Readers of this blog, being bookish and learned, will already know that Halloween (“holy evening”) is the Vigil of All Saints’ Day—that is, to be held the night before. On this day, Nov. 1, Catholics remember those who have gone before us. And it is a day to think about death and to remember our own mortality. Pope Gregory IV established this feast of All Saints in the year 837.
Catholics all over the world will attend Mass and celebrate with their own local cultural or family traditions, including spending time at their loved ones’ graves.
And another way to celebrate this day is with a good book, of course.
Catholic Bookshops in the Age of Amazon
How are Catholic bookshops faring these days?
I looked back at the time when Amazon was really beginning to dominate the bookselling industry. Paul Senz reported for The Catholic World Report in 2017 that Catholic bookstores were rapidly adapting to the new realities of business as Amazon dominated the bookselling market. Catholic operators were charting new territory in much the same way as other bookstores: putting inventory online, selling other products, retreats, children’s play areas, coffee shops, special events, and so on.
Breaking rules is part of the game in reinventing the industry for everyone. You can be sure that Catholic bookshop owners and staff will be doing what Amazon can’t do: reading good Catholic literature, falling in love with good books, and making tailored recommendations to their customers.
Catholic publishing houses, too, are blazing new trails. They continue to publish spiritual classics as well as new authors to nourish new generations of the faithful.
A few of America’s Catholic bookstores include:
- Catholic Book and Gift Store
- The Catholic Company (they also have an online coffee shop, which makes a lot of sense if you read this recent post by Bailey Norris!)
- OSV, a bookshop and publisher founded in 1912
- Our Lady of Grace Bookstore in Ann Arbor and online
- And a lovely place I intend to visit someday, Celtic Cove Bookstore in Oxford, Michigan, also online.
I asked a Catholic publisher and a Catholic author for some recommendations for the Halloween season.
What do Catholic Publishers and Authors Recommend for the Spooky Season?
Angelico Press is an online bookshop dedicated to making the rich tradition of Catholic intellectual and cultural life more available to families, students, and scholars.
For All Saints Day and All Hallows Eve, the publisher recommends We and Our Children: How to Make a Catholic Home by Mary Reed Newland. This book will help parents to foster their children’s spiritual life through prayer and the habits of daily living.
To gain inspiration from the Saints for All Saints’ Day, Angelico Press recommends Stories from the Lives of Catholic Holy Men and Women by Maolsheachlann Ó Ceallaigh. The tales cover a variety of themes in the lives of these holy men and women. Readers will learn about their childhoods, inspirations, and deaths, their boldness and their humility, their love of prayer, mortification, and the Eucharist, their urge to spread the Gospel, their family life, the impression they made upon others, and much more.
The Secret of the Little Flower by Henri Ghéon tells the story of a girl from a small convent in Normandy, who lived a life of complete seclusion. She was known only by a few close friends, and yet today she is a canonized saint known throughout the world.
For younger people, Saint Maximilian Kolbe: A Hero of the Holocaust by Fiorella de Maria is a new book by Catholic publishing company Ignatius Press that you won’t want to miss. It is the incredible story of Maximilian’s decision to take the place of a condemned man in Auschwitz. Here is a Saint who lived in our modern times of political unrest, social change, and spiritual warfare. But his one goal was to share the love of God.
In fact, Ignatius Press has a whole series of lives of the Saints for young people. And Fiorella de Maria has also written a novel about the horror industry, This Thing of Darkness, which is very much a Halloween read! Fiorella didn’t mention it, but I figured out that she has written many crime and mystery novels.
Fiorella in turn recommends a fantastic book for young people by her colleague Corinna Turner, The Boy Who Knew: Carlo Acutis. Daniel has been diagnosed with leukemia and all around him, adults are crumbling under the shock. He turns to his priest for help and is introduced to a boy, Carlo Acutis, who happens to be dead.
Need more ideas?
Here is a calendar of all the Saints of the Roman calendar—it’s pretty amazing.
And don’t forget to prep some food suitable for the occasion!
You can whip up some (fairly unsettling) St. Lucy cupcakes, some Bones of Eliseus, Pineapple Soul Cakes, St. Martin’s Mice, or Lion Cake. There are so many wonderful ideas and recipes on this page.
And finally, look at these adorable Saints charms from Holy Heroes. So cute!
How do you celebrate All Saints’ Day, the day after Halloween?
