Essays, novels, biographies… Find the ranking of best-selling books from December 15 to 21 in La Procure bookstores. A selection of inspiring readings from books published over the past four months.
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1A LONG ROAD TO UNITE ME WITH FRENCH SINGING
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 encounters with Gide, Vercors, Lacan, Michaux, Emmanuel, Bonnefoy and so many others, François Cheng shares with us the long road that led him to become 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.
2A FEW WORDS BEFORE THE REVELATION – READING THE GOSPEL IN TIMES OF CRISIS
Deer
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 understand which are real reasons for hope: the Apocalypse of John, of course, but also the “little apocalypses” that we find 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. However, 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 deliver to us. Find it in bookstores.
3White
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.
4my son’s secret, carlo acutis
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 the young boy who dedicated his life to Christ and to the less fortunate Find it in bookstores.
5RED LILY OF THE VALLY
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.
6HISTORY OF JERUSALEM
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.
7THE HOLY SHROUD OF TURIN: WITNESS TO THE PASSION OF JESUS CHRIST
Tallandier
Summary : by Jean-Christian Petitfils, Tallandier, August 2022. In this complete synthesis, far from any polemical spirit, Jean-Christian Petitfils shows, in a clear and convincing way, that there is no longer any doubt today: the Holy Shroud of Turin is indeed authentic. Not only is the information it provides on the Passion of Christ exceptional, but the unique and puzzling characteristics of the image, which have never been reproduced identically despite all modern techniques – color inversion , three-dimensionality, orthogonal projection without lateral effect, absence of the slightest trace of decomposition of the body or tearing of blood clots – seem to introduce us to another mystery… Find it in bookstores.
8Words of honor
Fayard
Summary : by General Pierre de Villiers, Fayard, November 2022. These letters addressed to young people constitute an intellectual and moral profession of faith by this soldier, Chief of the Defense Staff from 2014 to 2017. They open a path to relearning to love France and regain hope. Find it in bookstores.
9ABOUT ALTITUDE
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.
10THE NEW MYSTERIES OF THE BIBLE
plon
Summary : collective, Plon, November 2022. Researchers, historians and scientists deliver keys to understanding twenty episodes of the Bible. From Moses collecting the Ten Commandments to the Sea of Galilee, from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, the reader follows in the footsteps of Christ through the sacred places where he stopped and witnesses the miracles he performed. Find it in bookstores.
