Mary, Mother of the Son:

Mary, Mother of the Son By: Mark P. Shea
Non-fiction: Religion, E-book

First, this book is rather long and deep, and so that is why it took me so long to read that it ended up messing with October's theme of Halloween, Halloween, Other October Holidays, Halloween, and NaNoWriMo prep.  I started it in August.

This book, as you might have guessed by the title, subject, or author is about Mary the mother of Jesus.  It is written by some one that was an evangelical and then converted to Catholicism after having a deep mistrust of the Catholic view of Mary, but an intellectual belief in the Church.  Like many people in his situation even after he converted, he wasn't too sure on all the devotions and visions of Mary that many people follow, but are not required to believe in the Catholic Church.   The book goes through how major Catholic beliefs about Mary, may not be directly in the Bible, but are hinted at as much as many doctrines that all Christians believe, even thought it is not stated in the Bible.  Also, how they all relate back to Jesus and/or the hopes of all Christians and why they were made official in times to counter heresy that evangelicals would also see as being wrong.  It also covers things like the history of the rosary and why, although no Catholic is required to pray it, many people use it to help in their prayer life.  And you learn important and completely useful facts like that the Vatican has no official stance on who was the best Beatle, or how to eat a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.  (To relate to October, it also pointed out that there isn't anything official on ghosts either; however, there have been a lot more of priest and bishops sharing their own personal thoughts on that subject.) With the main point of pointing out those things is to show how there are a number of things that the Catholic Church has a set belief on, but for the vast majority of things there is nothing set in stone on what a Catholic should think.