Customer Reviews

Eastertide: Prayers for Lent Through Easter from The Divine Hours (Tickle, Phyllis)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Note that this review is not about the book per se, but the Kindle edition. I have 3 copies of EACH of the Divine Hours as well as a copy of Eastertide, the Night Offices, the Pocket Edition. I use them regularly and would give them 5 stars.

I thought to download this Lenten edition for my Kindle since I will be travelling some during the season. This is by far the worst Kindle book I have ever bought. If it weren't for Amazon's return policy, I'd feel like the money was stolen from me by the publisher. Essentially it is unusable.

The Table of Contents with links consists of:
- An Introduction to This Manual
- The Symbols and Conventions Used in This Manual
- Lent
- Ash Wednesday
- Lent Compline
- Holy Week and Easter
- Holy Week and Easter Compline

And that's it. So that's very, very disappointing, but at least you'd think you could page through to find where you want to be? I'm afraid not. The main section, 'Lent', has NO week or day markings at all. Simply a Morning Office, followed by a Midday Office, followed by a Vespers Office, followed by a Morning Office, etc. The same is true for 'Holy Week and Easter'. (Note that the two Compline sections do indicate the day of the week...small comfort at this point.) So you're not even getting the full text of the book with this essential information left out.

The publishers of this Kindle edition should be ashamed for offering this.

Eastertide is a great way to launch one's practice of fixed hour prayer. The psychologists tell us that it takes about six weeks to form a new habit--roughly the length of Lent, the season covered in this sampling of The Divine Hours. The introduction presents a compelling case for fixed hour prayer as the natural expression of daily prayer. Because Lent-Easter are moving targets in the calandar, this is not simply a rehash of what's available in The Divine Hours for Springtime. Along with The Divine Hours for Advent and the three volumes already available, it's part of the complete set. Also the most attractive cover of the series and easier to cart around with you than the larger hard-cover volumes.

Don't bother to buy this book if you own the Divine Hours series. There is nothing new here. All this is is a reprinting of the Lenten and Easter readings right out of the other book.
If you haven't used the Divine Hours series, you might consider buying this one, but if you like the series and buy all three volumes, why buy this?
Save your money and buy the series.

I like fixed hour prayer. I think more Christians should participate in it. But I am far from a regular user of it. I am a nanny for my two nieces and having a 3 and 2 year old running around the house 8 to 12 hours a day makes fixed hour prayer difficult.

So I viewed Lent as a time to try to get back on track again. It did not really happen during Lent either. I was definitely an occasional rather than regular user of this book.

But I do love the prayers and choices that Tickle uses. No prayer book is perfect and there are always some things that I would not choose. But I think the variety and choices of prayers and scriptures I would not choose is one of the benefits.

But there are real issues that I have and mostly they are with the publisher. I have three books in this series now. And they have very different production values. Here is what I think a prayer book on Kindle, which is what I prefer, should look like. There should be all the prayers completely written out. There is no reason to just say "Lord's Prayer" or "Gloria" and expect people to know them or flip to them. I understand this is a common method in paper prayer books, but in ebook format there is no reason for it. Second, there needs to be a good table of contents with links to each day (they are undated so that it can be used any year, but the format of week closest to XXX Date and then the list of each day works fine or "Third week of Lent" format would be fine as well.) Third, in the text, there needs to be the actual name of the day to help you find you place. Fourth, the Compline (night office) should be in line with the day, not in a separate section. In a paper book, this may make sense because you can flip, since Complines are often repeated and not separate for every day. But in ebooks digital in has no additional cost. In this edition, none of those things were done or were done in some sections, but not others.

My final issue is the Kindle availability. I first bought the Prayers for Summertime because it was the only one available. Then I bought the Christmastide and Eastertide when they became available. But what I did not realize is that the Christmastide and Eastertide books are excerpts of the Springtime and Autum/Winter books. However, the Springtime and Autum/Winter are not available except in paper. The price of the full paperback version is basically the same as the excerpted kindle versions. But the point of getting the kindle versions is at least in part to not have to carry around the 700 page hardback versions.

What I would prefer, is a good Kindle version (that includes my four requirements) that puts all three volumes together. Who knows, maybe it will happen eventually. But until then I might try buying a used hardback since there are several that are available for less than $5 including shipping.