Josephology: Father of all Joseph books!
Sweet! My library just notified me that they've got my interlibrary loan request in -- I'm so totally psyched!
It's for
Bibliographie sur saint Joseph et la sainte Famille,
THE be-all, end-all Josephological resource out there. Just check out this description:
"This monumental (1365 pages, with 19,725 entries) and multilingual (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, etc.) bibliography is the single most important source of information about publications of all kinds (ecclesiastical, theological, devotional, artistic, etc.) on St. Joseph and the Holy Family. ... Use of Bibliographie sur Saint Joseph et la saint Famille is facilitated by thorough thematic and chronological indices. There is an additional chronological index of contributions by eighty-eight religious orders." Read full description.
:::swoons:::I'd seen this book mentioned in Fr. Filas' bibliography for
Joseph: The Man Closest to Jesus: The Complete Life, Theology and Devotional History of St. Joseph and am thrilled I can read it for myself. God bless the public library system!
Labels: books, joseph, josephology
Joseph-i-licious book fun
Husband Mike and I rarely buy books, 'cause we prefer to just check 'em out from the library. It's cheaper, saves space, and gives us an excuse to hang out at our spiffy library. And on those occasions when we actually do pony up for a book, we've usually read the sucker first to make sure it's Something We Really Want To Own.
However, when it comes to Josephological books, well, I'm a bit more willing to flat-out buy 'em sight unseen, and the Oblates of St. Joseph's
Guardian of the Redeemer Bookstore is The place to go. Since it's been months since my last Joseph fix, I've been gettin' twitchy, so I just placed an order for 3 promising-looking titles:
Family of St. Joseph Prayer Manualby the Oblates of St. Joseph
Joseph in the New Testamentby Fr. Larry Toschi, OSJ
Just Man, Husband of Mary, Guardian of Christ: An Anthology of Readings from Jeronimo Gracian's Summary of the Excellencies of St. Joseph (1597)by Joseph F. Chorpenning, OSFS
Of these, I'm most drooling over the last one (
Just Man ...). The
book reviews/descriptions I've read have got me excited -- for example, "Joseph Chorpenning not only gives us a brilliant translation of Gracin's book, but his own commentaries, following each of the chapters, make use of all the major books on St. Joseph from the 16th century to the present."
:::swoon::: And it's got nifty illustrations!
So, everything shipped out yesterday, and I'm on pins 'n' needles awaitin' their arrival. Mebbe I'll post a few reviews once I get my mitts on 'em and have time to digest it all. :-)
Labels: books, joseph, josephite, josephology
A review of ... a review!
It's not every day that you read a book review that's prolly better than the book itself, but today's my lucky day. :-P I just read
Vincent Ryan's writeup of The Poverty of Riches: St. Francis of Assisi Reconsidered, and appreciated his feedback on the author's "reappraisal of St. Francis of Assisi's relationship to the poor". (Ooooh, hey, does this qualify as a review of a review?) And I laughed out loud over Ryan's comment that,
"As [author] Wolf sees it, the Franciscan founder did little to raise people's opinions of the involuntary poor. ... To present Francis as merely using the poor and suffering as a way to refashion himself, is reducing all his activity to power relations. Somewhere Michel Foucault is applauding."
And his summary is totally spot-on:
"Franco Zeffirelli's [movie] Brother Sun, Sister Moon has been rightfully criticized over the years for presenting Francis as a hippie of the 1960s (with a Donovan soundtrack to boot) instead of as a medieval ascetic. In arguing for this radical reinterpretation of Franciscan poverty, Wolf too seems more concerned with refashioning Francis according to modern theories -- perhaps for the purposes of a new book. Unfortunately, like Zeffirelli's film, Wolf fails to assess and present the founder of the Franciscans within his own historical context."
Thank you, Mr. Ryan, for sparing me the headache of readin' this book. (And finally! Someone else who isn't a fan of Zeffirelli's craptastical movie!)
Labels: books, franciscan, st. francis
