By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture, Sept. 13, 2021
Jeffrey Mirus holds a Ph.D. in intellectual history from Princeton University. A co-founder of Christendom College, he also pioneered Catholic Internet services. He is the founder of Trinity Communications and CatholicCulture.org.
Often what I end up reading for spiritual enrichment are the few books that come across my desk from Catholic publishers that just happen to be excellent spiritual reading for me. This was the case, for example, with the brilliant, deep and rich work on the liturgy by David Fagerberg, which I reviewed and from which I even posted a chapter (with permission) on CatholicCulture.org. But Fagerberg is not only a wordsmith and a wit but a scholar, and his book on the liturgy is not going to be the best thing for all readers.
One of the drawbacks of ending up using review copies of books for spiritual reading is that it often dramatically slows the rate at which I can skim through books to decide whether I think they are worth mentioning. …