Orpheus in the Underworld (TOON Books)

Orpheus in the Underworld is the second volume from TOON Books in their Greek mythology graphic novel series by Yvan Pommaux. The first one was Theseus and the Minotaur, which I had the pleasure of reviewing last September. The tale of Orpheus is one that mythology buffs, like my wife, will recognize. I, however, needed a refresher course, and this book proved to be just the ticket. Orpheus was the son of the king of Thrace and Calliope, who was one of the nine muses. After he was born, Calliope had to return to Mount Olympus to entertain the gods, so she asked Apollo to give Orpheus his lyre. Orpheus' musical talent was natural and passed down from his mother. One day Orpheus was performing and fell in love with Eurydice. They were married, but she died very early. He therefore decided to follow her down to the underworld and try and bring her back. You'll have to buy the book to see if he succeeds!

Overall, the illustration style was very pleasing to the eye. The story was a mixture of narration blocks and character interactions with the traditional bubble text. A pleasant surprise for me was that the complaints I had about Theseus and the Minotaur were not present in this book. There was a love story, but the story didn't have sexual overtones like in Theseus. The story stayed true to the original myth and didn't try to change it or make it modern, which I always appreciate. Lastly, there were phonetic pronunciations of the hard to say Greek names; an index of characters and places; and even a further reading list! I highly recommend this book, and I can't wait to see what the third volume will be in this series!

This book was provided to me for free by TOON Books in exchange for an honest review. If you found this review helpful, please click here and hit Yes!

Following Egeria (Ancient Faith Press)

When I first received the book Following Egeria, I wasn't sure what to make of it honestly. I thought to myself, "What kind of spiritual discipline is this Egeria?" I trusted the publisher (Ancient Faith Publishing) and am a fan of the author (Lawrence Farley), so I decided to give the book a chance. Looking at the back of the book, showed how foolish I was to WHO, not what Egeria was. Egeria was a nun from the 4th Century. While she was alive, she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and kept a diary of her time there. Fr. Lawrence Farley decided to follow in some of her footsteps and recorded his travels in this book.

The places visited by Fr. Farley include Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Judea, Bethany, and Galilee to name a few. Each chapter begins with a quote from Egeria on what she saw when she was there. Fr. Farley then offers his personal reflections on the location, provides Scriptural descriptions of what occurred there, and historical changes that occurred through the centuries. The most interesting chapter for me was "Recovering the Via Dolorosa." In this chapter, Fr. Farley attempts to find the true path that Jesus would have walked from His condemnation by Pilate to His Crucifixion. In this chapter, he debunks the widely accepted Via Dolorosa by telling us stop by stop which churches are wrong n their claims of what happened. For example, the Ecce Homo Basilica is not where the Roman soldiers played dice for Jesus' belongings.

I have read several books on Holy Land pilgrimages in the past year, and I will probably continue to read them until I make it there myself. The concept for this book was unique in that Fr. Farley tried to follow in some of the steps of Egeria. However, I would have preferred if the book was presented in the same order as Egeria's travels. I also think this book could have been better if it came with some pictures that Fr. Farley took. This would have the book more living and breathing. Overall, I'd give this book 4 out of 5 stars. It was interesting, but it could have been much more. I would recommend it, but I would recommend reading Egeria's diary as well, either online for free or purchasing from Amazon.

This book was provided to me for free by Ancient Faith Publishing in exchange for an honest review. If you found this review helpful, please click here and hit Yes!

The Catholic Almanac and Would you Baptize an Extraterrestrial? (Image Books)

Image Books is a publisher I'm pretty loyal too. When I first started my blog, they were one of the companies that took a chance on me and provided me with free review copies of books. I don't always agree with everything that they publish, but I could say that about each and every publisher. Today, I am going to be featuring two of their Fall 2014 books, and yes I am embarrassed it took me this long to review them. The two books are The Catholic Almanac and Would you Baptize an Extraterrestrial?.

The Catholic Almanac is more than a book. It is a daily journey through American Catholic history. Each of the 365 days highlights a specific Catholic person and something that ties them to that specific date (birth, death, ordination, etc.). For example on January 15, 1844, the Indiana Legislature granted Fr. Edward Sorin a college charter, and that was the birth of Notre Dame. The beauty of this book is that there are both famous and ordinary people highlighted in this book; people who were great Catholics and people who had some general connection to Catholics. Some of the names in this book are John F. Kennedy, Al Capone, and Jack Kerouac to name a few.

The book is what I call an appetizer book. It whets your appetite, gets you interested in a specific person/subject, and hopefully leads you to read more about the specific person/subject. The best use of this book I see is in a Catholic classroom or a homeschool setting. It is also just an interesting read if you are a history buff. Just so we're clear, this book is not a devotional, but it is a book you can read after your daily devotional (if you are the daily devotional type). Another minor pet peeve of mine is that there is no February 29th. I know it only comes up every four years, but it would have been nice to have unless nothing interesting was found for that day. Four stars!

Would you Baptize an Extraterrestrial? is a unique book in conversation style between two Jesuits, Brother Guy Consolmagno and Father Paul Mueller, who work on the research staff at the Vatican Observatory. The fact that the Vatican has an observatory is pretty awesome in and of itself. There are six conversations in all:

1. Biblical Genesis or Scientific Big Bang?
2. What Happened to Poor Pluto?
3. What Really Happened to Galileo?
4. What Was the Star of Bethlehem?
5. What's Going to Happen When the World Ends?
6. Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial?

Questions Four was most interesting to me, as I have read many explanations on the Star of Bethlehem before. Brother Guy and Father Paul address most of the planetary alignment theories and the possibility of the star being a nova or supernova. They never tell you what the answer is, because honestly they don't know the answer. Instead, they show you that science is able to provide a lot of possible explanations to something that so many people doubt. (I personally believe that it was the Holy Spirit and not a physical star, but to each their own.) This book isn't going to give you simple black and white answers to these complicated questions. Instead, it is going to invite you to stop trying to separate and compartmentalize science and faith from one another and look at these questions in light of both. This is just one of the ways the Catholic Church is more beautiful than Protestantism. We aren't a "one or the other" church, but a "both and" church.

Overall, I would give this book four stars. It is intelligent, but accessible. It is clever, but conversational. At times when they went off topic to talk about pizza or whatever, I found myself wishing they would stick to the matter at hand, and that is why I took a star away from it. These men, however, know what they are talking about, so I can see this broadly appealing to a wide audience. It might not answer all your questions, but it will open your mind and make you think more, which is never a bad thing.

These two books were provided to me for free by Image Books in exchange for an honest review. If you found the reviews helpful, click here and/or here and hit Yes!