Of Hype and Heartfelt Gratitude …

This is just a hurried little notice amidst pressure and it comes with a warning. Hence …

Warning: still more hyping my new book The Gentle Traditionalist follows below.

But not everyone is averse to such hype and I can’t easily remain silent at this time.

The book appears to be doing very, very well – far, far better than I ever imagined.

Indeed, as I write, I am at Amazon’s Number One Best Seller position in Catholic books for the UK and in the top 4000 Amazon books overall (out of 9 million).

In America, it is not quite as startling – but I can’t complain: position 23 in Catholic books and 8,022 overall.

So I am very, very grateful. And to each and every one of you who helped in any way.

Right now, however, I must express my particular gratitude to Francis Phillips of the Catholic Herald who did two separate articles: a review of the book and an interview piece with me.

You can find both her review and the interview at this link here:  http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/tag/roger-buck/

I am also incredibly grateful to Joseph Shaw and Rorate Caeli for this write-up here:
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/…/new-book-gentle-traditio…

As a result of the above, the people discovering and buying the book has definitely surged!

I should also say I’m very thankful for some reviews that have started turning up on Amazon.

Here I will just place two most recent brief ones.

A Father Levi gives it Five Stars saying:

Treat yourself to this gentle font of wisdom

I really enjoyed this book. It is, as the title suggests, a gentle read … so gentle that coming to the end can be a bit of a surprise! It has a serious message wrapped in a somewhat whimsical package that is a delight to unwrap. It is also hard-hitting without being offensive and presents deep ideas in a very easy to digest fashion. I’d recommend this book to Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

And a Marilyn F gives it the same, saying:

Meaning, Magic, and Mystery, Wrapped Up in Charm

What a charming and important book this is! If you’re a Catholic and trying to help a secular-minded friend understand “where you’re coming from,” this book is a great start. It’s rather akin to “My Dinner With Andre” in that the bulk of it consists of a conversation between two men, one an old Catholic, and one a secular–minded soul who’s fallen in love with a woman who’s embraced Catholicism. Her embrace of the Faith has our protagonist frustrated and puzzled, but his deep conversation with the old man helps him to understand the woman he loves — and helps open his eyes to things he’d never before considered.

I don’t want to say much more so as to not give away the “magical bits” (as it were), but suffice it to say that “magic” there is, along with romance and philosophy — the philosophy delivered gently, with wit, and a tasty spoonful of sugar. There is also mourning for a world that for too many is “bygone,” but which needn’t be bygone at all. And that last is the point of the book. Give this book to an agnostic or atheist friend and help him to see that he has a decision to make! Help restore Christendom and bring about a renaissance of a world filled with meaning, “magic,” and Mystery!

Thank you, Father Levi, thank you Marilyn F, whoever you may be and to everyone else for earlier review at Amazon or Amazon UK.

These days Amazon customer reviews are truly vital to a book’s success and I am very deeply grateful to everyone of you.

While I’m thanking people, I should not close without acknowledging my friend Tracy Tucciarone of Fisheaters who helped me publicise the book at Fisheaters in numerous kind, generous ways (as is her won’t!). Fisheaters is both a site and a forum that has very much been evolving towards a more ‘gentle traditionalism’ in recent years, following Tracey’s courageous, painstaking and often thankless work to far more diligently moderate it, screening out many of the more ranting and uncreative aspects of traditionalism.

I am also grateful to the Awestruck people who are creating a Catholic alternative to Facebook here. Their Pinterest boards have been most helpful to me – and many others besides! (I am likewise thankful for Allison Girone’s Catholic Pinterest board here.)

Finally, some personal difficulties mean I am again very slow with correspondence and may be a little slower in properly returning to this blog than I imagined.

But it won’t be too long. Certainly, it shouldn’t be difficult to post more already-written extracts soon.

Meanwhile, I wish all our readers a blessed 2016. May Our Lord bless you and unfold you ever more deeply in His Most Sacred Heart …

Click to buy from Amazon Worldwide!