I received The Third Miracle: An Ordinary Man, a Medical Mystery, and a Trial of Faith through the first-read program on GoodReads and wasn’t sure of quite what to expect.

Though I grew up in the Catholic church, I don’t consider myself a person of faith. I was initially concerned that this book, which is so intertwined with Catholic doctrine, would be chock full of eye-roll inducing leaps in logic. Luckily, that wasn’t the case at all.

The main plot of the book revolves around one community’s quest to have a local nun recognized as a saint. The author did a superb job of mixing the story with the appropriate amount of background. It got extremely in depth – but not so much as to leave the reader confused. I found myself completely captivated and intrigued with the process of having a person canonized.

I finished the book feeling as though I’d learned a lot about something I didn’t even know I’d wanted to know about – and I enjoyed the process of getting there. It takes a special kind of writer to make this material both accessible and enjoyable and it is apparent that Bill Briggs is exactly that kind of writer.

Currently reading: You Shall Know Our Velocity! – Dave Eggers & Hardball: A Season in the Projects – Daniel Coyle