Third Testament

Rating:
Summary: The Third Testament
Review: AN AMAZING BOOK! I picked this book up randomly. It was in a forgotten RELIGIOUS section of a city library. Malcolm takes scattered history and complicated theology and reveals what it simply looked like in the lives of these great leaders. Definitely food for the heart and the soul!

Rating:
Summary: The Third Testament
Review: AN AMAZING BOOK! I picked this book up randomly. It was in a forgotten RELIGIOUS section of a city library. Malcolm takes scattered history and complicated theology and reveals what it simply looked like in the lives of these great leaders. Definitely food for the heart and the soul!

Rating:
Summary: A Fourth Testament
Review: If you haven't read Malcom Muggeridge, don't give up yet--you may yet do so. Should that happy event occur, you may end up as puzzled as I am that most of Malcom Muggeridge is out of print. A Third Testament, for instance was the accompanying book for a series of films/TV shows written and narrated by Mr. M.M.. You'd think since Little, Brown published the book, and it was owned by Time-Life, which also owned the shows, that ads would be popping up on late night TV for the whole Time-Life Muggeridge collection. Think again. Or you'd think that since Collins Books (now part of HarperCollins) brought out the two volumes of his autobiography, The Chronicles of Wasted Time, to rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic, that someone might trouble to keep them in print. Think again again.

The reason must be that the author's life was too dull, his writing style too lifeless and dry, his testament (whatever that is) prescribed bedtime reading for insomniacs. His titles notably absent from the bestseller list, he would understandably not be a household name. One wouldn't recognize him as a former editor of the British humour magazine, Punch, or as a player on the BBC's send-up of the news, That Was the Week That Was. But that would explain why his books are so side-splittingly funny. One also wouldn't know that he did the first BBC interview with Mother Teresa, and was profoundly moved by her life, an inspiration evident in A Third Testament. That would explain why his books are so profound. Nor would one know of the awakening in his soul that led him to tirelessly denounce the idiocy of modern life even as Malcom and his wife, Kitty, simplified their own lives to follow a different drummer. That would explain why this book by a late convert to the Catholic Church was reprinted by Plough Publishing and praised by readers of all spiritual stripes. But nothing can explain why these Muggeridge books are all out of print, or keep readers who have tasted one from tracking down them all.

Rating:
Summary: A humble, honest and beautiful work
Review: Muggeridge has created in this book and in the accompanying video series a humble, honest, and beautiful work of simple yet deeply compelling biography. By focusing on the spiritual journeys of six/seven essential figures (in the video series he covers Augustine, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Blake, Tolstoy, and Boenhoffer, and in the book he adds to this group Dostoyevsky) Muggeridge discovers certain necessities of the spiritual life and illuminates them and brings them into focus. Both the book and the video series are essential to any library collection of contemporary religious thought.

Someone must bring these back into print!

Rating:
Summary: A humble, honest and beautiful work
Review: Muggeridge has created in this book and in the accompanying video series a humble, honest, and beautiful work of simple yet deeply compelling biography. By focusing on the spiritual journeys of six/seven essential figures (in the video series he covers Augustine, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Blake, Tolstoy, and Boenhoffer, and in the book he adds to this group Dostoyevsky) Muggeridge discovers certain necessities of the spiritual life and illuminates them and brings them into focus. Both the book and the video series are essential to any library collection of contemporary religious thought.

Someone must bring these back into print!

Rating:
Summary: Solid Thumbnails of Muggeridge's Spiritual All-Stars
Review: This book is a series of brief biographies on several writers who Malcom Muggeridge considers to be essentially prophets. The biography is focused on the spiritual aspects of the writer, and provides a context, history of conversion and ever changing relationship with God, and reports major decisions each man made. Muggeridge doesn't really separate himself from his writing; often he puts his opinions in with the biography "I think...", which is unique.

It is based off of a TV series and isn't especially detailed on any one particular man. Sometimes the writing seemed a little discombobulated or rushed, for example the first mention of Tolstoy's wife just introduces her as "Sonya... didn't like such and such", which gave me the feeling that I missed something. Overall the book read well; it wasn't hard to read, but I had a good feel for each person I read about. It was never monotonous or boring, and clearly written by an intelligent man.