Looking to purchase a few books for a catholic relative. Heavy reader but not necessarily a deep reader. Thought Lewis mere Christianity would be good. Really want to throw in shed theology and sanity (one of my favorites). Thought some Chesterton might be good but wonder if the style might be off putting. So what is your best Chesterton suggestion based on my first sentence above?

(Sorry -can a mod please move this to the book forum? I thought I posted it there )

Depends how non deep you really mean. Orthodoxy and St. Thomas Aquinas are the go-to books among nonfiction, but they can both be tough, probably the latter slightly more so than the former. Saint Francis of Assisi is a nice one, maybe easier. Fiction, the Napoleon of Notting Hill, or buy the little collection Father Brown of the Church of Rome, which is a fairly nice collection of stories.

The problem with the book on St. Francis is that it assumes the reader is familiar with the life of St. Francis already.

Based on the reactions to my recommendations on Chesterton titles to read, I'd say the style might indeed be an issue.

I'd say ORTHODOXY, anyway. Or, to avoid repeating previous recommendations, THE BALL AND THE CROSS, or THE FLYING INN, for fiction. WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WORLD, for non-fiction.

Stay away from THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY.

Thank you all.

True, but can you think of a book by Chesterton that doesn't make similar presuppositions? Though I will say that it's been some years since I read the St. Francis book, and I may well be underestimating its obscurity in comparison to, say, the book on St. Thomas. But still, I've read many of his biographies more recently, and he's pretty consistent in not bothering overmuch with background.

In some sense, I've thought of this as a cultural difference in the audiences for whom he wrote. More widely educated, perhaps, as a norm.

I'm finally reading his Short History of England. Dunno why I hadn't gotten to it before now. I keep thinking I ought to put it down, go read a couple of other histories of England, and then return to it. I'm not sure I know English history well enough to follow Chesterton's history of England. Thank heavens for Shakespeare, since at least I've gotten a basic grip of some of the history of the English monarchy out of his work. Not sure he's totally reliable, though.

As you go through SHORT HISTORY, count the dates mentioned.