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Member: LifeIsAPolka

CollectionsYour library (930), Currently reading (1), To read (2), All collections (930)

Reviews3 reviews

TagsCatholic (4), Prayer (3), Mysteries Worth Reading and Re-Reading (3), mystery (3), Father Brown (3), cozy mystery (3), Chesterton (3), John Paul II the Great (2), Redemptive Suffering (2), Suffering (2) — see all tags

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Favorite authorsG. K. Chesterton (Shared favorites)

About meI am a 44 year old cradle Catholic who loves Jesus and His Church. My life has been (and continues to be) profoundly influenced by the spirituality of St. Therese of Lisieux and her doctrine of "The Little Way". I was raised in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, to which I owe a great deal of gratitude, but am really more of a "traditional" Catholic. I am committed to true ecumenism. I have had CFIDS (chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome) and fibromyalgia for nearly 28 years. I remain hopeful for a cure and/or a miracle from God. My life has also been profoundly influenced by the life, words, music, and ministry of the late Rich Mullins. My life's ministry is being a "Barnabas Lady" (a daughter of encouragement) and in general trying to be a cricket on the hearth.

About my libraryI am an avid reader of Classic fiction by such authors as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and Charlotte Bronte. I also enjoy children's literature a great deal and believe that I am greatly blessed for having waited until reaching my 30's to have read a number of children's lit books for the first time (rather than reading them at what my teachers, bless their hearts, had deemed the appropriate time.) Always the late bloomer! Maybe one of these days I will actually read Tolstoy's War and Peace for sheer enjoyment instead of as a college requirement! (Why can't War and Peace be as enjoyable as his short stories? Sigh).

One of my favorite authors is George MacDonald, who was a contemporary of Charles Dickens. He was a prolific Scottish, Christian author whom many of my email friends would appreciate as a "ragamuffin" or a "tatterdemalion" (read, he wrote about God's GRACE!). Many of his novels and fairy tales are available online as free e-texts (scroll down the page to see titles of his fiction works). You won't regret checking him out! Perhaps reading an e-text or two will hook you enough to buy the books in hard copy!

I do not pretend to have a giant intellect :) but I do like to read G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis in small portions when my concentration level is equal to it. This New Year of 2005 finds me resolving to read and to enjoy some of Chesterton's fiction works, the first of which I aspire to read is Manalive. Unfortunately, my local library doesn't have much of his works (prose or fiction) except some of The Father Brown Mysteries, which I do enjoy. The majority of G.K. Chesterton's works are available gratis at G.K. Chesterton's Works on the Web.

I read everything from A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh, to Bert Ghezzi's Mystics and Miracles, with many things in between. I love reading Roman Catholic theology, so long as it is written in plain English and not in theo-babble! Last year I tried to read more biographies and autobiographies of canonized saints (again, the operative word here is "incrementally", as I have an illness which makes it extremely difficult to concentrate and retain things I've read in my memory). When "extra" ill with CFIDS and fibromyalgia, I read a good deal of "fluff". This past year has found me reading a number of Lilian Jackson Braun's The Cat Who... mysteries, which I enjoy greatly. I am trying some new mystery authors later this spring.

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Real nameChris

LocationWisconsin

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Member sinceMar 24, 2007

Currently readingThe Wisdom Of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton