Book picks similar to
The Spirit of Father Damien: The Leper Priest-A Saint for Our Times by Jan de Volder
saints
non-fiction
biography
history
A Man of the Beatitudes: Pier Giorgio Frassati
Luciana Frassati - 1975
Pier Giorgio turned from a life of privilege to one devoted to working with the poor, and was a courageous witness of Christian faith and charity to many others.Discouraged by his affluent parents from his religious involvement and deep spiritual life, Pier Giorgio secretly ministered to the poor and marginalized, and was a leader of youth whose love of God transformed the lives of all those around him. He died of the polio virus at the age of 24, and the story of his life and death spread throughout Europe, influencing the young Karol Wojtyla, who as Pope John Paul II described Frassati as "a man of the eight beatitudes, a modern youth and great mountaineer who was keenly interested in the problems of culture, sports and social questions, as well as the true values of life." Pier Giorgio is a patron saint of World Youth Days.
Lee: A Biography
Clifford Dowdey - 2015
Lee is well known as a major figure in the Civil War. However, by removing Lee from the delimiting frame of the Civil War and placing him in the context of the Republic's total history, Dowdey shows the "eternal relevance" of this tragic figure to the American heritage. With access to hundreds of personal letters, Dowdey brings fresh insights into Lee's background and personal relationships and examines the factors which made Lee that rare specimen, “a complete person.” In tracing Lee's reluctant involvement in the sectional conflict, Dowdey shows that he was essentially a peacemaker, very advanced in his disbelief in war as a resolution.Lee had never led troops in combat until suddenly given command of a demoralized, hodgepodge force under siege from McClellan in front of Richmond. In a detailed study of Lee's growth in the mastery of the techniques of war, he shows his early mistakes, the nature of his seemingly intuitive powers, the limitations imposed by his personal character and physical decline, and the effect of this character on the men with whom he created a legendary army. It was after the fighting was over that Dowdey believes Lee made his most significant and neglected achievement. As a symbol of the defeated people, he rose above all hostilities and, in the wreckage of his own fortunes, advocated rebuilding a New South, for which he set the example with his progressive program in education. The essence of Lee's tragedy was the futility of his efforts toward the harmonious restoration of the Republic with the dissensions of the past forgotten.Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Royal Panoply: Brief Lives of the English Monarchs
Carolly Erickson - 2003
Royal Panoply recaptures the event-filled, often dangerous, always engaging lives of England’s kings and queens, set against the backdrop of a thousand years of Britain’s past.
Out of My Life and Thought (Schweitzer Library)
Albert Schweitzer - 1931
Eloquent and heartfelt."-- "Los Angeles Times"Of the many highly esteemed books Albert Schweitzer penned in his life, he valued his autobiography the most. He had become a legend and he wanted to remind readers that he was just a man, and a man who had learned from many others. He had been fortunate to be in the right places at the right times, to meet people of thought and sympathy. He wanted to report his debts to them. He wanted to clarify his reasons and methods for his undertakings and to respond to some of his critics. And, he wished to honor something greater than he was--reverence for life. Reverence for Life became his life's motto, and it brought him pain as well as joy as he sought to respect how precious and unique each life is. Schweitzer believed there was a way to live in the world, accept it, take joy from it--and who could know this better than a man who had placed himself so much in it, given so much for it, and had been ready to receive experience as a gift to be thankful for.In addition to a preface by Rhena Schweitzer Miller and Antje Bultmann Lemke, this translation incorporates revisions and additions Schweitzer made for the French translation of 1960 and those he made for thirty years in his own copy of the original German edition."This fascinating volume is the autobiography of the world-famous missionary doctor, organist, philosopher, theologian, and Nobel Peace Prize-winner, newly translated, researched, and corrected on the basis of recently discovered material."-- "Booklist""An authentic twentieth-century classic. Few books in our time have had a greater impact on the life and values of untold numbers of people."--Norman Cousins
Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis
Tim Townsend - 2014
As two of his three sons faced danger and death on the battlefield, Gerecke tended to the battered bodies and souls of wounded and dying GIs outside London. At the war’s end, when other soldiers were coming home, Gerecke was recruited for the most difficult engagement of his life: ministering to the twenty-one Nazis leaders awaiting trial at Nuremburg.Based on scrupulous research and first-hand accounts, including interviews with still-living participants and featuring sixteen pages of black-and-white photos, Mission at Nuremberg takes us inside the Nuremburg Palace of Justice, into the cells of the accused and the courtroom where they faced their crimes. As the drama leading to the court’s final judgments unfolds, Tim Townsend brings to life the developing relationship between Gerecke and Hermann Georing, Albert Speer, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and other imprisoned Nazis as they awaited trial.Powerful and harrowing, Mission at Nuremberg offers a fresh look at one most horrifying times in human history, probing difficult spiritual and ethical issues that continue to hold meaning, forcing us to confront the ultimate moral question: Are some men so evil they are beyond redemption?
In the Land of Blue Burqas
Kate McCord - 2012
I learned the rules – I had to.”
Riveting and fast paced, In the Land of Blue Burqas depicts sharing the love and truth of Christ with women living in Afghanistan, which has been called "the world's most dangerous country in which to be born a woman." These stories are honest and true. The harsh reality of their lives is not sugar-coated, and that adds to the impact of this book. Through storytelling, the author shows how people who don't know Christ come to see Him, His truth, and His beauty. The stories provide insight into how a Jesus-follower brought Jesus' teachings of the Kingdom of God to Afghanistan. They reveal the splendor of Christ, the desire of human hearts, and that precious instance where the two meet.All of the names of those involved—including Kate's—plus the locations have been changed to protect the participants.
Elizabeth & Leicester: Power, Passion, Politics
Sarah Gristwood - 2007
They shared an important commonality of experience — both with a parent dead on the headsman’s block, both imprisoned in the Tower just yards away. Within days of the death of her sister, Mary, he was at her side and within months, openly spoken of as her lover, even her future husband. Her relationship with her “bonnie sweet Robin” was one of the most important in the life of Elizabeth. For thirty years he loved her, advised her, understood her, sat by her bed in sickness, and represented her on state occasions. Yet, much of the fascination in their relationship comes from what is not on display: the sudden death — some said murder — of Leicester’s wife, which damaged his reputation irretrievably; and Elizabeth’s persistent refusal for ever afterwards to marry anybody at all.Not a conventional biography, Elizabeth & Leicester is, rather, an intimate portrait of an affair between two people at a crucial moment in history.
The Standard of Truth: 1815–1846
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - 2018
Three years later, an angel guides him to an ancient record buried in a hill near his home. With God’s help, he translates the record and organizes the Savior’s church in the latter days. Soon others join him, accepting the invitation to become Saints through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. But opposition and violence follow those who defy old traditions to embrace restored truths. The women and men who join the church must choose whether or not they will stay true to their covenants, establish Zion, and proclaim the gospel to a troubled world. The Standard of Truth is the first book in Saints, a new, four-volume narrative history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Fast-paced, meticulously researched, Saints recounts true stories of Latter-day Saints across the globe and answers the Lord’s call to write history “for the good of the church, and for the rising generations” (Doctrine and Covenants 69:8).
St. Maria Goretti: In Garments All Red
Godfrey Poage - 1950
Describes her virtuous life, poverty, holiness, valiant resistance, heroic and lingering death, conversion of her murderer and canonization in 1950 with her mother, her murderer and over 500,000 present. This is the famous, popular, classic biography! This is a good book to read to children, so they have someone worthwhile to imitate. By having Maria put before them as a model, they will learn to appreciate the virtue of purity. For a child to imitate the saints, he or she must first love them -- which in turn requires knowing them. Get your children acquainted with one of the greatest saints of the twentieth century!
Backstairs Billy: The Life of William Tallon, the Queen Mother's Most Devoted Servant
Tom Quinn - 2015
For much of his life he was driven by two demons: a powerful sex drive and an intense, almost pathological love for the Queen Mother…”
From humble beginnings as a shopkeeper’s son in Coventry to ‘Page of the Backstairs’ at Clarence House, William Tallon, or ‘Backstairs Billy’ as he came to be known, entered royal service at the age of fifteen. Over the next fifty years, he became one of the most notorious and flamboyant characters ever to have graced the royal household - the one servant the Queen Mother just could not do without. While others came and went, he remained by her side, becoming one of her most trusted friends and confidants.
The fascinating life story of the man who spent more than half a century working for one of the world’s most elusive institutions, Backstairs Billy provides a rare glimpse of what the royals really get up to behind closed doors…
Killing Jesus: A History
Bill O'Reilly - 2013
Nearly two thousand years after this beloved and controversial young revolutionary was brutally killed by Roman soldiers, more than 2.2 billion human beings attempt to follow his teachings and believe he is God. Killing Jesus will take readers inside Jesus's life, recounting the seismic political and historical events that made his death inevitable - and changed the world forever.
The Complete Illustrated Guide to the Kings & Queens of Britain: A Magnificent and Authoritative History of the Royalty of Britain - The Rulers, Their Consorts and Families, and the Pretenders to the Throne
Charles Phillips - 2006
Illustrated history ofroyalty in Britain