Friday, April 17, 2009

Another Reading List Update

I finished Pelikan's 3rd volume (which, by the way, is excellent) and was ready to start Fremantle's Papal Encyclicals. I was looking forward to her book because it appeared (mark that word) to offer encyclicals in handy-dandy book form - suitable for reading in the car while waiting for one's wife to exit her favorite store :-) - that are otherwise not easily available.

Imagine my dismay when I started flipping through it, only to discover that Fremantle was apparently trained by the folks at Reader's Digest: the encyclicals were abridged!

Boot to the head.

Why on earth would anyone want an abridged encyclical? Why would anyone want a whole book full of them (300+ pages!)? I don't get it.

So anyway, I've cleared another book from my shelf, and our parish library gets another donation. :-) And I'm getting closer to starting on reading Dante, which is something I've been looking forward to for a while.

2 comments:

Mike Burgess said...

I thought Pelikan's volumes 3 and 4 were the best of the series. Volume 2 was invaluable, though.

I should think that Fremantle merits a trip to the conversation pit with Doug and Dimsdale Piranha.

Fred Noltie said...

Okay, now that I've looked up the reference to the Piranha Brothers I'm going to have to see about watching it/them on Youtube so that I can get the joke :-)

(I'm shamed - shamed - to admit that the only Python I've watched is the Holy Grail and the Spanish Inquisition. Don't hit me.

I don't have vols. 4 and 5 of Pelikan yet. Getting volume one was part of my journey to Rome; I got 2 and 3 for purposes of fixing my education about the Middle Ages. I imagine I'll get the last two someday (particularly now that I have your recommendation for four). Volume 2 was very helpful, and I really enjoyed 3.

RdP