The Life You Save May Be Your Ow
n: An American Pilgrimage by Paul Elie
In the mid-twentieth century four American Catholics came to believe that the best way to explore the questions of religious faith was to write about them – in works that readers of all kinds could admire. The Life You Save May Be Your Own is their story ( more..)
Credited with sparking the current memoir explosion, Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club spent more than a year at the top of the New York Times list. She followed with two other smash bestsellers: Cherry and Lit, which were critical hits as well.
For thirty years Karr has also taught the form, winning graduate teaching prizes for her highly selective seminar at Syracuse, where she ..more
Lit follows the self-professed blackbelt sinner’s descent into the inferno of alcoholism and madness—and to her astonishing resurrection. …more….
Redeployment by Phil Klay Phil Klay’s Redeployment takes readers to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned. Interwoven with themes of brutality and faith, guilt and fear, helplessness and survival, the characters in these stories struggle to make meaning out of chaos. …more
The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation by Thomas Merton this book on contemplation was revised by Merton shortly before his untimely death. The material bridges Merton’s early work on Catholic monasticism, mysticism, and contemplation with his later writing on Eastern, especially Buddhist, traditions of meditation and spirituality. This book thus provides a comprehensive understanding of contemplation that draws on the best of Western and Eastern traditions. …more
My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer by Christian Wiman Composed in the difficult years since and completed in the wake of a bone marrow transplant, it is a moving meditation on what a viable contemporary faith —responsive not only to modern thought and science but also to religious tradition—might look like. …more
