From Altar-Throne to Table: The Campaign for Frequent Holy Communion in the Catholic Church investigates what the celebrated scholar of liturgy Robert A. Taft, SJ, calls the greatest and most successful liturgical reform in Catholic history. Only a century ago, faithful, practicing Catholics received Holy Communion only once a year; now, among American English-speaking Catholics, Holy Communion is a routine, weekly devotional practice. This book explains how and why this ritual sea-change happened. This book emphasizes that significant ritual change may occur while liturgical texts remain the same, and it also proposes a method for understanding the causes for such a ritual change. It admonishes not to project current ritual practice into even our recent past. Further, it implies an explanation for the massive decline in Catholics' use of the sacrament of reconciliation.

“No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own . . . ” And so H. G. Wells opened his thrilling The War of the Worlds in 1897. Since then millions of readers have shivered and shrieked at his depiction of a Martian invasion of Earth. The tale has become part of our cultural memory, but Wells didn’t tell the whole story. He never gave us the Martian side of the conflict. Now, Joseph Dougherty, the Emmy-winning writer, reports on the invasion of Earth from an up-close-and-personal Martian point of view. Dougherty views Wells’s epic battles from an all new, painfully modern perspective. Our narrator is Vvv, a reluctant conscript on board The First Cylinder to reach Earth in the invasion. Vvv is the Martian incarnation of all reluctant warriors, from Yossarian in Catch-22 to Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five. War is hell . . . for aliens and humans alike. Sardonic and heartrending, tragic and comic, The First Cylinder is a breakout science fiction novel in the tradition of Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury.

Praise for "Story Salon"

"Gemstones of narrative. Something new, funny, astonishing."
-Los Angeles Daily News

"Tales tall, tragic, and tantalizing."
-Sunset Magazine

"Stories from all walks and talks of life. Tales of yore and ones that make you scream for more-those that will delight with insight while moving an audience from laughter to tears."
-Studio City Sun

"Story Salon" is Los Angeles's longest running storytelling venue. What began as an alternative to stand-up clubs and self-conscious performance spaces has been challenging performers and audiences for more than a decade. Created in a North Hollywood coffee house "Story Salon" now reaches the globe through Podcasting, publishing, and recordings.

The rules of the "Story Salon" haven't changed since it started: Five to seven minutes of original material performed by the author. The result is a unique blend of observation, memoir and comment that makes the "Salon" one of the most eclectic entertainment experiences available. More than a dozen solo theater works have been developed at "Story Salon, " as well as a CD of stories, and several books.

"Live storytelling is a unique art form," says "Story Salon" founder, writer/actor/comedian Beverly Mickins. "Words spoken aloud paint pictures capable of evoking laughter and tears, the whole range of emotion. People have been telling each other stories since the first campfires, talking about the whole mix of things, important and trivial, that go into making life. Storytelling is one of the ways we figure out how to be human."

Collected here for the first time in "Big Book of Stories" are more than forty original pieces first performed by their authors at "Story Salon."

It's an omnibus of memories, rants, affirmations, and shaggy-dog stories that once opened is impossible to shut.

Learn more at www.storysalon.com