Ah, the joy of discovery. This past Monday I was in Portland, Oregon, and had the opportunity to visit, for the final time, the Pilgrim Discount bookstore, one of the better Evangelical bookstores I've ever frequented. I first discovered it not long after moving to Portland back in 1991, and was impressed by the amount of "heavy stuff" being sold there—that is, serious works of theology, apologetics, etc. Even after becoming Catholic I would drop in once or twice a year, usually coming away with several good finds, especially books on apologetics and Scripture.
After nearly thirty years of business, Pilgrim Discount is closing its doors, no longer able to compete with the internet and the more slick-heavy and substance-free bookstores that keep their doors open, it seems, by selling a lot of books by Joel Osteen and "Bishop" T.D. Jakes.
I bought about $120 worth of books (regular price) for $24. But here's the best part: the store has long had a section with books about cults and other religions, which included an assortment of anti-Catholic texts (the "mud" referred to above), ranging from the well-known (Boettner's Roman Catholicism) to the very obscure. I glanced at the section in passing—after all, I have two or three shelves of anti-Catholic stuff, so I'm good, as they say—and noticed a name: Nichols.
Then I saw the title: Rome and the Eastern Churches: A Study in Schism. Sure enough, it was by Aidan Nichols, O.P., the great English Dominican theologian, and it is a book that is hard to find and quite spendy to buy used, costing anywhere from $99 to $280. How about that: finding an excellent book on Catholic-Orthodox ecumenism in the anti-Catholic section of a Protestant bookstore.
My price, after the additional 60% off: $3.60.
For those who are curious about Fr. Nichols' thoughts on Eastern Orthodoxy, his 1995 essay, "A Catholic View of Orthodoxy," can be accessed on the Christendom Awake website.
Fr. Nichols has written many excellent books, including a few published or sold by by Ignatius Press:
• Lovely Like Jerusalem: The Fulfillment of the Old Testament in Christ and the Church
• Looking at the Liturgy: A Critical View of its Contemporary Reform
• Hopkins: Theologian's Poet
And here are some excerpts and an interview:
• The Pattern of Revelation: A Contentious Issue | Aidan Nichols, O.P. | From Lovely Like Jerusalem: The Fulfillment of the Old Testament in Christ and the Church
• Going Deeper Into the Old Testament: An Interview with Aidan Nichols, O.P. | The renowned English theologian, author of Lovely Like Jerusalem, reflects on the importance of the Old Testament.
• Abbot Vonier and the Christian Sacrifice | Aidan Nichols, O.P. | This introduction to Abbot Vonier's A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist, provides a biographical sketch of "the most gifted dogmatic theologian writing--and preaching--in England during the inter-War years."
Finally, I just noticed that Fr. Nichols dedicated Rome and the Eastern Churches to "the honoured memory of Adrian Fortescue (1874-1923), priest, Orientalist, liturgist, luminary of the English Catholic Church." In the past year Ignatius Press has republished two of Fr. Fortescue's books: The Greek Fathers: Their Lives and Writings and The Early Papacy to the Synod of Chalcedon in 451.
i luv deals like that. congrats.
btw, some of my happiest memories are of finding treasures in dusty bookstores, and i buy hundreds, occasionally more than a thousand, dollars worth of books every year. 99% of those purchases are on the Net, and 95% of those buys are NOT at the expense of patronizing a book store that I could not have gotten to anyway. changing times.
Posted by: Ed Peters | Wednesday, June 04, 2008 at 10:04 AM
That "Rome and the Eastern Churches: A Study in Schism" sounds interesting. Maybe Ignatius Press should look into publishing it if it's currently so hard to find :)
Posted by: m | Wednesday, June 04, 2008 at 12:48 PM
m: Ignatius Press is in the process of publishing a revised, updated edition.
Posted by: Mark Brumley | Wednesday, June 04, 2008 at 02:25 PM
Ah, the pearl grows! And to think that I could have saved myself $3.60 if I'd known this sooner... ;-)
Posted by: Carl E. Olson | Wednesday, June 04, 2008 at 02:32 PM
Awesome news! What makes this book so good in terms of a historical / theological study? If it's so hard to find now, I'm glad that Ignatius Press will be reprinting it.
Posted by: Telemachus | Monday, June 09, 2008 at 01:01 PM