Books: the apostolic letter of Francis directly at the top of sales

Essays, novels, biographies… Find the ranking of best-selling books from December 30, 2022 to January 5, 2023 in La Procure bookstores. A strong increase in sales of books related to Benedict XVI since his death has also been noted. A selection of inspiring readings from books published over the past four months.

1ALL IS IN LOVE – TOTUM AMORIS EST

Stag

Summary : by François, Cerf, December 2022. 400 years ago, in an era like ours ravaged by wars and divisions, Saint Francis de Sales died in Lyons at the end of a life entirely devoted to prayer, charity and the proclamation of the Gospel. Through his preaching and his writings, he turned spiritual life upside down by reminding Christians that God is a “God of the human heart”. It is this revolution that Pope Francis describes in this brief apostolic letter, a revolution that remains fruitful for the 21st century. Find it in bookstores.

Pope Francis

2A LONG ROAD TO UNITE ME WITH FRENCH SINGING

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Albin Michael

Albin Michael

Summary : by François Cheng, Albin Michel, October 2022. “It was at the age of fifteen that singing awakened in me. I opened up to poetry and entered, as if by breaking and entering, into the path of creation…” Since his first essay on water and thirst – the only witness to his Chinese adolescence that he took to France and of which he today delivers the translation to us – passing through his meetings with Gide, Vercors, Lacan, Michaux, Emmanuel, Bonnefoy and so many others, François Cheng shares with us the long road which led him to become, him the exile who could not say “hello” or “thank you” when he arrived in Paris, a French poet. This road, despite the horrors of the war in China, the extreme material precariousness of the first decades in France, and cruel interior torments, but is always enlightened by the French poetry that he internalizes in the depths of his solitary night. Find it in bookstores.

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3A FEW WORDS BEFORE THE REVELATION – READING THE GOSPEL IN TIMES OF CRISIS

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Stag

Summary :by Adrien Candiard, Cerf, September 2022. We have never talked so much about disasters as today: climate, pandemic, war… Should we fear the end of time? But this is perhaps only a stage and then towards what? Fr. Candiard wanted to examine the texts of the New Testament which speak of all this. The apocalypse is for tomorrow and we feel helpless. However, the New Testament already evokes these disturbing signs… while providing keys to understanding which are real reasons for hope: the Apocalypse of John, of course, but also the “little apocalypses” found in the gospels. Only, these texts, we rarely refer to them, as if we didn’t see them. Or else they have been historicized or spiritualized: in short, they have been made to lose their force. Nevertheless, Jesus spoke well of “the end of time”. And when he mentions the “eschaton”, we must take him seriously. Not to look for correspondences for today, as if it were Nostradamus, but to dig into the meaning of the history that these texts give us. Find it in bookstores.

4HISTORY OF JERUSALEM

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The arenas

Summary : by Vincent Lemire and Christophe Gaultier, Les Arènes, October 2022. In 10 chapters, actors and witnesses, famous or anonymous, all those who have surveyed Jerusalem over the centuries recount this mille-feuille of composite influences. Nothing is invented: scenes and dialogues come from more than 200 published sources and unpublished archives, to give substance to this choral narrative. Find it in bookstores.

5WHITE

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Gallimard

Summary : by Sylvain Tesson, Gallimard, October 2022. From 2018 to 2021, each March, Sylvain Tesson, in the company of a high mountain guide, skis up the entire chain of the Alps through the peaks, from Menton to Trieste, covering 1,600 kilometers in the snow. He delivers the story of this human adventure, during which he makes surprising encounters, as well as his meditations on these totally white landscapes. Find it in bookstores.

6ABOUT ALTITUDE

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Albin Michael

Summary : by François Cassingena-Trévedy, Albin Michel, November 2022. Collection of aphorisms and meditations of this hermit monk living in Cantal, whose spirituality associates erudition with the great Christian tradition, with a freedom of tone allowing him to distance himself from the Catholic institution. Find it in bookstores.

7THE SECRET OF MY SON, CARLO ACUTIS: HOW HE BECAME A SAINT

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Artege

Summary : by Antonia Salzano Acutis, Artège, October 2022. Testimony of the mother of Carlo Acutis, who died in 2006 and was beatified by the Catholic Church in 2020, which traces the journey of her son and reviews the strength of his faith as well as the popular enthusiasm, especially among young people, around of his son. Find it in bookstores.

peregrynacja relikwii bł.  Carlo Acutisa w Warszawie

8RED LILY OF THE VALLEY

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Gallimard

Summary : by Christian Bobin, Gallimard, October 2022. “My dead father shows me two sprigs of red lily of the valley. He tells me that a young man there, in a mountain in the Jura, invented this lily of the valley and plans to spread it on the world. He invites me to go see him. The man runs an inn by a lake. I eat an omelet there, drink straw wine. When I talk to him about the flowers, my host leads me over a sloping meadow: dozens of freshly sprouted red lilies are preparing to set the plain on fire. I go back to my father, ask him who this man is. He replies that it’s a part of his family that he had never spoken to me about before. Go see them, he told me, learn to recognize them. Christian Bobin occupies a unique place in the French literary landscape: this writer, both poet and essayist, puts his Christian faith at the heart of his work. Find it in bookstores.

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9The adventure of growing old

the adventure of growing old

Robert Laffont / Versilio

Summary : by Marie de Hennezel, Robert Laffont, Versilio, November 2022. The author explores the relationship to time, to age and is interested in the experience of aging. According to her, this experience should not be experienced as a decline but as a continuity. Find it in bookstores.

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10In Praise of a Warrior: Therese of Lisieux

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Summary :by Jean de Saint-Cheron, Grasset, January 2023. A biographical essay dedicated to Thérèse of Lisieux, in which the author likens the saint to a warrior. It retraces his childhood, the death of his mother, his conversion at the age of 13, his martial training and his entry into the Carmel. Find it in bookstores.

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Books: the apostolic letter of Francis directly at the top of sales