January:
Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon: “Resident Aliens” Abingdon Press, ISBN: 0-687-36159-1
“In this bold and visionary book, two leading Christian thinkers explore the “alien” status of Christians in today’s world and offer a compelling new vision of how the Christian church can regain its vitality, battle its malaise, reclaim its capacity to nourish souls, and stand firmly against the illusions, pretensions, and eroding values of today’s world. Hauerwas and Willimon call for a radical new understanding of the church. By renouncing the emphasis on personal psychological categories, they offer a vision of the church as a colony, a holy nation, a people, a family standing for sharply focused values in a devalued world.” - Book Cover
February:
Wendell Berry: “Home Economics:” North Point Press, ISBN: 0-86547-275-0
“My work has been motivated,” Wendell Berry has written, “by a desire to make myself responsibly at home in this world and in my native and chosen place.” In Home Economics, a collection of fourteen essays, Berry explores this process and continues to discuss what it means to make oneself “responsibly at home.”
His title reminds us that the very root of economics is stewardship, household management. To paraphrase Confucius, a healthy planet is made up of healthy nations that are simply healthy communities sharing common ground, and communities are gatherings of households. A measure of the health of the planet is economics—the health of its households. Any process of destruction or healing must begin at home. Berry speaks of the necessary coherence of the “Great Economy,” as he argues for clarity in our lives, our conceptions, and our communications. To live is not to pass time, but to spend time.
Whether as critic or as champion, Wendell Berry offers careful insights into our personal and national situation in a prose that is ringing and clear. -Book Cover
March:
John Irving: “A Prayer for Owen Meany”
“Owen Meany, the only child of a New Hampshire granite quarrier, believes he is God’s instrument; he is.
This is John Irving’s most comic novel, yet Owen Meany is Mr. Irving’s most heartbreaking character.” -Book Cover
April:
Henri Nouwen: “Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life” ISBN: 0-385-23682-4
“Henri Nouwen, who died in 1996, was one of the most significant writers on spirituality of the late twentieth century. Reaching Out combines two of his most popular books in one volume. With a foreword of personal appreciation by the ever popular Father Gerard Hughes, this special edition will be treasured by the many admirers of Henri Nouwen. The main part of the book is Reaching Out which answers the question “What does it mean to live a life in the Spirit of Jesus Christ?” The second part is Glimpse Beyond the Mirror which is a very personal account of the author’s spiritual life in the aftermath of a terrible accident.” -Back Cover
May:
Umberto Eco: “The Name of the Rose” Harcourt Brace, ISBN: 0-15-600131-4
“The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate.When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the cover of night. A spectacular popular and critical success, The Name of the Rose is not only a narrative of a murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages.” -Back Cover
June:
Dorothy Day: “The Long Loneliness” ISBN 0-06-061751-9
“Throughout the book, Day exhibits a love of the material world and of the labor that transforms it. Her early household chores of scrubbing, washing, sweeping, and cooking; her mother’s handmade dresses ("the sheen of our ginghams, pale blue and pink, the flowered challis"); her nursing duties replete with bedpans, needles, douches, and enemas--through these, Day acquired an abiding appreciation of the pleasures and pains of sensual life. “One thing I was sure of,” she reflects on her stint as a nurse, “was that the fellow workers and I were performing an act of worship.” Unlike most of the tired and ineffectual complaints about “materialism,” Day’s belief early on was that proximity to material reality brought one into contact with God.” -Exerpt from Book Review by Eugene McCarraher
