Practice of Prayer


Margaret Guenther - 1997
    Guenther also discusses basic matters of Christian practice, such as making a confession, intercession, going on retreat, simplifying our lives, using a journal to pray, finding a spiritual director, and praying through times of desolation when God does not seem to be listening.

Dragon Ride: True Stories of Adventure, Miracles, and Evangelism from China


Grace Jacob - 2017
    “If leaving me in the mental institution will further the gospel, then leave me there!” The first time Doris, an orthodox Buddhist, heard about Jesus, she whispered to Grace, “Don’t tell anyone that Jesus died for us. This will be our secret!” The police were interrogating 19-year-old Hope every few days—pressuring her to disclose Grace and Justin’s ministry to university students. With tears in her eyes, she told Grace and Justin, “I’ll never betray you two, no matter what they do to me!” Leah, an idol-worshipper, longed to become a Christian, but she was afraid. “If I believe in Jesus, the gods I worship are going to retaliate. They’ll hurt me really bad. Is Jesus powerful enough to protect me from them?” In the kick-off meeting of a discussion group Grace was leading for atheist university students, Carol burst out laughing. “Grace, you can’t be serious! You actually believe God exists?” In Dragon Ride, the beauty of the Lord is seen through the eyes of Buddhists, atheists, idol-worshippers, Muslims, and an animist as they encounter Jesus. Dragon Ride records the actual conversations Grace had with her friends, and many of them embraced Christ as the answer to their deepest longings. Grace writes about persecution, evading the police, saving lives, helping the homeless and disabled, and she even writes about the murder of a friend. But more importantly, she writes of a God who acts on behalf of His children, of a faith that grew in the crucible of China, and of learning how to effectively share the gospel. Grace’s stories are raw, personal, and humorous, and she openly shares about her own spiritual struggles and growth.

Love Well: Living Life Unrehearsed and Unstuck


Jamie George - 2014
    On the contrary, Jamie passionately describes brokenness as a divine gift and a necessary God-ordained path to experiencing true joy and genuine redemption. With surprising transparency, Jamie shares his personal journey of getting unstuck and provides reassuring comfort for those looking to move beyond their pain toward a life of connection and grace.

The Visionist


Rachel Urquhart - 2013
    She and her young brother find shelter in a Massachusetts Shaker community called The City of Hope. It is the Era of Manifestations, when young girls in Shaker enclaves all across the Northeast are experiencing extraordinary mystical visions, earning them the honorific of "Visionist" and bringing renown to their settlements. The City of Hope has not yet been blessed with a Visionist, but that changes when Polly arrives and is unexpectedly exalted. As she struggles to keep her dark secrets concealed in the face of increasing scrutiny, Polly finds herself in a life-changing friendship with a young Shaker sister named Charity, a girl who will stake everything--including her faith--on Polly's honesty and purity.

The New Mind Readers: What Neuroimaging Can and Cannot Reveal about Our Thoughts


Russell A. Poldrack - 2018
    The New Mind Readers provides a compelling look at the origins, development, and future of these extraordinary tools, revealing how they are increasingly being used to decode our thoughts and experiences--and how this raises sometimes troubling questions about their application in domains such as marketing, politics, and the law.Russell Poldrack takes readers on a journey of scientific discovery, telling the stories of the visionaries behind these breakthroughs. Along the way, he gives an insider's perspective on what is perhaps the single most important technology in cognitive neuroscience today--functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, which is providing astonishing new insights into the contents and workings of the mind. He highlights both the amazing power and major limitations of these techniques and describes how applications outside the lab often exceed the bounds of responsible science. Poldrack also details the unique and sometimes disorienting experience of having his own brain scanned more than a hundred times as part of a landmark study of how human brain function changes over time.Written by one of the world's leading pioneers in the field, The New Mind Readers cuts through the hype and misperceptions surrounding these emerging new methods, offering needed perspective on what they can and cannot do--and demonstrating how they can provide new answers to age-old questions about the nature of consciousness and what it means to be human.

The Darwin Myth: The Life and Lies Charles Darwin


Benjamin Wiker - 2009
    Instructive and illuminating, The Darwin Myth casts aside Darwinism's politically correct veneer and offers a critical, scientific analysis of Darwin's life and his history–changing theory.

Forty Dreams Of St. John Bosco: From St. John Bosco's Biographical Memoirs


John Bosco - 1855
    Includes: To Hell and Back, Two Boys Attacked by a Monster, The Snake and the Rosary, and many more. These dreams led to many conversions and will instruct, admonish and inspire today!

Meditations Before Mass


Romano Guardini - 1955
    Meditations before Mass is a wise, pastoral, and timeless classic on preparing for Mass-it is an example of twentieth-century theologian Romano Guardini at his very best. Meditations before Mass was written before Vatican II, but its relevance has endured over the past sixty years. Not a "how to" book for either the old or the new Roman Rite, it is instead a spiritual feast for the mind and heart, and a guide for modern people who wish to make sense of the Church's feasts and liturgies. Meditations before Mass has helped thousands of readers participate more fully in Christian liturgy and continues to do so today.

A History of the Middle Ages


Crane Brinton - 2007
    You'll spend a week on this for sure.A History of the Middle Ages is the amazing story of European man in transition. It is a dramatic chronicle of 1,000 years of political, social, and economic transformation beginning with the dissolution of the classical Mediterranean civilization and ending with the first flowering of the Renaissance. It is also the story of two new religions, Christianity and Islam, both of which were destined to dominate the mind of every person in those new civilizations arising in their wake. This was the great Age of Faith, a time of darkness and a time of enlightenment...a time of lords and vassals, popes and kings, and commerce and cathedrals.Size of Audible Audio Book: 1146 minutes in 3 partsPart 1: 6 hr 15 minPart 2: 6 hr 29 minPart 3: 6 hr 22 min

Morality: The Catholic View


Servais Pinckaers - 2000
    As Pinckaers himself notes in the text, excellently translatedby Michael Sherwin, the interest should in no way be limited to RomanCatholics. Morality recasts the earlier book in an argument that is both lower andupper case ‘catholic,’ and is accessible to readers and teachers outside the limitedcircle of moral theologians and academic ethicists. Pinckaers contends thatChristian morality is not first of all about obligations but about happiness, understandingthat the happiness of union with God is our natural destiny made possibleby grace. The Sermon on the Mount is at the center of an approach to moralitythat turns on the distinction between ‘freedom for excellence’ and ‘freedom ofindifference,’ the former understood as human flourishing and the latter as a ‘neutral’capacity to choose between controversies. The proposal of Morality is thoroughlyChrist-centered, humanistic, and faithful to the magisterial teaching of theChurch. Warmly recommended.”First Things  “If you want to have the experience of reflecting on Catholic morality as thoughyou were reading about it for the first time, treat yourself to Father ServaisPinckaers’ Morality: The Catholic View. He has recovered the classical view of themoral life as the quest for happiness and has presented it with disarming simplicity.Bringing us back to the Sermon on the Mount and Romans 12–15, the writingsof Augustine and Aquinas, and the theme of natural law, he has freed those textsfrom the layers of legalism which has hidden their liberating, spiritual powers formoral living. By distinguishing freedom of indifference from freedom for excellence,he has restored a wise vision of freedom. No one has shown better the roleof virtues as building blocks for morality. Catechists need to read this book.”Rev. Alfred McBride, O.Praem., Professor of Homilectics and Catechetics at BlessedPope John XXIII Seminary, Weston, Massachusetts “Father Pinckaers has given us a masterful exposition of Christian living. The clarityand brevity of his presentation – captured well by the translator – make this bookideal for classroom and parish use.     “Readers will find the historical and systematic observations very informative.”Romanus Cessario, St. John’s Seminary, Brighton, Massachusetts

Pictures from the Water Trade: The Extraodinarily Evocative, at Times Erotic, Story of a Westerner's Discovery of Japan


John David Morley - 1985
    Now recognized as a classic work, this incisive portrait of Japanese society investigates a nation whose deeper proclivities remain veiled behind cliches cherished in the West.

Miniskirts, Mothers & Muslims: A Christian Woman in a Muslim Land


Christine A. Mallouhi - 1997
    For Christians who work with, live with, or minister to Muslims, this book helps explain the whats and whys of the world of Muslim women. Also dealt with are topics such as role models, segregation, restrictions, opportunities, family life, and unwritten rules.

Tired of Apologizing for a Church I Don't Belong To: Why Rigorous, Reasonable, and Real Religious Community Still Matters


Lillian Daniel - 2016
    Daniel's next book provides humorous yet intellectual commentary on the way religion gets talked about today. She explains Christian ideas and practices in non-academic, yet non-facile terms.In her signature style, popularized in widely debated articles for The Huffington Post and Christianity Today, she outlines four types of non-church-goers: no-longer, no-way, never-have, not-yet. And with experiential insight from more than a decade as a pastor, she explains how churches of all denominations and doctrines can provide them intellectual rigor, reasons for belief, and authentic religious community. No one should have to check their brain at the door of the church, she says, and churches must deal with present-day issues and be intellectually open, inviting people to bring questions, rather than dispensing old, easy answers.

On the Winds of Change


Misty Griffin - 2015
    Life in post civil war Iowa was harsh, especially if you were Amish, but this was the only life Hannah Troyer had ever known. Not long after Hannah marries Benjamin Stoltz she and her husband agree to move to the untamed open plains of Kansas to help start a new community. In Kansas, Hannah is faced with dangers and hardships that are foreign to her. When she and one of her brothers are kidnapped by marauding Indians, Hannah is thrust into a nightmare that tests her strength and brings into question the love of those at the very core of her family circle. In the midst of this crisis, Hannah and her little brother discover an unlikely heroine. This heroine's acts of bravery and kindness will forever challenge everything Hannah has ever been taught.Books in this Series1. On the Winds of Change2. Forbidden Heritage

Have We No Rights?


Mabel Williamson - 1957
    She served under the auspices of the China Inland Mission, later known as the Overseas Missionary Fellowship. Have We No Rights? A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries is her best known work. Williamson shows the difference between suffering hardships and suffering the infringement of one's rights. She believes that as Christians we must be willing to give up the right to the comforts of life, physical health and safety, the privacy in business, friends, romance, family, and home.