The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare


G.K. Chesterton - 1908
    K. Chesterton's surreal masterpiece is a psychological thriller that centers on seven anarchists in turn-of-the-century London who call themselves by the names of the days of the week. Chesterton explores the meanings of their disguised identities in what is a fascinating mystery and, ultimately, a spellbinding allegory.As Jonathan Lethem remarks in his Introduction, The real characters are the ideas. Chesterton's nutty agenda is really quite simple: to expose moral relativism and parlor nihilism for the devils he believes them to be. This wouldn't be interesting at all, though, if he didn't also show such passion for giving the devil his due. He animates the forces of chaos and anarchy with every ounce of imaginative verve and rhetorical force in his body.

The Gargoyle Code


Dwight Longenecker - 2009
    Master Tempter Slubgrip writes daily to a trainee devil Dogwart, advising him on the temptation of a confused young Catholic, while he struggles to control his own patient, an older Catholic man who is facing a serious illness. Meanwhile, Slubgrip has to watch his back, keep control of various under devils who are plotting to take control of his territory and send him to the banqueting house of the Father below. The Gargoyle Code makes for un-put-downable reading at any time, but it is especially designed as a book to be read during Lent. The letters from the tempters begin on Shrove Tuesday and follow day by day, taking the reader on an entertaining, enlightening and sobering journey toward Easter Sunday. Fr Dwight Longenencker has written a book on spiritual warfare that is profound, hilarious, upbeat and inspiring. He nails the devils and all his works, and succeeds in keeping the reader's attention all the way through. This is a book to be read and re-read and to share with others.

In This House of Brede


Rumer Godden - 1969
    This extraordinarily sensitive and insightful portrait of religious life centers on Philippa Talbot, a highly successful professional woman who leaves her life among the London elite to join a cloistered Benedictine community.

The Diary of a Country Priest


Georges Bernanos - 1936
    Awarded the Grand Prix for Literature by the Academie Francaise, The Diary of a Country Priest was adapted into an acclaimed film by Robert Bresson. "A book of the utmost sensitiveness and compassion...it is a work of deep, subtle and singularly encompassing art." — New York Times Book Review (front page)

Love in the Ruins


Walker Percy - 1971
    Tom More has created a stethoscope of the human spirit. With it, he embarks on an unforgettable odyssey to cure mankind's spiritual flu. This novel confronts both the value of life and its susceptibility to chance and ruin.

The Dark Tower: And Other Stories


C.S. Lewis - 1977
    S. Lewis’s adult religious books, a repackaged edition of the revered author’s definitive collection of short fiction, which explores enduring spiritual and science fiction themes such as space, time, reality, fantasy, God, and the fate of humankind.From C.S. Lewis—the great British writer, scholar, lay theologian, broadcaster, Christian apologist, and author of Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Chronicles of Narnia, and many other beloved classics—comes a collection of his dazzling short fiction.This collection of futuristic fiction includes a breathtaking science fiction story written early in his career in which Cambridge intellectuals witness the breach of space-time through a chronoscope—a telescope that looks not just into another world, but into another time. As powerful, inventive, and profound as his theological and philosophical works, The Dark Tower reveals another side of Lewis’s creative mind and his longtime fascination with reality and spirituality. It is ideal reading for fans of J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis’s longtime friend and colleague.

My Visit to Hell


Paul Thigpen - 2007
    Now, the story continues… Thomas Travis had always thought the toughest streets in the ghettos of Atlanta were next door to hell. But he didn’t know just how close they were until the threat of racial violence sent him fleeing down the stairs of an abandoned building…only to fall headlong into a tortured realm of fire and ice, the place of the damned. The only chance of escape was to trust the strange elderly woman who met him there and insisted on being his guide. She claimed to know the way out, but it would lead through all the terrifying circles of divine judgment, each one deeper and more tormenting than the last. In the lowest pit, the Lord of Darkness himself lay in wait. Thomas had lived a godless life, and now there was hell to pay. If his soul could be purged on the journey, he just might make it. But the odds were against him. In hell, the only guarantee is justice…and the only way out is down. About the AuthorPAUL THIGPEN, PhD, is an award-winning journalist and the best-selling author of more than twenty-five books, including A Dictionary of Quotes from the Saints, Blood of the Martyrs, and Seed of the Church. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Yale University and also holds a doctorate in historical theology from Emory University.

Childless


Brian J. Gail - 2011
    Gail's "American Tragedy in Trilogy." The reader is propelled from Manhattan boardrooms to European capitals to Middle East laboratories to Church chanceries and confessionals. Step into these pages and follow Fr. John Sweeney and the families he serves as they struggle to live their Catholic faith in a world that grows more hostile with every turn of the page. Gail throws back the veil on the architecture of the Life Sciences Revolution and its carefully planned milestones from the abortifacients pill to in-vitro fertilization to embryonic stem cell testing, and ultimately, to the very door of the Transhumanist project itself. You will see something of your own soul in these characters as they struggle to survive the great apostasy and navigate their way to the Church's promised New Springtime.

Silence


Shūsaku Endō - 1966
    In a perfect fusion of treatment and theme, this powerful novel tells the story of a seventeenth-century Portuguese priest in Japan at the height of the fearful persecution of the small Christian community.

The Book of Strange New Things


Michel Faber - 2014
    Peter becomes immersed in the mysteries of an astonishing new environment, overseen by an enigmatic corporation known only as USIC. His work introduces him to a seemingly friendly native population struggling with a dangerous illness and hungry for Peter's teachings—his Bible is their "book of strange new things." But Peter is rattled when Bea's letters from home become increasingly desperate: typhoons and earthquakes are devastating whole countries, and governments are crumbling. Bea's faith, once the guiding light of their lives, begins to falter. Suddenly, a separation measured by an otherworldly distance, and defined both by one newly discovered world and another in a state of collapse, is threatened by an ever-widening gulf that is much less quantifiable. While Peter is reconciling the needs of his congregation with the desires of his strange employer, Bea is struggling for survival. Their trials lay bare a profound meditation on faith, love tested beyond endurance, and our responsibility to those closest to us. Marked by the same bravura storytelling and precise language that made The Crimson Petal and the White such an international success, The Book of Strange New Things is extraordinary, mesmerizing, and replete with emotional complexity and genuine pathos.

The Keys of the Kingdom


A.J. Cronin - 1941
    Considered a failure by his superiors, he is sent to China to maintain a mission amid desperate poverty, civil war, plague, and the hostility of his superiors. In the face of this constant danger and hardship, Father Chisholm finds the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Recognized as A. J. Cronin’s best novel, The Keys of the Kingdom is an enthralling, fast-moving, colorful tale of a deeply spiritual man called to do good in an imperfect world.

The Book of the Dun Cow


Walter Wangerin Jr. - 1978
    What the animals did not know was that they were the Keepers of Wyrm, monster of evil long imprisoned beneath the earth ... and Wyrm, sub terra, was breaking free.

Godric


Frederick Buechner - 1980
    He contrives a style of speech for his narrator--Godric himself--that's brisk and tough-sinewed...He avoids metaphysical fiddle, embedding his narrative in domestic reality--familiar affection, responsibilities, disasters...All on his own, Mr. Buechner has managed to reinvent projects of self-purification and of faith as piquant matter for contemporary fiction [in a book] notable for literary finish...Frederick Buechner is a very good writer indeed." — Benjamin DeMott, The New York Times Book Review"From the book's opening sentence...and sensible reader will be caught in Godric's grip...Godric glimmers brightly." — Peter S. Prescott, Newsweek"Godric is a memorable book...a marvelous gem of a book...destined to become a classic of its kind." — Michael Heskett, Houston Chronicle"In the extraordinary figure of Godric, both stubborn outsider and true child of God, both worldly and unworldly, Frederick Buechner has found an ideal means of exploring the nature of spirituality. Godric is a living battleground where God fights it out with the world, the Flesh, and the Devil." — London Times Literary Supplement"With a poet's sensibly and a high reverent fancy, Frederick Buechner paints a memorable portrait." — Edmund Fuller, The Wall Street Journal

Helena


Evelyn Waugh - 1950
    Based on the life of St. Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine and finder of the true cross, this spiritual adventure brings to life the political intrigues of ancient Rome and the early years of Christianity.

Strangers and Sojourners


Michael D. O'Brien - 1997
    Beginning in 1900, and concluding with the climactic events leading up to the Millennium, the series follows Anne and Stephen Delaney and their descendants as they live through the tumultuous events of this century. Anne is a highly educated Englishwoman who arrives in British Columbia at the end of the First World War. Raised in a family of spiritualists and Fabian socialists, she has fled civilization in search of adventure. She meets and eventually marries a trapper-homesteader, an Irish immigrant who is fleeing the "troubles" in his own violent past. This is a story about the gradual movement of souls from despair and unbelief to faith, hope, and love, about the psychology of perception, and about the ultimate questions of life, death and the mystery of being. Interwoven with scenes from Ireland, England, Poland, Russia, and Belgium during the War, Strangers and Sojourners is a tale of the extraordinary hidden within the ordinary. It is about courage and fear, and the triumph of the human spirit.