I agree with the recommendations for C.S. Lewis, among others.
I have one concern about A Canticle for Leibowitz. It’s an excellent novel, but I’d say the viewpoint is Catholic. In fact, the Pope even puts in an appearance. You might thing twice about this if your friend has issues with Catholic doctrine.
James Blish’s A Case of Conscience is another good SF/religious novel. Again, however, I’d say its viewpoint is Catholic.
Jomo Mojo writes:
> Lewis thought his last novel, Till We Have Faces, was by far his
> best. Doesn’t anyone read that any more? I still have to get to
> it.
I think that it’s his best novel too. Indeed, a lot of Lewis fans think so. One other Lewis book I don’t think was mentioned yet is Surprised by Joy, a memoir of his life up to the point it was written, mostly about his spiritual journey.
> Canticle for Leibowitz??? That’s very much post-Christian, I
> would say.
Walter Miller was a sincere Catholic at the time he wrote A Canticle for Leibowitz, but he left the church several years afterwards, and at the end of his life he was expousing something like a anti-rationalist nihilism.
> I’m surprised no one has mentioned Charles Williams. If you
> want really seriously thought-provoking Christian fiction and
> poetry, you really have to check out Charles Williams. Especially
> The Place of the Lion (which inspired “Aslan”), Descent into Hell,
> and All Hallow’s Eve. Williams was a one-of-a-kind author. For
> him poetry had occult incantatory power, and he was a master
> of several schools of poetry. He was one of the few people to
> combine Anglican Christianity with occult Magick. His concept of
> love, which he found in Dante’s treatment of Beatrice, was that
> human love leads to divine love, a belief he shared with Sufis
> and Tantrics as well as Dante. Williams was one of the three
> major members of the Inklings, the little coterie that formed
> around C. S. Lewis and included Tolkien as its other major
> luminary.
Do you know about the Mythopoeic Society? See here:
stargazer writes:
> Another book I really enjoyed is Through the Shadowlands, a
> biography of Lewis’ life, by Brian Sibley. My copy was never
> returned by a friend, so it’s been quite a while since I’ve read
> it. I seem to remember, though, that it was fascinating (much
> better than the movie!)
There are better biographies of Lewis than Sibley’s (which in any case is very short and doesn’t even cover his whole life). I recommend George Sayer’s biography of Lewis, Jack. I don’t recommend A. N. Wilson’s biography of Lewis.
A-HA!! So that’s why Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman was unreadable rubbish!
Such a disappointment, after I’d looked forward to it for years.
There’s plenty of room for more novels (good ones!) in that universe. What I’d really like to see is a translation into English of Boedullus.
That and a history textbook from 1800 years after the nuclear war - that is, the setting of the last segment of ACfL.
A second on Dostoyevsky, though I’d recommend The Brothers Karamazov ahead of The Idiot.
But read him yourself to decide whether it’s the sort of thing she’d like. It’s not all plot and action, so it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
With Madeleine L’Engle, I’d particularly recommend A Wrinkle in Time, which is one of my all-time favorites, as well as A Ring of Endless Light and Many Waters.
And C.S. Lewis could be a bit too rational, at times, to be a good writer. But by the time he wrote Till We Have Faces, life had taught him a few things, and he’d moved past that. Which is why it’s easily his best work of fiction. Second-best, I’d say, is The Great Divorce, which is a fun book, but it’s a distant second.
And Tolkien…The Lord of the Rings is one of the most remarkable works of Christian fiction ever, without ever mentioning a deity.
Wow, picking out books for her went from hard to really easy… and now back to really hard because I have so many things to choose from!
I’m definitely getting a couple of Lewis books, probably “Mere Christianity” and “Till We Have Faces” based on what I’ve read here. Then maybe I’ll throw on a little bit of Chesterton (probably “Orthodoxy” and a Father Brown book… or maybe The Everlasting Man), since it doesn’t seem too steeped in Catholicism. And I think the Norris stuff would be right up her alley.
Also, this thread has now added many things to my own personal reading list, so everyone benefits. 
Keep 'em coming!
Right. I forgot to mention The Great Divorce and Surpised By Joy, so I’m glad someone else did. Jean Vanier’s Becoming Human is very good, too… am I the only Annie Dillard fan here, folks?
Ha ha! From Holy The Firm…
] I know only enough of God to want to worship him, by any means ready to hand. There is an anomalous specificity to all our experience in space, a scandal of particularity, by which God burgeons up or showers down into the shabbiest of occasions, and leaves his creation’s dealing s with him in the hands of purblind and clumsy amateurs…
(After buying Communion wine) *Here is a bottle of wine with a label, Christ with a cork. I bear holiness splintered into a vessel, very God of very God, the sempiternal silence personal and brooding, bright on the back of my ribs… Through all my clothing, through the pack on my back and through the bottle’s glass I feel the wine. Walking faster and faster, weightless, I feel the wine. It sheds light in slats through my rib cage, and fills the buttressed vaults of my ribs with light pooled and buoyant. I am moth; I am light. I am prayer and I can hardly see…[/I
Any women posting to this thread? Because, no offense, but you’re answering like a bunch of guys.
I go along with most of the recomendations so far, but my Christian women friends are all reading the Mitford books by Jan Karon and The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. The first is a series of novels about life of priest and parishoners in a small Episcopal church (I think, didn’t read 'em) The second is a retelling of one of the old testement books (Ruth, I think gave it as a gift, but didn’t read it either). They’re all a little to mild and feminine for me (I’m a tough old broad) but go over big with my mother in law, women’s fiction, religious and miles ahead of the Left Behind junk in quality.
The Red Tent is a very good book, a female-oriented retelling of the Genesis stories of Jacob and Joseph. However I wouldn’t call it Christian literature. The overall theme is rather anti-patriarchal monotheism, and many of the characters are quite vehemently bitter about the worship of the God of Abraham.
Womwn recognizing that the church is patriarchal? :eek:
But so far none of the Christian women I know that’s read it have been offended by it. And my MIL is a pretty frosty church lady. She liked it so much she loaned it back to me and insisted I should read it. A lot of church women’s reading groups have picked up on it, too. I’m a librarian. I know these things.
If the female friend of the OP is born again, it might not wash, but if she’s mainstream I’d still recommend it.
I mean women. That was me typing while eating lunch, not inventing new feminist words.
One Christian-themed book I have enjoyed is The Christian Agnostic, by Leslie Weatherhead. (However, it’s primarily an exposition on Christianity - not literature or poetry.)
Please take any of my ideas with a grain of salt, however, as I am frequently a fan of unimaginative and simplistic books.
You know, one of my Christian friends was bothered a bit by The Red Tent because she felt it took liberties with the bible. I don’t care to start that debate here, but I add it as another cautionary note for that choice.
Since others also seem to be interested in Christian literature, I’d like to recommend “The Samurai” by Shusaku Endo. It provides an interesting view of Christianity from another culture, as it is an historical novel about a Franciscan monk in 17th-century Japanese culture.
A little more light-hearted is the classic book “Christy,” the one that was made into a TV series. Stop retching, it’s not a bad read, really, for all its sappiness.
Other fiction that I’ve liked included books by Morris West, especially “Lazarus.” It’s about a pope who undergoes serious heart surgery and has to recover by living quietly among people in the country rather than in the midst of Vatican politics. He undergoes a huge change as he rexamines his faith. It’s Catholic-intensive, for sure, but worth a look.
oh yeah – Silence by Shusaku Endo is also great.
As for Shadowlands, Wendell Wagner is prob’ly right: it’s not the best biography of Lewis’ life. But it’s still a good read, if one isn’t looking for a biography. That’s why I recommended it (Jack is definitely a much better bio, if she’s interested in bios).
Some good fiction I just remembered: Frank Peretti’s This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness. Very good novels about spiritual warfare and stuff – well written, too, unlike the Left Behind nonsense. I really enjoyed them (and I was an English major, so I’m supposedly “trained” in what’s good and what’s not! ) – they’re vivid and gripping, even if one doesn’t agree with every bit of theology they espouse. (That’s kind of par for the course in Christian writing)
And Cranky – I enjoyed Christy, too.
Nth vote for Chesterton.
KinSaba writes:
> Hinds Foot in High Places. The name of the author escapes me
> at the moment and my copy has been lent out … apparently
> forever.
I see no one has answered this yet. It’s by Hannah Hurnard.
The Mythopoeic Society is at
http://www.mythsoc.org/ org, not com.
Yes, J. R. R. Tolkien! Absolutely great stuff, actually based in Christian ideas, without being obvious about it. He was actually a Catholic (converted from Church of England as a child or young man I believe), and a few of the particulars of the stories, especially the Valar, who can be seen as analogous to the Catholic saints, bother some Protestants. Most of the appearances of the Valar are in The Silmarillion, though. If you friend hasn’t read LotR yet, and doesn’t mind a huge long 3-volume read, force feed…er, I mean gently introduce her to…The Lord of the Rings. (Side benefit: movies comin’ out now on the book! )
Frank Peretti is good writing, I think, if by that you mean it scares the pants off you!! Heh. Very enjoyable, just don’t read them at 2 a.m.
Hinds’ Feet on High Places (Hannah Hurnard) is pretty allegorical, kind of like Pilgrim’s Progress. I enjoyed Hind’s Feet more than Pilgrim’s Progress, though. There’s a sequel called Mountains of Spices. I would have to agree with Tolkien, though, who said he liked history, “real or feigned,” better than allegory.
I would also recommend Dorothy Sayers, A Man Born to Be King. Plays read on the radio in England during WW II, available in book form but I don’t know where from (may be fairly rare??) The life of Jesus of Nazareth, told from the viewpoint of the people around him, who didn’t know that he was the Son of God and going to save everybody. Great stuff, I’ve gotta finish reading it.
I think it was Dorothy Sayers who said that in order for drama/art to be good religion, it must first be good art.
Now I gotta go get some stuff by G. K. Chesterton…I’ve heard he was good but haven’t got around to reading him yet.
Read Chesterton, and fall in love. 
What’s not to like about a 400-lb cape-wearing, swordstick-carrying English journalist who wrote essays about lying in bed and staring at the ceiling? Whee!
I recently started reading O’Brien’s books - there are several out. I really enjoyed them, but the focus is on Catholicism. If the OP’s friend disagrees with some Catholic theology, that may distract from their enjoyment.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer The Cost of Discipleship.
I’ve never read, but I intend to. The description on my reading list makes it look good.
Left Behind is crap, but I’m addicted. I can’t wait to see how it ends.