hands, I stumbled on RAnn’s list of Top Ten Sources for Review Books.  My current title from The Catholic Company is Benedict of Bavaria.  I picked it because that little voice told me I should, and my brain informed me that it was time I made myself read something substantial for a change, and this looked like it.  Ha!  I love being wrong.

“Substantial” is my code word for “thick” and “slog through long paragraphs written by people who need to get re-acquainted with the period key, and also not use the word ontological quite so much”.  Not so.  Eminentally readable, and super interesting — quite the departure from my usual association of Pope Topics = Too Smart for Me.  I love the printing press.  Love it.

4. Local Catholic Bookstores.  OSV Weekly has this cute little sidebar about “How to Read More.”  It’s like telling someone on a diet How to Eat More.  No, really, I read enough already.  If the meat thing doesn’t work out, Not Reading is my most painful alternate penance.

But the pleasure of the review programs sponsored by the big guys is that a) It supports the bookstores who provide for those who don’t have local bookstores b) sometimes I find a great book my local store doesn’t know about, and then I can pass it on, and c) I still have my book money left to spend with the local guys.

Support your local Catholic bookstore.  If you don’t have one, and your parish has a spare coat closet they can spare, consider starting one.  Nothing beats being able to browse in person, especially for kids.

5. A great book my local bookstore is about to find out about.  One of the tremendous pleasures of Catholic New Media has been getting to know other writers online.  Which is how I ended up with the announcement of this book in my inbox yesterday:

I can’t wait to the see the inside.

Another great moment in New Media e-mails yesterday . . . Julie Davis let me look at a sneak preview of a project she’s working on.  That’s all I can say right now.  But listen: There is a super-awesome, unbelievably gorgeous book in the works.  When the time comes, I will so tell the world it’s gonna be sort of annoying.  If your name is SuperMother-in-Law, I’m getting you one for Christmas.  (Not this Christmas.  You have to wait until it meets the printing press, which is still a ways off.)  With my own money.

6.  And that’s something I love about the Catholic new media: Catholic writers being able to connect with one another and collaborate on projects.  Writers in general can be a little paranoid.  What if someone else writes my book before I do?  In the Catholic world, yes that fear can be there.  But when your mission is  to evangelize, most of all there’s a tremendous sense of relief: Thank goodness someone wrote that book so I don’t have to.

When you’re still in that long aspiring-writer time of life, with 10,000 book ideas swirling in your head and a powerful desire to write them all, you don’t feel that way so much.  But once you actually go to write a whole book and make it see light of day, and you’ve gotten past the about the 4th draft of a completed manuscript, and discover how much work is required to write anything halfway decent . . . yeah, please.  Thank you all seventy-bazillion Catholic writers for being on the job.  You are so desperately needed.

7.  Um, there’s not much money in it.   Just so you know.  But listen, accounting is a great.  Engineering?  Janitorial work?  Lots of ways to support that writing habit.  And it’s all Catholic.

***

When I was first staying home to raise kids, I’d listen to Focus on the Family, and there was often mention of the incredible loneliness of the stay-at-home mom.  The internet has eased that isolation, especially for those of us introverts who would rather read and write than chit-chat at one of those mingle-y things.

Whenever you get to know somebody, no matter how, you only get to know part of them.  You never know the whole person. And at first, you only know a very small slice of the person.  The internet is only different in which slice you meet.

I love, LOVE, having a way to meet people from the inside out.  To not be distracted by their clothes or their accent or their weird habits or lack of weird habits.  To cut out the small talk and go straight to the issues . . . it takes so long at Donut Hour to find someone willing and able to hold a substantial conversation.  I love small blogs because you can have real conversation.  Yes, I’m like a moth to flame, leaving comments at Jen Fulwiler’s and Simcha’s and Msgr. Pope’s blogs.  But I always go to Darwin’s personal site, and not The American Catholic, because it’s small enough you can actually exchange ideas, and not just shout to the stadium.

So to you who write only very small blogs, let me say THANK YOU.   The big guys are doing an important work, and I’m grateful for them.  But small blogs fill a spot no one else can fill.  Keep going.

***

Also I beg you.  If it is at all within your power, please change your blog settings to allow the “subscribe to comments” feature.  Thank you.

7 Quick Takes: New, Interesting, Surprisingly Pleasant

1.

This morning I woke to the sound of the septic guy’s truck rumbling outside my bedroom window.  I started to panic — they weren’t supposed to be here until next week, and I still needed to move some plants out of their way.  Then I realized it was just the tank-emptying guys, not the installing-new-drain-fields guys, and I relaxed.  But I quick put on yard clothes and went out to investigate anyways.

2.

And learned that the drain field guys would be arriving in twenty minutes.

3.

The drain field guys helped me get the last of the plants out of the ground.  Thankfully it’s been wet all week.  Now I’ve got homeless plants sitting in bins in my back yard, waiting for me to decide where to put them.

4.

The most interesting thing was watching the septic guys dispose of trash.  The trench for the drain field is about six feet deep.  They lay the drain pipes, and big columns of mesh-wrapped packing peanuts that are the new gravel of the septic world.  And then anything that needs to be thrown away — shrink wrap, tin cans, old pipe dug up in the process of cutting the new field — they just toss it in the trench.

My sense of order was disturbed, but I reminded myself that if not here, then these items would just be hauled off to be buried in some other patch of earth.  Jon pointed out that you would not want to touch the old drain lines — better to just let the backhoe nudge them back underground.

5.

It is really cool watching a skilled backhoe operator work in a tight space.

6.

Don’t forget to pray for Allie Hathaway.  Thanks!

7.

Le Papillon is a mighty good movie. It’s French, very French, but no humans die and it has a happy ending.  (It does have the obligatory smoking scene.) Beautifully rendered, the language is artful and the English subtitles do it justice.  My five-year-old has watched it more than once, and she doesn’t seem to mind not knowing the words.   The seven-year-old minds – but she needs to practice her reading anyhow.

Helpful film for the French student because the dialog is spare but covers lots of good language-learning territory.   Advanced students will appreciate the word play and the chance to learn a few interesting idioms.  Head’s up, the film ranges over a number of touchy subjects (abortion, mental illness, honesty, fit parenting, the Final Judgement, etc.), so parental presence is called for.  You wouldn’t want to miss this anyways.  Excellent film.  I could watch it three times in a week.

7 Quick Takes: Mother’s Day. Liquor Store Edition.

1.

In my family growing up we had a set of Mother’s Day rituals — taking Mom out to breakfast, going to the garden center to buy flowers to plant for her, sometimes even exchanging of gifts and cards.  When the Boy was born, I expected SuperHusband to just know what to do.  After all, my family’s traditions were hardly secret — you see that kind of stuff on TV.  I assumed everyone just knew.

Except that he didn’t.  Tears ensued.  Until I discovered one year that actually, there is a much, much better way:

2.

Making my own breakfast.  Why not have a day a year devoted to eating exactly what I want, prepared the way I like it, and you other people please just stay in bed and give the mother an hour of quiet to enjoy it?  It really is better.

3.

But I did tell the poor man what I wanted this year:  For him to please get repaired the watch he gave me a different year.  It needs a new battery and a new clasp, and yes I could take it to be repaired myself, but you know, he’s a mechanical engineer.  What a great way to show his love, driving to the store himself to oversee the repair of a tiny metal mechanical device?

Luckily there’s no deadline, except that I’d really love for it to be fixed by the end of August, when I go to the Catholic Blogger Foretaste of Heaven Conference.  Where our lovely 7-takes hostess will be speaking, no less.  I am wildly excited.

4.

Last year for Mother’s day, SuperHusband gave me a reprint of this book:

Which taught me how to make my own vinegar.  Seriously easy and you feel so crunchy-granola, and also it uses up wine ends.  And it is better than anything you can buy.

Small hitch: The cloth-covered Famous Grouse bottle serving as miniature vinegar barrel reminded the SuperHusband he wanted to resume homebrewing.  He’d been on a long toddler-rearing hiatus.  So he did.  Causing us to stop buying wine.  But I did the calculation, and it is cheaper to buy a bottle of Aldi wine and make vinegar out of it, than it is to buy Publix-brand red wine vinegar.  So that’s what I do.

5.

Speaking of famous grice: The SuperHusband was in the doghouse the other week, and to demonstrate the sincerity of his love, he came home with a bottle of Laphroaig for me.  Which was a tiny bit strange, because I had not been grousing about a lack of single-malt.  And the stuff is expensive.  But in a moment of virtually Therese-like holiness, I figured: Hey, this is good!  Might as well enjoy it!

He really does love me, you know.

6.

A prayer for Allie Hathaway is prayer for her mom, too.  You can’t go wrong.

7.

The American Frugal Housewife was not the first historic housekeeping title on my shelves.  The previous Christmas the SuperMother-In-Law, who knows me well, gave me this one:

Mrs. Beeton’s is much heftier than the Frugal Housewife, and addressed more towards homes with servants, and our servants are mostly the electric type anymore.  But I came across this eminently reassuring and useful* bit of advice about the rigors of breastfeeding and the avoidance of colic:

The nine or twelve months a woman usually suckles must be, to some extent, to most mothers, a period of privation and penance, and unless she is deaf to the cries of her baby, and insensible to its kicks and plunges, and will not see in such muscular evidences the griping pains that rack her child, she will avoid every article that can remotely affect the little being who draws its sustenance from her.  She will see that the babe is acutely affected by all that in any way influences her, and willingly curtail her own enjoyments, rather than see her infant rendered feverish, irritable, and uncomfortable.  As the best tonic, then, and the most efficacious indirect stimulant that a mother can take at such times, there is no potation equal to porter and stout, or what is better still, and equal part of porter and stout.

And with that, I bid you a Happy Mother’s Day.

*Do not use this advice. Or if you do and then need sue someone, sue Mrs. Beeton.  Her idea not mine.

Book Review for Saint Gianna Beretta Molla: The Gift of Life

Saint Gianna Beretta Molla: The Gift of Life is my latest review book for the Catholic Company, and they are in luck once again, because it’s a great book!

I knew the gist of St. Gianna’s life, but this was the first detailed biography I’d read, and I think it’s an excellent introduction to the saint.  It’s a compact, readable biography that starts with the marriage of Gianna’s parents in 1908.  Through the lens of family life, we see St. Gianna working to discern her vocation and make the most of the struggles she faces throughout her life, as well as the tremendous joy she found in marriage, motherhood, and her work as a physician.

Reading Level:  Upper elementary and up.  My fourth grader (average reader, Catholic girl — which makes a difference, see below) read it in one afternoon.

Why this is a great book for Moms:  I know that technically it’s a children’s book.  But when you have small children, you really need something that can read in five-minute snatches (with interruptions every other paragraph) and still hope to reach the end of the book before you forget the beginning.  And this a book not only about a mom, but with some encouraging details for normal moms. Just look at these saintly facts:

• St. Gianna, working mother?  Once her first baby was born, she had not just her own sister as a full-time nanny, but a housekeeper too.   Did you get that?  Not a super-person.
• She takes her two pre-schoolers to Mass and the baby stays home.  She was a saint.  And she left her baby at home.
• Her preschool boy lasted all of five minutes at Mass, per her account.

See?  You need to read this.  Saintly living for normal people.

Why this is a great book for pre-teens and teens:  There is a very strong emphasis on vocation.  Even though it was easy enough for my fourth grader to read, it would be perfect for about a twelve- or thirteen-year-old.  Super book-club or youth group discussion choice, if you have a group of teen girls who get together to talk about Catholic stuff.

Sanity via history through biography:  As a teenager, St. Gianna’s parents pulled her out of school for a year so she could rest and regain her health.  They felt the vigor with which St. Gianna was pursuing her studies was wearing her out, and she needed the break.  This is a teen who eventually went on to earn her M.D.   If an American parent did this today, in many cases there would be significant legal and financial penalties for both parent and child.   For this one anecdote alone, I’d recommend this book.   You can’t think clearly about public policy if you are utterly wrapped up in the quirks of your own time and place.

 

Cautions for the would-be reader:

1. It helps to have a general background in Catholic culture before starting the book.  There is a very helpful glossary at the back of the book, for those of us who never can remember what it is that makes a basilica a basilica.  But for teaching this book to a mixed group of students with varying amounts of Catholic up-bringing, I would plan to go over the vocabulary and cultural notes for the next week’s class session before students did the reading.

2. There is a clear and straightforward explanation of the moral choices St. Gianna faced when she was diagnosed with a tumor during her last pregnancy — another reason this is a great book for adults.  But it would be helpful for students to have a knowledgeable teacher to explain some of the basic moral principles that come into play.   St. Gianna’s death is also a good illustration of ways Catholics can choose to handle end-of-life situations.

 

Conclusion: This one isn’t leaving my shelf.  Recommended if you want an enjoyable, readable introduction to St. Gianna’s life, encouragement in your vocation and efforts at holiness, and a real-life example of moral choices in medical ethics and end-of-life issues.

***

Thanks again to the Catholic Company for their on-going efforts to keep bloggers from ever getting bored.  I received this book in exchange for an honest review, and it’s not my fault I picked a book I happened to like (okay it is — but I didn’t know it would be this good in these ways).  In addition to their work of mercy instructing the ignorant, The Catholic Company would like me to remind you they are also a great source for a baptism gifts or first communion gifts.

Book Review: Eric Sammons’ Holiness for Everyone

Eric Sammons sent me a pdf review copy of his new book, Holiness for Everyone: The Practical Spirituality of St. Josemaria Escriva, not because we’ve ever met or even know each other on the internet, but, I gather, because I really liked his first book, Who is Jesus Christ?  (Which I wholeheartedly recommend.) He’s smart that way.  I like this one too.

What is isn’t:  We have to start here, because it’s easy to guess wrong.

1. Eric Sammons is not a member of Opus Dei, and this is not a how-to book on being a member of that organization, nor an account of that group’s history.  Opus Dei barely gets mention, other than to recommend two reliable books on the topic.
2. This is not a colorful anecdote-laden biography of St. Josemaria.  The chapter that tells his life focuses is on his spiritual development — the details that help you understand the saint’s approach to holiness for ordinary people.

What it is:

St. Josemaria Escriva is a 20th century saint whose spirituality is very much in line with St. Therese of Lisieux, whose Story of a Soul was a bestseller during his formative years, and  Blessed Theresa of Calcutta, who was his contemporary and likewise informed by the spirituality of St. Therese.  Basic Catholic practical holiness — what you see in the lives of every saint across all of history.

St. Josemaria’s particular charism was the insistence that saintliness is not for the vowed religious only — an error of his time, and still a struggle among Catholics today.  We tend today to either fall into the get-thee-to-a-nunnery trap, or just dismiss saintliness as something that hardly matters anyhow.  St. Josemaria’s contention, and Eric Sammons’ as well, is that it is possible for you and I to actually be holy.  And that there are specific steps we can take to cooperate with God’s grace in working towards that goal.

As with Who is Jesus Christ, Sammons’ text is packed with information and insight, but still approachable for the average reader.   It covers similar territory as Christian Self-Mastery, but far more readable than that classic.  I personally found every chapter to be helpful for me — life-changing, even.

Who would enjoy it?  I’d recommend this for older teens and adults who want to be challenged with practical ways to grow in the Christian life.  This is not mere inspiration: expect to be pushed to make specific resolutions about your prayer life and penitential practices.  There are discussion questions at the end of every chapter, making this a great book club choice.

This would make an excellent post-confirmation course for 11th and 12th graders — either taught in a high school religion class, or as a parent-teen book study.  (Also think: Post-RCIA discipleship group.) Because the text ties to free, online additional reading (Escriva, assorted Encyclicals), it would be easy to make a rounded-out senior-high religion curriculum using this book.

This is an ideal introduction to the writings of St. Josemaria Escriva.  I picked up a (print) copy of The Way while I was reading this book, and coming to it already well-versed with how Catholic spiritual training works, I find The Way to be awesome.  I’m thrilled to have been pointed in that direction.  But I’d caution you: Do not read The Way without first reading Sammons’ book or some other similar work.  Taken out of context, St. Josemaria’s collected comments are a recipe for scruples, misunderstanding, and stomping off in a fit of exasperation or despair.  Combined with a healthy, balanced view of Christian spirituality, enlightened by a work like Sammons’, The Way becomes the perfect ’round-the-house spiritual cattle-prod  — think Imitation of Christ, Football Coach Version.

Conclusion: Highly Recommended for Catholics for ready to grow in their spiritual life, and looking for an approachable, step-by-step walk through how to go about it.

3.5 Time Outs: Plague Journal

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who’s got a time machine of his own going on this week.

One day is like 30 years, 30 years is like one day.

1.

I finished reading Eric Sammons’ new book, and hey, it’s pretty good. A lot good, in fact, and a review is forthcoming.  But today let me caution you: There’s a humility component to this holiness business.

Exhibit A:

Why do my renewed efforts at holiness always coincide with the arrival of a nasty evil throat-lung-stomach virus in our home?  Doesn’t our Lord know I have important holiness work to do?

Exhibit B:

Why does a resolution to be more Therese-like and offer up little annoyances for some general heavenly purpose get transformed into:

1.  A multiplication of petty annoyances, and a sudden intolerance for them?

2. A friend suddenly coming down with a horrid affliction (probable bone cancer — femur — please pray for Mrs. P) for which to offer all these things?

3. Thus destroying any sense of virtue I might have otherwise relished, and instead leaving me with a crotchety personality and the knowledge of just how petty it is?

 

So don’t say I didn’t warn you.  Good book otherwise, though.  Great book.

 

2.

I’m going to Dallas!!!!!!!  Yes, all those exclamation points truly are needed.  Because look, it’s like a giant crack convention:

A.  The Catholic Writer’s Conference, which means meeting in person all the people I get to work with on the CWG blog, which really is that exciting because when you get to know these people . . . you want to get to know these people.

B. The Catholic Marketing Network Conference, which is code for “Catholic Bookstores”.  Enough said.

C. And then in case I just wanted to be near the superstars of Catholic internet, there’s the Catholic New Media Conference right there as well.

Quadruple bonus:  I double-checked the back cover of my copy of Happy Catholic, and sure enough, Julie Davis lives in Dallas.  It says so right there.  (I knew it was some place in Texas, but I can never keep Dallas and Houston straight, except to know that confusing the two means wow, a lot of driving time.)  So maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to live out my dream of one day buying the woman a cup of coffee.  Or something.

3.

So here’s the thing: What’s the etiquette on bringing books to be signed at these events?  Because I don’t think I can carry that many books to Texas, and yet it would pain me, just pain me, to miss my chance to get some autographs.  I’m so conflicted.

3.5

Because I met the guy — that’s why.  Neat person.

***

PS: Link day.  Help yourself if you are so inclined.  Post as many as you want, but only one per comment or the spam dragon will eat you up and I’ll never even know.

PPS: Thus far I myself appear to be spared the evil thing — I thought I was coming down with it last night, but this morning I’m good.  So here’s your mission:  Imagine you’ve already finished praying for Mrs. P and your other serious concerns . . . Would you consider offering up a little prayer for our family, that my other dream of seeing the Bethune Catholic homestead is not thwarted by more plague later in the week?  I so want to go.  I pass the place every non-plague  year on the way to the family reunion, and I totally want to get a child to bake some brownies, and a different child to pack some airsoft guns, and stop in for an hour or two.  Goodness I might even mix up the brownies myself.

I was about to ask that we’d also be miraculously able to attend religious ed tonight (last night of the year), but #2 came staggering into the study with glazed eyes and feverish misery, so I don’t think the virtue of prudence will let us get away with that, even if there were miraculous recoveries in the next six hours.

 

3.5 Time Outs: Glocks.

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who is nothing if not capable of punching a man-card.

Click and be amazed.

1.

Darwin reminded me I needed to write a Glock post.  No blog is complete until you’ve done that.  And look what I brought home from the library the other month, when I needed something completely different to get my mind off life for the weekend:

The boy took one look, and asked, “Why would Barrett write a book about Glocks??”  He recognized the name of the CEO of a competitor, because um, because he did.  Y chromosome on that child, confirmed.

I pointed him to the inside back cover.  “I think it’s a different Barrett.”  It is.

2.

Anyway, I enjoyed the book even more than I’d expected.  Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun tells the story of Glock Inc. from the time Mr. Glock decided to try his hand at designing the weapon, through it’s rise as a market leader in the US, and into the human resources nightmare that ensued when radical success met original sin.  Well told — Paul Barrett is a great story teller, and he explains the technical bits with the detail you need in order to understand the story, but without losing the non-technical audience.

As a business book, it is top-notch.  Great look at the talent and plain old good fortune that made the company so successful — including some surprising twists in the gun control movement that helped spur sales and raise margins.  Ideologically, Barrett is pretty firmly in the middle of the road on gun topics, and he keeps his politics out of all but a few annoying paragraphs of opinion* near the conclusion — you can just skim and move on.

Language caution:  Don’t let the Amazon preview fool you, Barrett’s sources get quoted saying all kinds of words not allowed around my house.  It isn’t overdone and I did not find it bothersome as an adult reader, but it’s not a g-rated book by a long shot.

As a morality tale, Glock is a brilliant study in human weakness, and the way that vice unchecked leads to perdition**.  Barrett is Mr. Neutral through all of this — neither disturbed nor impressed by Glock’s sales tactics, other than to observe that they worked and they were legal.  Turns out men are fairly predictable in certain realms.

–> For this reason, the book makes a great parent-teen book study . . . but only once your boy is already aware of the various perils men need negotiate.  I held off on letting Mr. Boy read the book just yet.

3.

Why is it that it only takes 2 seconds to accidentally upload a profile pic on Twitter that, taken out of context, will totally horrify 98% of the people who have often suspected as much . . . but it takes about an hour to get Twitter to accept some innocuous substitute hiding in the same file folder?  I suspect a plot to trap the careless.

3.5

Speaking of talented Catholic young men who like guns abridged anime – if you share the same interest, check out this guy: Mattroks 101’s You Tube channel.  And with that you know more than I do, for I am utterly out of my depth on all things anime, except maybe you are wondering how I ended up linking such a thing . . .

***

PS: Link day.  Help yourself if you are so inclined.  Post as many as you want, but only one per comment or the spam dragon will eat you up and I’ll never even know.

*It is possible that if you read here, you secretly enjoy reading annoying opinions.  Good for you.   There’s three or four paragraphs you’ll just love.

**Not just eternal souls, though of course those are not to be neglected.  But also small things teens can appreciate, like your colleagues trying to kill you, stuff like that.

3.5 Time Outs: Vatican Spies

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy putting the mmmmn in Church Militant since  . . . well, awhile.

It's electric. Except when it's not.

1.

You wanna know what’s better than bacon? Eric Sammons e-mailing to ask, “May I send you a review copy of my new book?”

I know!  I couldn’t believe it either!  I figured the SuperHusband must have driven to Florida in desperation, in order to beg a perfect stranger to please give his wife something, anything, that would help her grow in holiness.  He would have observed that I already had a large collection of freebie plastic rosaries, so please did Mr. Sammons know of anything else that might help?

Another possible explanation is that since I liked the first book, maybe I’d like the next one, too.

2.

I worry sometimes that if I get too many review books, it will cause me to neglect my local Catholic bookstore.  Fear not!  The kids are taking care of us.  For example – item #2 that’s better than bacon: This Sunday the “Roamin’ Catholic” bookmobile was parked at our parish.  Yay!  My favorite time of year!  And the 4th grader spots this DVD and asks, “Please can we get this Mom?”

It’s a pretty simple formula:  Child requests DVD about real-life Nazi-thwarting Secret Agent Nun?  Mom says, “Um.  Yes.”  We haven’t watched it yet, though.  I’ve been too busy yelling at the kids to clean the house growing in holiness.

3.

My biggest disappointment in reading Jack Chick tracts was the discovery that, through some bureaucratic snafu, I’d been cheated.  If I really became a citizen of Vatican City the day I was baptized, where’s my passport???  Ah, but now my son has rectified my problem, and issued me my secret-agent ID:

Don’t worry, I’m still gonna carry my regular ID as well.

3.5

 . . . delightful to read on a Sunday afternoon.  See the review just below this post, or click here.

EDITED to add: And yeah, of course it’s link day.  If you have one you want to share, we’re all eyes.

Live and Let Fly by Karina Fabian

UPDATED: Live and Let Fly has been released.  Get your copy here.

I know Karina Fabian through the Catholic Writers Guild, and a few years ago at one of the online conferences, I was the lucky winner of a copy Magic, Mensa & Mayhem, one of her earlier works in the Dragoneye, PI series.

I read it in one long evening of a reading-frenzy, which on the one hand isn’t shocking because if a book has a decent plot I get sucked in; on the other hand, it tells you the book has a decent plot, because Hitchiker’s Guide and Young GKC notwithstanding, I don’t usually read much of anything in the sci-fi/fantasy category.  I subscribed to Karina’s new Rocket Science for the Rest of Us blog hoping maybe some of that science-geek power would rub off, but so far, no luck.  I just keep ending up back at Dr. Boli.  I’m the wrong kind of geeky.

Live and Let Fly is the latest in the DragonEye series (after a detour through zombie land — see Julie D.’s review here), narrated by a dragon, Vern, and his partner, Sister Grace.  They are two magicals operating a detective agency on our side of a dimensional gap that has opened up between the mundane world (ours) and the faerie world.

 

This is Catholic-genre fiction, so Sister Grace is just one of many faerie-nun-superheros doing their part as agents for the Faerie Catholic Church — a rite in union with the Catholic Church as we know it, but with it’s own pope, and it’s own disciplines suitable for the various faerie beings.   [Example: A mundane priest hearing Vern’s confession needs to know: Is it a sin for a dragon to eat another sentient being?]

Why I enjoyed this book:

1.  At the end of the day, it’s a detective thriller.  I like thrillers.

2. I love, love, love the humor.  I had to skip some of my favorite excerpts because they contain spoilers, but here’s a couple quotes from earlier-on:

We’d had so many Save The Universe Cases, we’d given them their own code — STUC.  Now if we could just arrange to get paid more for them.  I was still working that angle.  We had a rates scale, but asking for more money and getting it were two different things — and of course, we weren’t going to not save the world while we negotiated.  Grace was pretty firm on that point.

***

The forty-something human, large enough to keep me fed for days, bearing a walrus mustache, hefted himself out of his chair.  “Sister.  Dragon.  Welcome to the Bureau of Interdimensional Law Enforcement.”

BILE? There’s a name that must have been made in committee.  Grace landed a subtle kick on my ankle, however, so I held off on the snide comments . . .

3.  The pixies and brownies just crack me up.  And Hel’s kitchen.  Who knew?

Difficulties:

1. The writing is fast-paced and the story moves right along, never bogs down.  The main characters are well-developed across the the course of the book.   I did have some difficulty, though, with following the early crime-scene and around-town dialogue, and likewise again back at the station at the end of the story — lots of minor characters filling out the set.  Some of the characters I recognized from MMM, but since that one is set primarily in Florida, I wasn’t familiar with all the locals from previous stories set in Los Lagos, Colorado, where Vern keeps his lair.  It’s worth tooling around the DragonEye, PI blog if you need to get up to speed.

2. I kinda stink at mythology.  You who know your gods and goddesses will get a lot more out of the many references — sometimes in passing, other times with assorted demi-gods coming on as significant characters.   I could follow along, though — the books provides all the essential background on the major players.

Who would like this book?   If you’d rather be reading Thomas Hardy, please, just go.  Go.  Do not even look.  See the dragon and nun on the cover?  This is not for you.

But if you want playful adult* Catholic fiction that entertains?  Then you’re set.

To learn more:

1. Take a look at the 10,000 stops on the book tour this month.

2. The book is slated for e-book release from Muse-It-Up Publishing April 20th.

*FYI for all that this is very explicitly Catholic-genre, joyfully kitschy with no apologies, if you’re looking for sugar-coated g-rated fluff, skip to another book.  I’d rate this Teen/Adult for language, innuendo, and mature themes.  More gracefully and faithfully handled than anything ever said in a junior-high locker room, but no matter how sorry and degenerate our culture, these topics really are not meant for little readers.  So parents read first before you hand it over to your pre-teen, you’ll need to judge what your child is ready to read.

7 Quick Takes: Catholic Family Fun

Land of the 700 Takes.

1.

Today for my Quick Takes I’m reviewing Sarah Reinhard’s new book, Catholic Family Fun.  This is a stop on Sarah’s virtual book tour, so she should be lurking around the combox ready to answer any questions you have.

FYI, Sarah is not only a super-friendly person, she is also an extrovert, which means that her life as a writer is made tolerable by finding people to chat with.  So say “Hi Sarah!”.  She’ll be excited.

2.

This is what the book looks like:

It’s about 140 pages, paperback, nice sturdy glossy cover.  It’s designed to float around your house and be abused.

3.

What’s inside?

You know how women’s magazines have those little articles about fun things to do with your family?  This is like 10 years of those ideas all in one place.  Only you are spared those obnoxious photos of pristine toaster ovens and closets organized by that sect of hermits who take a vow to own nothing but three pieces of splashy, sassy, ready-for-spring ensembles to pair with their strappy heels.  Also, no perfume ads.

Instead you get page after page of practical, realistic ideas for unplugged family activities that you can customize to match your kids’ ages and interests.  The chapters are organized by types of activities (crafts, meals, outdoor adventures, etc.), and there are several easy-to-read indexes in the back to help you quickly find the ones that match your budget and energy level.  Most of the suggestions are either free, or involve money you were going to spend anyway.   (You are going to eat today, right?)

Other than the chapters on prayer and on the saints, the activities themselves can be purely fun family time, or they can be explicitly tied to the Catholic faith.   Every activity includes suggestions on how to make the faith connection.

4.

What if you aren’t crafty? Don’t panic on the crafts, there aren’t that many and they are very low-key.  Indeed, I’d say this is the perfect book for people who don’t do glitter glue, foam art, or anything involving popsicle sticks, ever.  Did I mention Sarah R. is a real mom of young children, with a farm, and a writing job, and . . . you get the picture.  You may find yourself wanting an internet connection to pull off a few of these activities (I see you have access to one, very good), but no glue gun will ever be needed.

What if you are, in fact, the grumpy, curmudgeonly type? See the next section.  I advise letting your kids pick the activities.  That way you never need fear you’ve gotten all goofy and relaxed for nothing.  Also you could tell the kids you aren’t going to do Chapters 1 and 2 yourself, but you’ll give them five bucks if they’ll just be quiet while your finish reading the paper.  (Um, wait a minute.  No, that’s not how the book’s supposed to work.  Oops.)  Chapters 3-9 are Curmudgeon-Safe, though the one idea about a backyard circus makes me a little nervous . . .

5.

Who could use this book?  Three groups of  people come to mind, and last was a surprise to me, but it’s true:

1.  Parents, grandparents, and other relatives.

• If you’re trying to think up new ways to connect to the kids, and get out of the rut of doing the same old things.
• If you have a long summer vacation ahead, with stir-crazy children and no money for expensive camps and activities.
• Or if you didn’t have a satisfyingly Catholic childhood, and you want to find ways to share and practice your faith without being all stodgy and dour about it.

2.  Kids.  My daughter is fighting me for custody of our copy.  The book is eminently readable, so you really can hand it to a late-elementary or older child, and say, “Pick something out for us to do Saturday.”  I like that because then the onus is on the kids to decide which activity sounds fun — and I’m always surprised by what kids come up with when given the choice.

3.  Catechists, VBS volunteers, scout leaders, and anyone else charged with keeping a group of kids busy for an hour or two.  Some of the activities will only work in a family setting, but very many of them are well-suited to using in a classroom.  The suggestions for faith tie-ins make this an awesome resource for religious ed and VBS.  If your parish doesn’t have money for a high-priced pre-packaged program with talking pandas and cheesey chipmunk videos, you could seriously just go through this book and pick out activities to assemble a home-grown series of your own.

6.

You know who loves a good VBS program?  Allie Hathaway.  It’s Friday, so we’re praying for her.  And hey, offer up a quick one for Sarah Reinhard’s intentions as well.  Thanks!

7.

What else do you want to know?  I’ve wrestled the book out of my daughter’s hands, so I’m happy to look stuff up and answer questions.   Sarah’s around here somewhere, and if she doesn’t get to you today, she’s a very reliable combox-attender, so feel free to ask her questions as well.

You can also take a look at the Catholic Family Fun Facebook page, where people are sharing ideas, and the Catholic Family Fun website at Pauline Media, where if you click around there are a pile of useful resources in case maybe you don’t know any camp songs or g-rated knock-knock jokes.

Click the picture to find out where the book tour is going next.

PS:  This and a package of pre-cooked bacon would make a great Mother’s Day gift.

**************************************

Updated to toss in three bits of full disclosure, which together give the most accurate picture:

7.1) Pauline Media sent me a review copy.

7.2) You might have caught on, Sarah & I are friends, and perhaps you’ve noticed we work together at the CWG blog.  Which means that if she wrote a lousy book, I just wouldn’t review it.  I’m very grateful she doesn’t write lousy books, because that saves us a lot of awkward moments.

7.3) See “free book” above.  I gave a copy of this book to my DRE, who is a mom and grandma of 10 bazillion children, and always griping observing that all the grandkids do is play Angry Birds.  I knew she’d love to pass it around her family, and I was thrilled to see she could use it for religious ed ideas too.  But you know what?  I did not give her my free copy.  See, that’s what I would have done if this was a so-so book.  Instead, I paid cash to buy her a brand new copy of her own.

Hey and a gratuitous 7.4: Let’s just clarify: If you want a collection of pom-pom art ideas, this is not your book.