Light On Dark Water

A Good Book List From A Mildly Surprising Source

From the Church [of England] Times: an intriguing list of the The 100 Best Christian Books. I don't think I've read more than half of them, though there are many others that I know by reputation. As far as I can see, there are only a few real clunkers in there, and they make up for Hans Küng by allowing one of the contributors to slam him in the commentary that runs alongside the list. And I was very pleased to see Four Quartets so high on the list.

If I were going to pick one the Narnia books, it wouldn't be The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, which I think is a bit heavy-handed. I'm not sure it would make sense to pick any single one of the other six, though.

Anyway, I would have expected an Anglican list to be heavier on liberal theology and politics.

Lists are fun.

Maclin Horton

45 responses to “A Good Book List From A Mildly Surprising Source”

  1. Janet

    Five by CSL, I think that’s at least 2 more than anyone else, and I see Gilead made the list.
    AMDG

    Reply
  2. Janet

    There are far more books on that list that I have read part of than books I have read all of.
    AMDG

    Reply
  3. Mac

    Probably true for me, too, if I were to count them up.
    I was glad to see Screwtape on there–it’s my personal favorite of CSL’s non-fiction (well, I guess it’s fiction of a sort). Probably because it was the first thing I read.
    If you click on a book in the list, you can see comments from some of the people who participated. They’re interesting. And you can leave comments, too.

    Reply
  4. Louise

    Not enough Chesterton.
    🙂
    But apart from that, it looks like an interesting list. And yes, rather surprising.

    Reply
  5. Craig

    No quarrel with their number 1 choice.

    Reply
  6. Janet

    Craig, You mean you like Augustine? Heavens.
    AMDG

    Reply
  7. Craig

    What else could I mean?

    Reply
  8. Paul

    I thought I’d commented on this, but apparently not. Very odd.

    Reply
  9. Mac

    My first thought was that the spam catcher had grabbed it, but it hasn’t. So…I don’t know.

    Reply
  10. jkt

    Craig. 😉

    Reply
  11. Daniel NIchols

    I also have read about half of these. I suspect if this was a list made by a Catholic I would be around 80%…

    Reply
  12. Robert Gotcher

    I’ve read 25 of them. I’ve read part of 14 more. As you move down the list it becomes less attractive. I mean, John Hick ain’t no Augustine or Newman. As much as I like Herbert’s poems, I’m not sure why he’s in the top ten. Seven Story Mountain isn’t Merton’s best. In Memory of Her should have been lower. I’m surprised Milbank is on the list. I like all the Newman!

    Reply
  13. Robert Gotcher

    *Storey

    Reply
  14. Mac

    The fact that it’s an Anglican list has something to do with Herbert’s place, I imagine. And some of the other items as well. I wouldn’t put him that high, either, although I like that he’s on the list.

    Reply
  15. Robert Gotcher

    I wonder what a Catholic list like this would be.

    Reply
  16. Mac

    There’s probably one out there somewhere. I’m surprised at how Catholic this one is. Surprised at the amount of Newman, for instance.
    Looking at it more carefully, I see my guess of roughly half is way over the mark. I probably haven’t really read more than 20 of them, though I’ve dabbled in others.

    Reply
  17. Janet

    This list is making me feel guilty. I’ve only finished 9, and I’ve started 34 more, several of them I have started to real 3 or 4 times. There’s very little in the last half that I have read–Diary of a Priest, which I’ve finished–some I’ve never heard of.
    AMDG

    Reply
  18. Robert Gotcher

    Janet, don’t feel too guilty. I’ve only read as much as I have because I’m a theologian and have to read some of these and because I’m a great bookie and had to read some of the others.

    Reply
  19. Janet

    What makes me feel guilty is the ones I haven’t finished, many of which I really ought to finish.
    One annoying thing is that I bought Journal of a Soul at a used book store for a dollar years and years ago and never opened. When I went on retreat last month, the first Mass was on John XXIII’s feast day and the priest talked about how his spiritual director made him read that book in seminary, and he described what it was about, and said it had been formational for him. I gave it away about 6 months ago.
    AMDG

    Reply
  20. Craig

    Here is one attempt to do such a list for Catholics. Not a bad list at all (you can see the Table of Contents using the “Show Inside” feature) — except that Hans Kung makes an appearance there too!
    For the Anglican list, I’ve read (at least part of) 16 of the top 20, but only another 16 of the remaining 80.

    Reply
  21. Janet

    Craig, you are so good.
    AMDG

    Reply
  22. Robert Gotcher

    Craig, That list skews in the “progressive” direction, esp. towards the end, but it has some really great ones. I could see using it as a basis for a book club. That and the Anglican One.
    How would y’all like to meet in Milwaukee once a month to discuss these books?

    Reply
  23. Janet

    Memphis is more central.
    AMDG

    Reply
  24. Marianne

    For a list with no Hans Kung, there’s this one by Father John McCloskey of Opus Dei.
    Has some unusual ones, like Walker Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos and the novel Quo Vadis.

    Reply
  25. Robert Gotcher

    Marianne,
    Why do you call Lost in the Cosmos unusual? I mean, it IS unusual, but it doesn’t seem out of place on a list of great Catholic books.
    Ooh! It has The Intellectual Life by A. G. Sertillanges! If I had only had that book early in my career!

    Reply
  26. Mac

    I may like the Anglican one better than the first Catholic one, the one Craig linked to. (The Liberation of the Laity–never heard of it but the title provokes eye-roll.) And the McCloskey one a little better than either. But the Anglican is the only one that has Four Quartets On the other hand, both the Catholic ones have Kristin Lavrandsdatter.
    Lost in the Cosmos might be my top choice for a Percy book to include on a list of this sort, because it lays out the questions so well and so entertainingly. It is probably an unusual choice, but that doesn’t mean it’s out of place.

    Reply
  27. Marianne

    Maybe “unusual” wasn’t the right choice of word for Lost in the Cosmos. I’d first written “interesting”, but then, no, lots of interesting books on the list. I think I meant unusual in the sense of being an uncommon choice. And the book is sort of quirky, too. Or maybe just to me, since I found some of it confusing. At least I think I did; it’s been a long time since I read it.

    Reply
  28. Janet

    At first I thought I liked the Anglican list better, losing Lewis, Sayers, and Williams was a blow. But now, looking at the lower part of that book index I see we get Percy, Powers, Day, Tolkien, Undset, Houselander and Waugh. And for Graham Greene we have The End of the Affair instead of The Power and the Glory. I like PatG very well, but EotA is probably one of my top 5 novels, at least in the top 10. I’ve read a lot more of these.
    AMDG

    Reply
  29. Janet

    Sorry, sorry, sorry

    Reply
  30. Mac

    Fixed.

    Reply
  31. Robert Gotcher

    You can delete my posts. I was just trying to see if putting an /em or /i would turn it off. It didn’t.

    Reply
  32. Janet

    The only reason I messed up the italics like that was because you were doing blog housekeeping and I wanted to contribute something to clean up.
    AMDG

    Reply
  33. Mac

    Don’t know why your end tags didn’t fix it, Robert.
    Back to the subject of ads: I’ve removed the Sitemeter script, and would be interested to know whether the blog seems to load faster.

    Reply
  34. Janet

    Well heck, you may as well have just removed the original comment.

    Reply
  35. Mac

    ? Which is “the original”?

    Reply
  36. Paul

    It does seem to load faster, which surprises me — I’m at work and usually everything loads more slowly here.

    Reply
  37. Janet

    The one that I made with the italics in it. I’m just saying that the discussion about the italics completely buried my comment, which of course, may have been less than memorable anyway. 😉
    AMDG

    Reply
  38. Mac

    Pruning away the undergrowth only displayed the beauty of your comment more fully.

    Reply
  39. Janet

    But the undergrowth is still there.
    AMDG

    Reply
  40. Janet

    Ha. Well some of it, and this is some more.
    But thanks for your efforts.
    AMDG

    Reply
  41. Grumpy

    I read nearly all of them – with the proviso that only insane people would read the Summa Theologiae or the Church Dogmatics from cover to cover.

    Reply
  42. Mac

    I read a book by Michael Novak once where he said he had read the Summa three times. Draw your own conclusions.

    Reply
  43. Grumpy

    I like him, both personally and as a thinker. It was very important for me 25 years ago to read a magazine (Novak’s Crisis) and books which argued that a Catholic doesn’t have to be anti-liberal. I have met him maybe half a dozen times and he is always polite and friendly.

    Reply
  44. Mac

    Oh yeah, I didn’t really mean any personal putdown of him, just taking off from your remark about the Summa. I’ve never been that impressed by his writings in particular, but have always thought he & others (Neuhaus, Weigel) said some things that needed to be said at that time (25-35 years ago).

    Reply
  45. Louise

    “I read nearly all of them – with the proviso that only insane people would read the Summa Theologiae or the Church Dogmatics from cover to cover.”
    Heh!
    I like to read the Summa in bits as the need arises.

    Reply

Leave a comment

Instagram / TikTok / X

Designed with WordPress