Pocket Guide to Sainthood
Jossey-Bass, 2009
191 pages

The saints were a lot of things. But they were never boring.

If you're like most Americans, you probably think of yourself as a religious person. That's nice. The saints were religious, too. Only their religiousness included getting martyred in horrific ways, performing miraculous healings, bleeding mystically from the hands and feet, taming wild beasts, whipping themselves bloody, caring for lepers on the streets of Calcutta, and levitating during mass. Compared to the saints, religious people in the 21st century are pretty normal.

So we can't exactly identify with the saints on that level, but we're certainly intrigued by them. Whether we're Catholics desperately needing a patron, Protestants trying to identify their cabbie's bobblehead (probably St. Fiacre), or cockeyed adventurers thinking about crossing the Irish Sea on a leaf (St. Ia), we could all use a little more information about these holy people. Hello, Pocket Guide:

1. There Should Have Been a St. Webster (A Glossary of Terms)

2. Saints You Should Know (A-F)

3. Saints You Should Know (G-Z)

4. There's a Saint for That (Patron Saints and Their Causes)

5. The Canonization Process (In 18 Simple Steps)

6. Sts. Flotsam and Jetsam (An Assortment of Lists)