Books Just In: Tweets, Seeds, Encounters, A Way Forward, and a Giveaway

Ah spring book season, when the new growth of authors and publishers sprout at the mailbox, unexpectedly delighting book reviewers.

I love it.

I won't get a chance to read these as fast as you deserve to hear about them. But they did pass the first chapter test and make it onto my "to read" stack, so here's a heads up.

Tweeting with God: # Big Bang, Prayer, Bible, Sex, Crusades, Sin, Career . . . by Michael Remery

Ok, I might not have been entirely accurate. I have mostly read this book. In record time. But there's a review embargo until the release date of April 14. So details will have to wait.

Suffice it to say for now, I love this book. A. Lot.

5 stars "love it." Have been bugging people I know by showing it to them "love it."

I'm just sayin'.

Seeds of the Word: Finding God in the Culture by Robert Barron

In a sense I've read some of this book already since it's a collection of Father Barron's columns from his blog and various other places (I think) around the interwebs.

I always like getting his take on what's happening below the surface in books and movies. This also throws in sections on pop culture and politics so it is bound to be interesting. If I could get a wish it would have been to have printouts of these columns. Wish granted!

GIVEAWAY! [UPDATED] I got two copies of this one so if you want to be entered into a giveaway, just leave a comment for this post. If you have trouble signing in, just leave an Anonymous comment and write your name in the comment. WINNER: Manny!

Encountering Truth: Meeting God in the Every Day by Pope Francis

Early every morning, Pope Francis celebrates a personal sort of Mass in the small Saint Martha chapel at the Vatican. The audience is made up of gardeners, nuns, cooks, office workers, and always changes. What doesn't change is that the pope gives his homilies without notes just as he did when he was a parish priest. This book features highlights from almost 200 homilies covering a year from March 2013 to May 2014.

This doesn't come out until June so this is a really early mention. I was enthralled with the introduction which has an in-depth look at how Pope Francis prepares and what he thinks is important in contemplating and conveying the Word of God to the faithful. He also gives a "map" of the way Francis circles round various topics, engaging them from different angles as the liturgical readings progress day to day. That's a new idea for me, that to get a full sense of his teachings one must patiently look at it from day to day.

The few homilies I've samples left me eager for a deep, slow reading of this book. And, to be honest, that's not usually the way I feel after reading samples of books featuring Pope Francis's writing. So this is a rare find for me.

(What can I say? I loved Pope Benedict's intellectual style. It ain't Pope Francis's fault. I get that.)

Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward For a New Generation by Charles C Camosy

Charles Camosy argues that our polarized public discourse hides the fact that most Americans actually agree on the basic issues at stake in abortion morality and law. ...  Camosy proposes a new public policy that is consistent with the beliefs of the broad majority of Americans and supported by the best ideas and arguments about abortion from both secular and religious sources.

This isn't my usual sort of book. However, this issue matters greatly to me so I agreed to look it over. A quick perusal left me feeling that Camosy takes a similar approach as that proposed in How to Defend the Faith Without Raising Your Voice. That alone makes it worth pursuing.

Plus the very handy chapter conclusions looked like reasoning that goes along with Catholic teachings and that I could agree with. (Yep, I "cheated." We'll call it an in-depth preview. How else am I gonna tell if its worth our time?)

Anyway, this definitely looks worth investigating if you're interested in digging deeper.