The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings 
The Silmarillion
Book Recommendations
The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings
The Silmarillion
The Master Works by J.R.R. Tolkien. Anything I say is gilding the lily. Read them. You will be immeasurably richer for it.
Five of the best books by G.K. Chesterton who wrote many other great books.
St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox
The Penguin Complete Father Brown
One important element in
understanding both Tolkien and Chesterton (not to mention C.S.
Lewis) is their love of fairy stories. The Fairy Books
of Andrew Lang are the definitive collection of wonderful fairy
stories (and ideal for any person for Christmas--or better still,
a long series of Christmases). They were published during the
childhood of J.R.R. Tolkien and had an enormous influence on him.
Pick a color, any color and dive into this beautiful collection:
Red, Lilac, Green, Grey, Blue, Orange, Violet, Olive, Pink, Brown, Crimson, Yellow
Mere Christianity
Miracles
The Weight of Glory
The Problem of Pain
The Four Loves
The Space Trilogy
The Great Divorce
Till We Have Faces
The Screwtape Letters
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Abolition of Man
Favorite titles by one of the great writers of the 20th Century: C.S. Lewis
C.S. Lewis always hailed
George MacDonald as his "master" and regarded him, not
only as the most Christlike man he ever read, but as the greatest
maker of myth who ever wrote. I recommend At the Back of the North Wind, Phantastes, Lilith, The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie.
The Man Born to Be King
The Mind of the Maker
The Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso) by Dante Alighieri
(translated by Dorothy L. Sayers)
Reading Dorothy L. Sayers is like having your sleepy head plunged in cold water. She is wonderfully bracing and passionate!
Two by Thomas Howard, a lovely man, a felicitous writer and a very thoughtful Christian.
Fundamentals
of the Faith
Everything
You Ever Wanted to Know about Heaven but Never Dreamed of Asking
Three
Philosophies of Life
A
Summa of the Summa
Ecumenical
Jihad: Ecumenism and the Culture War
Kreeft is simply one of the clearest thinkers, biggest hearts, and best writers out there. I hope to be like him when I grow up.
Polishing the Petosky Stone
Listen to the Green
The Secret Trees
Postcard from the Shore
Sadly, only Petosky is in print at present, but Luci is a phenomenal poet and if you can find her other work, get it!
My Life on the Rock Jeff Cavins'
honest, funny, painful, and beautiful account of his bitter
departure from the Catholic Faith at 18, his sojourn as an
Assembly of God pastor for twelve years--and his return to the
faith of his youth. Highly recommended.
Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins
Not an easy read but well worth it. Probably the greatest
English-language poet of the 19th Century.
Pied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things --
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced -- fold , fallow and plow
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
Speaking of poetry, check out my good friend, Pavel Chichikov -- "One finds oneself struck, bidden, haunted, daunted--what else?--by the diction, rhythm, imagery, and allusions. It is not easy stuff (which is a high compliment in T. S. Eliot's view), but one feels that glory and mystery are lurking in every line" -- Thomas Howard
Two wonderful works by a Thomist named Josef Pieper!
Lake Wobegon Days
We
Are Still Married
Garrison Keillor is probably the best living American writer and is certainly the best living American story teller.
A Tale of Two Cities
Pickwick Papers
Oliver Twist
David Copperfield
In everybody there is a certain thing that loves babies, that fears death, that likes sunlight: that thing enjoys Dickens. - G.K. Chesterton
The Lamb's Supper Scott Hahn's
brilliant look at the Mass in light of the Book of Revelation.
You will never see either the Mass or Revelation the same way
again.
Not to be
confused with the equally great (and totally different) The Supper of the Lamb by Robert
Farrar Capon. The most rollicking, deepest, and wildest cookbook
you will ever read. Alas! It is out of print but you can get it
used!
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie
Dillard's penetrating and lyrical book about seeing.
Witness to Hope George Weigel's
essential biography of Pope John Paul II. To begin to really
understand the towering greatness of this man, this is where you
start.
The Courage to Be Catholic Weigel's incisive
analysis of What Went Wrong with the American Church, how we got
here, and the way out of the Crisis. I can't recommend it highly
enough.
The Code of the Woosters As good a
place as any to dive into the vast corpus of hilarious prose from
the brilliantly funny P.G. Wodehouse.
The Once and Future King T.H. White's
funny, beautiful, satirical, painful retelling of the Arthur
legend.
Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine
John Henry Cardinal Newman's essential book showing how the
Catholic faith develops like the mustard seed. Just as the full
grown plant looks very different than the seed, so the adult
Catholic Church looks different from the Church in the New
Testament--but is more mustardy than ever.
A nice companion to Newman is William Jurgens' Faith of the Early Fathers (Volumes One, Two, and Three). Jurgens does a nice job of compiling patristic quotes which reflect the Church's cogitation and developing faith over time.
The Catholic Catechism Arguably the
best Catechism published between the close of Vatican II and the
promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
It's also highly useful in tracing the development of the
Church's teaching over time. It turns out Catholics thought a
great deal about the implications of Scripture and apostolic
teaching and didn't just make stuff up!
Catholic and Christian : An Explanation of
Commonly Misunderstood Catholic Beliefs Alan Schreck's
handy dandy explanation of Catholic stuff for Evangelicals who
are trying to figure out what Catholics are doing and why.
Mass Confusion James Akin's wittily
titled guide for the liturgically perplexed. If some tenured
radical with iron gray hair, sensible shoes, and an aversion to
the pronoun formerly known as "He" hijacks your local
liturgy committee and decrees that you experimental rats in the
pew must play Kumbaya on the kazoo in unison instead of recite
the Creed or celebrate the Eucharist, you no longer have to just
sit there and take it. Akin shows you your rights as a lay member
of Christ's faithful people and how to see to it that the mass is
again reverently celebrated.
Robert Louis Stevenson is simply a joy to read, particularly when you have four boys!
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Joan of Arc You've heard of Huck and
Tom, but did you know Twain considered his fictionalized life of
Joan of Arc his best work? The man who scorned the French,
Catholicism, and the Middle Ages idolized a medieval French
saint. Go figure.
Three very influential books from Patrick Madrid
Celebration of Discipline One of the
happiest cross-fertilizations between the best of Catholic,
Quaker and Evangelical spirituality, written by the inimitable
Richard Foster.
The New Way Things Work is an
endlessly entertaining explanation of how everything from zippers
to microchips work written in fun prose, illustrated brilliantly
by the great David Macaulay and starring the Great Woolly
Mammoth. The ideal Christmas present.
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Jan
read this Barbara Robinson tale aloud on the drive across
Washington during our December honeymoon. We laughed, we bawled.
What a great great story! Screamingly funny and very moving.
Prayer in Practice Fr. Simon Tugwell,
a terrific Dominican writer, makes prayer more accessible and
less intimidating than almost writer I know, yet does so without
removing the mystery.
The Rapture Trap Paul Thigpen does a
first rate job of making sense of the Church's eschatological
teaching and of sorting through the various arcana surrounding
both Catholic and Protestant speculations, rumors, notions, and
hard revelation. Invaluable.
Four Witnesses: The Early Church in Her Own
Words Wow! Rod Bennett hits one out of the ballpark in
his first time at bat! A look at four of the earliest Christian
Fathers through the eyes of a terrific writer, a great
storyteller, and a good researcher! I can't recommend it highly
enough!
History Goes to the Movies Joseph
Roquemore give you a fun education in the historical background
of a jillion flicks based on "true stories". His book
aims to rate the historical accuracy, not the cinematic greatness
of a film. Load and loads of fun and the perfect Christmas
present for the film or history buff in your family.
The Pilgrim’s Guide: C.S. Lewis and the Art
of Witness
Edited by David Mills. With Dr. Michael H. Macdonald, I co-authored the essay "Saving Sinners and Reconciling Churches: An Ecumenical Meditation on Mere Christianity."
Dinosaur Bob and his Adventures with the Family Lazardo
One of the best and funniest children's books I've ever read.
William Joyce's wit is drier than the Sahara.
To Hunt, To Shoot, To Entertain: Clericalism and
the Catholic Laity The lay office is a vital part
of the Church, yet Catholics often think the only definition of
that office is "not being ordained" and assume the only
full Catholic is a priest. Shaw shows the true Catholic teaching
and how false notions of clericalism distort both the lay and
ordained office and rob us (and the Church) of the enormous gifts
the laity have to give.
Permanent Things: Toward the Recovery of a More
Human Scale at the End of the Twentieth Century
Edited by Andrew A. Tadie and Michael H. Macdonald. I assisted with the final editing of a collection of essays originally presented at the 1990 Permanent Things conference at Seattle University and Seattle Pacific University which celebrated the work of C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, Evelyn Waugh and T.S. Eliot.
Rootabaga Stories by Carl Sandburg. Written in
the early 20s for Spink, who is a little older than Skabootch,
and Skabootch, who is a little younger than Spink. Strangely
lyrical, funny, and beautiful fairy tales, "in the American
lingo. Nonsense tales with American fooling in them" as
Sandburg put it.
Copyright 2002 - Mark P. Shea
