Rating: 
Summary: Innovative, inspiring guide to saintly lives
Review: While one could fill a bookcase with one-volume guides to the saints, this new publication both takes a refreshing, innovative approach in its choice of spiritual models and sets new standards of such writing. Over one or two of the book's large-format pages, Robert Ellsberg presents each of his 365 insightful portraits of men and women who present inspiring and challenging role models for today's Christian. His selection puts individuals traditionally celebrated as saints alongside others also recognized today as spiritual giants, including some from non-Christian faiths.The profiles are presented one per day, often on their official feast days, if this applies. At the end of each entry, Ellsberg provides one or two well-chosen suggestions for further reading. An index makes the book a useful reference, in addition to it being rich spiritual reading. The merits of 'All Saints' were well captured by Henri Nouwen when he commented on a draft version of the book prior to his death (Nouwen himself receives an entry in the finished book): 'This book is a great treasure. Though not pious it is spiritually evocative; though untraditional, it is consistent with the larger Catholic tradition. While broadening the traditional vision of sanctity it calls us to explore our own ways of becoming a saint. I consider Robert Ellsberg to be one of the most significant spiritual writers in the United States, and this book puts him right into the center of contemporary spiritual literature.' Ellsberg is editor-in-chief of Orbis Books and has written and edited a number of award-winning books, including works on Dorothy Day and Mahatma Gandhi. In 'All Saints' he has produced a compendium of holy lives that will truly speak to and inspire today's women and men. [A Selection of the John Garratt Catholic Book Club.]
| 
