Summer Reading: The Catholics

Last month, I spent some time recommending books for summer reading. If you’re my age (41), or older, you probably remember wandering through Meijer (or your local “everything-store”), Borders Books & Music, or Barnes & Noble, early in the summer and picking out a vacation book. I read some truly awful books on the lounge chair on my family’s patio – slathering in Skin So Soft and listening to Tori Amos on sunny summer afternoons. Can it get anymore ’90s than that?

But I don’t want to recommend awful books! I want to encourage you to pick up really good books this summer – books that will delight your heart and tantalize your mind. This month, let’s pick up some Catholic writers. Most of them are writing fiction, but I’ve thrown in a couple of non-fiction selections as well. 

The Big Two

Tolkien and Chesterton are two of the best-known Catholic writers for contemporary readers. It’s likely you’ve read The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. His fantasy stories are overwhelmingly popular and beautifully written. But, he wrote other stories as well. Farmer Giles of Ham and Smith of Wootton Major are two of my favorites. These short stories are both playful and reflective. Tolkien also produced a translation of Beowulf, literary essays, and also a poem/play: The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthlem’s Son. All of Tolkien’s writing is worth a visit.

G.K. Chesterton is famous for his Father Brown mysteries as well as his essays. He wrote a few poems as well, and – my personal favorite – The Man Who Was Thursday, a “metaphysical thriller.” If you’re looking to delve into some non-fiction this summer, a book of Chesterton’s essays might be an ideal choice. The essays are short, but substantial. There’s a lot to embrace, and to critique in Chesterton – which makes him such an interesting author to read. 

Unsettling Insights

Flannery O’Connor is famous for her Southern Gothic short stories. Her writing is full of dark humor and keen insights into the less attractive elements of human nature. Her most famous short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” about an unpleasant family’s brutal murder by an escaped convict, might be a little too dark for you. But if her fiction is too unsettling, try reading her collected letters. Compiled in the book The Habit of Being, these letters introduce us to the woman behind the stories – they’re thoughtful, devout, and engaging. O’Connor had a broad correspondence and the variety of thought in Habit of Being is delightful. 

Evelyn Waugh is another Catholic author known for his dark humor and social critique. His most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited, is a stunning exploration of Divine Grace – God’s love pursuing each individual throughout life. His lesser-known works, Decline and Fall, and A Handful of Dust, are satirical critiques of society written by someone with a longing for goodness. 

Southern Catholic writers tend to deal with a lot of the unsettling aspects of human nature. Like Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy writes his way through alienation, loneliness, and spiritual darkness. His stories tend to be philosophically oriented and deeply reflective. Some people compare his writing to Albert Camus, particularly his book Lancelot, which follows a disenchanted lawyer as he talks through his breakdown.

Depth and Feeling

Modern Catholic authors love exploring human emotions and the challenges of living morally in the modern world. These books often have a stark surface, with teeming psychological depths. Authors like Graham Greene and Rumer Godden are known for their rich, painfully insightful books. Greene’s The End of the Affair deals with romance, faith, infidelity, and the aftermath of obsession. Greene’s writing is so straightforward, and conveys so much within a clean, simple framework. 

Rumer Godden’s writing is much more lyrical and poetic, but it creates the same space within the reader’s mind. As the book progresses, we fall deeper and deeper into an emotional and intellectual understanding of the shadow moral world the characters, and we ourselves, inhabit. Godden’s book, In This House of Brede, is incredible. It’s an absorbingly beautiful book about one Benedictine nun’s vocation. The book is full of haunting images and painful insights. In some places, this book is almost too painful to continue, but the ending is triumphant.

Summer Books

I’m at the ocean with my family this week. We’re all sitting around, watching the waves. My daughter is lounging on a sun-warmed rock, reading Robert Louis Stevenson while my son fishes off the coast. But unlike the family vacations of my childhood, there are a lot of screens in play. Family members sitting in the living room, each with their own device in hand – windows closed, the ocean at a comfortable distance. 

There’s something about books – real, tangible books – that is like opening the window and letting the sea air in. Behind a screen, even the greatest classics are hard to feel in our souls. In my little room, I have all the windows open, I can smell the salt air. And now, I’m closing the computer and picking up my well-worn copy of A Canticle for Leibowitz – a beautiful, powerful exploration of the cyclical nature of history in a fallen world. The book is soft and a little messy – cluttered up with my father-in-law’s careful notes, my husband’s less-careful notes, and the soft, woodsy scent of home. There’s chamomile-peach tea in my cup and a thick slice of blueberry crumble cake on a plate. I hope your summer reading is as comforting!