"My Life With the Saints": This was one that was recommended by Matthew Kelly at the conference my wife and I went to a few months back. It took me a while to read, because I'm slow and get tired easily. But, I'm really glad I took the time to read "My Life With the Saints" by James Martin, SJ.First off, James Martin is a Jesuit Priest, so SJ means Society of Jesus. The Jesuits are sometimes called God's Marines because of their founder's (St. Ignatius of Loyola) military background. Google Society of Jesus of you want to know more.
"My Life With the Saints" takes us through Fr. Martin's personal journey to becoming a Jesuit Priest, and the Saints who have helped him along the way, either through the example they provide or through their intervention in prayer for him. To Fr. Martin, the Saints have become like close friends, who he models his life after and learns from. Martin masterfully weaves his own personal stories, with stories from the Saint's lives to create a mini-book in each chapter.
Martin introduces us to several Saints, in the hopes that we'll want to learn more about some of the Saints who have been important in his life. From this reading experience, I believe I'll read more about St. Ignatius of Loyola for certain. There are others that also interest me, but the regimented approach to prayer and life proposed by St. Ignatius seems to appeal to the engineer in me, and therefores is the Saint I'm most interested in knowing more about.
I think most Catholics would really enjoy this book, I know I did. I highly recommend it, and would even be willing to loan it to my friends after my wife reads it...and as long as she says it's ok.
"The Lost Train of Thought": The final book in "The Seems Trilogy" by John Hulme and Michael Wexler, finds our hero, Becker Drane, in serious doo doo. Having violated the Golden Rule of the Seems, which is that people in the world must not know about the Seems, Becker is facing serious consequences in the Court of Public Opinion. On top of that, the train carrying 6 weeks of thought to the world has gone missing, likely stolen by The Tide, and Becker along with a team of fixers are the only ones who can save the world from "The Unthinkable." (For those who don't remember, the Seems is the land of Seemsians, who are responsible, in this series of books, for creating and executing the day to day operation or the world, according to "The Plan". There are those who think "The Plan" is cruel, and they are known as "The Tide." Some humans work in The Seems because they are the only ones with the 7th sense. It's ok if you don't follow all this.)
I'm not 100% sure how I feel about this book. There is some good and some bad in it, and frankly it just sort of ends with a big "huh?". I found the 3 books of this series entertaining to some degree, but in the end, it's not one of the top reads out there. I don't recommend this, nor do I recommend staying away from it...you'll have to make your own decision on this one.
