I finished reading “Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follett, and I was really conflicted about whether to say anything about it or not. It’s a hot-selling fictional treatment of how a 12th century English cathedral might have been built. That could have been a great book … heck, judging by the sales, a lot […]

I tried to make my way through “The Pilgrim’s Regress” again, armed with “Finding the Landlord: A Guidebook to C. S. Lewis’ Pilgrim’s Regress.” I thought it would help me unravel all the esoteric allegories. I’d love to report that it did, but … nope. I still only partly understand who Mr. Sensible and the […]

Ugh! I had just been boasting to Greg that I hadn’t had a cold in a long time when whammo. The Theophany troparion hadn’t left my mind before some nasty germs decided to take up residence in my poor old body. As things have progressed, my head has gotten stuffier and my voice has gotten […]

Finished “HP and the Deathly Hallows”. And this is what I can say safely opine on without giving away anything for those who haven’t read it yet:

Not that my opinion matters in the ocean of opinions out there on this book, but still, I give it great marks. I don’t read a lot of recent […]

It seems certain that I’m going to start quoting this one as I did with “Diary of a Russian Priest” so I might as well give a bit of introduction and information to anyone who isn’t already familiar with this Orthodox gem.

“My Life in Christ” is a volume full of snippets from a short paragraph […]

My priest sent out an e-mail of the liturgical schedule all the way up to Pascha, thus cementing the feeling that Lent is coming along way too fast this year.
It makes me start thinking about a good book to read through Lent. Last year I read Frederica’s “First Fruits of Prayer: A Forty-Day Journey Through […]

I’m home today with a late October sinus-flu-whoknowswhat bug, so it’s a good time to catch up on my reading. I’m not able to hold terribly complex thoughts for long, so I’m pleasantly sort of in and out mentally as I try to figure out my own question about the all-consuming pursuit of spice.

This is […]

I just finished reading “Keeper of the Light: St. Macrina the Elder, Grandmother of Saints” by Bev Cooke about that most interesting woman, St. Macrina the Elder.
This is a person we’d all like to invite over for dinner. Born around 270, her spiritual father was St. Gregory the Wonderworker, her granddaughters were St. Macrina […]

(This started out life as a book review, but as I started adding in thoughts about the subject, I realized that it was more of a brain-dump of my accrued thoughts from years of having tried to figure out what the heck happened to the once-honorable visual arts — painting, drawing, sculpture. It got lengthy, […]

Well, here’s a sad state of affairs for a book review. The only reason to write about this book at all is to let Orthodox readers know not to get it.

I’m sorry to have to say that. “6,000 Beards” is the detailed memoir of an English writer’s 1935 visit to Mount Athos — the Grecian […]