Several people have noted that since books were such an important part of my journey — and still are — it would be good for me to include a selection that I would recommend as particularly significant. Below, I have chosen five books for each chapter that reflect what I was reading during the events the chapter covers. I suppose they function as expanded endnotes, or that “gloss” Marie de France spoke of.
The Book of Common Prayer: 1979. The Episcopal Church. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Webber, Christopher L. Give Us Grace: An Anthology of Anglican Prayers. New York: Morehouse, 2004.
Schnackenberg, Gjertrud. Supernatural Love: Poems 1976 – 1992. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000.
Némirovsky, Irène. Fire in the Blood. New York: Vintage, 2007.
Winner, Lauren. Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2012.
Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go. New York: Vintage, 2005.
Capote, Truman. Breakfast at Tiffany’s. New York: Penguin Classics, 2000.
Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible. New York: HarperCollins, 1998.
Wharton, Edith. The House of Mirth. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2004.
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. New York: Anchor, 1986.
Foster, Richard. Celebration of Discipline. San Francisco: HarperOne, 1998.
Maguire, Gregory. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.
Wheatley, Phillis. Complete Writings. New York: Penguin Classics, 2001.
Willard, Dallas. The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God. San Francisco: HarperOne, 1998.
Anselm. The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm with the Proslogion. New York: Penguin Classics, 1986.
Marie de France. The Lais of Marie de France. New York: Penguin, 1999.
Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. New York: Penguin, 2000.
Dante. Paradiso. New York: Modern Library, 2007.
Wright, N. T. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2008.
Robinson, Marilynne. Gilead: A Novel. New York: Picador, 2006.
Ordway, Holly. Not God’s Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith. Chicago: Moody, 2010.
Tickle, Phyllis. The Divine Hours (Volume Two): Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime: A Manual for Prayer. New York: Image, 2006.
Gregory of Nyssa. The Life of Moses. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1978.
Maximus the Confessor. Maximus the Confessor: Selected Writings. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1985.
Davie, Donald, ed. The New Oxford Book of Christian Verse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Evans, Rachel Held. Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2010.
McLaren, Brian D. A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2010.
Weil, Simone. Need for Roots. New York: Routledge, 2001.
Didion, Joan. The Year of Magical Thinking. New York: Vintage, 2007.
Bynum, Caroline Walker. Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Letters. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.
Norris, Richard A., Jr. The Christological Controversy. Louisville: Minneapolis: Fortress, 1980.
Endo, Shusaku. Silence. Marlboro, N.J.: Taplinger, 1980.
Pseudo-Dionysius. Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works. Paul Rorem, trans. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1988.
O’Connor, Flannery. The Complete Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971.
L’Engle, Madeleine. Walking on Water: Meditations on Faith and Art. New York: North Point Press, 1995.
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. One Hundred Years of Solitude. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006.
Greene, Graham. The Power and the Glory. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003.
Balthasar, Hans Urs von. Mysterium Paschale: The Mystery of Easter. San Francisco: Ignatius, 2000.
Martel, Yann. Beatrice and Virgil. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2010.
Winner, Lauren. Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Spiritual Life. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin, 2004.
L’Engle, Madeleine. Penguins and Golden Calves: Icons and Idols in Antarctica and Other Unexpected Places. Wheaton, Ill.: Shaw, 1996.
Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics, III.1, The Doctrine of Creation. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1975.
Tresmontant, Claude. The Hebrew Christ: Language in the Age of the Gospels. Chicago: Franciscan Herald, 1989.
MacBeth, Sybil. Praying in Color. Brewster, Mass.: Paraclete, 2007.
Percy, Walker. Love in the Ruins. New York: Picador, 1999.
Athanasius. On the Incarnation. Yonkers, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary, 1996.
Rubenstein, Jeffrey L., and Shaye J. D. Cohen, eds. Rabbinic Stories (Classics of Western Spirituality). Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 2002.
Berry, Wendell. A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979 – 1997. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1999.
Voskamp, Ann. One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2011.