A very difficult read!

Well, your english is much better than my chinese at least! I've only managed to read children's books in spanish, and that's about the extent of my reading in foreign languages! I think some difficult books are worth spending lots of time on.

It's very eye-opening. I knew the early church suffered under the Roman rule, but not until reading this book did I know that the early church suffered under the Roman rule! I'm still shocked that people can be so unspeakably cruel, and I also have no doubt it will happen again... to the full extent described, in the future. My favorite part of the book was the first few paragraphs, a bit too long and archaic for me to try to write the full quote here, but paraphrased it said that Christ prophesied the church would be established, would suffer greatly, and yet would still prevail. "... what force of princes, kings, monarchs, governors, and rulers of this world... have bent themselves against this Church... and [the Church] hath yet endured and holden its own!" I'm not much of a history geek myself, but I've been trying to branch out and read more about it. I prefer reading detailed books to get a good overview of the subject, rather than some shallow articles online.

Exactly! They do the same in war movies. You get to meet and grow to care about some of the main characters only to watch some or even all of them die in the end. Very sad stuff and I don't call that entertainment. I prefer to watch or read stories where things are not so depressing. I can understand that sometimes one... maybe two characters may have to die but not the main characters that we grow to care about.

I don't like to watch or read things that depress me either, life's depressing enough. But for education purposes, I will read or watch things that make me sad. I try to balance things out by reading other things that make me happy at the same time. Except I don't have a happy book to read while I'm reading Book of Martyrs... guess I'm just going to have to watch happy movies or something. lol

First published in 1554 I believe. Pretty old. lol I have read older books... but they were epics Beowulf, the Iliad, and the Odyssey. All of those had a plot. Fox's Book of Martyrs is a historical account. It has dates, names, facts, and the like. Since it's so old, I doubt it'd be the least bit difficult to find a used copy for cheap. My copy is published by Zondervan and edited by William Byron Forbush. I'm not certain how it compares to other edits or translations, but I've no doubt it's been re-edited and translated a number of times. There's even added portions at the end written after 1554 to record more martyrs in the church since then.