Snow........

We had snow today, it only fell for a few hours but looked beautiful as it fell.  The quiet hush of winter.  It was a day for staying indoors, for housecleaning, nesting and generally pottering around.  J. made lunch:  Pork chops with cabbage, onions and bacon.  A rib sticking affair, and quite delicious.
One more week to go and then I'm having surgery.  For some reason I don't feel concerned about it.  I've had a few surgeries in the past and they've all gone quite well, so I'm expecting that this will be the same.  Hopefully then I can get back to a normal life, into walking every day. 
I've added knitting to my repertoire for next November's bazaar,  but I shall still find time for reading.
I have lots of people praying for me this week and lots to look forward to this spring, but I'm not in a hurry, everything will unfold as it should.
"Peace, peace, you tell me.  Peace is...for men/women of good will."
St. Josemaria

Other books I read over the Fall....

were "The Great Heresies"  By Hilaire Belloc
"Hungary in the Cold War" by Borhi
"The Sword of Honour Trilogy"  by Evelyn Waugh
"A Canticle for Leibowitz"  by ?
"The Canadian Century"  by Roy Strong
"The Devil's Arithmetic"  by Jane Yolen
"The Origins of Christian Zionism" by ?
"The Balfour Declaration"  by Schneer
"God's Voice Within"  by Mark Thibodeaux S.J.
"Henry V"  by Will Shakespeare
"The Myth of Hitler's Pope" by Rabbi Dolan
"Cranmer"  by Hilaire Belloc
"The Closing of the Muslim Mind"  by Robert Reilly
"The Help"  by ?
and currently:
"For God and Tyranny"  by Walid Shoebat

Is it really that long ago.....

....since I last posted??  Well I read something funny by Hilaire Belloc today in "The Essential Belloc" especially after my last post.
"I am writing a book about the Crusades so dull that I can scarcely write it."!
Well Hilaire it was perhaps more interesting to read than to write.

Also good from......

Hilaire Belloc is "The Crusades".  He tells the story of the first Crusade because he says it was the only successful one.  It kept a Christian Kingdom in the Holy Land for almost a century until it was defeated by the forces of Saladdin, who managed to unite the Moslems from Egypt to the Euphrates, and the Crusaders were vastly outnumbered.Very readable and a painless way to study history.  The third book I took from the Vancouver library was  a copy of "Religion and the Rise of Western Culture" by Christopher Dawson.  Not as easy to read as Belloc.

It seems to me that if you......

....want a good history book, it's best to go back a few years.  When I was in Vancouver earlier this month for my ERCP, I called in at the Vancouver Library and picked up this copy of "How the Reformation Happened."  by Hilaire Belloc.  He didn't disappoint me.  Packed with information, a very thorough description of the Reformation as it unfolded, he tells in a short book the major sequence of events in England, Scotland, France, Germany and Holland.  I would like to have a copy of this book for reference.  He claims that when it started, the Reformation was not about Doctrine, but a protest against clerical and Papal abuses, and a realization by the nobility that it was an opportunity to get rich by plundering Church and Monastic property, and that it was a movement of nobles more than a popular uprising.  Also surprising was the involvement of Islam, which won in Hungary at the battle of Mohacs in August 1526, which distracted the German Emperor and stopped him from quelling the rebellion at home.  He also claims that Henry Vlll's break from the Pope was not meant to be permanent, Kings did that all the time.  But that Henry died before he could repair the break.  Excellent book.

One of the most dramatic books.....

I've read lately was "Under an Afghan Sky"  by Melissa Fung, a Canadian journalist.  She was captured by a group of young Afghans outside a refugee camp in Kabul and kept prisoner in a hole in the ground for 28 days.  The only way I could get through this book was because I knew at the end of it she escaped.  I saw her interviewed on the National by Peter Mansbridge a few weeks ago.  I read it in about 3 days.  She behaved in a very intelligent way with her captors,  asking their names and taking an interest in their lives.  They told her they were Talib, but she suspected that they were just criminals, who supported the Taliban.  Finally she was released in exchange for a member of her captors' family, without payment.  She was lucky to get out alive.  It could have ended very differently.  The book is very well written and a compelling read.

A book I've been waiting for.......

arrived sooner than I thought it would.  Michael Coren's book  "Why Catholics are Right."  No false modesty here!   It's about time someone wrote this book.  I've heard many of the arguments used here often enough and others have heard them too.  Michael gives a good response to the confused ideas around such topics as the Crusades, the Inquisition, and Catholic Doctrines like Purgatory.  I bought myself a copy to keep as a reference and also one to lend out.