Here are 80 books that Paradiso fans have personally recommended if you like
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In my career as a medievalist, I’ve been inspired by L. P. Hartley’s maxim that “the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” At the same time, the people who live there are humans like ourselves. So, I’ve always tried to balance the alterity with the universality of the medieval past, asking big questions that bring together a wide range of sources and genres. In my forty years of teaching at Northwestern, I’ve enjoyed watching the impact of medieval texts change with each generation of students as they discover this strange yet immensely generative world.
I first read this book in college, and it has powerfully shaped my philosophy of life. Martin Buber, the great Jewish thinker, distinguished between “I-It” relationships, in which we use another person instrumentally, and “I-Thou” relationships, in which we encounter another face to face. He argues that personhood begins in the prenatal life of the child flowing to and from its mother, but ends in God where all parallel relations intersect.
As a lifelong cat lover, I’m especially fond of his idea that personhood is not limited by species. Buber recognized that we can authentically say “Thou” to a cat or even a tree.
Buber's main proposition is that we may address existence in two ways: [1] that of the "I" towards an "It", towards an object that is separate in itself, which we either use or experience; [2] that of the 'I' towards 'Thou', in which we move into existence in a relationship without bounds. One of the major themes of the book is that human life finds its meaningfulness in relationships. All of our relationships, Buber contends, bring us ultimately into relationship with God, who is the Eternal Thou.
Considered a landmark of twentieth-century intellectual history, this is Martin Buber's classic treatment…
In my career as a medievalist, I’ve been inspired by L. P. Hartley’s maxim that “the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” At the same time, the people who live there are humans like ourselves. So, I’ve always tried to balance the alterity with the universality of the medieval past, asking big questions that bring together a wide range of sources and genres. In my forty years of teaching at Northwestern, I’ve enjoyed watching the impact of medieval texts change with each generation of students as they discover this strange yet immensely generative world.
Charles Williams is one of my guilty pleasures. The most esoteric of the famous Inklings, he wrote supernatural thrillers in which marvels take place in the midst of present-day London. This book, his last and, in my view, his best novel, is set near the end of WW II.
Two young women, killed instantly when a plane crashes onto them, find that they must work out their salvation—or its opposite—in a world where the living and the newly dead can still interact. The gestures of ordinary friendship and everyday cruelty turn out to have eternal stakes in this eerie, unforgettable novel, which I’ve reread more times than I can count.
First published in 1945, "All Hallows' Eve" is a fantasy novel by British writer Charles W. S. Williams. Charles Walter Stansby Williams (1886 - 1945) was a British theologian, novelist, poet, playwright, and literary critic. He was also a member of the "The Inklings", a literary discussion group connected to the University of Oxford, England. They were exclusively literary enthusiasts who championed the merit of narrative in fiction and concentrated on writing fantasy. He was given an scholarship to University College London, but was forced to leave in 1904 because he couldn't afford the tuition fees. Other notable works by…
In my career as a medievalist, I’ve been inspired by L. P. Hartley’s maxim that “the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” At the same time, the people who live there are humans like ourselves. So, I’ve always tried to balance the alterity with the universality of the medieval past, asking big questions that bring together a wide range of sources and genres. In my forty years of teaching at Northwestern, I’ve enjoyed watching the impact of medieval texts change with each generation of students as they discover this strange yet immensely generative world.
I was excited to discover that coinherence, the medieval Christian idea of personhood I explore, has a close parallel to the African concept of Ubuntu. A Zulu word for “humanity,” Ubuntu offers a refreshing corrective to the excessive individualism of the West. In Ubuntu the source of identity is not individuality, but community; not “I think, therefore I am,” but “we are, therefore I am.”
Michael Battle, a disciple of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, explores what an Ubuntu notion of personhood means for everything from peacemaking to the struggle against racism and apartheid. Yes, philosophical ideas can have real-world consequences!
As defined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.
The African spiritual principle of Ubuntu offers believers a new and radical way of reading the Gospel and understanding the heart of the Christian faith, and this new book explores the meaning and utility of…
In my career as a medievalist, I’ve been inspired by L. P. Hartley’s maxim that “the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” At the same time, the people who live there are humans like ourselves. So, I’ve always tried to balance the alterity with the universality of the medieval past, asking big questions that bring together a wide range of sources and genres. In my forty years of teaching at Northwestern, I’ve enjoyed watching the impact of medieval texts change with each generation of students as they discover this strange yet immensely generative world.
My favorite anthropologist, Tanya Luhrmann, always has fascinating insights about how people come to believe what they believe. In this book, she argues that today’s Christian converts—much like the medieval saints I write about—must learn the art of prayer through intentional training.
We often think of praying as a solitary pursuit, but she demonstrates that this spiritual discipline can only be taught and learned in community. Luhrmann uses both in-depth interviews and ingenious scientific experiments to explore how this happens.
A New York Times Notable Book A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2012
A bold approach to understanding the American evangelical experience from an anthropological and psychological perspective by one of the country's most prominent anthropologists.
Through a series of intimate, illuminating interviews with various members of the Vineyard, an evangelical church with hundreds of congregations across the country, Tanya Luhrmann leaps into the heart of evangelical faith. Combined with scientific research that studies the effect that intensely practiced prayer can have on the mind, When God Talks Back examines how normal, sensible people—from college students to accountants to housewives,…
Like many travelers and writers, I was drawn to the Mediterranean Sea because of its vibrant cultures, sun-drenched landscapes, and delicious foods. As a medieval historian, I am attracted to stories of people and cultures in communication with each other across religious and cultural divides. I found the perfect combination in the history of Sicily, which in the Middle Ages had populations of Greek Christians, Latin Christians, Muslims, and Jews living together in both peace and conflict. I study the histories of travel, trade, and exchange in and around Sicily, which allows me to think about big questions of how medieval people related to each other even when they came from different religions or cultures.
I love being a historian of the early and central Middle Ages. This was a period in which the religious and political conflicts of the later Middle Ages were not yet foregone conclusions, although the faultlines of future conflicts were being laid.
The late thirteenth century, by contrast, was a time of multiple contests on many fronts: the European crusading project continued, the fallout of the conflict between Frederick II and the papacy was still roiling, and the newly powerful kings of European states were competing for influence.
Steven Runciman’s book captures the ferment of this time by focusing on an uprising against Sicily’s French rulers. Although the book was published many years ago, it has never really been matched for its propulsive storytelling and ability to highlight the continuing importance of Sicily as a focal point of broader developments in the Mediterranean.
On 30 March 1282, as the bells of Palermo were ringing for Vespers, the Sicilian townsfolk, crying 'Death to the French', slaughtered the garrison and administration of their Angevin King. Seen in historical perspective it was not an especially big massacre: the revolt of the long-subjugated Sicilians might seem just another resistance movement. But the events of 1282 came at a crucial moment. Steven Runciman takes the Vespers as the climax of a great narrative sweep covering the whole of the Mediterranean in the thirteenth century. His sustained narrative power is displayed here with concentrated brilliance in the rise and…
I’m a medieval historian who specialises in social history, and more particularly on sexuality, propaganda, and apocalypticism. I fell in love with the period from my very first class during my BA, but even back then, I was struck by just how little we as a society pay attention to some thousand years of history. Even worse, we often tell lazy myths about the Middle Ages as a time of filth and ignorance that makes us feel good about ourselves. Since not everyone can get a Ph.D. like I did, I have dedicated my career to bringing the period to light. I hope this book list does just that.
I’m a giant nerd for fantasy, and my man Dante pretty much invented it with this book. Basically, every depiction of Hell you have ever seen in a book or on a movie screen? Yeah, Dante did that.
But it’s not just coming to grips with the, frankly iconic, nine circles of hell that make me love it; it’s the fact that Dante is also this very clearly petty, grudge-holding, self-absorbed regular guy who just so happens also to have an incredible imagination.
Yes, I love it because it’s a disturbing and beautiful revery about mislead lives, but it’s also a window into the soul of a medieval man. Come for the philosophical quandaries; stay for the demons and the ironic punishments. I re-read this constantly.
Belonging in the immortal company of the works of Homer, Virgil, Milton, and Shakespeare, Dante Alighieri’s poetic masterpiece is a visionary journey that takes readers through the torment of Hell.
The first part of Dante’s Divine Comedy is many things: a moving human drama, a supreme expression of the Middle Ages, a glorification of the ways of God, and a magnificent protest against the ways in which men have thwarted the divine plan. One of the few literary works that has enjoyed a fame both immediate and enduring, The Inferno remains powerful after seven centuries. It confronts the most universal…
My fields at the University of Notre Dame, where I teach and do research, are philosophy and literature, and I have often been attracted to broader questions. I found ugliness to be a topic of considerable fascination, also for students, and yet it has almost never been addressed. I wrote the book to discover for myself what ugliness is and what it has to do with beauty.
When I was interviewing for a position at Notre Dame, the campus museum had an exhibit of illustrations for Dante’sInferno, which reinforced to me the fascination of Dante.
When I began teaching the work a few years later, my students were engrossed by its riveting portrayals of moral ugliness. They were also amazed that Dante places even popes in hell. The work has so inspired my students that one of them submitted her final paper in terza rima, the form Dante uses, and another reflected on where precisely in hell she might belong.
This beautifully translated bilingual edition contains extensive, helpful commentary.
“Probably the most finely accomplished and ... most enduring" translation (Los Angeles Times Book Review) of this essential work of world literature—from a renowned scholar and master teacher of Dante and an accomplished poet.
“The Hollanders … act as latter-day Virgils, guiding us through the Italian text that is printed on the facing page.” —The Economist
The epic grandeur of Dante’s masterpiece has inspired readers for 700 years, andhas entered the human imagination. But the further we move from the late medieval world of Dante, the more a rich understanding and enjoyment of the poem depends on knowledgeable guidance. Robert…
I’ve been fascinated by Dante since my first years at university. For me, reading Dante was the beginning of a journey, opening up a rich world of theology, philosophy, art, literature, science, and culture. As Professor of Theology at the University of St Andrews, I especially enjoy facilitating students’ first encounters with Dante, and seeing how Dante so often leads them, also, to a deeper appreciation of some of the greatest thinkers and makers of our civilisation, from Aristotle and Virgil to Aquinas and Giotto.
Just as Dante needed good guides on his epic journey through the afterlife, so contemporary readers typically need reliable companions on their own journeys into Dante’s poem. The best thing, I find, is to read Dante with, and alongside, his commentators. An ideal way to do this is through the invaluable online Dartmouth Dante Project and Dante Lab,which provide the entire texts of more than 75 of these commentaries in a customisable digital workspace. But if you want a book to hand,The Cambridge Companion to Dante’s ‘Commedia’provides a really helpful overview of Dante’s masterpiece and its core narrative, linguistic, cultural, and doctrinal features, as well as useful introductions to the poem’s composition and reception.
This newly commissioned volume presents a focused overview of Dante's masterpiece, the Commedia, offering readers of today wide-ranging insights into the poem and its core features. Leading scholars discuss matters of structure, narrative, language and style, characterization, doctrine, and politics, in chapters that make their own contributions to Dante criticism by raising problems and questions that call for renewed attention, while investigating contextual concerns as well as the current state of criticism about the poem. The Commedia is also placed in a variety of cultural and historical contexts through accounts of the poem's transmission and reception that explore both its…
I am from Scranton, Pennsylvania. I have always had a passion for art and literature. I started drawing at a young age and never stopped. Constantly drawing on scrap papers from my father’s graphic arts business. Always pulling from my imagination and the world around me for inspiration. Books were a major outlet for my creativity. Graphic novels in particular were always my favorite form of expression. To be able to tell a story using pictures and share my own personal feelings with others was a means of communication for me. I began to study illustration in school and college. I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Marywood University. I currently work as a graphic designer and illustrator.
First I want to say how much I love The Divine Comedy Dante’s Inferno and this graphic novel adaptation by Seymour Chwast is a wonderful version of the tale. If you don’t already know the story I highly suggest you read it in its original text but also be sure to grab this copy as it will really bring the levels of hell to a more comical light. I particularly love the black and white bold art style and humor brought to life here.
The founding partner of Push Pin Studios puts his own artistic spin on this graphic adaptation of Dante Alighieri's 1321 epic poem chronicling his journey through the afterlife and visiting both Heaven and Hell.
I first read Swann’s Way when I was seventeen. Throughout the following five decades, In Search of Lost Time has always remained within reach, a parallel universe more enriching than words can express. As a painter, I’m drawn to Proust’s subtle use of paintings to reveal and mystify the relationship between what we see and what we know. I’ve spoken on Proust at Berkeley, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Houston, and was invited to give the annual Proust lecture at the Center for Fiction in New York as well as the Amon Carter Lecture on the Arts at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin.
Howard Moss brings a poet’s grasp of the ineffable to this enchanting study of Proust. His commentaries on the novelist’s use of psychology and philosophy, on habit and memory, are remarkable contributions to our understanding. He writes about In Search of Lost Time as “a total vision, not relying on any system outside itself for support. It is as if Dante had set out to write The Divine Comedy using only the facts of his own existence, without any reference to Christianity.” Moss was poetry editor at The New Yorker for almost forty years. A small gem.
"[The Magic Lantern of Marcel Proust] reduces the ungainly and intricately designed masterpiece to its shape, and with hardly a wasted word...The paragraphs on habit and memory are truly wonderful—wonderful as explication, as psychology, and as philosophy."—John Updike
"Almost everything Moss says seems to me right, illuminating, and new. This is the book of a mature and individual mind and sensibility, with a deep experience of moral, social, psychological, and aesthetic values which is rare among critics." —George D. Painter
"A moving and inspiring book. Moss clears away dark corners, clarifies motivations, and places the huge work within the reader's…
