politics and culture: December 2006 Archives

Dante to Dead Men Walking

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From Julie D
A Jesuit chose fifty books that raise a moral or religious issue in unforgettable ways, writing essays about each to give a sense of both the contents and the reason for inclusion. Here is the list.

I have to say, I have not read many of the books here - many of them because I just don't like the writing style, and some because I just don't like the authors. The ones that I have read are the biblical ones (Genesis, Job, Luke, John). I would actually recommend Madeleine L'Engle's paraphrasing and fictionalization of parts of Genesis -
And It Was Good: Reflections on Beginnings, 1983
A Stone for a Pillow: Journeys with Jacob, 1986
Sold Into Egypt: Joseph’s Journey into Human Being, 1989
I have only read excerpts of Dante.
I've read many lives of the saints, I don't remember if Butler was one of the collections.
I didn't find Walden to be particularly Christian, it struck me as being more of an incentive to nature worshipping paganism.
I was given the Idea of the University as a High School graduation present. I haven't read it since. I would like to see it translated into modern English. Good ideas, but hard to understand in the context of the language.
The Brothers Karamazov I LOVED when I read it at the age of 10. Now, I don't think I would have the patience.
I have tried and tried to read St Therese of Lisieux. Maybe I need to read her in French.
I loved the Seven Story Mountain and have read it several times. Later Merton was most disappointing as he was drifting towards Eastern mysticism.
I also loved "A Canticle for Leibowitz" and was disappointed to learn that the author had left the church over the teaching on tubal ligation and similar issue.
Here is the list:

The Book of Genesis:
The Book of Job:
The David Story: A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel by Robert Alter:
The Gospel of Luke: .
The Gospel of John:
The Confession by St. Augustine:
Inferno by Dante Alighieri:
Butler's Lives of the Saints by Michael Walsh:
The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis:
The Idea of a University by Ven. John Henry Newman
Walden by Henry David Thoreau:
The Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln:
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky:
The Story of a Soul by St. Therese of Lisieux:
Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres by Henry Adams:
Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton:
Dubliners by James Joyce:
Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset:
Therese by Francois Mauriac:
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather:
Mr. Blue by Myles Connolly:
Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography by Albert Schweitzer:
The Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos:
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene:
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey through Yugoslavia by Rebecca West:
Brideshead Revisisted by Evelyn Waugh:
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alex Paton:
The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton:
Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day:
The Family of Man by Edward Steichen:
Divine Milieu by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.:
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.: a
Morte D'Urban by J. F. Powers:


The Other America by Michael Harrington:

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis:

The Historic Reality of Christian Culture: A Way to the Renewal of Human Life by Christopher Dawson:

The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor:


Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr.: .


Everything That Rises Must Converge, "Revelation" by Flannery O'Connor:

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley:

Silence by Shusaku Endo: no way.

A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation by Gustavo Gutierrez:

The Fate of the Earth by Jonathan Schell:

The Love of Jesus and the Love of Neighbor by Karl Rahner, S.J.: .


In Memory of Her: A Feminist Tehological Reconstruction of Chrsitian Origins by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza:

Black Robe by Brian Moore:

Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States by Helen Prejean:

The Life of Thomas More by Peter Ackroyd:


All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time by Robert Ellsberg:

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This page is a archive of entries in the politics and culture category from December 2006.

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