The Catholic Book Club discussion

It is time to vote for our March 2025 BOTM. You may vote for up to 2 of the books listed below. You should vote by adding a comment here. If you vote in any other way, your votes may not be counted.

The book(s) with the most votes will be our BOTM. If there is a tie, the moderator uses a random list generator to determine the order and they are all read over however many months. Books that receive fewer than 2 votes will be removed from the Voting List, with those that receive 1 vote being placed at the end of the Nominations List.

Voting will end at approximately 11:00 AM Eastern Time on Saturday, January 18.

The Voting List for November is:

Catatonia by Courtney Stephen Crane, nominated by Courtney
Catatonia is a penetrating examination of the idea of freedom in the 21st century. It is a spiritual and psychological drama centered around Bella Benfont, a constantly self-analysing young woman caught between her fading loyalty to her mother’s Catholicism and the new idea of freedom espoused by the monomaniacal Nicholas Shelley, the self-styled Apex of The Evolution of the Individual. It is a story of tragic intensity propelled by deeply-imagined characters brought to vivid life and an unrelenting pace that leaves readers breathless.
Voting History: NONE

Champion of Valdeor, by Sandralena Hanley, nominated by Fonch
Alloryn faces a mythical creature to win a fabled sword, is taken under the wing of a mysterious mentor, and sets out to find the lost Princess Lauressa. Her quest is to free the land from cruel rulers and the evil warlord over them all who usurped her throne. Together they search for stones of power, which they win by practicing a corresponding virtue, while facing foes and dangers from every side. During their travels they make many allies, who join with them against the tyrannical warlord in the final battle for the kingdom.
Voting History: NONE

The Eternal Woman: The Timeless Meaning of the Feminine by Gertrud von le Fort, nominated by Stef
Mary's fiat to God is the pathway to our salvation, as it is inextricably linked with the obedience unto death of Jesus her son. Like the Son's acceptance of the Cross, Mary's acceptance of her maternity symbolizes for all mankind the self-surrender to the Creator required of every human soul. Since any woman's acceptance of motherhood is likewise a yes to God, when womanhood and motherhood are properly understood and appreciated, the nature of the soul's relationship to God is revealed.
Voting History: August 2023 - 4; September 2023 - 4; November 2023 - 6; December 2023 - 6; January 2024: 3; February 2024: 5; March 2024: 3; March 2024: 2; June 2024: 2; August 2024: 3; October 2024: 4; November 2024: 4

Exogenesis by Peco Gaskovski, nominated by Steven R.
Out of the collapse of Old America rises Lantua, a glittering thousand-mile metropolis where drones patrol the sky and AI algorithms reward social behavior. The most compliant citizens enjoy the greatest privileges, the poorest struggle to rise up the echelon system, and criminals are subjected to brain modification. Birthing and genetic quality are controlled through mass embryonic selection, with fetuses grown outside the body in artificial wombs—a technology known as exogenesis. But rebellion is brewing.
Voting History: August 2024: 2; October 2024: 4; November 2024: 5

The Mango Murders, by Mara Campos, nominated by Madeleine
All is not what it seems in Old San Juan, in the Pio Nono home for boys, in the life of the island's most famous artist, or in the memories of his models. Detective Sergeant Julio Ramos and gringo FBI agent Steve Halloran work in uneasy alliance to catch a serial killer with a penchant for mangoes and a need to avenge lost love and innocence lost to corrupt priests. A shadowy puppet master lies behind it all. To come to truth, the investigators have to face their own painful issues, and even their targets must choose between light or darkness. In language, memory, race, and blood, the novel tells the story of the burden and the promise of recovered identity.
Voting History: November 2024: 2

The Purple Robe, David Dean, nominated by David
Rumors rising out of the Yucatan jungle report healings and miracles attributed to a holy relic. Father Pablo Diego Corellas discovers that even his own parishioners are making secret pilgrimages to the decrepit plantation where it is held. There, Doña Josefa, a mysterious woman who is either mystic or mad, possesses an artifact that she claims is a fragment of the robe worn by Christ at his trial. Guarded by armed Mayan farmers, she holds sway over an ever-growing number of pilgrims desperate for the healing power of the Purple Robe.
Voting History: NONE

The Queen's Tragedy by Robert Hugh Benson, nominated by Fonch
In The Queen's Tragedy, Benson tells the story of Mary Tudor "as honestly as I can."
Voting History: October 2024: 5; November 2024: 3

The Resurrection of the Son of God, by N.T. Wright, nominated by Frances
Why did Christianity begin, and why did it take the shape it did? To answer this question – which any historian must face – renowned New Testament scholar N.T. Wright focuses on the key points: what precisely happened at Easter? What did the early Christians mean when they said that Jesus of Nazareth had been raised from the dead? What can be said today about his belief?
This book, third in Wright’s series Christian Origins and the Question of God, sketches a map of ancient beliefs about life after death, in both the Greco-Roman and Jewish worlds. It then highlights the fact that the early Christians’ belief about the afterlife belonged firmly on the Jewish spectrum, while introducing several new mutations and sharper definitions. This, together with other features of early Christianity, forces the historian to read the Easter narratives in the gospels, not simply as late rationalizations of early Christian spirituality, but as accounts of two actual events: the empty tomb of Jesus and his "appearances."
Voting History: October 2024: 8; November 2024: 5

The Rifle, and Other Stories by Tomás Carrasquilla, nominated by Steven R.
The Rifle, and Other Stories collects eleven stories spanning the literary career of Tomás Carrasquilla, the "first Colombian novelist", whose work is widely known within the country, and a high-school standard in the department of Antioquia, home to the city of Medellín. His novels and short stories straddle the traditional stylings of Costumbrismo and an anti-Modernist, picaresque realism, with a consistent focus on manifestations of Catholicism in both domestic and communal spheres. The stories collected here reveal a striking attention to preserving everyday and festive details of life in and around Medellín during its shift from haphazard ruralism to worldly urbanism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Voting History: October 2024: 2; November 2024: 4

Sex and the Unreal City: The Demolition of the Western Mind, by Anthony M. Esolen, nominated by John
Unreal City: a zany cartoon megalopolis where towers are built of cotton candy, facts scatter like pixie dust, and the truth is whatever you feel it to be.
And it's no fantasy. It's where we live. "We dwell in Unreal City. We believe in un-being."
Voting History: July 2024: 2; October 2024: 2; November 2024: 3

Sonnets for Christ the King, J.C.MacKenzie, Joseph
The seventy-seven Sonnets for Christ the King form a lyrical sequence around the traditional themes of love, death, and the passage of time, but within the context of a divinely ordered cosmos. Referred to by top New York poetry editor and critic Dr. Joseph Salemi as ''a liturgically mediated conversation with God,'' the sequence is both extremely varied and perfectly contained. In addition to love poems, Salemi observes that there are also ''prayers, meditations, devout recollections of individual saints, scriptural and liturgical reminiscences, and even doctrinal argument...Indeed, the last fourteen sonnets in the sequence are meditative disquisitions on the Stations of the Cross.''
Voting History: NONE

This Is Your Last Warning: An Authoritative End of Days Timeline by Donna Silveira, nominated by Donna
This is a book that examines purported Marian apparitions and mystic visions where the messages discuss future events, scrutinizing them for their reliability. Using guidelines given by the Church in discerning valid from invalid apparitions, the book discusses the reasons some prophecies are invalid. The apparitions and prophecies from mystic visions which are highly reliable are then taken to form a timeline of the events we can expect to see if mankind does not turn back to God. The timeline spans from today, and some of the craziness we see in our world today, through an era of peace, and ultimately to the antichrist and Christ's return on the last day.
Voting History: NONE

Vipers' Tangle by François Mauriac, nominated by Susan
Vipers’ Tangle tells the story of Monsieur Louis, an embittered aging lawyer who has spread his misery to his entire estranged family. Louis writes a journal to explain to them—and to himself—why his soul has been deformed, why his heart seems like a foul nest of twisted serpents. Mauriac’s novel masterfully explores the corruption caused by pride, avarice, and hatred, and its opposite—the divine grace that remains available to each of us until the very moment of our deaths.
Voting History: March 2024: 3; March 2024: 3; June 2024: 3; August 2024: 2; October 2024: 3; November 2024: 4

War Demons, by Russell S. Newquist, nominated by Fonch
Driven by vengeance, Michael Alexander enlisted in the Army the day after 9/11. Five years later, disillusioned and broken by the horrors he witnessed in Afghanistan, Michael returns home to Georgia seeking to begin a new life. But he didn't come alone. Something evil followed him, and it's leaving a path of destruction in its wake. The police are powerless. The Army has written Michael off. Left to face down a malevolent creature first encountered in the mountains of Afghanistan, he’ll rely on his training, a homeless prophet, and estranged family members from a love lost… But none of them expected the dragon.
Voting History: NONE

With Two Eyes Into Gehenna, by Jane Lebak, nominated by Steven R.
Rome, 1562. It’s the era of the Index of Banned Books and the Roman Inquisition. Kings still burn heretics. The worst threats come from within the Church itself. Only seventeen, Magdalena killed a priest who tried to rape her within the walls of her convent. His powerful family will see her executed, and then they’ll destroy her mother and young sister. Instead, the pope makes an offer. To save her life and protect her family, Magdalena can disappear into a secret religious order, one with a demanding physical regimen to go along with the prayers. She’ll pray the psalms and learn to climb walls. She’ll sharpen her mind and fine-tune her body. Perfected, she’ll infiltrate the Council of Trent.
Voting History: NONE

Dilexit nos - He loved us: Encyclical letter about the human and divine love of the Heart of Jesus-Christ by Pope Francis, nominated by Manuel, from the Current Interest List

Champion of Valdeor and The Mango Murders.

Sex and the Unreal City

I vote for "Champion of Valdeor", by Sandralena Hanley and Sex and the Unreal City: The Demolition of the Western Mind, by Anthony M. Esolen

With two eyes into Gehenna

The eternal woman

Exogenesis by Peco Gaskovski
The Rifle, and Other Stories by Tomás Carrasquilla

The purple robe
War demons

The Eternal Woman or Sex and the Unreal City

Sonnets for Christ the King
Viper's tangle

"Champion of Valdeor" and "Viper's Tangle"

War Demons, Russell S. Newquist

Catatonia

The Eternal Woman

The Eternal Woman
The Purple Robe

The Queen's Tragedy, The Eternal Woman

The Mango Murders and Two Eyes Into Gehenna

Champion of Valdeor
The Resurrection of the Son of God

DIlexit Nos

Catatonia
The Purple Robe

This is your Last Warning
With two eyes into Gehenna

Voting is closed. Results are here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...