In preparation for a couple of book projects, I'm reading up on prayer and parables. I just wrote a review article of Richard McBrien's (and his graduate assistant's, we can trust) latest, Lives of the Saints , which I will post here after it's published. I also read a new biography of Hildegard of Bingen by Fiona Maddocks which was quite good, but I didn't have room to include it in that review article. On the pleasure side of things, this weekend I'll be reading Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks. Still waiting for my copy of The Corrections, though.