The most recommended books on faith

I am a secular Jew and Anne Lamott is a church-going Christian, but I feel she is my soulmate.

She is so honest, and vulnerable, and hysterically funny that reading her work feels like listening to a good friend sharing her innermost thoughts. I gave this book to someone whose mother was dying, and she claimed that reading it helped get through that dark period.

I would love to have that kind of power as a writer: the power to change people’s lives for the better. I have secretly always wanted to run the world. After all, I couldn’t do a worse job than the jerks that are running things now.

I love anything that explores issues of identity, how we define ourselves and others. Throw in a subtle questioning of the ‘truth’ of our most treasured memories, and I am completely hooked. Jorge Louis Borges does all that in this irresistible short story where it is possible for a person to have access to Shakespeare’s memory. As wondrous as this sounds for scholars of Shakespeare’s work, the reality is actually much more mundane and troubling.

This multi-author book is a terrific resource for older teens and college students to navigate “growing up” well and maturing in their own faith commitment and practices. Chapters offer good advice and the reasons behind the advice for faith challenges, dealing with failure, forgiving parents as a part of loving them, finding a new congregation for worship, work, and witness, as well as dealing with sexuality, morals, justice issues, vision for missions, and creation care and much more! This book is a practical as well as a biblically faithful guide for the transformation of a lifetime as children empty the nest into adulthood. I give this book as a graduation gift to every high-schooler I know!

If JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis were to write a fantasy together, I think it would be something like Moonscript. This story is deep with long-term pain, beautiful with patient love, and full of excitement and surprises. I appreciate it shows that healing takes time and that God’s grace comes, but not always when we want it.

What amazes me about A Confession is that here is Tolstoy, one of the giants of world literature, at the top of his game, lamenting that there is no meaning to his life. This made me realize that there is no one immune from this feeling of purposelessness and that there are no prizes, accolades, awards, or other external things that will prevent you from feeling existential angst.

The book also shows how Tolstoy worked through his crisis, and although I do not agree with his conclusions, the path that he takes in the book was very useful for me in my own journey to meaning. 

In 102 brief numbered chapters, Dani Shapiro goes on a journey to examine her belief system.

Raised as an only child in a religious Jewish house, she fled to find herself. Decades later—after losing her father, being left alone to deal with her mother, and facing her infant son’s life-threatening illness—she wrestled with existential questions.

Like a spiritual investigator, she searched for answers, jumping from one house of faith and experience to another, from her childhood synagogue to her meditation teacher. In my early 50s, I, too, woke up and wondered if my inherited religion served me.

For my half-century birthday, my husband and I checked into a French Benedictine Monastery in Abu Gosh near Jerusalem, where a nun asked our religious affiliation. Born Jewish, I said, but questioning. 

Fred was a pilot. He also was an avid ufologist. In October 1978, on a short flight in a private plane from Melbourne to King Island in Australia, Fred has a conversation with air traffic control and claims to see a large aircraft — a UFO — flying around him… until it vanishes. 

That is Fred’s last conversation with anyone as both he and his plane disappear, never to be found. Was it an alien craft? Pilot error? Weather phenomenon?

There are no answers in Krasnostein’s chapters about Fred. But the story and her lyrical writing left me thinking about the nature of belief, the fascination we have with UFOs, and why we want our alien encounters to be real. Why do we want to believe?

This is the philosophical bedrock of the modern struggle for economic justice. It’s a cornerstone of my own book, actually.

“To sustain your existential identity,” writes Haaglund, “is to lead your life in light of what you value.”

Freedom is the ability to sustain that existential identity. It means having more time than that which you need to survive. The more time you have to live your life in light of what you value, the freer you are.

A society in which an entire class of people can spend their entire lifetimes working and remain poor is not a free society.

And yes, it’s a philosophy book, but it’s clear and accessible. 

I love this book’s honest look at questioning the goodness of God. When Delia, at 28 years old, finds she has only a short time to live, she considers her options. Her husband, Remon, never once doubts his options; Delia has to fight this incurable cancer ravaging her body. The life lessons she learns and shares with her readers put pain, life, and faith, in a new perspective for me. I especially love memoirs that teach life lessons, since my own book does the same thing. When we learn from others’ experiences, our world widens to us. Delia and Remon’s story has been a testimony of God’s goodness to countless people throughout the world. 

While most of us won’t suddenly move from being homeschooled in an African village to attending a huge high school in California, readers can learn so much from Katie!

If you love books that emphasize strong families and congenial characters who face relevant issues, you’ll love Faith Under Pressure.

I was inspired by the respect within Katie’s family, her desire to bloom where she’s planted, and her commitment to start a Christian club at school.

When agreeing to tutor a bully threatens her new friendships, Katie faces a new level of anxiety, and her faith will be tested like never before.