Bernadette of Lourdes: Her Life, Death and Visions: Her life, death and visions: new anniversary edition Paperback – Illustrated, 18 Sept. 2008

A very scholarly work which gives a very detailed account of all the facts and circumstances at the level of a professional historian. This is the 150th anniversary edition and in my view is the definitive work to buy, if you intend to buy only one book on the subject - highly recommended. I must also admit, with some amazement, that St Bernadette was surprisingly good-looking, although I cannot explain why I find her film star good-looks such a shock. I must also say that the associated film starring Jennifer Jones "The Song of Bernadette" is well worth a look. She won an oscar for her DEBUT screen role. See the film and you will understand why she earned this astounding recognition, and I am not ashmamed to admit that at the end of the film, a tear trickled down my cheek - for the first time in 25 years.

I took a risk on this as I was interested in learning more about this cult figure from a non-religious perspective. This is the book! It opened my eyes to a whole other view of the Lourdes phenonomenon.

I bought this as a present for someone who has recently visited Lourdes - he found it to be an excellent account of the life of Bernadette of Lourdes and enjoyed reading it very much.

factual book about the life of this little Saint, excellent read and reference book, contains plenty of dates to remember.

This book give background to Bernadettes life from the beginning, building up to the apperitions and information about her family and other people afterwards. We worth the money and read.

Excellent book about St Bernadette

Beautiful, and very pleased.

This is for those people who like their biographies of saints to be written by post-modern feminists. I read somewhere here words to the effect that the author 'does not take a view on the apparitions'. Wrong. She sees them as a standard form of teenage hallucinations. The book is peppered with the perceptional assumptions of its author who, pretending to understand Bernadette, simply projects her modern secular worldview back onto a devout 19th century Catholic peasant. This is a grave mistake for any historian. Any believer of today has way more in common with Bernadette and would understand her more than this author does. It is a common mistake of the hubris of secular academics. This is not to say that she does not like Bernadette. She definitely does, but she likes her as a kind of rural feminist hero, struggling against her targets - the official Catholic Church and French patriarchal society. I am not saying that secular academics should not approach subjects like this, but they should do so with great humility and reserve and not use them as a means by which to peddle their own Foucault-based cultural theory. I have not given the book one star as it is well researched and contains some very interesting information. However, I am about to read Trochu to see how much of this research is really new material, or simply redone.

This book was amazing. A book such as this, which examines every aspect of St. Bernadette's life in other hands might have been boring, but this is a fascinating study of not only the life, but the times Bernadette lived in. This book is perfectly researched, and the Author is skillful in presenting her findings. The presence of photos of Bernadette and eyewitness accounts of her encounters with others make her a real person.Boy, what a person she was! She was not all sweetness and light, and could be very unpleasant with people who annoyed her. The Blessed Mother really didn't do her any favors by appearing to her. Bernadette finally found a measure of peace entering the Convent, where she was protected from the outside world.Hers was not to be an easy life, she suffered from poor health and was a tiny delicate girl. I always thought she died of TB of the lungs, she actually had an insidious form of TB that destroyed the bone marrow. She died a horrible, lingering death, and suffered all of her pain with incredible courage, she was a remarkable woman.If you like stories about the Saints, you will love this book.

I have not finished reading this book, but so far I can confirm that it does provide background essential to understanding the phenomenon of Lourdes, for both believers and non-believers. It does not replace the book by Trochu, written from the standpoint of an intelligent Catholic believer. That standpoint is needed. Unless certain things are said, there is little chance that the reader will understand the significance, not so much of Lourdes the place, the shrine, as of the events of 1858 and of the lives of Bernadette Soubirous and of countless others affected more or less by those events in the last 150 years. I recommend both books especially to Catholics prone to think that they know all about the subject, perhaps because they saw a movie or simply because they have been familiar with the story in outline form all their lives. Many Catholics believe that God -- not the Church, not the clergy, but God Himself through Mary in her title of the Immaculate Conception -- did something extraordinary for the world at Lourdes, something which the world continues to ignore, of course, by and large. It can be called a sign, but is really ineffable, no neon sign; for it is cloaked in the ordinary on all sides except at its heart, and not understandable without an honest openness to belief. As such it is not special to France or to the nineteenth century.

Therese Taylor succeeds in drawing a full, persuasive portrait of Bernadette Soubirous, a nineteenth century French girl who made the village of Lourdes famous throughout the Christian world. But Dr. Taylor carries the story to its end, finishing not with the immediate aftermath of the apparitions, but to the close of Bernadette's difficult life in a convent in Nevers. This Bernadette was far from being a talkative narrator of her experiences. She was sober, honest to a fault, and vehemently set against becoming an object of adoration herself. Curious prelates tested her patience when they demanded more and more details of what Bernadette had seen. She refused, saying that to embelish is to distort. This laconic posture cost her some popularity, but Bernadette rejected the notion of having an audience to whom to play. In a sense, her almost flinty integrity gives the best witness to the truth of what she reported she saw. And what she saw or not remains a matter of faith. Dr. Taylor adds this volume to the small library of books that honors the saints through thorough and respectful biography, not sentimental hagiography. She is also as fine a writer as one could wish.

This is one of the best bios I've ever read about St. Bernadette - very thoroughly researched, well written, honest and unvarnished - replete with details that may offer some surprises. The book does not dwell on the events at the grotto as much as it does on the impact it had on her life, dispelling many myths. The book offers insight into Bernadette's personality, humanity, sense of humor, perspective, and background without romanticizing or glossing over unpleasant realities. It helps you understand why she wanted to leave Lourdes and "hide" in the St. Gildard's convent in Nevers, France. The book describes convent culture in the 1800's, the snobbery, jealousy, of those (in the order ironically called) the Sisters of Charity. You will gain a deeper appreciation for Bernadette's sufferings, simplicity, humility, and sanctity. In her "ordinariness" she became extraordinary. By reading this book, you will attain a better understanding of her outlook, temperment, sense of humor, and come to love and appreciate her and her example all the more. The book is a great gift for those who have been to Lourdes and Nevers and those who are planning to go there.

Very well written and I enjoyed it