Illustrissimi: The Letters of Pope John Paul I by Albino Luciani (Gracewing 2001: £7.99).

The Twentieth Century saw nine Popes reigning and guiding the Catholic Church from the small enclave of the Vatican City State. Of these individuals the shortest time spent in the Apostolic Palace, residence of the Pontiffs, was Pope John Paul I who reigned for just thirty three days in 1978. Despite that short span from election to death the former Patriarch of Venice was universally loved not least because of these entertaining yet profound letters he wrote to famous men and women of literature and history (amongst them Charles Dickens, Saint Therese of Lisieux, King David, and Marie Theresa Empress of the Hapsburg Kingdoms in the eighteenth century). Albino Luciani was a man to whom his faith was the breadth of life and the source of joy, through these letters he opens people’s minds and hearts anew to the message of Christianity-from the original preface by Cardinal Basil Hume.