Catholic Thought discussion

Here is a reading list that I and many others have posted elsewhere; it has generally been very well received. Life Time reading list suggested by Father John McCloskey:

href="http://www.catholicity.com/mccloskey/... Life Time Reading List

I hope that many visitors can put this to good use: comments and additions are welcome.

One of the bigger problems that I faced in prior years was figuring out which book(s) to buy. For a society that is becoming more and more secular we certainly publish an enormous number of religious books, selection was a very involved process. A list such as this can help.

The link you provided doesn't work. Here it is: http://www.catholicity.com/mccloskey/....

I would add Houselander's "The Reed of God" and Sheen's "The World's First Love," both on Mary.

Fr. Hardon's list can be found here: http://cooltoolsforcatholics.blogspot...

Some of the books on the lists are also free on iTunes which is where I get all my books so this is wonderful!

Richard,

Thank you very much for the corrected link as well as the link to Fr. Hardon's list; it appears to be one of the better lists I have encountered.

Thanks,

Mike

I am enjoying so much adding books to my to-read list from your link Mike. I also have a special devotion to Saint John Paul II so I have been adding a lot of his books as well.

Brandon Vogt is a blogger, writer and speaker on the Catholic faith. He reads a lot of Catholic books and I wanted to share his "Best Catholic Books of all time" list. He organized the books by category. Here is the link: http://brandonvogt.com/best-catholic-...
He also has other book recommendations:
http://brandonvogt.com/bookrecs/

Thank you for these lists from Brandon Vogt.

You're welcome Mike! :)

Those are great lists. Thanks everyone.

I thought I would bump this thread to the top incase anyone is looking for good books to read.

thanks, Susan Margaret. There are some really interesting books on those lists

Lisa wrote: "thanks, Susan Margaret. There are some really interesting books on those lists"

You are welcome!

Here are Fr's. Hardon's and McCloskey's lists in downloadable format:
Scroll down and you'll find the pdf

http://www.acountrypriest.com/?s=read...

http://www.acountrypriest.com/?s=mccl...

Kerstin wrote: "Here are Fr's. Hardon's and McCloskey's lists in downloadable format:
Scroll down and you'll find the pdf

http://www.acountrypriest.com/?s=read...

http://www.acountrypriest.com/?s=mc..."

Kerstin -- Thank you for posting these. I wish I had the time to read all of the books on their lists.

Kerstin that's great. I'm going to print the list and post it. Eventually if I'm granted a long life I may get through them.

You are all very welcome :)

I did order Fr. Hardon's book, The Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan, and was able to get it at a very reasonable price. He has introductions to each of the authors and then gives a recommendation of what to read. That is what is on his list. In addition, he has extensive bibliographies of all the authors he mentions in the back. This has turned out to be a much bigger resource than I expected.

With Fr. McCloskey I have yet to find out why he chose the works he did. To be fair, I haven't looked very hard either.
His list is also on Listopia, though it is not complete.
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

What is so amazing to me, is that these works only present a portion of solid Catholic writings. No matter how old a person is, you'll never run out! And you can never go wrong.

These lists have been of great value to me and to this group, especially in the early years of this group. Fr. McCloskey's list first made me aware of the Warren Carroll history series; two of these have served as group reads.

I do wish that Fr. McCloskey would update his list more often. As I go back to what was posted here in 2014 and the current post there is only minor differences.

Fr. Hardon's list is broader in scope with a good deal more work invested in it.

Both are wonderful and usually lead to notice of other lists being posted.

Kerstin wrote: "Here are Fr's. Hardon's and McCloskey's lists in downloadable format:
Scroll down and you'll find the pdf

http://www.acountrypriest.com/?s=read...

http://www.acountrypriest.com/?s=mc..."

I just printed our McCloskey's list and checked off the ones I've read. There must be a couple of hundred on the list and I'm ashamed to say I've read only twelve, and even one of the twelve (O'Connor's Short Stories) I've only read partial. Yikes!

I did see my beloved St. Catherine of Siena is on the list, an abridged version of her Dialogue which they titled "Little Talks with God." I am going to have to nominate that one of these club reads.

I couldn't open Fr. Hardon's list.

Thanks for posting these lists. Most of my life I have read novels and the non-fiction books have mostly been about teaching, administration or health. A great number of these books I have never heard of but thanks to those of you who have posted you've given me a lifetime project.

Manny wrote: "Kerstin wrote: "Here are Fr's. Hardon's and McCloskey's lists in downloadable format:
Scroll down and you'll find the pdf

http://www.acountrypriest.com/?s=read...

http://www.acountry..."

See if this works...
http://www.acountrypriest.com/wp-cont...

The link works on my phone Kerstin but fails to work at my work computer, which means it's being blocked by the settings. I keep forgetting to check at home. I imagine it will work there. Thank you.

Kerstin, it worked on my home computer. Thanks.

Based upon my review of these two lists; I believe that our group has read nine of these titles. There may be some others but the group history is truncated.
This is a good performance. The titles I believe we have under our belts are:

Bl Anne Emmerich, The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ

St. Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God

St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle

St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises

Fulton Sheen, Life of Christ *

Thomas Merton, Seven Story Mountain

Shusaku Endo, Silence

Warren Carroll, Founding of Christendom *

Warren Carroll, Building of Christendom

(*) from memory, could not find in archives.

I know we have read many other titles but if members can recall other titles specifically from these two lists that have been the subject of group reads please let us know.

Looking through the archives I found we read Chesterton's Orthodoxy and Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives as well. I'm not sure if they're on the Great Catholic Books List but they should be on some great Catholic list..

You know, we might consider renaming our book club The Great Catholic Books book club. Unfortunately the repetition of "Books" makes it sound awkward.

Manny wrote: "Looking through the archives I found we read Chesterton's Orthodoxy and Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives as well. I'm not sure if they're on the Great Catholic Books Li..."

Both are on at least one of the lists we have been discussing; counting Benedict's three volume set as a single selection that brings our count to 11. This is wonderful!

I personally would like to do a good deal more work on Fr. Hardon's list.

I actually like the pace we are at right now. We are at a steady pace, yet there are little breathers in-between where we select the new read giving us the lead time to actually incorporate it. Plus, Manny is the only one moderating right now, as far as I know, and that's a big commitment.

Manny wrote: "Looking through the archives I found we read Chesterton's Orthodoxy and Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives as well. I'm not sure if they're on the Great Catholic Books Li..."

The two reading lists give us a good indication of what to focus on, yet there are still gaps. And of course, there always will be.

We don't have, unless I missed it, Ratzinger's Introduction to Christianity, Josef Pieper's seminal Leisure: The Basis Of Culture, important 20th century authors such as Henri de Lubac, and Hans Urs von Balthasar.

Then there are contemporary publications not to be overlooked (and I am sure there are more), Robert Cardinal Sarah's God or Nothing and his new one, The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise, or Anthony Esolen's Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching.

There is a short list also by Bishop Robert Barron,
https://www.wordonfire.org/wof-site/m...

My thinking is, if a book appears on all three of those lists, then it is a definite "must read." :)

Loretta wrote: "Yes! I know Manny and Mike are the only two moderates but I'm sure if they needed or wanted help all they would have to do is ask and someone, maybe yourself Kerstin, and they would help them. It's a great list of books and I was trying to somehow incorporate them into the group. That's all. It was only a suggestion. "

Wow, four books a month is an incredible pace. I know the pace is a bit slower here. OK, a lot slower...LOL. For me, it would be a little tough to participate in more than forty to fifty pages per week, depending on what it is of course. We officially completed Vision of Fatima on July 9th, and we'll probably begin whatever is selected next this first week of August. So we basically had a month gap also. The pace and the gaps allows time for me to read other things as well.

Yes, if we stepped up the pace and eliminated the gaps we could read more. We could try to do that but this is not a large group. I wonder how many would participate in a more accelerated pace. I'm pretty sure I would have to pick and choose which reads I would be a part of, and we definitely then would need another moderator. I don't know what Mike's personal schedule is like. I think he was studying for a degree in the last year or two, which caused him to slow down his participation here. I'm still hoping that Susan Margaret comes back at some point. We could use another moderator in the mean time to help out, and if anyone wants to volunteer of course I would love to have you.

Ultimately my concern is whether more would participate with an increased pace. Of our 20-ish regular participants, I estimate we get about ten-ish that participate on any read, and maybe only three to four that actually comment. Would a higher pace reduce participation on any given read? Could it increase participation since more books would come through and catch people's desires? I don't know.

I'll tell you what we can do. Once we've selected this next read, and unless it's a tie we'll know Sunday, we can put the question of an increased pace to the group in a poll and we'll see how people feel. If the group wants to read more, we'll figure out how to do it. Nothing is impossible with God's help!

Two books per month would be nice in so far as it would provide an option for a group read. Most likely if we went to 2 per month, I would choose one. On the down side, as several have pointed out, that might thin the already slim conversation in each discussion. Since our group is small, if members chose between the two options, there might not be enough posts to keep a discussion going.

I'm afraid the latter is what's going to happen Irene. We will splinter to two or three people reading a work. I know I couldn't handle more than one at a time.

I think the reasonable options are faster pace and eliminating the gaps. I will poll the group for that right after we select the next read.

I also just noticed I set the poll closing date to Sunday night midnight, not Saturday as I stated above. I'm going to try to change that if I can. No one has voted now for a couple of days.

Wow! Some very interesting suggestions here. I like the fact that the purpose is to increase the number of highly recommended books we read. You will note from the posts above that we have already read 11 books from those lists; something of which to be proud. Would I like to see 22 or 33? Certainly. We only need to figure out how and if the group feels they can sustain the extra effort.

Manny raised a very fair question about my availability; since I have only recently re-joined as a moderator in this group. For those new to this group I would point you to the very first post in the “Please Introduce Yourself” thread for this group. In the years following that post a good deal of effort was spent trying to improve and grow this group. I was lucky that some very talented people joined and began playing key roles. I wanted to pursue an advanced degree and quickly found that I could not do justice to moderating group reads and my studies; so I withdrew from moderating. Now that I have finished my studies I returned to the group. Regarding my schedule; I have been retired for a number of years and I devote a good deal of time to reading within GR and outside.

I would like to offer my opinions on some of the suggestions made in this thread. First of all thank you Loretta for your suggestion and Kerstin and Irene for your observations. I personally would love to see the group take on one additional book during a reading period. That period may not be a month, it would all depend upon the books selected. Some of the books on these lists could easily span a year or more – others a few weeks. We have had multiple reads go on within the group at the same time and I believe it did detract from the other group read. A possible way of preventing that would be to extend the time allotted to the two books so that a member could stay current on both fronts. Just a thought.

On the number of lists; I would suggest we pick two or three and go with them for our selections. Also, we need to keep in mind that most people in this group are reading other materials; they need that time.

I hope we have more discussion on this.

My vote, for whatever it means, would be NOT to limit nominations to a published list. There are great books that are either published after a list was compiled or simply was unknown to the list's author that did not make that list. I would rather allow for open nominations and allow the voting process to make the determination. The person nominating could identify their book as coming from a particular list, which might make it more appealing to members who value the opinion of the list's author.

Irene wrote: "My vote, for whatever it means, would be NOT to limit nominations to a published list. There are great books that are either published after a list was compiled or simply was unknown to the list's ..."

I'm in agreement with you Irene. If people want to nominate off the list, they are free to do so. The book club should not restrict to a list.

In my post I was trying to comment on Loretta’s suggestion or question, (post # 27 above).

“Would it be conceivable, perhaps to incorporate two books per month? One from this wonderful list and then one the way we've been selecting books? I for one would love to read more than one book per month. Members can either read the second book or not. It's just a thought.”

I think this is a good suggestion if we wanted to increase the number of books we are reading and read more from a lifetime reading list or lists. According to this suggestion we would continue to select books as we have been doing it with a second book coming from a list.

That deserves some discussion.

Two and more books are easier done when reading novels and (light) classics, and are often part of groups that have 1000+ members, some considerably more than 1000. Many of our reads are not light reading, and deserve to be given the time they require.

A solution for our more cozy group could be optional "buddy reads" where folks join if they want to, but these are kept separate from the main read, and are not part of the normal selection/nominating process. The folks reading the buddy reads would select their own discussion leader, freeing our moderators from that task.

I apologize, I didn't mean to say all classics are light. And I used to be part of "Catching up on Classics", eventually I moved over to "Classics and the Western Canon", as I found their more in-depth approach more to my liking.

My concern was, and maybe I should have worded it differently, that when you have two reads, then you have a certain number of readers who are forced to make a decision between the two. Unlike the bigger groups, I doubt we'll do many re-reads, plus our group here is pretty much the only one on goodreads reading Catholic books, and our participation is usually just a handful of people.

Having said this, it doesn't hurt to try. :)

Ok. What we'll do is have a run off poll and given all the discussions that seemed to promise reading both I think the fair thing to do is the losing book will be read immediately following the winning book's read. I will set up the runoff poll tonight. Is that fair to everyone?

Getting back to a Life-Time-Reading List, Francis X. Maier, ex-editor at National Catholic Register and now senior adviser and special assistant to Philadelphia’s Archbishop Charles Chaput, had an article in his old publication on some of his suggested reading for Catholics to understand the modern world. Very interesting and different, Here:
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/...

Some of the works he lists are:

Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon
Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory
George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language
C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity
Joseph Ratzinger’s Faith and the Future
C.S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man
Ernest Hemingway’s short story “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”

As it turns out I recently re-read that Hemingway short story. It’s only about three or four pages long and you can read it online, here: http://www.mrbauld.com/hemclean.html

I’ve been struggling to see what exactly Hemingway is after. It is a work about despair, but I can’t come to the conclusion as to whether Hemingway is endorsing the despair or showing a way to live against the despair. Nonetheless it’s a great short story and I’m surprised Mr. Mair included it. I suppose he sees it as a way to live against the despair. But having read Hemingway as much as I have, I’m not sure.

Actually the Hemingway work that I would argue is a great read for Catholics to live against the secular world is his great novel, The Sun Also Rises. For those that may not know, Hemingway was a convert to Roman Catholicism in his young manhood, though I would say he lapsed fairly shortly thereafter. The Sun Also Rises I think is a work when he felt the faith.

Manny wrote: "Getting back to a Life-Time-Reading List, Francis X. Maier, ex-editor at National Catholic Register and now senior adviser and special assistant to Philadelphia’s Archbishop Charles Chaput, had an ..."

That's a great list! I'll have to copy it :)

Manny wrote: "Getting back to a Life-Time-Reading List, Francis X. Maier, ex-editor at National Catholic Register and now senior adviser and special assistant to Philadelphia’s Archbishop Charles Chaput, had an ..."

Thanks for the list and comments on Hemingway.

Manny wrote: "Getting back to a Life-Time-Reading List, Francis X. Maier, ex-editor at National Catholic Register and now senior adviser and special assistant to Philadelphia’s Archbishop Charles Chaput, had an ..."

Lewis' Abolition of Man and Orwell's Politics and the English Language are both short and address related topics - they could be read together which would give an opportunity to compare the two works. I believe Orwell's is available on line.

Aleteia, the Catholic online magazine, put together a list of Pope Francis' favorite books. It's an interesting list, here:

1. Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson
2. Late Have I Loved Thee by Ethel Mannin
3. Notes from the Underground and The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
4. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola
5. The Lord by Romano Guardini
6. The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri J.M. Nouwen
7. The Splendor of the Church by Henri de Lubac
8. Memoriale by St. Peter Faber
9. El Otro, el mismo by Jorge Luis Borges
10. The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni

You can read the details of each book and why he thinks so highly of them here:
https://aleteia.org/2018/03/01/10-of-...

The only ones I've read are the two by Dostoevsky. Our book club has read #4, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, but I didn't participate in that one. Only Spiritual Exercises and The Lord are on our bookshelf. Perhaps we should put them all on our bookshelf, though I don't remember Notes from Underground having a religious dimension, but it was a long, long time ago when I read it.

What do you think, is there anything that shouldn't go on our bookshelf?

Interesting list. Several I had not even heard of. I don't know "Notes from the Underground" so I don't know if it should go or not go on our shelf. I would personally like to read "The Splender of the Church" and am curious about the fiction included on this list.

Irene wrote: "Interesting list. Several I had not even heard of. I don't know "Notes from the Underground" so I don't know if it should go or not go on our shelf. I would personally like to read "The Splender of..."

That caught my eye too. Besides the Dostoevski, The Betrothed and Lord of the World are both fiction works I have wanted to read. The Borges is an edition of poetry. I just pulled out my Selected Poems of Borges and it’s in there! In dual language no less. I’m going to have to put it in my reading list. The Mannin work is also fiction but I’ve never heard of it or her.

Thanks for posting this Manny. I LOVE lists of favorite books and what could be better than Pope Francis' revered list?! Adding to my to-read list straightaway.

This is a book about lifetime reading, books with Christian values, though not necessarily a Catholic world view. It's a new book by Karen Swallow Prior, On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books.

The book caught my attention when I read a conversation with the author titled, "Why Christians Should Read Good Literature: Karen Swallow Prior Talks New Book, On Reading Well" and you can find the article here:
https://stream.org/5-questions-karen-...

Looks interesting.

I've seen this book before, though I don't remember where ;)

Kerstin wrote: "I've seen this book before, though I don't remember where ;)"

It says it was published September 4, 2018. which is today. :)

It does sound like it's been written somewhere before. Stange how it could get 22 ratings already, unless they all had advance copies.

Here's a book along the same themes as the one just above I posted yesterday. The Virtues We Need Again: 21 Life Lessons from the Great Books of the West by Mitchell Kalpakgian. Mr. Kalpakgian just passed away and I became aware of him and his books by a moving obituary by Joseph Pearce, "Portrait of a Scholar and a Gentleman: Mitchell Kalpakgian, Rest in Peace," here:
http://www.theimaginativeconservative...