By Catholic Review Staff
Just in time for Christmas gift lists, the latest installment of Names and Numbers features books and a CD.
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Years Viva House has been providing food and shelter to the hungry and homeless of West Baltimore. Founded by husband-and-wife team Brendan Walsh and Willa Bickham, a once seminarian and a former nun, the soup kitchen near Union Square is Baltimore’s answer to the Catholic Worker movement launched by Dorothy Day. Walsh and Bickham recount their experiences in “The Long Loneliness in Baltimore,” a collection of essays, poems, stories, parables and art reflecting on nearly 50 years of service to the city’s poorest.
“The Long Loneliness in Baltimore” is published by Loyola University Maryland’s Apprentice House Press, apprenticehouse.com.
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Athletes and coaches from the National Football League, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer who discuss integrating their deeply-held Catholic beliefs with their sporting lives in Trent Beattie’s “Fit for Heaven.” Published in 2015, the book includes a foreword by Mark Teixeira, famed first baseman and alumnus of Mount St. Joseph High School in Irvington. Teixeira is also a featured athlete in “Fit for Heaven,” along with others Baltimore readers will recognize, such as the Ravens’ John Harbaugh, Justin Tucker and Matt Birk.“Fit for Heaven” is published by Dynamic Catholic Institute, dynamiccatholic.com.
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Age of Abigail Winzer, whose debut music CD, “Rejoice,” is a Christmas-themed collection. Winzer was 4 years old when her family moved from Anne Arundel County, where it worshipped at St. Mary’s in Annapolis, to Michigan, where she is a student at Muskegon Central Catholic. A soprano, Winzer has performed on the Grand Ole Opry stage in Nashville. The album can be purchased at iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby and Google Play.4
Contributors to “Fifteen Steps Out of Darkness,” subtitled “The Way of the Cross for People on the Journey of Mental Illness” (Orbis Books), with link s to the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Al and Scott Rose are the first father-and-son in the Archdiocese of Baltimore to be ordained to the permanent diaconate. The former, a retired prison chaplain, worships at St. Ursula in Parkville and resides at Oak Crest in Parkville. The latter, a parishioner of St. Katharine Drexel, is the founder of Way Station Inc., a non-profit community mental health organization. The artwork was by Homer Yost, whose early sculptures were created for Holy Family Catholic Community in Middletown. The introduction is by Therese Borchard, a parishioner of St. Mary’s in Annapolis and former columnist for Catholic News Service.4
Though not mentioned by name in Scripture, all know the legend of Caspar, Balthazar and Melchior, whose gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh for the newborn king are heralded in carols. But what if another mage had missed the rendezvous and then spent years, searching for the source of the light? Henry Van Dyke imagines that alternative in “The Other Wise Man,” the “fourth wise man,” originally published in 1895. The narrator tells us that along the way, the fourth Magi did not find the Messiah to worship, but found many to help.
Order a copy at https://crmedia.myshopify.com/products/the-other-wise-man. For $3 off, enter the EMWISE code at checkout.
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Baltimoreans involved in writing “The Opening Act: Comedy, Life and the Desperate Pursuit of Happiness.” Larry Noto, a stand-up comic and the product of a trifecta of Catholic schools – St. Margaret School and The John Carroll School, both in Bel Air, and Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore. “The Opening Act” is about Noto’s following his dream of being a stand-up comic, but it’s also about, as the book jacket puts it, “discovering a life purpose and defining success based on that – not the judgment or perception of others.”Longtime award-winning Baltimore Sun columnist and features writer Kevin Cowherd, who left the newspaper in 2013, co-writes.
“The Opening Act” is published by Loyola University Maryland’s apprentice House Press, apprenticehouse.com.
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Saints met personally by Leonora “Peachy” Dixon, a Baltimore native and self-described “little old lady from Highlandtown.” Her latest book, “A Peachy Business,” recounts her experience as owner of Peachy & Boh’s Place, a restaurant named for herself and her father which she ran in the 1980s in northeast Baltimore. A single mother, Peachy managed to put her children through Catholic school. “A Peachy Business,” gives readers a sense of the author’s uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time, which allowed her to personally meet St. John Paul II and St. Teresa of Kolkata during their respective visits to Baltimore. “A Peachy Business” may be purchased at Sabatino’s Italian Restaurant, located at 901 Fawn St. in Baltimore.