"A room without books is like a body without a soul." --Cicero 

 

 

Throughout his provocative, entertaining book, Another Sort of Learning, Fr. James V. Schall strategically places well-curated lists of books at the end of each chapter meant to quicken his reader's moral imagination. As it goes, the book's interlude also consists of one such list, wittily called "Schall's Unlikely List of Books to Keep Sane By -- Selected for Those to Whom Making Sense Is a Prior Consideration, but a Minority Opinion." Borrowing from Fr. Schall, what follows could be considered "Ben's Unlikely List of Books to Keep Sane By"-- although I don't pretend that my list is nearly as sophisticated as his. And whether these books will actually keep you sane or not, I do not know. But, like Fr. Schall's list of books, I hope this list is at least equal to the task of nourishing your soul and quickening your moral imagination. Happy reading!

 

Theology

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• Church Dogmatics (14 vol.), by Karl Barth  

• The Glory of the Lord; Theo-Drama; Theo-Logic (15 vol.), by Hans Urs von Balthasar

• Summa Theologiae (5 vol.), by Thomas Aquinas

• Institutes of the Christian Religion (2 vol.), by John Calvin 

• Systematic Theology (2 vol.), by Robert Jenson 

• Systematic Theology (3 vol.), Wolfhart Pannenberg

• Systematic Theology (3 vol.), by James W. McClendon 

• Orthodox Dogmatic Theology (6 vol.), by Dumitru Staniloae

• Doxology: The Praise of God in Worship, Doctrine, and Life: A Systematic Theology, by Geoffrey Wainwright

• On Christian Theology, by Rowan Williams

• The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age, by George Lindbeck

• Trinity and Truth, by Bruce Marshall

• The Drama of Doctrine and Remythologizing Theology, by Kevin Vanhoozer

• Theology of Hope; The Way of Jesus Christ; and The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology, by Jurgen Moltmann

• The Trinitarian Faith; The Mediation of Christ; The Incarnation; and The Atonement, by Thomas F. Torrance

• Discerning the Mystery: An Essay on the Nature of Theology, by Fr. Andrew Louth

• The Orthodox Way, by Bishop Kallistos Ware

• God Matters, by Herbert McCabe

• The Bride of the Lamb, by Sergius Bulgakov

• The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth, by David Bently Hart

• On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ, by St. Maximus the Confessor

• The Unity of the Church, by St. Cyprian of Carthage

• On the Incarnation, by St. Athanasius 

• On Christian Doctrine, by St. Augustine 

• On God and Christ: Five Theological Orations, by St. Gregory of Nazianzuus

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Biblical Studies

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• Christian Origins and the Question of God Series (4 vol.), by N.T. Wright

• Old Testament Ethics for the People of God and The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative, by Christopher Wright

• Old Testament Theology: Reading the Hebrew Bible as Christian Scripture, by Walter Moberly

• The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics, by Hans Frei

• Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament, by Ellen F. Davis 

• Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy, by Walter Brueggemann

• The Aims of Jesus, by Ben Meyer

• Paul Among the Postliberals, by Douglas Harink

• Deep Exegesis: The Mystery of Reading Scripture, by Peter Leithart

• The New Perspective on Paul, by James D.G. Dunn

• Echoes of Scripture in Paul's Letters; Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels; and The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation, by Richard B. Hays

• The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul, by Douglas Campbell

• Cruciformity: Paul's Narrative Spirituality of the Cross, by Michael Gorman 

• The King Jesus Gospel and The Kingdom Conspiracy, by Scot McKnight

• World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Greco-Roman Age, by C. Kavin Row

• The Story of Romans: A Narrative Defense of God's Righteousness, by Katherine Grieb

• Salvation by Allegiance Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and the Gospel of King Jesus, by Matthew W. Bates

• Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other New Testament Studies, by Richard Baukham

• Acts: A Commentary, by Willie James Jennings

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Philosophy 

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• ​After Virtue; Whose Justice? Which Rationality?; Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry; Dependent Rational Animals; Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity; and The Tasks of Philosophy, by Alasdair MacIntyre

• A Secular Age; Sources of the Self; Hegel; The Language Animal; and Modern Social Imaginaries, by Charles Taylor 

• Elements of the Philosophy of Right and Introduction to the Philosophy of History, by Hegel

• Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature and Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity by Richard Rorty

• Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy, by Bernard Williams

• Warrant: Christian Belief, by Alvin Plantinga

• Pragmatism, by William James

• Truth and Method, by Hans-georg Gadamer

• Personal Knowledge and The Tacit Dimension, by Michael Polanyi

• Doing Things with Words, by J.L. Austin 

• Philosophical Investigations, by Ludwig Wittgenstein 

• Must We Mean What We Say? and The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy , by Stanley Cavell

• Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology and Reason Within the Bounds of Religion, by Nicholas  Wolterstorff 

• Articulating Reasons: An Introduction to Inferentialism, by Robert Brandom

• Loving to Know: Covenant Epistemology, by Esther Lightcap Meek

• He Who Is and Existence and Analogy, by E.L. Mascall

• The One and the Many: An Introduction to Thomistic Metaphysics, by W. Norris Clarke, S.J. 

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Christian Ethics/Discipleship 

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• The Book of Common Prayer, by Thomas Cranmer 

• The Peaceable Kingdom; Character and the Christian Life; Sanctify Them in the Truth; Performing the Faith; A Community of Character, by Stanley Hauerwas

• Resurrection and Moral Order, by Oliver O'Donovan 

• Discipleship and Ethics, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer 

• One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, by C. Kavin Rowe

• Confessions, by St. Augustine

• The Divine Conspiracy and The Great Omission, by Dallas Willard

• Spiritual Theology (5 vol.); A Long Obedience in the Same Direction; and Run with the Horses, by Eugene Peterson

• Exclusion and Embrace, by Miroslav Volf

• Incarnate Love, by Vigan Guroian

• The Life of St. Anthony, by St. Athanasius

• The Philokalia (4 vol.), by St. Nicodimos of the Holy Mountain

• The Wound of Knowledge, by Rowan Williams

• For the Life of the World, by Alexander Schmemann

• Cultural Liturgies Series (3 vol.), by James K.A. Smith

• Beauty Will Save the World, by Gregory Wolfe 

• The Way of the Pilgrim, by Anonymous 

• The Christian Life, by Karl Barth

• Prayer, by Hans Urs von Balthasar

• Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering, by Eleonor Stump

• God's Companions: Reimagining Christian Ethics, by Samuel Wells

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Literature/Poetry

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• The Brothers Karamazov; The Idiot; Crime and Punishment; Demons; and Notes From Underground, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

• Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh 

• Jaber Crow; Hannah Coulter; Andy Catlett; and The Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

• Gilead; Lila; Home; and Good Housekeeping, by Marilynn Robinson

• Death Comes For the Deconstructionist, by Daniel Taylor 

• Moby Dick, by Herman Melville

• Love in the Ruins; The Last Gentleman; and The Thanatos Syndrome, by Walker Percy

• Wise Blood and The Complete Stories, by Flannery O'Connor 

• The Diary of a Country Priest, by Georges Bernanos  

• Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace

• The Odyssey, by Homer 

• The Wasteland; Four Quartets; and Ash Wednesday, by T.S. Eliot

• For the Time Being and Anxious Age, by W.H. Auden

• Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver, by Mary Oliver 

• Slow Pilgrim: The Collected Poems, by Scott Cairns

• Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved, by Gregory Orr

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