I've heard Mary Beard is good on Rome

She has written S.P.Q.R. which is a general history of Rome

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

Pick it up unabridged, waste a month of sleepless nights like a real man

Alrighty

Thanks

I’ll give those a look

Roman Honor by Carlin Barton is pretty good. Brett Mckay recommended it before and I like it so far.

Sick

Thanks man

I’ll add that to the list

Unrelated but Chronicles of Narnia turns out to be a good book series when learning a language

I know just basic conversational level Polish but I'm managing to read the Polish translation without too much difficulty

I'm bummed out on how Chronicles of Narnia were overshadowed by other fantasy novels

Yeah they are great

It probably helps that I've already read them all in English too

Also helps it's a children's book. <:ohyou1:569618054472794148>

@Marcus

>polish
lmao

@Wrath ?

@Based Chav yeah exactly, it's just that you have to find the right kind of children's book that's still interesting to read, which is otherwise pretty difficult

Narnia is too allegorical for its own good as far as mass appeal goes, Tolkien had a point. That's why LotR is a fantasy staple that basically everything else apes from, while Narnia is relegated to Christian bookstores and homeschool discussion groups.

Not to say they're bad books by any means, but broader Christian fiction condemns Christian fiction as a whole.

They were pretty good

I liked the movies too

@SUPER MALE VITALITY™ what about the space trilogy?

Same issue I'd say, but worse because sci-fi fans are even less forgiving of allegory than fantasy. I had a lot more fun with those personally, as I read them fresh off binging all the Foundation books, but it's not a mindset typical of sci-fi. They're good books, but I think Lewis made a better apologist than an author.

@Marcus

My family’s friend priest is going to get me a latin missal :DDDD sineb

A fancy one?

Unsure, he teaches at seminary near Mexico City (or a rectory, unsure) and there's a library in there full of these good books

I found a lutheran set of those a while back, I prefer prayer books though. Tend to have more character to them for the sake of preservation

Most decent missals have dozens of prayers aside from those of the Mass.

My missal has a prayer for just about everything.

The next step is to create and write down your own prayers

I have a select few.

Yeah, the seperation tends to capture more personal devotions though. I found a pre-V2 prayer book filled with notes and markers a while back, gave it to my girlfriend's mom for Christmas after she got diagnosed with cancer. She told me she was following the notes and that she never knew most of the prayers even existed, and she's taken it everywhere since she started chemo. Turned out to be a real trasure.

A friend of my mother healed from phase 4 cancer thanks to the constant prayers if it helps

It's pretty bad right now, but I'm not afraid for her, I know where she's headed, I'm just worried about the rest of the family. Cancer's a bitch. Praying first for comfort, then for healing

Let us hope that, if the worst happens, God will give the family the strength that they need

This should be relevant: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1904.htm

Indeed. But it is rather frivolous to be 100% sure of somebody's salvation. So it is always prudent to pray that God will have mercy on their soul, even for the holiest priest or most devout nun.

> be me
> every modern movie is trash
> stuck watching old movies
> I'll just read a book then
> start reading a book about German history (Memories of a Nation by Neil MacGregor)
> it's pretty good, wonder who's the author
> he's gay
> drop it and pick up a really dry history book that just states fact after fact (Germany: A History, by Francis Russell)
> at least this won't have an agenda
> read it for a while
> it's pretty dry
> fine, how about a historical novel, that will be fun
> pick up one about a church builder in medieval england (The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett)
> sounds wholesome
> the church builder's family is starving in the woods, his wife dies in childbirth, he leaves the baby to die of exposure, his kids had to watch the whole thing, a girl he has a crush on happens to show up, and he has explicit sex with her next to his sleeping kids
> mfw