The Mysterious Benedict Society

My teens and I have recently read The Mysterious Benedict Society and enjoyed it quite a lot. We are delighted to discover that the author has written two sequels, and are now on book 2.

One thing we enjoyed is the way the kids are picked to be in the Society. The tests they must take are quite cleverly thought up.

We also enjoyed that the overarching reason the kids were picked was because of their love of the truth.

Additionally, the fact that the "bad guys" deliver their messages via the TV makes perfect sense.

And the thrill of the mystery and it's resolution was quite satisfactory. The fact that it was very hard to put this book down means it engaged the reader. Suitable for ages 9 and up, with no offending material as far as I remember.

Why Scientists were called Philosophers before 1833

I just finished up a fascinating book, God's Philosophers, and I finally understand now why it's called that, when it's really the history of scientific development since the Middle Ages.

If you ever wonder why Chesterton was so defensive of the era revisionist historians misnamed the "dark" ages, this book might help.

Chesterton Spottings

In a highly unusual turn of events, I've seen pictures and read articles about Chesterton in two publications this past week, both of which took me by surprise.

Apparently, I have gotten used to not seeing Chesterton anywhere other than my Gilbert Magazine.

The first sighting was in The Catholic New World, a publication of the Archdiocese of Chicago. The actual paper included a photo of our man.

GK: “The world is not lacking in wonders, but in a sense of wonder.” That’s pure G. K.Chesterton. A witty prolific English writer (1874-1936), also called the “prince of paradox,” received into the Catholic Church in 1922, and now (trumpets, please): his beatification was proposed this month by England’s Chesterton Society. Others say he should be named “father of the church of the 20th century.” His works range from apologetics to mystery novels to poetry — remember “The Hound of Heaven”? “The Chesterton Review” is still being published twice a year, exploring the life and work of this original thinker, and his “romance with orthodoxy.” Google The Chesterton Review, or phone(800) 526-7022 in East Orange, N.J., to subscribe.

As you can see, there was a complete failure to note the presence of the American Chesterton Society here, and its publication Gilbert Magazine. I sent a letter to the editor noting this glaring oversight. I did not mention that the Hound of Heaven was written by Francis Thompson, nor that the exact quote is slightly different than stated (although the meaning is the same). Nor did I mention that it wasn't exactly his beatification that was proposed, but simply the opening of the cause to investigate the situation.

Then, just as I was getting over that shock, I almost choked over my after-Mass coffee on Sunday to note that the current Our Sunday Visitor has an article titled, "Making the Case for Chesterton" (not available to non-subscribers on line, sorry!) in which writer Mark Sullivan reviews William Oddie's new biography and discusses the possibility of Chesterton's cause moving forward. This article happily mentions both the ACS and Gilbert Magazine. Yeah, us! It is a very good and thorough article. Sullivan interviewed Oddie via email.

Our man is getting some press, which is good, and well-deserved.

Chesterton Reviewed in a French weekly magazine

Les Amis de Chesterton’s July 21 blog post alerts us to a review published this week in Minute, a French weekly magazine. Critic Joel Prieur finds an “anthropological framework for reform” i.e. Distributism in Outline that other French reviewers missed. Probably because they are unfamiliar with GKC’s The Everlasting Man and Virgil.
Happy is he who is capable of knowing the reasons for all things, according to Virgil. Undoubtedly the reason GKC thinks of him when refuting De Rougemont’s assertion that church spires were phallic symbols.
5 stars to this blog – its author gave the French speaking world fabulous daily news on the 7-11 Chesterton conference at Oxford!

Translated for us by Barb.

E.C. Bentley's Mystery Fiction Reviewed

The Ball and the Cross

I've just finished reading The Ball and The Cross for the very first time.

I. Loved. It.

OK, I cried at the end. And sometimes, that makes me love a book. It has a very satisfying and satisfactory ending. But everything that happens along the way is exciting, too. The adventurous travels, the constant seeking to find a place to duel, the introduction of the women, whom you just know become wives, the priest, the devil--this book has it all. It was a page-turner for me, and kept me company during a long illness. I highly recommend it.

I read it in the Ignatius Press Collected Works Vol. 7, which you can get here, or you can get the book alone here.

Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy: A Review

Dale Fights Back Against Literary, er, I mean, Personal Criticisms of Chesterton

Dale will be reviewing William Oddie’s new biography of Chesterton in the March issue of Gilbert.
Dale adds:

“A. N. Wilson has reviewed the book for the Times Literary Supplement. Apparently William Oddie has written reviews of Wilson’s books in the past and panned them thoroughly. So Wilson returned the favor. However, he did no favors to the reading public. His review indicates that all of Oddie’s points could be lost on the very audience that might most benefit from this book. After Oddie has methodically and thoroughly smashed much of the conventional (and wrong) wisdom about Chesterton, the reviewer simply repeats the conventional wisdom, as if it were some sort of rebuttal. Certainly the most egregious suggestion of Wilson’s is that Chesterton was a repressed homosexual. His information is third-hand. Otherwise There isn't a shred of evidence. But if he had bothered to give Oddie’s book a fair reading, he would not have even raised such a ridiculous charge. It is abundantly clear that this was not one of Chesterton’s temptations. It looks like this is the next battle brewing, now that we have dealt with the anti-Semitism charge. The most aggravating thing about having to swat all these gnats, is the distraction they cause. But the battle goes on.”

Danny Gospel

This book was recommended by Dale Ahlquist in a recent issue of Gilbert Magazine. I thought I'd check it out for you. If you've read it, please comment below.
Danny Gospel by David Athey

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
As an answer to the recent question, "Why can't someone write a good book about someone suffering a tragedy who gets through it by having normal everyday encounters with family, friends, and strangers, who overcomes the situation with grace, and not by visiting an imaginary shack where he hallucinates about talking to God the Father (an African American woman), God the Son and God the Holy Spirit with an occasional appearance of Holy Wisdom, not a fourth person of the Trinity?", Danny Gospel is a wonderful book.

Danny, like the main character in The Shack, suffers terrible tragedies and must deal with death. Danny, like the main character in The Shack, has a car accident near the end of the book. Danny, unlike the main character in The Shack, has to deal with this sadness of life by normal everyday encounters with people.

Danny Gospel is the reminder that although Jesus is Lord and Savior, He isn't walking the earth anymore. Through a life of prayer, direction and help come in the physical contacts of everyday life: through friends, neighbors, brothers, and even strangers.

Danny is a lot like St. Francis of Assisi, and especially G.K. Chesterton's biography of the saint as a confusing jumble of ascetic/stigmatist and singer of songs to birds. Danny is a singer who fasts, too. And, like St. Francis, he is an extremely likeable, if at times complicated, person.

Danny Gospel is a compelling story. Once getting to know Danny, one's curiosity is piqued to keep finding out what was going to happen next.

Looking for an alternative to The Shack? Looking for a good book to read this week in particular, but any week would do? Looking for a book where the main character suffers a tragedy, but figures out, through friends and strangers, how to live again? How to forgive? How to really love? Read Danny Gospel. I think you'll like it.
View all my reviews.

A Word to All You Harry Potterites Out There

Here is an amazing new book about Harry Potter.

I became aware of this book when the author was doing her research, and wrote me asking me about J.K. Rowling's Chestertonian connections. I gladly provided her with the information I had (all of which I'd previously revealed to you on this blog, about Jo's name being on the roster of the UK Chesterton Society, etc.) and in return, she's mailed me one of the first copies of her lovely book, Does Harry Potter Tickle Sleeping Dragons?

If the title reminds you of a certain quote by CS Lewis, it should. I had this quote in my book, The Mystery of Harry Potter, too.

If my book left any doubts in your mind about the Christianity of JKR or the Christian undertones: Remember how I said it was "Christian Fiction in Disguise"? Well, this new book by Harry Potter expert Nancy Solon Villaluz is going to convince you beyond the shadow of a doubt that my statement is absolutely spot on.

Oops, apparently I tickled something there.
Revised copy:

For you followers of any of the Harry Potter analysis-type books out there: I believe this book does more, goes deeper, tells more, explains more, finds out more: in short, this book takes off where my own book ends. And maybe some other books, too.

So anyone with a continued interest in Harry Potter, or anyone who would like to definitively prove to someone that these books are, indeed, Christian fiction, that Rowling is a fellow Inkling along with Lewis and Tolkien, although remaining, "slightly different" as Jo herself has said and Villaluz quotes frequently in her book: then Go Get This Book. Put it on your Christmas or other Religious Holiday Wish List. This lady has done a TON of research, more than anyone I've ever read on this subject. I was enormously impressed. Elephantinely impressed.

OK, just to tantalize you just a bit further--speaking of Christmas--Villaluz has actually counted up the number of times the word "Christmas" is used in Harry Potter's 4000 page series. She has compared the British and US editions. She has listened to every podcast and interview Jo Rowling has ever given. She even discovered Jo's real thoughts and backstory about Dumbledore--and it's so amazing, I know why the press never picked up on it. I think you will be rather pleased at the results of that research.

Bottom line: This is the best Harry Potter in-depth uncover-all-secrets-the-author-tried-to-hide book ever.

Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations

This book sounds like a great book for teens. From the amazon.com info:

Product Description
A generation stands on the brink of a "rebelution."

A growing movement of young people is rebelling against the low expectations of today's culture by choosing to "do hard things" for the glory of God. And Alex and Brett Harris are leading the charge.

Do Hard Things is the Harris twins' revolutionary message in its purest and most compelling form, giving readers a tangible glimpse of what is possible for teens who actively resist cultural lies that limit their potential.

Combating the idea of adolescence as a vacation from responsibility, the authors weave together biblical insights, history, and modern examples to redefine the teen years as the launching pad of life. Then they map out five powerful ways teens can respond for personal and social change.

Written by teens for teens, Do Hard Things is packed with humorous personal anecdotes, practical examples, and stories of real-life rebelutionaries in action. This rallying cry from the heart of an already-happening teen revolution challenges a generation to lay claim to a brighter future, starting today.

Check it out here.

Michael Crighton reads Chesterton

A friend was doing some summer reading, and came across this surprise, and sent it to us:

I was doing some "junk"reading while on vacation, and I read the book-Next by Michael "Jurassic Park" Crichton. Anyway it's a book about genetics and in the back he lists all his sources. I was surprised to see two books by Chesterton listed. He also comments on how Chesterton was correct about the direction of science and how he was shouted down and ignored.

Looks like an interesting book, a sort of DaVinci Code for genetic scientists?

American Agrarian Literature

I believe the distributists among us would enjoy this interesting post and listing of distributist/agrarian books to read.

How to Get Into Debt

From the book cover:

Debt - we all long for it, but sometimes it seems so unattainable. With the proper mindset and the step-by-step tools contained in this book, you'll be fighting off collection agencies and delaying payments to your bankruptcy attorney in no time. Whether your weakness is over-earning or under-spending, you'll learn to maximize the gap between your income and your outflow, all at the highest possible interest rates.

The so-called "Self-Hurt" series, a spoof on America's love for self-help, is a funny and instructive series to help to improve your life by doing, well, the opposite really, of what the book says.

So, for example, when the book says to overspend, use those credit card checks, shop at Whole Foods, and never pay the balance on the credit card statement, you know what to really do.

A humorous and Chestertonian take on our nation's #1 problem: being unable to save money.

20somethings: What is Manhood?

Joey G. reviews a fairly new book, called Gut Check by Tarek Saab.

I hadn't heard of him, but apparently he was a contestant on the reality TV show The Apprentice, with Donald Trump. He's using the fame that it generated to speak out about how he's flourished as a Catholic man in Corporate America. The book is loaded with Distributist type wisdom, and no less than half a dozen quotes from GKC.

I've posted a full review over at my new blog. JoeyG

Thanks, Joey.

New Reprint to read before the elections

Cecil Chesterton was Gilbert's brother, Hilaire Belloc his best friend. Although Gilbert didn't help write the book, I can't help thinking he'd have discussed these ideas with his friend and his brother.

Pertinent to this year's election, The Party System looks like a good read for 2008.

The Party System (Paperback)
by Hilaire Belloc (Author), Cecil Chesterton (Author), Ron Paul (Foreword), Sforza Ruspoli (Preface) Find out more.


* Paperback: 160 pages
* Publisher: IHS Press (March 1, 2008)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 1932528113
* ISBN-13: 978-1932528114


Book Description
Pertinent to America, Britain, and other Western democracies, this book explains that what people believe happens in national assemblies and parliaments is radically different from the reality. Instead of being places where debate is intense, passionate, and aimed at the national interest, the fact is most members of these institutions act on behalf of powerful, unelected interests. They know, implicitly, who really runs the country—and their only real task is to decide if they want to try and rock the boat (thereby risking their salary, their reputation, their future), or stay silent for fear or favor. The book demonstrates beyond any doubt that the very nature of the system is hostile to democracy as laypeople understand it.

About the Author
Hilaire Belloc was twice elected to the British Parliament and is a prolific author on a wide range of political, economic, social and historical issues. Cecil Chesterton was and journalist and editor who was associated with the Fabian Society and later worked almost exclusively for The New Age, where he was an important contributor. In 1911, he became assistant editor on Hilaire Belloc's new weekly, The Eye-Witness, and when it folded in 1912, he bought the paper and renamed it The New Witness, which he edited until when he went off to war. His books include Gladstonian Ghosts, G. K. Chesterton: A Criticism, and A History of the United States. Congressman Ron Paul served in Congress during the late 1970s and early 1980s, where he served on the House Banking committee. He returned to Congress in 1997 where he serves on the Financial Services Committee as the vice-chairman of the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee. He is also the author of several books, including Challenge to Liberty; The Case for Gold and A Republic, If You Can Keep It. He lives in Lake Jackson, Texas. Prince Sforza Ruspoli is the prince of Cerveteri, Italy, the count of Vignanello, and the honorary vice president of the promotional committee of the Banca del Mezzogiorno at the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance. He served as ambassador of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta to the State of Malta, of which order he is currently a Knight, and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Bank of Rome and the founder of the Centers of Agrarian Action.

New George MacDonald Titles

Those interested in reading the souls of others, and especially those interested in how others travel through the tragedies of their lives, will be interested in reading this new edition of George MacDonald's work, along side a new (or perhaps just new to me) poet, Betty Aberlin.

The two poets, one long dead, and one very much alive, dance side by side in a sort of duet, singing different passages of each other's song.

Betty has put in much work to respond to George's poetry. It is not easy to write this kind of poetry today, nor to try to respond to another's sorrow and rhyme. But it works, and I believe anyone interested in poetry will be fascinated by Betty's responding song, echoing George's heartfelt longings.

In some ways, I believe it would be nice to have left a third page free, so that the reader could add another voice, and make the work a trio. But, by entering into the poem, simply by reading it, the reader does enter in, and become a part of that dialog.

Recommended for poets and George MacDonald fans.
***
George MacDonald may have died 103 years ago (1905), but his legacy lives on. Those who love his work and those who study his work apparently had a rare meeting at the 100th anniversary of his death in 2005. The outgrowth of this meeting was the enlivening of minds towards the works of this great writer.

The essays contained in this collection analyze MacDonald's writing from many points of view. His literary past is discussed and how his own work built upon his predecessors. His literary present is discussed, as to how his work was viewed amongst his contemporaries; and his literary future is discussed in the context of his continuing influence on today's writers.

To appreciate this work, one should be a MacDonald scholar, or interested in becoming a MacDonald scholar. This is not a work for the general public. However, it will serve its purpose and has its place. And if it can revive interest in MacDonald's work, it is well worth it.

Both books reviewed by: Nancy Carpentier Brown

The Universe and Mr. Chesterton Reviewed by J. Peterson in Gilbert magazine

Thanks to John for allowing me to put this here for those of you (Nick, et al) interested in Chesterton, philosophy, and Orthodoxy.

A Landmark Chesterton Study

The Universe and Mr. Chesterton
by Randall Paine
Peru Illinois: Sherwood Sugden, 1999
Reviewed by John Peterson


This 160-page study of Chesterton is the book many of us have been hoping for, and a book many of us feared would never be written.

Since his death in 1936, ninety books about Chesterton have been published in the English language. There are major book-length studies of Chesterton from expert and scholarly professors of Literature, Journalism, History, Government, Political Science, Physical Science, Drama, Theology, and Pop Culture. It is not easy to think of another writer whose major commentators come from such a variety of disciplines.

Unfortunately, the list has not included a satisfactory book on Chesterton as a philosopher. Read more.The previous effort in this direction, Philosopher without Portfolio by Fordham's Quentin Lauer, S.J., consisted largely of the kind of faint praise that is both dismissive and condescending. ("Chesterton's ingenious mind enabled him to find what he considered rational grounds for affirming what he preferred to be true.")



In 1989, the year after Father Lauer's book was published, another priest completed a study of Chesterton the philosopher. This was Father Randall Paine, an American who has lived abroad since 1974, and who is for all practical purposes an unknown in Chesterton circles. After he was ordained by Pope John Paul II in 1983, Paine studied philosophy at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. His dissertation bore the title Chesterton and the Universe, and, as happens with the vast majority of such documents, has been lost in obscurity ever since.



But no longer. Fortunately for us all, Sherwood Sugden Publishers have come to the rescue. Now a newly edited paperback version of Father Paine's dissertation has appeared with a new title, a brief new concluding chapter, and an added appendix. You must read it. Paine's is the definitive study of Chesterton the philosopher.



After a brief overview of Chesterton as a thinker and rhetorician, Paine launches into a review of western philosophy's descent into subjectivism or what Etienne Gilson called the "300-year detour in Western thought." Paine terms this "The great refusal of modern philosophy" that began with René Descartes systematic doubt and ended in the blind alley of Edmund Hussert's phenomenology. Paine next discusses the remedy for such errors, which he believes to be nothing less than heavy doses of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. With this background in place, the author takes us through a chapter-by-chapter analysis of Chesterton's Orthodoxy to show that it is essentially a new and original exposition of the fundamentals of the Aristotelian and Thomistic approach. Paine's conclusion is that Chesterton's "remedial metaphysics" has truly enriched our philosophical heritage.



The foregoing summary was sketchy and deliberately so. I would not want to spoil this book for you by posting all of Paine's conclusions minus his arguments and documentation. I will simply promise that if you read The Universe and Mr. Chesterton you will learn exactly what was behind Gilson's remark that "Chesterton was one of the deepest thinkers who ever existed."

Thank you John "Gramps" Peterson.

To read another interesting article by Father Paine on the "Dead" language of Latin, click here. To read an article by Father Paine on Chesterton's Autobiography, click here.

Want to Review Chesterton Books?

From Mike:
Looking for places to send review copies of Chesterton on War and Peace, I came across what seems to be an excellent provider of book reviewers, the Midwest Book Review. Quite a few libraries use them to discover new books and Amazon quotes them.

Given the volume of submissions, they only review about half the books they get. Chesterton fans with a knack for reviewing might want to volunteer as a reviewer. They'd get free copies of Chesterton books as they come out and have an opportunity to make sure Chesterton books get reviewed as well as to persuade libraries to carry them.

They can contact the editor-in-chief, James Cox.

There are more details.

It'd be a great way to get Chesterton in more libraries.

--Mike Perry, Inkling Books, Seattle