The Little Book of Saints

Rating: 4 Stars

Review:

Perhaps in a past life I was Catholic - maybe even Catherine of Aragon herself, ha! - if I believed in that sort of thing, given the fact that I am actually Lutheran and we don't. But wouldn't that be kind of ironic in itself? Maybe it is precisely because I am Lutheran that saints and relics are all so fascinating to me.

This little gem is one I picked up on BookBub and I am so glad I did. It is a short volume, containing brief - very brief in some cases, when there are not a lot of hard facts to begin with - summaries of the lives of each saint and how they came to be a saint in the first place. I truly know nothing about any of the saints, I don't even know if they are all included in this text, but what I did read was very engaging and made me want to know more about the lives of many of those I read about. The unfortunate side effect is that since so many of these people lived before 1600, finding out any more information than what is contained here is quite unlikely. The search is half the fun though, isn't it?

Overall, this is a simple and sweet little volume that I breezed through quickly in terms of reading. The photos of the cards are equally as interesting, especially the details in how each saint is often depicted - usually with either an item relating to their works, or the way in which they died or were martyred. I only had a copy on my Kindle, so I'd like to have seen a hard copy to have a better look at the plates themselves larger and in color. Definitely recommended.