Anne Faye

I was browsing the career section of my local library the other day and came across this gem of a book: Careers for Bookworms & Other Literary Types, Fourth Edition (McGraw-Hill Careers for You) . As a dedicated bookworm, how could I resist checking it out? Authors Marjorie Eberts and Margaret Gisler provide an astounding number of careers that might appeal to those who love to read, from the expected, such as a librarian or book reviewer, to ones people might not ever have considered, such as becoming an indexer or doing government research. They also include interviews with various individuals about how they got their jobs and how they find them interesting. If you are a bookworm, there is certain to be a job (most likely more than one!) in here that will appeal to you! It would be a great book to give to a young person who loves to read, but is unsure what to do with his or her life.

What makes a piece of writing "Catholic?" It is an ongoing debate and one which I freely admit I don't have the definitive answer to. I was recently sent a copy of St. Peter's B-list: Contemporary Poems Inspired by the Saints to review. It is a collection of poems inspired by the saints. Compiled by Dr. Mary Ann Buddenberg Miller, a professor of English at Caldwell College, the book adds to that debate. Her criteria for including poetry in this book is "that the content of these poems contains a basic underlying assumption that is essentially Catholic: the voices in these poems reflect belief in and hope for, often in spite of themselves, eventual union with God. . . Catholic poems, as well as Catholic novels, remind us of our need for Christ, regardless of whether the poems themselves explicitly profess this concept in their poems." I have no place judging poetry. I always did poorly in literature classes because I don't "get" multi-laye...

Interested in Catholic Fiction? Ignatius Press has a blog called Novel Thoughts on their website. I recently discovered it and think it is well worth following.

Nearly two years ago, I came across this stone in the St. Rose Cemetery in Chicopee, MA. I blogged about it here: http://annefaye.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-tombstone-with-story.html and resolved that someday I would find out more about it. I then ordered some photos through the mail and ended up getting 300 copies of this photo by mistake: http://annefaye.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-tomstone-saga-continues.html which truly cemented the need to find out more. I've had some "extra" time on my hands recently and was able to make good on that promise. I contacted the parish affiliated with the cemetery and a very helpful woman dug out "a book that looks like it could contain magic potions" and found the burial record. The young man buried here is Clarence Brodeur. He was buried on April 25, 1935. I was then able to look on Ancestry.com and discover more about him and his family. (I felt a bit like I was stalking a dead man). He was born in Webster, MA, the second ...

Letters have the power to grant us a larger life. They reveal motivation and deepen understanding. They are evidential. They change lives, and they rewrite history. . .  This is a book about a world without letters, or at least this possibility. It is a book about what we have lost by replacing letters with email – the post, the envelope, a pen, a slower cerebral whirring, the use of the whole of our hands and not just the tips of our fingers. It is a celebration of what has gone before, and the value we place on literacy, good thinking, and thinking ahead.  Thus writes Simon Garfield in his latest work, To the Letter: A Celebration of the Lost Art of Letter Writing . Garfield takes on an ambitious task: to chronicle the history of the letter. Any such undertaking will automatically fall short – there are simply too many letters in the world. Much of the history of civilizations is held in epistolary form. So, Garfield offers highlights, including letters from s...