Pope John XXIII: 101 Facts & Trivia

By: Anura Guruge

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

A ‘Twitter-age’, bullet-point biography of the ‘Good Pope’, still the most popular pope ever (Pope Francis notwithstanding), to mark his April 27, 2014 canonization by Anura Guruge, the author of ‘The Next Pope 2011’ [which had Cardinal Bergoglio in the ‘Top 10’], ‘Popes and the Tale of their Names’, ‘The Last 10 Conclaves’ etc. He is also the publisher of the blogs ‘popes-and-papacy’ and ‘papam.wordpress.com’ where his work, especially his research and analysis of papal history has been cited on ‘Vatican Radio’ and ‘Rome Reports’. Though structured in the form of 101 ‘Q & As’ to promote a sense of interaction, this book nonetheless is a comprehensive biography, with nothing of significance overlooked or omitted, of Angelo Roncalli’s amazing life from his birth all the way to his canonization. The nine chapters that make up this book are thus headed: The Papabile, The Youth, The Priest, The Archbishop, The Nuncio, The Patriarch, The Pope, The Saint & The Sayings. Given the author’s known penchant for historical detail the biographical narrative in this book is heavy on background, context, perspective, analysis and per the title trivia. It is a book for those that have always wanted to know more about this Pope, the one that convoked Vatican II, but had felt that they did not have the time to read one of the many traditional biographies of his life. This ‘101’ book is designed for the pell-mell lifestyle of the ‘Facebook age’. It is ideally suited to be read on mobile devices, in bits and pieces, in planes, trains, coffee shops and parks. This is the author’s second ‘101’ book, the first having been the one about comets in 2013. Comments from readers indicate that they like the numbered ‘bullet point’ presentation which encourages the reader to skip around picking and choosing what they want to read. The ‘101’, however’, is a bit of a misnomer, as was the case with the comet book. There is way more than 101 items of information and trivia in this book. The best thing to do is to check it out using ‘Look Inside’. The book is likely to contain some ‘typos’ though it has been ‘proofed’ by a number of qualified folks. As many ‘typos’ will be fixed in each Kindle revision. If the ‘typos’ bother you please return the book and get a full refund – rather than complaining about it. The print and Kindle version of this book, though sharing the same text, differ in terms of page formatting and the images included – the printed version containing more images. 'Christmas 1958' which appeared as 'Christmas 1959' in Edition 1 has been fixed. 'Christmas 1930' which appeared as 'Christmas 1925' was fixed. Edition 3.0. March 22, 2014.