Here are 100 books that Pastrix fans have personally recommended if you like
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When I was going to church as a kid, I noticed there were a lot of things about faith that were really important to people but that they rarely talked about. In my work as a pastor, professor, and church historian, I’ve tried to identify and name those core values, so that we can learn from one another, share our beliefs in meaningful and respectful ways, and grow together as we explore life’s big questions and practice living out our beliefs in the here and now.
This little book is among the best pieces of Christian literature ever written. Here the church reformer Martin Luther pondered the “both/and” reality of Christians: that believers are entirely set free by Jesus and that believers are totally bound to serve others because Jesus is the one they follow. This book perfectly describes the Lutheran Reformation’s conviction that faith is a living and active experience that transforms people and communities through trust in God and love of neighbors.
Timothy J. Wengert skillfully provides a clear understanding of the historical context from which the treatise The Freedom of a Christian and his accompanying Letter to Pope Leo X arose. As controversy concerning his writings grew, Luther was instructed to write a reconciliation-minded letter to Pope Leo X (14751521). To this letter he appended a nonpolemical tract describing the heart of his beliefs, The Freedom of a Christian. Luthers Latin version added an introduction and a lengthy appendix not found in the German edition. The two editions arose out of the different audiences for them: the one addressed to theologians,…
When I was going to church as a kid, I noticed there were a lot of things about faith that were really important to people but that they rarely talked about. In my work as a pastor, professor, and church historian, I’ve tried to identify and name those core values, so that we can learn from one another, share our beliefs in meaningful and respectful ways, and grow together as we explore life’s big questions and practice living out our beliefs in the here and now.
Because the Reformation took place in 16th century Germany, it’s common to wonder how ideas that were popular 500 years ago in Central Europe might have anything to say to today’s global realities. In this book, Brazilian Lutheran professor Walter Altmann explores the ways that Martin Luther’s teachings resonate with the contemporary concerns of Latin American theologies of liberation. Altmann’s approach sets a great model for how people today can apply the spiritual riches of the past to the practical needs of the present.
With the approach of the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's inauguration of the Protestant Reformation and the burgeoning dialogue between Catholics and Lutherans opened under Pope Francis, this new edition of Walter Altmann's Luther and Liberation is timely and relevant. Luther and Liberation recovers the liberating and revolutionary impact of Luthers theology, read afresh from the perspective of the Latin American context. Altmann provides a much-needed reassessment of Luther's significance today through a direct engagement of Luther's historical situation with an eye keenly situated on the deeply contextual situation of the contemporary reader, giving a localized reading from the author's…
When I was going to church as a kid, I noticed there were a lot of things about faith that were really important to people but that they rarely talked about. In my work as a pastor, professor, and church historian, I’ve tried to identify and name those core values, so that we can learn from one another, share our beliefs in meaningful and respectful ways, and grow together as we explore life’s big questions and practice living out our beliefs in the here and now.
With two other women, Leymah Gbowee received the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her peace activism that helped end the 1999-2003 civil war in Liberia. Using tactics that included daily protests, a sex strike, and rehabilitation of child soldiers, Gbowee and her coworkers effectively combined religious values, social service, and direct action to advocate for peace. Although not directly about theology, Gbowee’s church and personal faith provided important motivation, resilience, and organizational support. This memoir is both honest about her struggles and provides an inspiring witness to social change.
The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize shares her inspirational, powerful story of how a group of women working together created an unstoppable force that brought peace to Liberia.
As a young woman, Leymah Gbowee was broken by the Liberian civil war, a brutal conflict that destroyed her country and claimed the lives of countless relatives and friends. Propelled by her realization that it is women and girls who suffer most during conflicts, she found the courage to turn her bitterness into action.
She helped organize and then lead the Liberian Mass Action for Peace, which brought together Christian and…
When I was going to church as a kid, I noticed there were a lot of things about faith that were really important to people but that they rarely talked about. In my work as a pastor, professor, and church historian, I’ve tried to identify and name those core values, so that we can learn from one another, share our beliefs in meaningful and respectful ways, and grow together as we explore life’s big questions and practice living out our beliefs in the here and now.
German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the lamentably few church leaders who took a clear stand against the Nazification of Christianity under the Third Reich. He wrote this wonderful little book about communal life in light of his experiences leading an unauthorized seminary, which the Nazi regime closed in 1937. Bonhoeffer, who was executed in 1945 for his resistance, wisely observed in Life Together that blessings abound when we deal with people as they are, not as we wish they would be.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the most influential Christian martyrs in history, bequeathed to humanity a legacy of theological creativity and spirituality that continues to intrigue people from a variety of backgrounds. Life Together gathers Bonhoeffer’s 1938 reflections on the character of Christian community, based on the common life that he and his seminarians experienced at the Finkenwalde Seminary and in the “Brother’s House” there. The stimulus for the writing of Life Together was the closing of the preacher's seminary at Finkenwalde by the Nazis.
While Bonhoeffer wrote with his own seminary community in mind, he intended Life Together to have…
I’m a lifelong fan of George Eliot and other classic psychological novelists such as Tolstoy, Henry James, and Edith Wharton. I read their fiction over and over again. It deepens my understanding of the way people think and feel, how relationships and communities function, and what makes for a good life. Through these books I sort out my own muddled experiences.
For a long time, I assumed that I would find these three novellas about churchmen and parishioners in the English countryside of the late 18th and early 19th centuries sleepy and dull. They’re anything but. Eliot depicts the presence of alcoholism, spousal abuse, loneliness, and life-damaging gossip in her fictional communities. But her signature empathy and wit, already on display in this early work, make it invigorating, not a downer.
'the only true knowledge of our fellow-man is that which enables us to feel with him'
George Eliot's first published work consisted of three short novellas: 'The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton', 'Mr Gilfil's Love-Story', and 'Janet's Repentance'. Their depiction of the lives of ordinary men and women in a provincial Midlands town initiated a new era of nineteenth-century literary realism. The tales concern rural members of the clergy and the gossip and factions that a small town generates around them. Amos Barton only realizes how much he depends upon his wife's selfless love when she dies prematurely;…
As an immigrant in the United States, I have been fascinated by the dynamics between races and cultures—both in the country and globally. As I travel extensively (63 countries so far), I experience some of the biases firsthand—sometimes in the unlikeliest places. I have come to realize that despite the difference in the color of our skin—and the clothes we wear—we are more alike than different.
I loved the book because it’s an insightful window into the challenges of a troubled community, the native Indians, who are still haunted by the painful past and face an uncertain future. I loved how the writer picks the thread of stories of many characters who have chosen to live outside reservations and then knits them all together in the end.
Unique characters with unique stories and strong evocative writing make There There a remarkable debut.
** Shortlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award **
One of Barack Obama's best books of 2018, the New York Times bestselling novel about contemporary America from a bold new Native American voice
'A thunderclap' Marlon James 'Astonishing' Margaret Atwood, via Twitter 'Pure soaring beauty' Colm Toibin
Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and hoping to reconnect with her estranged family. That's why she is there. Dene is there because he has been collecting stories to honour his uncle's death, while Edwin is looking for his true father and Opal came to watch her boy Orvil dance.
Widowed at age fifty and now eighty-four, I know first hand the search for love in late life. I have three adult children and can't avoid bringing baggage to any new relationship, whether with humans or the cats I adore. Coming to writing seriously only after my husband’s death, I remain fascinated by questions of craft, how the story is told (as my recommendations show), and I’ve published several essays on aspects of that subject. My first career in dance, my conversion to Catholicism, and my psychoanalytic therapy have been major parts of my life and play significant roles in my memoir, my novel, and my more recent novella and stories.
This true story of love and lasting marriage in later life is told by the husband and wife in alternating first-person voices. Ingrained habits of social and personal life and relationships with both parents and children all create stumbling blocks as the two lovers strive to create a unified way of life. I admire this book for its frank and vivid presentation of the pitfalls that can threaten a union of two individuals who meet in late middle age, already well set on their paths. In its presentation of problems and solutions, this book offers the most “self-help” of these five recommendations.
Jill Robinson, the author of Bed/Time/Story and Past Forgetting, and her husband, Stuart Shaw, share their true story about finding love when they both had lost faith in romance.
When Stuart and Jill first met, neither felt ready for love. Stuart was recovering from the alcoholism that had wrecked his marriage and ravaged his career. Jill was recovering from a second failed marriage and believed she was done with love forever.
But then, in a crowded Connecticut diner, Jill caught Stuart's eye and shot him a look that she knew would draw him in. What follows is a sexy journey…
Moral injury, post-traumatic stress, and the dark night of the soul are human conditions I understand well. See, over the course of a lengthy military career, I deployed overseas many times, including to Afghanistan. In my last two deployments, I served as the legal advisor to a joint special operations task force. In this role, I advised on more than 500 “strikes”: air attacks intended to kill humans. When I returned from Afghanistan in 2018, I noticed a change in me, and I’ve been living with moral injury and post-traumatic stress since. This list helped me, particularly with the lesser-known “moral injury,” and I sincerely hope it helps you too.
A beautiful story written beautifully. I was enamored with Miller’s deft use of lyrical prose set within an epistolary framework to tell the story of one man’s struggle against the demons of his past, and the consequences that followed, all in search of redemption.
Though fictional, Miller manages to avoid the usual veteran tropes in creating his character. It’s an intimate account—and one with which I’m intimately familiar—that feels truer than nonfiction. I’ve found few more realistic accounts of living with the moral injury that comes from our errors in judgment, how those errors cause unintended, though no less harmful, secondary effects on those we love, and how life remains yet salvageable.
I found it to be, at once, an inspiring, endearing, and threatening read.
By the Costa Award-winning author of Pure, a profound and tender tale of guilt, a search for atonement and the hard, uncertain work of loving.
'The writing is near perfect. But the novel's excellence goes far beyond this . . . You read [it] . . . with your pulse racing, all your senses awake' Guardian
'A beautiful, lambent, timely novel' Sarah Hall
An ex-soldier and recovering alcoholic living quietly in Somerset, Stephen Rose has just begun to form a bond with the daughter he barely knows when he receives a summons - to an inquiry into an incident during…
I have a wealth of knowledge and experience for living through tragic situations from my young adult life. I have overcome a traumatic childhood, alcoholism, drug addiction, and mental health. I find psychology fascinating; I have personally had many attempts by others to take my life. I have survived violent attacks, stalkers, and abuse. I love thriller books that have psychology embedded alongside many life lessons.
This book is a suspense thriller that has a theme of family drama and substance abuse.
As an advocate for mental health and addiction recovery I found this book a very worthwhile read. I found it hard to put the book down, the depth of the characters and their experiences were fearful. I assume the writer has drawn from personal experience as the storyline is too tragic to be completely fabricated.
The MC lives with her family in a household that walks on eggshells due to an alcoholic father. The story is rich and compelling with a great educational side of it that really does help others to understand issues surrounding alcoholism and mental health.
Perception is king, especially in a small Ohio town. Jessie Taylor seems like a normal 15-year-old girl, but she’s an illusion of what people expect her to be: a good girl, a smart girl, and most importantly, a girl from a respectable family. Her family may appear ordinary, even wholesome, but behind closed doors it’s an alcohol-soaked nightmare without reprieve. Jessie and her brother Brian, struggle bravely together as they fight to survive their violent father. Even the excitement of falling in love for the first time can’t seal the foundational cracks in her psyche. As her home life worsens,…
I took my first hit of marijuana when I was 9. I had my first drink at 12 and my first shot of heroin at 14. My brother and sister were also alcoholics and ended up taking their own lives. I abused drugs and alcohol for over 30 years, and after many failed attempts to turn my life around, I now have 15 years of continuous sobriety. I’ve also read almost ninety books on the topic of substance abuse and have written several myself about my personal struggles to get clean and sober and stay that way. Addiction, sadly, is a subject I know all too well.
This is one of the first books I read when I realized that I had a serious problem with drinking. Not only did it help me better understand my addiction from a genetic, scientific point-of-view, it also helped me diagnose myself as an alcoholic. Written for the lay-reader, it’s short, packed with hard facts and eye-opening studies about alcoholism. It’s a classic. And it’s also inspiring when it comes to recovery and treatment. I’ve recommended it dozens of times to people who’ve asked me where they could find out more about alcoholism, if not for themselves, then for those they love who have a serious drinking problem.
The now-classic guide to alcoholism returns with new, enlightening research that confirms the revolutionary ideas first trailblazed by this book in a time when such theories were unheard of—now featuring a new foreword, new resources, and the same reliable insights and easy-to-read style.
“This book is truly informative, powerful, and an invaluable resource on overcoming alcoholism.”—Angela Diaz, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H.
Ten of millions of Americans suffer from alcoholism, yet most people still wrongly believe that alcoholism is a psychological or moral problem that can be “cured” once the purported underlying psychological problems or moral failings of the alcoholic are addressed.…
