St. Thomas Aquinas by G.K. Chesterton

This book was another from the cruise, and although it's fairly short it's not exactly a quick read. I'd been looking forward to reading it for several years, ever since I discovered that one of my favorite authors wrote matching biographies of possibly my two favorite saints: St. Francis and St. Thomas Aquinas. It seemed like a perfect combination, but I've got to admit that the book didn't quite live up to my expectations.

The disappointment was partially my own fault; Chesterton assumed that his readers have a basic knowledge of Greek philosophy and the early church controversies/heresies, and I don't really know Aristotle from Plato, much less have any idea what the Manicheans tried to preach. This may not have been a huge problem if I'd been reading at home, where a full background would have been a google or two away, but for travel reading it meant that a lot of the book went over my head. The other difficulty was that Chesterton's biography of St. Francis was apparently the first one written, and required reading before starting on St. Thomas. The two biographies must be more heavily linked than I assumed at first, because Chesterton was constantly drawing comparisons between the two saints.

So, overall this was not the best choice for travel reading, but I still finished with more information than I started with, which is always a good thing.