Dominus Est - It Is The Lord! by The Most Reverend Athanasius Schneider

About the book: Holy Communion is not simply a convivial moment of spiritual nourishment; it is the most personal encounter possible in this life between the faithful Christian and his Lord and God. 

The best interior attitude for this encounter is one of receptivity, humility, and spiritual childhood. Such an attitude, by its very nature, is expressed through gestures of adoration and reverence. We have eloquent witnesses to this truth from the tradition of the Church, summarized by the sayings cum amore ac timore (with love and fear) from the first millenium and quantum potes, tantum aude (dare to do as much as you can) from the second. 

To illustrate how this attitude manifests itself, the author shares stories of three "Eucharistic women" known to him from the Soviet Underground. 

This book, Dominus Est - It is the Lord! (2008), encourages Catholics of the third millennium to treat the Lord, in the august moment of Holy Communion, in a manner appropriate to the Church's tradition. It was also sent to every Bishop in the United States and Canada. It is a must-read on the Source and Summit of our faith: The Holy Eucharist.

Based on his experience of Eucharistic devotion under Communist persecution, Bishop Schneider, auxiliary Bishop of Karaganda, Kazakhstan and member of the Order of the Holy Cross, bears witness to the loss of reverence for the Real Presence in the Western world and makes concrete suggestions for the renewal of Eucharistic faith and devotion in our times.

Dominus Est - It is the Lord! is translated from the German by the Reverend Nicholas L Gregoris.

About the author: Athanasius Schneider was born in 1961 in Kirghistan (Central Asia) of deported German parents. In 1973, he emigrated to Germany; and he was ordained a priest in 1990. In 1997, he received his doctorate in patrology at the Augustinianum in Rome; and in 1999, he was appointed professor in the Major Seminary of Karaganda in Kazakhstan, Central Asia. In 2006, he was named auxiliary bishop of Karaganda.

A Matter Of Course

The 25 Admonitions Of St Louis IX, King Of France

Feminism

Long Haul: Hunting The Highway Serial Killers by Frank Figliuzzi

About the book: From the FBI’s former assistant director, Light Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers (2024) is a shocking journey to the dark side of America’s highways, revealing the FBI Highway Serial Killings Initiative’s hunt for the long-haul truckers behind an astonishing 850 murders - and rising.

In 2004, the FBI was tipped off to a gruesome pattern of unsolved murders along American roadways. Today at least 850 homicides have been linked to a solitary breed of predators: long-haul truck drivers. They have been given names like the “Truck Stop Killer,” who rigged a traveling torture chamber in the rear of his truck and is suspected to have killed fifty women, and “The Interstate Strangler,” who once answered a phone call from his mother while killing one of his dozen victims. 

The crisis was such that the FBI opened a special unit, the Highway Serial Killings Initiative. In many cases, the victims - often at-risk women - are picked up at truck stops in one jurisdiction, sexually assaulted and murdered in another, and dumped along a highway in a third place. The transient nature of the offenders and multiple jurisdictions involved make these cases incredibly difficult to solve.

Based on his own on-the-ground research and drawing on his twenty-five-year career as an FBI special agent, Frank Figliuzzi investigates the most terrifying cases. He also rides in a big-rig with a long-haul trucker for thousands of miles, gaining an intimate understanding of the life and habits of drivers and their roadside culture. And he interviews the courageous trafficked victims of these crimes, and their inspiring efforts to now help others avoid similar fates.

Long Haul is a gripping exploration of a violent, disordered world hiding in plain sight, and the heroes racing to end the horror. It will forever unsettle how you travel on the road.

About the author: Frank Figliuzzi is a national security contributor and regular columnist for NBC News and MSNBC. He was the assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, where he served 25 years as a special agent and directed all espionage investigations across the government. He is the author of The FBI Way: Inside the Bureau’s Code of Excellence (2021).

From A Far And Lovely Country (The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series) by Alexander MCall Smith

About the book: In the twenty-fourth instalment in Alexander McCall Smith’s cherished No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, two confounding cases compete for Mma Ramotswe’s attention - and she may need to call in back up.

Mma Ramotswe and Mr J L B Matekoni are enjoying a nice meal out at a peri-peri restaurant when an American woman named Julia approaches seeking Mma Ramotswe’s help. Julia’s beloved late grandfather was Botswanan, and he instilled in her an abiding love of his homeland. Now, years after his passing, Julia has come to visit the land he had spoken of so often and to find her relatives. Unfortunately, her grandfather’s stories, while charming and entertaining, were somewhat light on detail; all Julia can remember are a few first names and some descriptions of his village. It is not a lot to go on, but if anyone is well poised to help, it is Mma Ramotswe, Botswana’s premier detective.

Meanwhile, a second case leads Mma Ramotswe to look for assistance from an unexpected quarter. For the first time, Charlie leads his own investigation at the detective agency, going undercover into a dubious, word-of-mouth get-together known as the Cool Singles Evening Club, where married men are encouraged to pretend to be single and meet women under false pretenses. Who could be behind such a distasteful venture? Getting to the bottom of this will be a tall order, to be sure, but Charlie is eager for the opportunity.

As Mma Ramotswe learns more about Julia, she begins to understand that Julia’s heartbreak runs deeper than she had initially realized. Together, Mma Ramotswe and Mma Potokwane must find a way to help their client heal and move forward - from both her past and her present. Julia had originally come to Botswana seeking family and connection, but in the warm embrace of Mma Ramotswe and Mma Potokwane, what she ends up finding is a home.

From A Far And Lovely Country (2023) is the twenty-fourth instalment in the delectable No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series set in Bostwana in Southern Africa.

About the author: Alexander McCall Smith, often referred to as ‘Sandy’, is one of the world’s most prolific and best-loved authors. His various series of books have been translated into forty-six languages and become bestsellers throughout the world. These include the highly successful The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, the popular 44 Scotland Street novels, the Isabel Dalhousie novels, the von Igelfeld series and the new Detective Varg novels. He also writes stand-alone novels, children's fiction and libretti for short operas.

Alexander has received numerous awards for his writing and holds thirteen honorary doctorates from universities in Europe and North America.  He is Professor Emeritus of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. In 2007, he received a CBE for services to literature and in 2011 was honoured by the President of Botswana for services through literature to the country.  In 2015, he received the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and in 2017, The National Arts Club (of America) Medal of Honour for Achievement in Literature. In 2020, he received the honorary fellowship of the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival. In 2021, he received the coveted Edinburgh Awards, chosen by the people and cross-party politicians of Edinburgh. And in 2022 he received the Lifetime Achievement in the Saltire Literary Awards for contribution to the Arts at the Scottish Book Awards.

Rating: 5/5

Alain Delon (1935-2024), French Actor

The Sole Purpose Of Reading

My Prayer Book by Father Lasance

About the book: This book by Father Francis Xavier Lasance provides counsels, prayers, devotions and reflections on the pursuit of happiness in goodness for Holy Mass and throughout the day, and incentives for being generous and unselfish in the imitation of Christ. 

My Prayer Book (1908) is replete with counsels, prayers, devotions, novenas, litanies, spiritual communions, prayers before and after Holy Communion, and prayers before and after Confession. 

There is hardly a prayer book available which is more thorough or complete than this. 

About the author: Father Francis Xavier Lasance (1860-1946) was an American priest and writer of Roman Catholic devotional works. Father Lasance served as curate in various parishes in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati including churches in Kenton, Reading, Dayton, Lebanon, and Monroe, Ohio. He also served as chaplain at Our Lady's Summit, in East Walnut Hills, in Cincinnati. Ill health forced him to relinquish parish work in 1890; from then on, he lived a "retired, semi-invalid existence" at St. Francis Hospital, Cincinnati, writing various books on spiritual subjects and serving as spiritual director of the Tabernacle Society. A number of Lasance's writings have been reprinted and are currently available from various traditionalist Catholic publishers, including My Prayer Book, Manna of the Soul, Blessed Sacrament Book, and The New Roman Missal (reprinted in 1993 by Christian Book Club of America), which at present is one of the most popular hand missals favoured by American traditionalist Catholics. His works were translated into numerous languages. In total, his texts were published in the millions. He refused all compensation for his work and asked that any profits be donated to charity or toward providing his works free of charge to those unable to purchase them. Father Lasance died at the age of eighty-six, in his native city. (Wikipedia)

For his devotional works, he was given a special blessing in a letter by Pope Pius XI on May 10, 1927:

"His Holiness (Pope Pius XI) wishes that these volumes, which assuredly will promote the spiritual life, may receive an ever-increasing welcome in all the Christian families of your great country."

The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco

About the book: The fact that history can be quite so devious may cause the reader's brow to become lightly beaded with sweat. He will look anxiously behind him, switch on all the lights, and suspect that these things could happen again today. In fact, they may be happening in that very moment. And he will think, as I do: "They are among us..." - Umberto Eco

Nineteenth-century Europe abounds with conspiracies both ghastly and mysterious. 

Jesuits plot against Freemasons. 

Italian priests are strangled with their own intestines. 

French criminals plan bombings by day and celebrate black masses by night. 

Every nation has its own secret service, perpetrating forgeries, plots, and massacres.

From the unification of Italy to the Paris Commune to the Dreyfus Affair to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Europe is in tumult and everyone needs a scapegoat. 

But what if, behind all of these conspiracies, lies just one man?

Eco takes his readers here on an unforgettable journey through the underbelly of world-shattering events. The Prague Cemetery (2010, 2012) is Eco at his most exciting, a book immediately hailed as his masterpiece. 

The Prague Cemetery is translated from the Italian by Richard Dixon and was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2012.

About the author: Umberto Eco (1932–2016) wrote fiction, literary criticism and philosophy. His first novel, The Name of the Rose, was a major international bestseller. His other works include Foucault's Pendulum, The Island of the Day Before, Baudolino, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, The Prague Cemetery and Numero Zero along with many brilliant collections of essays, academic texts and children's books. At the time of his death, he was an Emeritus professor at the University of Bologna, where he taught for much of his life. In the 21st century, he has continued to gain recognition for his 1995 essay "Ur-Fascism", where Eco lists fourteen general properties he believes comprise fascist ideologies.

Rating: 4/5

The Decline Of An English Village by Robin Page

About the book: This is the 45th Anniversary Edition of The Decline of an English Village (2019).

When The Decline of an English Village was first published in 1974, its appearance was greeted with immediate critical acclaim. As a young writer, born into declining village life, Robin Page’s message simultaneously struck a chord and sounded a warning.

Now, after forty-five years, it reappears with a new and updated introduction, in which political activist Robin Page exposes greed, political ineptitude, and social and environmental indifference as the driving forces behind the deterioration of village life and the communities around it.

Robin Page transports readers back to a time when villages were founded on the value of community, and when people still worked the land in the traditional sense. He reflects and ruminates on his own experiences of rural life, raising sensitive topics, such as the intensification of farming, over-population, and environmental degradation in some of England’s most beloved places. Robin shares his concern for the alarming loss of wildlife in England, and offers his own perspective on what he perceives to be the most pressing issues. His passion for English tradition, reflected through his involvement with the Countryside Restoration Trust, radiates from within the pages of this book, along with his enthusiasm for preserving the countryside and its wildlife.

Throughout his life, Robin has observed dramatic changes in the way people live their lives. It is in this book that he reiterates the tragedy behind a countryside increasingly misused and abused in the name of urbanisation and industrialisation.

About the author: Robin Page (1943-2023) was an English writer, farmer, conservationist and political activist, journalist, television presenter, and countryman. His work mainly focused on rural affairs. He presented the BBC television show One Man and His Dog and served for twelve years as an elected member of the Council of the National Trust. In 1993, Robin assisted in founding the Countryside Restoration Trust, and served as Executive Chairman and trustee. Robin was a member of the following professional associations and clubs: The British Trust for Ornithology, The Royal Geographical Society, The East African Wildlife Society, The Farmers’ Club, The Country Land and Business Association, and The Society of Authors. He stood as a Eurosceptic, campaigning for Britain to leave the EU and wrote 33 books.

Keir Starmer: The Biography by Tom Baldwin

About the book: This authoritative - but not authorised - biography on Keir Starmer by Tom Baldwin provides answers by drawing deeply on many hours of interviews with the Prime Minister himself, as well as unprecedented access to members of his family, his oldest friends and closest colleagues.

Together, they tell an unexpectedly intimate story filled with feelings of grief and love that has driven him on more than any rigid ideology or loyalty to a particular faction.

The book tracks Starmer’s emergence from a troubled small town background and rebellious youth, through a storied legal career as a human rights barrister and the country’s chief prosecutor, to becoming an MP relatively late in life.

Baldwin provides a vivid and compelling account of how this untypical politician then rose to be leader of his party in succession to Jeremy Corbyn, then transformed it with a ruthless rapidity that has enraged opponents from the left just as much as it has bewildered those on the right.

Above all, this is a book that should be read by anyone who wants to understand how someone who has too often been underestimated or dismissed as dull, now intends to change Britain.

Keir Starmer: The Biography (2024) was a Sunday Times bestseller (26 February 2024).

About the author: Tom Baldwin has spent most of his life writing about or working in politics from Westminster to Washington. He began his career on local newspapers before having senior roles for the Sunday Telegraph and The Times. He was the Labour Party’s communications director under Ed Miliband and later helped run a mass campaign for a second referendum on Europe. He lives in London with his family.

The Stellar Debut of Galactica MacFee (44 Scotland Street Series) by Alexander McCall Smith

About the book: The Stellar Debut of Galactica MacFee (2023) is book 17 in the hugely popular 44 Scotland Street series by worldwide bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith.

Glasgow for Bertie is the promised land. The city of pies and Irn Bru, far from his controlling mother, Irene - his place of escape. 

But how will he respond to the news of the proposed merging of Edinburgh and Glasgow? 

A new member of Bertie's class at school is causing ripples in his social circle. She is called Galactica MacFee and is going to be a match for Olive and her lieutenant, Pansy. 

And, an incredible new discovery: a Pictish stone, that is said to have the first-know written poem carved into it is the talk of the town. 

But, when the poem is eventually translated, it is thought it is best to keep it under wraps. 

In this latest instalment in the perennially popular 44 Scotland Street series, we are back in the world of Angus and Domenico, Bruce, Matthew and Elspeth, and, of course, Bertie and his friend Ranald Braveheart Macpherson.

About the author: Alexander McCall Smith, often referred to as ‘Sandy’, is one of the world’s most prolific and best-loved authors. His various series of books have been translated into forty-six languages and become bestsellers throughout the world. These include the highly successful The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, the popular 44 Scotland Street novels, the Isabel Dalhousie novels, the von Igelfeld series and the new Detective Varg novels. He also writes stand-alone novels, children's fiction and libretti for short operas.

Alexander has received numerous awards for his writing and holds thirteen honorary doctorates from universities in Europe and North America.  He is Professor Emeritus of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. In 2007, he received a CBE for services to literature and in 2011 was honoured by the President of Botswana for services through literature to the country.  In 2015, he received the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and in 2017, The National Arts Club (of America) Medal of Honour for Achievement in Literature. In 2020, he received the honorary fellowship of the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival. In 2021, he received the coveted Edinburgh Awards, chosen by the people and cross-party politicians of Edinburgh. And in 2022 he received the Lifetime Achievement in the Saltire Literary Awards for contribution to the Arts at the Scottish Book Awards.

Rating: 5/5

There Is Still Love by Malachi Martin

About the book: For foremost theologian and bestselling author Malachi Martin's first inspirational work, he reaches out with a message to us all - how to survive with joy in a seemingly loveless world

In five contemporary parables, Martin introduces us to people from all walks of life who confront this loveless world and triumph through their understanding of the power of God's love.

With each of his illuminating and universal stories, Martin brings his characters to a point at which there is no hope. It may come in any number of situations - from a perfect marriage that suddenly crumbles to a luxurious life that turns empty. 

But the author goes one step further and shows us how each despairing individual turns his or her life around - as one character after another comes to understand God's unending, unchanging offer of love. 

In the final chapter, Martin offers a brilliant and moving summary of the Christian strategies for living, strategies that are effective even in today's hectic and hostile world.

There Is Still Love (1984) is a book of miracles, of celebrations, and of revelations. It offers the solace that comes from understanding the ways of the world - and ourselves - more fully. A comfort and a companion, a book to read and reread, There Is Still Love is a gift to have and a gift to give.

About the author: The Christian Science Monitor has called Malachi Martin "one of the most challenging writers in English" during his time. Malachi Brendan Martin (1921-1999), also known under the pseudonym of Michael Serafian, was an Irish-born American Traditionalist Catholic priest, biblical archaeologist, exorcist, palaeographer, professor, and prolific writer on the Roman Catholic Church. He is the author of the national best-sellers Vatican, The Final Conclave, and Hostage to the Devil. His extraordinarily broad-based appeal offers eloquent testimony to the breadth of his abilities.