Rating: 
Summary: This book disappoints
Review: On the rave reviews above, I made the mistake of buying this book thinking it could inspire me too. Despite all the talk, this book is NOT inclusive. There is no profile of anyone traditional in their faith, no Max Kolbe (who gave his life to save that of a Jew in Auschwitz), no Bernadette of Lourdes, no Blessed Kateri. But we do get Galileo, who in his spiritual life was sincere but not inspiring. He's included because he's a victim of the evil represented by the traditional Church. The author goes out of his way to stress his perceived narrowmindedness of the church. His bits on Biblical figures are very weak. I am surprised to find Stalin was not in this book. On the whole the thing reads like the manifesto of someone with a particular agenda and is tiresome beyond its trivial biographical detail.
Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful gift for any Christian friend
Review: Since the folks featured in this book are not exclusively Catholic (in some cases they are not even Christian) this is not what you would call a classical 'Book of the Saints', rather it is the author's own choices of those people whose lives he believes are worth studying and celebrating. No, it's not orthodox, (and it's a little heavy on Jesuits and socialists for my taste) but I have the excellent book, 'Voices of the Saints;a Year of Readings' by Bert Ghezzi' to satisfy that requirement. Loving Orthodoxy doesn't mean one must banish everything else from the bookshelves, and if I didn't have this book, I wouldn't know about one of my new heroes, the remarkable Catholic doctor Takashi Nagai, the Mystic of Nagasaki. And there are plenty of the usual 'Catholic' suspects - in fact I would say they predominate! This is well-worth owning, and yes an excellent gift for any Christian friend or even a 'tolerant' non-Christian one. Good for teens, too.
Rating:
Summary: An eclectic collection of inspired lives.
Review: This book does an admirable job of telling the inspired stories of a wide-variety of Catholic (e.g. Dorothy Day, Romero, etc.) and non-Catholic (e.g. Camus, Gandhi, etc.) "saints" and heroes. He presents them as individual meditations of 2 or 3 pages. The scope is extraordinary and generally balanced, though certainly centered around the central figures of Catholicism. Perhaps out of respect, on occasion he shys away from acknowledging debate or controversy around a figure. He takes it pretty easy on Thomas Merton, for example, by failing to acknowledge his possible suicide or some of the details of his alleged affair. In a world near-saturated with tabloid trash, this would be refreshing if it did not also detract from the fallibility and humanity of the characters he presents. The book, nevertheless, is far from a hagiography and well-worth a place on the nightstand of those of any faith.
Rating:
Summary: An eclectic collection of inspired lives.
Review: This book does an admirable job of telling the inspired stories of a wide-variety of Catholic (e.g. Dorothy Day, Romero, etc.) and non-Catholic (e.g. Camus, Gandhi, etc.) "saints" and heroes. He presents them as individual meditations of 2 or 3 pages. The scope is extraordinary and generally balanced, though certainly centered around the central figures of Catholicism. Perhaps out of respect, on occasion he shys away from acknowledging debate or controversy around a figure. He takes it pretty easy on Thomas Merton, for example, by failing to acknowledge his possible suicide or some of the details of his alleged affair. In a world near-saturated with tabloid trash, this would be refreshing if it did not also detract from the fallibility and humanity of the characters he presents. The book, nevertheless, is far from a hagiography and well-worth a place on the nightstand of those of any faith.
Rating: 
Summary: I am buying copies to give to friends. It is low-priced.
Review: This is a masterpiece and unique of its kind. William Blake? (August 12) Flannery O'Connor? (August 3) Mary, Mother of Jesus (January 1). There are 365 of them and the vignettes are thoroughly researched. Ellsberg writes like an angel. Cheez, where has this Ellsberg been all my life? This is a "vade-mecum" if there ever was one. I can't wait to see it every morning. In his Frontispiece, he quotes Thomas Merton (December 10), "There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun." Robert Ellsberg has sure got me looking.
Rating:
Summary: Lives of the Saints for a New Generation
Review: This is a wonderful book which I have already read through many times--and each time discover something new and wonderful and insightful. The author presents profiles, one for each day of the year, of saints and holy people, but not just the traditional ones! So you have not only the old favorites (St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Therese of Lisieux), but also some welcome surprises (Gandhi, Dorothy Day, and even Mozart!). Taken as a whole, this book is a beautiful meditation on the notion of sanctity and reminds us that all of us are called--in our own way, in our own lives, and in our own times--to become saints. It's just a great book!
Rating:
Summary: SAINTS AND MORE
Review: THIS IS NOT LIKE READING THE MARTYROLOGY IN LATIN. IT IS A WELL RESEARCHED AND THOUGHTFULLY WRITTEN BIOGRAPHY OF NOT ONLY WELL KNOWN SAINTS, BUT THOSE SAINTLY PEOPLE WHO ARE INSPIRATIONAL. THE DAILY READING ARRANGEMENT MAKE IT A GREAT BED SIDE BOOK.
Rating: 
Summary: A Rich compendium of Spiritual Giants
Review: This valuable book provides short biographies of 365 men and women who should be models for our lives. They belong to diffenernt faiths, continents and centuries. The word 'saint' for some may refer to the martyrs and mystics of the traditional religions. But for Robert Ellsberg it refers to those men and women of moral strength and spiritual vision irrespective of their faith. However, he is not prejudiced against the traditional saints of the Church. It is fascinating to see the iconographic depiction of Mahatma Gandhi with Julian of Norwich. The bigraphies and quotes intented for each day of the year provide healthy spiritual inspiration and reflection and the whole book helps to correct our idea of sainthood.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing book!
Review: We are all called to be saints, regardless of the religion we profess. To serve God is to serve one another - there is no other way. Robert Ellsberg shows that there are as many roads to sainthood as there are people who love God. The people profiled here come from all faiths, ages, occupations, nations. Some are mystical, some mythical, some famous and others obscure, some are remarkable and others more ordinary. They are all, as are we, revelations of God's love and presence in our world, yesterday, today, and forever. This book is Ellsberg's gift for all of us looking to serve God in our day to day lives; it's wonderful to read first thing in the morning if one is given to morning prayer. It could also hold the interest of those among us less interested in the formalities and dogmas of established religions and yet drawn to spirituality and advocacy in the world. Noteworthy are the icons by Robert Lentz - I wish they graced more than just the cover of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Combines the best of the traditional with the new
Review: When you hear lives of the saints you think of the gruesome martyrdom and hard to believe virtues of the stories of the little red book from your youth. Ellsberg does a good job portraying in believeable terms the lives of the traditional saints, with those of not official saints of today. The relevance of their situations and heroism can set an example for those living in the modern world. Since no biograghy is more than 2 pages, its a great 1 minute exercise at the start of your day when an inspiring thought can help
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