The Homilies on the First Epistle of John are a stirring series of sermons on the meaning of love. Romano Guardini, The End of the Modern World. Piers Shepherd is a freelance writer based in London. Julian Carron’s Where is God?. 2020 was the year I finally tackled John Steinbeck’s East of Eden which now ranks as one of my top-five favorite books. B&H Books / 2020 … What other place is so ordered as to directly serve God’s design for families to cultivate life? Wilken possesses the marvelous talent of bringing together diverse topics from the Church’s ancient past and making them relevant for today. Worldwide flood? Fr. Lewis recommended it to me. Antigone was the perfect re-read in a year that asks us which is more important: bodily health or religious and familial piety. After having read a similar title years earlier, I was unsure Kengor’s work would offer something new. And Shaun Blanchard’s book The Synod of Pistoia and Vatican II: Jansenism and Catholic Reform is enthralling for all sorts of reasons. A Christian Manifesto (no, not that one —Edwin Lewis had the title first), in which a 1930s Methodist embraces truth-in-labeling, and Another Gospel? Sandra Miesel is an American medievalist and writer. Corey’s books move fast, pulling you along, always gripped. And an updated rewrite of Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace’s great-great-granddaughter was a late surprise find. Given COVID lockdown and a sabbatical, 2020 has been the best reading year I can remember. Berry’s Hannah Coulter strums many of the same strings, but through the eyes of a woman who watches her first husband disappear in the war and her children grow up, leave the town, and become unmoored from their moral and cultural roots. Therese Williams has been a quadriplegic for over forty years, but teaches us to take up our cross daily (see Luke 9:23) with unrivaled joy. And, finally, I would highly recommend Josef Pieper’s brief and terse Hope and History which, as the title promised, provides a window into that misunderstood virtue, the neglected middle child between faith and charity. For a learned, truthful, balanced, and elegant account of the past, one cannot do better than to read Robert Royal’s Columbus and The Crisis of The West (Sophia Institute Press, 2020), a book that admirably avoids both the hagiography of the past and the ideological distortions of the present. David G. Bonagura, Jr. teaches at St. Joseph’s Seminary and is the author of Steadfast in Faith: Catholicism and the Challenges of Secularism. Slim, however, were the volumes of poetry I read. This is an extraordinary achievement from one of the finest – and bravest – writers of the twentieth century. Out of a Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength, by C.S. It is an important read for anyone seriously interested in learning about China, and is also an autobiography with snippets about childhood as the daughter of missionaries in the vanished world of the 1930s, about life in wartime Britain, and about the Church in the 1950s and 60s. William Cash is right: “[Smiley’s, and Le Carré’s] is a fictional universe that is not populated by James Bond-style cardboard heroes and villains but rather a cast of misfits, loners and frauds who struggle to understand who they are as the moral certainties of earlier ages disintegrate and dissolve around them.”. Another notable new book was Peter Brooks’ Balzac’s Lives, which tells the story of the great French novelist’s life in terms of some of his most fascinating characters. Love and Truth: The Christian Path of Charity by Jean Borella (New York: Angelico Press, 2020). Martin Jarvis is also very good. At every turn, Hutter presents Newman as an able critic of modernity’s desire to make man a sovereign subject, to allow man to reverse positions and place, as C.S. Catherine Harmon was managing editor of Catholic World Report for many years, and is currently social media manager for Ignatius Press. In this book, he presents an unremittingly bleak view of the present age as a time in which believers have been deprived of all comfort from tradition, culture, and a settled position in society. This is a cautionary tale of how confirmation bias and shutting out contrary views can lead to catastrophic results. Moving into summer, our nation’s chaos motivated a trip through 1960’s mayhem. It’s set long ago and far away, written in beautiful verse, and packed with knights, ladies, and the search for the Grail, but there are problems in Camelot. Hubert van Zeller, in his classic Approach to Monasticism, explains that there is no major difference between the man in the world, guided by grace who has to devise a technique of his own for searching after truth and the monk in a monastery, who is guided by the same grace as the man in the world and can make use of the particular way that his rule marks out for him. Dissects the insanities of tribal politics with a secular scalpel. Still good. A Year with the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living by Kathryn Jean Lopez (Saint Benedict Press/TAN Books, 2019). I finished it, mourned the fact that it was finished, then bought three copies as Christmas gifts. On an entirely different plane, I was much impressed by Father Mauro Gagliardi’s Truth Is a Synthesis: Catholic Dogmatic Theology, a bracing intellectual workout and a welcome demonstration that dynamic orthodoxy is alive and well in 21st-century Catholicism. Al Capone hired them rather than fight them. My interview with the writer was published in Catholic World Report. I normally dislike modernizations, but as a reviewer quipped, this one succeeded with “thees and thous redacted, thrills intact.”. A Damsel in Distress is psychologically astute (and, of course, hilarious) and turned out to be prophetic for a dear friend of mine courting a young lady. It has also been, more happily, a year of many good books. With all of this year’s additional stress and massive disruptions to school, work, and social life, I did not read as many books as I usually do. The sun has ascended, and I am mindful of Tolkien, who in the words of Aragorn, said: “Yet dawn is ever the hope of men.”. Though their subject matter is confined compared to the capacious lists being otherwise shared here, I will mention a few names lest they be forgotten. My nuttiness was relieved by reading Douglas Murray’s The Madness of Crowds. I picture Carl’s “Best Book List” like this: he asks some of us for a copy of our guestbook so that you, the readers, can make a potential guest list for your own future invitations. But looking back, his thesis that we have fallen into comfortable, persistent decadence seems to have been vindicated. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Robert Cardinal Sarah’s From the Depth of Our Hearts, on priestly celibacy, is a terse defense of what continues to be among the most criticized disciplines of the Roman Catholic Church. Allegory inhibits that effect since it assigns a singular and contrived meaning, the one–and only the one– given by the author. This is a wonderful meditative spiritual work by Robert Cardinal Sarah. A work of popular apologetics, drawing heavily on philosophical theology and rebutting the New Atheism. Fourth reading. An excellent critique of the “all we need is love” nonsense. Crisis in physics. A number of non-fiction, non-theology books held my interest this year as well. Thankfully, Newport not only dismantles this as a disturbing dream. Scruton’s second edition of his important critique of the New Left. The first is Kirk’s now-classic exposition of the beliefs and institutions which built the American republic. If Goodman and O’Connor have mastered the novel, Sam Weller, the official biographer of Ray Bradbury, has truly mastered the short story as manifested in his collection, Dark Black (Hat and Beard, 2020), at times terrifying and at times deeply personal, but always profound. Be that as it may, the book is an important introduction to how Western culture got to be the way it is. Click here to sign up for our newsletter. As with Bergsma’s book, here, again we see God working in history in a surprising and subtle way. The Beekeeper of Aleppo – Christy Lefteri. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry. : A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity, where Alisa Childers shares an easy-to-follow guide to what’s good and not-so-good for you on modern church menus. Francois Fenelon’s spiritual letters are so candid and unsettling that I would hesitate to open an envelope that arrived with his return address on it. What Are You Going to Do with Your Life? Mitchell’s analysis is both original and traditional, and is highly recommended. Many Worlds Interpretation. Last year’s edition of the list had just over forty lists of books. We also read Msgr. All of which shows the complexity of the currents within Catholic thought, especially with a high-end thinker like Guardini. Joel Kotkin, The Coming of Neo-Feudalism. Less reverential was Henry Bear’s X–Treme Latin: All the Latin You Need to Know for Survival in the 21st Century. Broadly, the cultural trends are still of decline—most prominently below-replacement fertility. This arc follows Wimsey–English aristocrat and amateur detective–from his first meeting with Harriet Vane (on trial for murder in Strong Poison) through the progression of their relationship, carried out on the side while they solve mysteries. This updated version of their 2012 work incorporates some recent trends in operatic productions. I got much more out of Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle the second time. This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel tells the story of two retired Texas Rangers who make the first cattle drive from South Texas to Montana. It seems fitting that in a year marked by constant turmoil and copious amounts of insanity that several of my favorites books were works that analyzed and responded to the roots and origins of several deep ills. Jonathan Cecil is a particularly felicitous narrator, for those who prefer an audio-book version. Not just a list of sites but a beautifully illustrated guide to images and themes that make Tolkien’s world real. Barnaby Rudge recently left that group. In an age of confusion, leaders within various vocations promote a chaste understanding of human sexuality. Much Obliged, Jeeves, P.G. “A culture of repudiation,” as the late great Roger Scruton called it, one marked by unrelenting self-loathing and systematically mendacious accounts of the past, increasingly dominates journalism, the academy, popular culture, and even, or especially, elementary and high school education. Moreover, while, again, Grant is often judged to be a mediocre president at best and a crook at worst, his promotion and defense of the civil rights of former black slaves in the South is both courageous and admirable. Still. In a different genre, I read Alessandro Manzoni’s historical novel I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), a favorite of Pope Francis. Finally, might I suggest a reread of Mary Shelly’s, Frankenstein? He was the son of the chief rabbi in the Jewish ghetto of Saverne, Alsace, but converted to Catholicism and entered seminary. While Trueman (a Protestant historian) and Mitchell (a Catholic political philosopher) bring robust Christian perspectives to the fore, the authors of Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody are Enlightenment-loving classical liberals. Western culture may be going to the dogs, but reading Esolen’s essays on the unreal, or indeed, surreal elements in our contemporary life, gives the reader hope that the spiritual reserves of Christian civilization have not yet been depleted. Excited because there are some awesome titles in here that I am glad to be adding to my classroom library, but also super sad because my students are not in that classroom to enjoy them. As the year lumbers to a close, its message resounds: the darkest hour precedes the promise of dawn. Overhearing a sermon, Vinicius is startled to learn “that this Judean avatar was also the eternal good and the eternal truth. Do you love blogging, or selling essential oils to family and friends? Michael’s excellent and detailed account of those years takes readers back to the days when obtaining and publishing underground newsletters from courageous Christians in the USSR and its satellite states was the sole means of telling the West what was really happening to religious believers behind the Iron Curtain. With two students I’m working on a critical edition of that book, and we’re greatly aided by Paul Shrimpton’s history of Newman’s Catholic University in The Making of Men. Professor de Mattei presents a detailed and persuasive account based on comprehensive research, although others with a more positive view of the Council and its effects will naturally differ in emphasis and interpretation. All his work speaks to our current moment. Finally, I want to read Joseph Pearce’s The Quest for Shakespeare as well as Shakespeare’s Spiritual Sonnets by the late Judge John T. Noonan. A balanced and fair treatment, including its ending with Galileo. My consternation at the Hagia Sophia’s change in status led to a collaboration I had with Darío Fernández-Morera, author of the The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain. I did read a fair amount of children’s fiction this year, both on my own and with my four kids, and this classic was a new favorite for me. This book was published in late 2011 and was voted the most popular book in Russia in 2012. Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents, Rod Dreher. While it may be true that literary criticism has been wrecked by the progressives and their poodles in the academy, there are still good books being written by those untainted by the establishment’s Pravda-like propaganda, and Brooks’ study is one of them. Finally let me mention perhaps the most stimulating book of the year drawn once more from the (for me) happy borderland of psychology and theology: Daniel José Gaztambide’s A People’s History of Psychoanalysis: from Freud to Liberation Psychology. The central thesis of this book comes from Newport’s many years advising college students at elite universities. The novel, thick with an almost psychedelic ambience, conjures bizarre concepts, strange characters, and fantastical happenings. In doing so, he brings Paul’s earliest extant letters alive for a Church and a world badly in need of Pauline insights into our times — and every time. Lonesome Dove is an epic story of adventure in the latter days of the Old West. 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