Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Literary Journey

I spend my days looking for God in books. One of the first books that I can remember reading that impacted me was Holy Sweat, by Tim Hansel. I came across it recently and couldn't get past the first few pages. Here is a short list, in semi-chronological order, of the books that have led me to how I see God today.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis
Lessons from a Sheepdog, by Philip Keller
The Normal Christian Life, by Watchman Nee
Walk Across America, by Peter Jenkins
The Walk West, by Peter Jenkins
How Should we then Live?, by Francis Schaeffer
Money and Power, by Jacques Ellul
The Jesus I never Knew, by Phillip Yancey
Heaven - Your Real Home, by Joni Eareckson Tada
The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Portofino and Saving Grandma, by Frank Schaeffer
The Mars Hill Review - (postmodernism issue), Mars Hill Review
The Sacred Romance, by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge
Letters to a Young Poet, by Rainer Marie Rilke
Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham
Traveling Mercies, by Anne Lamott
Saints and Villians, by Denise Giardina
The Existentialist Posture, by Roger Shinn
Ways of Seeing, by John Berger
I and Thou, by Martin Buber
God in Search of Man, by Abraham Joshua Heschel
Is it Righteous to Be?, by Emmanuel Levinas
The Mystery of Being: Reflection and Mystery, by Gabriel Marcel
Waiting for God, by Simone Weil
Three Outsiders, by Diogenes Allen
Life with Picasso, by Francoise Gilot
A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
Hey Nostradamus!, by Douglas Coupland
When the Heart Waits, by Sue Monk Kidd
The Source of Life, by Jurgen Moltmann
The Conflict of Interpretations, by Paul Ricoeur
The Fratricides, by Nikos Kazantzakis
Silence, by Shusaku Endo
A Soldier of the Great War, by Mark Helprin
The Art of Listening, by Neil Pembroke
Malccolm Muggeridge: A Biography, by Gregory Wolfe
Jesus: The Man Who Lives and Jesus Rediscovered, by Malcolm Muggeridge
My Name is Asher Lev, by Chaim Potok
Lost in the Cosmos, by Walker Percy
A Tragic Sense of Life, by Miguel de Unamuno
The Resurrection of the Son of God, by N.T. Wright

I am currently spending my evenings reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and The Complete Jewish Bible, a very interesting translation by David Stern.

Any suggestions?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thomas Moore's :

Care of the Soul

Dark night of the Soul

Richard Rohr's:

Quest for the Grail

Discovering the Enneagram ( Highly reccommend)

Simplicity


Neal Peart's Ghost Rider (a must read)

Then listen to Rush's Vapor Trails album.

Tom said...

Thanks, Brett. I've read sections of Care of the Soul; I'll check out the others.
I've never heard of Ghost Rider. A "new" book for me to explore.

Anonymous said...

A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 by Phillip Keller is a great one. I'm interested in the one you referenced by Keller.

Tom said...

Thanks, Sharon; I'll check it out.

Anonymous said...

The Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
How to be Your Own Selfish Pig, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
A Walk Across America, Peter Jenkins
The Philippian Fragment, Calvin Miller
The Valiant Papers, Calvin Miller
A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Madeleine L’Engle
The Autobiography of Malcom X, as told to Alex Haley
The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis
The Promised Land, Nicholas Lemann
A Harmony of the Four Gospels, Orville Daniel
Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up, David Bercot
The Sword Bearer, John White
Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis

The fiction/science fiction/fantasy works have spoken to me more about the nature of God and the human condition than any christian nonfiction ever has.

Tom said...

Thanks...I haven't heard of a couple of these; more books to explore...