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Reviews
Butler's Lives of the Saints: Concise Edition, Revised and Updated by Alban Butler, Michael J. Walsh
fallona's review against another edition
4.0
An interesting collection of short biographies of various saints, arranged so that there is one per day of the year. Of course, I didn't read it like that (I borrowed it from the library). I'm sure it would be much easier to retain more about individual saints and their stories if I did read one per day over the course of a year.
There is certainly a heavy emphasis on Western European saints, and especially those with some connection to the Anglophone world. This makes sense, given the target audience. As someone who isn't Catholic and whose (rather deficient) knowledge of church history is focused more on the Orthodox world, it was an interesting read.
From a purely entertainment perspective, which certainly isn't how this book is meant to be read, it always strikes me a little funny when it brushes over what would be the more exciting details in someone's biography--I know these aren't the point of hagiography, especially when each saint is described so briefly, but it still comes across amusing to me.
There is certainly a heavy emphasis on Western European saints, and especially those with some connection to the Anglophone world. This makes sense, given the target audience. As someone who isn't Catholic and whose (rather deficient) knowledge of church history is focused more on the Orthodox world, it was an interesting read.
From a purely entertainment perspective, which certainly isn't how this book is meant to be read, it always strikes me a little funny when it brushes over what would be the more exciting details in someone's biography--I know these aren't the point of hagiography, especially when each saint is described so briefly, but it still comes across amusing to me.
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