Book Reviews - A Comprehensive Index by Category
This index lists all of the JwJ book reviews by category. We also provide a single listing of all reviews organized alphabetically by author. All reviews are by Daniel B. Clendenin except as noted.
Our four most recent book reviews
| 16 June 2013 | Sonia Sotomayor, My Beloved World |
| 9 June 2013 | Jeanne Theoharis, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks |
| 2 June 2013 | Esther de Waal, editor, The Celtic Vision; Prayers, Blessings, Songs and Incantations from the Gaelic Tradition |
| 26 May 2013 | Garry Wills, Why Priests? A Failed Tradition |
Categories
- Autobiography, Memoir
- Biography
- Theology and Religion
- Church History
- Biblical Studies
- Spiritual Formation and Discipleship
- History
- Politics
- Culture
- Science, Science and Religion, Environment
- Economics
- Poetry, Art, Film, Literature, Photography and Music
- Gender, Sexuality, HIV-AIDS
- Fiction
Autobiography, Memoir
- Ayaan Hirsi Ali,
- Andre Agassi, Open; An Autobiography.
- Eben Alexander, Proof of Heaven; A Neurosurgeon's Journey Into the Afterlife.
- Julian Barnes, Nothing to Be Frightened Of.
- Jean-Dominique Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
- Harry Belafonte with Michael Shnayerson, Harry Belafonte: My Song
- Bertice Berry, The Ties That Bind; A Memoir of Race, Memory, and Redemption.
- Rick Bragg
- Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods.
- Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, Holy Hunger; A Woman's Journey from Food Addiction to Spiritual Fulfillment.
- Will D. Campbell
- Devon W. Carbado and Donald Weise, editors, The Long Walk to Freedom; Runaway Slave Narratives.
- Veronica Chater, Waiting for the Apocalypse; A Memoir of Faith and Family.
- Joan Chittister, Called to Question; A Spiritual Memoir.
- Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography.
- Lindsey Crittenden, The Water Will Hold You; A Skeptic Learns to Pray.
- John Bul Dau with Michael S. Sweeney, God Grew Tired of Us; A Memoir.
- Dieter Dengler, Escape from Laos.
- Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking.
- Dion DiMucci with Mike Aquilina, Dion: The Wanderer Talks Truth; Stories, Humor & Music
- Tina Fey, Bossypants
- James Frey, A Million Little Pieces.
- Alexandra Fuller, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness.
- Nora Gallagher
- Leymah Gbowee, with Carol Mithers, Mighty Be Our Powers, A Memoir: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War
- Dr. Glenn W. Geelhoed, with Patricia Edmonds, Gifts from the Poor; What the World's Patients Taught One Doctor About Healing
- Hank Haney, The Big Miss; My Years Coaching Tiger Woods.
- Blaine Harden, Escape From Camp 14; One Man's Remarkable Odyssey From North Korea to Freedom in the West.
- Christopher Hitchens, Mortality.
- Rhoda Janzen, Mennonite in a Little Black Dress; A Memoir of Going Home.
- Mildred Armstrong Kalish, Little Heathens; Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression.
- Agnes Fallah Kamara-Umunna and Emily Holland, And Still Peace Did Not Come: A Memoir of Reconciliation
- Mary Karr, Lit: A Memoir.
- Mary-Ann Kirkby, I Am Hutterite.
- David Koker, At the Edge of the Abyss; A Concentration Camp Diary, 1943–1944.
- Brian Kolodiejchuk, ed., Mother Teresa; Come Be My Light; The Private Writings of the "Saint of Calcutta".
- Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith.
- Eric Lax, Faith, Interrupted: A Spiritual Journey.
- Charlie Louvin with Benjamin Whitmer, Satan is Real: The Ballad of the Louvin Brothers.
- Andrea D. Lyon, Angel of Death Row; My Life as a Death Penalty Defense Lawyer.
- Tori Murden McClure, A Pearl in the Storm; How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean.
- Frank McCourt, Teacher Man; A Memoir. Sara Miles
- David McGlynn, A Door in the Ocean; A Memoir.
- Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran; A Memoir in Books.
- Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me; A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life.
- Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow, The Last Lecture.
- Erik Reece, An American Gospel; On Family, History, and the Kingdom of God.
- Mark Richard, House of Prayer No. 2; A Writer's Journey Home
- Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple; A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University.
- Roger Rosenblatt, Unless It Moves the Human Heart; The Craft and Art of Writing
- John Schwartz, Oddly Normal; One Family's Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with His Sexuality.
- Åsne Seierstad, trans. by Ingrid Christopherson, The Bookseller of Kabul.
- Sarah Sentilles, Breaking Up With God; A Love Story.
- Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, This Child Will Be Great.
- Lewis B. Smedes, My God and I; A Spiritual Memoir.
- Huston Smith, with Jeffrey Paine, Tales of Wonder, Adventures Chasing the Divine: An Autobiography.
- Victoria Sweet, God's Hotel; A Doctor, A Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine.
- Barb Brown Taylor, Leaving Church; A Memoir of Faith.
- George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm; My Years at the CIA.
- Dang Thuy Tram, Last Night I Dreamed of Peace; The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram.
- Ed Viesturs, with David Roberts, No Shortcuts to the Top; Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks.
- Garry Wills, Outside Looking In; Adventures of an Observer
- Diane Wilson, Holy Roller; Growing Up in the Church of Knock Down Drag Out; Or, How I Quit Loving a Blue-Eyed Jesus.
- Suzanne Woods Fisher, Amish Peace: Simple Wisdom for a Complicated World.
- Neil Young, Waging Heavy Peace.
Biography
- Ian Brown, The Boy in the Moon; A Father's Journey to Understand His Extraordinary Son.
- Gerald F. Cox, The Radical Peasant.
- Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton.
- John Patrick Diggins, Why Niebuhr Now?
- David Herbert Donald, Lincoln.
- Hans Conrad Fischer, Johann Sebastian Bach; His Life in Pictures and Documents, with CD.
- Philip L. Fradkin, Wallace Stegner and the American West.
- Amy Frykholm, Julian of Norwich, A Contemplative Biography.
- Joakim Garff, Soren Kierkegaard; A Biography.
- Warren Goldstein, William Sloane Coffin, Jr., A Holy Impatience.
- Brad Gooch, Flannery; A Life of Flannery O'Connor.
- Walter Isaacson
- Tracy Kidder
- Beverly Lowry, Harriet Tubman, A Biography.
- Manning Marable, Malcolm X; A Life of Reinvention
- Martin E. Marty, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "Letters and Papers From Prison": A Biography
- D.T. Max, Every Love Story Is A Ghost Story; A Life of David Foster Wallace.
- James M. McPherson, Abraham Lincoln.
- Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
- Malcolm Muggeridge, Something Beautiful for God; The Classic Account of Mother Teresa's Journey Into Compassion.
- Charles Peters, Lyndon B. Johnson.
- Michael Sims, The Story of Charlotte's Web; E.B. White's Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic.
- Sonia Sotomayor, My Beloved World.
- Jeanne Theoharis, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks.
- Augustine Thompson, Francis of Assisi; A New Biography.
- Garry Wills, Augustine's "Confessions": A Biography
Theology and Religion
- Paul Alexander, Signs and Wonders; Why Pentecostalism is the World's Fastest Growing Faith.
- Reza Aslan, No god but God; The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam.
- Mahmoud M. Ayoub, Islam: Faith and History.
- Randall Balmer, Thy Kingdom Come; An Evangelical's Lament. How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America.
- Bartholomew I, His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch, Encountering the Mystery; Understanding Orthodox Christianity Today.
- W. David Buschart, Exploring Protestant Traditions; An Invitation to Theological Hospitality.
- Paul-Gordon Chandler, Pilgrims of Christ on the Muslim Road; Exploring a New Path Between Two Faiths.
- Harvey Cox
- Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (review by Martin Marty).
- Terry Eagleton, Reason, Faith, and Revolution; Reflections on the God Debate.
- William Edgar, Reasons of the Heart; Recovering Christian Persuasion (guest review by Ray Cowan).
- Richard Wightman Fox, Jesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession.
- Sam Harris
- Chris Hedges, I Don't Believe in Atheists.
- Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great; How Religion Poisons Everything.
- Robert Inchausti, Subversive Orthodoxy; Outlaws, Revolutionaries, and Other Christians in Disguise.
- Philip Jenkins
- Tony Jones, The New Christians; Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier.
- David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, UnChristian; What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity..
- Jon Krakauer, Under the Banner of Heaven; A Story of Violent Faith.
- Charles Kimball, When Religion Becomes Evil.
- David Kuo, Tempting Faith; An Inside Story of Political Seduction.
- Brian McLaren,
- Richard Mouw
- Mark A. Noll, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis.
- Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places; A Conversation In Spiritual Theology.
- Stephen Prothero
- Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger, Simple Church; Returning to God's Process for Making Disciples.
- Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth.
- Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity?The Gospel Beyond the West.
- Christian Smith, How to Go from Being a Good Evangelical to a Committed Catholic in Ninety-Five Difficult Steps
- Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers.
- Huston Smith, The Soul of Christianity; Restoring the Great Tradition.
- Phyllis Tickle, The Great Emergence; How Christianity is Changing and Why.
- Daniel J. Treier, Introducing the Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Recovering a Christian Practice.
- Steve Wilkens and Don Thorsen, Everything You Know About Evangelicals Is Wrong (Well, Almost Everything); An Insider's Look at Myths & Realities (guest review by Ray Cowan).N.T. Wright, Simply Christian; Why Christianity Makes Sense.
- Garry Wills, Why Priests? A Failed Tradition.
Church History
- Diana Butler Bass, A People's History of Christianity; The Other Side of the Story.
- Peter Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle; Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350–550 AD.
- Carmen Acevedo Butcher, translator and editor, Hildegard of Bingen; A Spiritual Reader.
- John Cassian (tr. by Boniface Ramsey)
- G.W. Clarke, translation and introduction, The Octavius of Minucius Felix, no. 39, Ancient Christian Writers
- John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent.
- John J. Collins, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography.
- John Dougill, In Search of Japan's Hidden Christians; A Story of Suppression, Secrecy and Survival.
- Eamon Duffy,
- Bart D. Ehrman and Zlatko Plese, The Apocryphal Gospels; Texts and Translations
- Evagrius of Ponticus, The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer.
- Paula Fredriksen, Sin: The Early History of an Idea.
- Charles Freeman, Holy Bones, Holy Dust; How Relics Shaped the History of Medieval Europe
- Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses.
- Paul C. Gutjahr, The Book of Mormon, A Biography.
- Thomas D. Hamm, Quaker Writings; An Anthology, 1650-1920
- Jonathan Hill, What Has Christianity Ever Done For Us?
- Philip Jenkins
- Brent Landau, translation and introduction, Revelation of the Magi.
- Diarmaid MacCulloch
- George Marsden, A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards.
- Martin Marty
- Alister McGrath, Christianity's Dangerous Idea; The Protestant Revolution—A History from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First.
- Cullen Murphy, God's Jury; The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World.
- Elaine Pagels, Revelations; Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation.
- Palladius, The Lausiac History.
- Jaroslav Pelikan, Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to the Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition.
- Norman Russell, tr., The Lives of the Desert Fathers (Historia Monachorum in Aegypto).
- Christopher Tyerman, God's War; A New History of the Crusades.
- Grant Wacker, Heaven Below; Early Pentecostals and American Culture.
- Benedicta Ward (tr.), The Sayings of the Desert Fathers; The Alphabetical Collection.
- Robert Louis Wilken
- Garry Wills, Font of Life; Ambrose, Augustine, and the Mystery of Baptism.
- Jonathan Wright, Heretics; The Creation of Christianity from the Gnostics to the Modern Church.
- Timothy Beal, The Rise and Fall of the Bible; The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book.
- Daniel Berrigan
- Harold Bloom, The Shadow of a Great Rock; A Literary Appreciation of the King James Bible
- Marcus Borg
- Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Christmas; What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Birth.
- Bertram D. Brochmann, The Art of Reading the Bible.
- Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, Christ's Passion, Our Passions; Reflections on the Seven Last Words from the Cross.
- Bruce Chilton, Mary Magdalene; A Biography.
- John Dominic Crossan, The Greatest Prayer; Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord's Prayer
- Lori Anne Ferrell, The Bible and the People.
- Mary Gordon, Reading Jesus; A Writer's Encounter with the Gospels.
- Andrew Greeley, Jesus; A Meditation on His Stories and His Relationships with Women.
- Jeffrey P. Greenman, Timothy Larsen, and Stephen R. Spencer, eds., The Sermon on the Mount Through the Centuries: From the Early Church to John Paul II (guest review by Ray Cowan).
- Stanley Hauerwas
- Paul Johnson, Jesus: A Biography from a Believer.
- Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin Meyer, and Gregor Wurst, editors, with additional commentary by Bart D. Ehrman, The Gospel of Judas.
- Peter Leithart, 1&2 Kings; Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible.
- Matthew Levering, Ezra and Nehemiah; Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible.
- Jaroslav Pelikan
- Frank Anthony Spina, The Faith of the Outsider; Exclusion and Inclusion in the Biblical Story.
- John Shelby Spong, The Sins of Scripture; Exposing the Bible's Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love.
- Garry Wills
- Ben Witherington III, The Gospel Code; Novel Claims About Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Da Vinci.
Spiritual Formation and Discipleship
- David Augsburger, Dissident Discipleship; A Spirituality of Self-Surrender, Love of God, and Love of Neighbor.
- M. Craig Barnes, Searching for Home; Spirituality for Restless Souls.
- Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis; Repainting the Christian Faith.
- J. Brent Bill, Holy Silence; The Gift of Quaker Spirituality.
- Bernard Brady and Mark Neuzil, A Spiritual Field Guide; Meditations for the Outdoors.
- Walter Brueggemann,
- Joan Chittister
- John Chryssavgis, In the Heart of the Desert; The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers.
- Norris J. Chumley, Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer; Experiencing the Presence of God and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of an Ancient Spirituality
- Rodney Clapp, Tortured Wonders; Christian Spirituality for People, Not Angels.
- Barbara C. Crafton, Jesus Wept: When Faith and Depression Meet.
- Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time to Keep Silence.
- David W. Gill, Doing Right: Practicing Ethical Principles.
- Kathryn Greene-McCreight, Darkness Is My Only Companion; A Christian Response to Mental Illness.
- Adam Hamilton, Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White.
- Stanley Hauerwa, Living Gently in a Violent World; The Prophetic Witness of Weakness.
- Roger Housden, Seven Sins for a Life Worth Living.
- James M. Houston, Joyful Exiles; Life in Christ on the Dangerous Edge of Things.
- William W. Klein, Become What You Are; Spiritual Formation According to the Sermon on the Mount.
- Anne Lamott, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essentials of Prayer.
- Jonathan Malesic, Secret Faith in the Public Square; An Argument for the Concealment of Christian Identity.
- Brennan Manning, A Glimpse of Jesus; The Wisdom of Tenderness; and The Ragamuffin Gospel.
- Donald McCullough, The Consolations of Imperfection; Learning to Appreciate Life’s Limitations.
- Scot McKnight, The Jesus Creed; Loving God, Loving Others.
- Thomas Merton, The Inner Experience; Notes on Contemplation.
- Calvin Miller, The Path of Celtic Prayer; An Ancient Way to Everyday Joy.
- Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus; Reflections on Christian Leadership.
- Parker Palmer
- Reynolds Price, Letter to a Godchild (Concerning Faith).
- Jana Riess, Flunking Sainthood; A Year of Breaking the Sabbath, Forgetting to Pray, and Still Loving My Neighbor.
- Jason Brian Santos, A Community Called Taizé; A Story of Prayer, Worship and Reconciliation.
- Ronald J. Sider
- Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World; A Geography of Faith.
- Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu, Made for Goodness, And Why This Makes All the Difference.
- Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life; What On Earth Am I Here For?.
- Rowan Williams
History
- Mark Adams, Turn Right at Machu Picchu; Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time
- Bernard Bailyn, The Barbarous Years; The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600–1675.
- Daniel James Brown, The Indifferent Stars Above; The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride.
- Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms; The Rise and Fall of States and Nations.
- Anthony Everitt, Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome.
- Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering; Death and the American Civil War.
- John Lukacs, The Legacy of the Second World War.
- Margaret MacMillan, Dangerous Games; The Uses and Abuses of History.
- Jon Meacham
- American Gospel; God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation.
- Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship.
- Samantha Power, A Problem From Hell; America and the Age of Genocide.
- Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations; A People's History of the Third World.
- Ethan Rarick, Desperate Passage; The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West.
- David S. Reynolds, Mightier Than the Sword; "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and the Battle for America
- Elie Wiesel, Rashi.
- Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns; The Epic Story of America's Great Migration.
- Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States, 1492–Present
Politics
- Amnesty International Report 2010: The State of the World's Human Rights.
- Wes Avram, ed., Anxious About Empire; Theological Essays on the New Global Realities.
- Andrew Bacevich
- Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Next Attack; The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting It Right.
- Morris Berman, Dark Ages America; The Final Phase of Empire.
- Gregory A. Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Nation; How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church.
- Noam Chomsky, Failed States; The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy.
- Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy; Ordinary Lives in North Korea.
- Larry Diamond, Squandered Victory; The American Occupation and The Bungled Effort To Bring Democracy To Iraq.
- Peter Eichstaedt, Consuming the Congo; War and Conflict Minerals in The World's Deadliest Place
- Mohamed ElBaradei, The Age of Deception; Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times
- Deborah Ellis, Children of War; Voices of Iraqi Refugees.
- Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.
- Jacques Ellul and Patrick Troude-Chastenet, Jacques Ellul on Politics, Technology and Christianity.
- Dexter Filkins, The Forever War.
- Francis Fukuyama, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy.
- Peter W. Galbraith, Unintended Consequences; How War in Iraq Strengthened America's Enemies.
- Gary Geddes, Drink the Bitter Root: A Search for Justice and Healing in Africa.
- Peter Godwin, The Fear; Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe.
- Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families; Stories From Rwanda.
- Melissa Fay Greene, There Is No Me Without You: One Woman’s Odyssey to Rescue Africa’s Children.
- Chris Hedges, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.
- Stephane Hessel, Time for Outrage: Indignez-vous!
- Robert D. Kaplan, The Revenge of Geography; What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate.
- Joshua Key as told to Lawrence Hill, The Deserter's Tale; The Story of an Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away from the War in Iraq.
- Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains; Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves.
- Gwen Ifill, The Breakthrough; Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.
- Chalmers Johnson
- Robert Kaplan
- Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq.
- Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Half the Sky; Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.
- Charles Marsh, Wayward Christian Soldiers; Freeing the Gospel from Political Captivity.
- Jane Mayer, The Dark Side; The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals.
- George McGovern and William R. Polk, Out of Iraq; A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now.
- Martin Meredith, The Fate of Africa; From the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair: A History of 50 Years of Independence.
- Greg Mortenson, Stones Into Schools; Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
- Cullen Murphy, Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America.
- Richard John Neuhaus, American Babylon: Notes of a Christian Exile.
- George Packer, Assassins' Gate; America in Iraq.
- William Pfaff, The Irony of Manifest Destiny; The Tragedy of America's Foreign Policy
- Eugene Robinson, Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America.
- Philippe Sands, Torture Team; Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values.
- Anthony Shadid, Night Draws Near; Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War.
- David Livingstone Smith, The Most Dangerous Animal; Human Nature and the Origins of War.
- Jason K. Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters; The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa.
- Brian Steidle, The Devil Came on Horseback; Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur.
- Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, The Three Trillion Dollar War; The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict.
- William J. Stuntz, The Collapse of American Criminal Justice.
- Anthony Swofford, Jarhead; A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles.
- Jeffrey Toobin, The Nine; Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court.
- Gore Vidal, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace; How We Got To Be So Hated.
- Jim Wallis, Gods's Politics; Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It; A New Vision for Faith and Politics in America.
- Garry Wills, Bomb Power; The Modern Presidency and the National Security State.
- Fareed Zakaria
- Howard Zinn, The Bomb
- Foreword by Matthew Rothschild, The Historic Unfulfilled Promise.
- General Tony Zinni and Tony Koltz, The Battle for Peace; A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose.
Culture
- Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow; Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
- Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers; Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity.
- Marcus J. Borg, Speaking Christian; Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning and Power, and How They Can Be Restored.
- Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything.
- David Brooks, On Paradise Drive; How We Live Now (And Always Have) In The Future Tense.
- Laura L. Carstensen, A Long Bright Future; An Action Plan for a Lifetime of Happiness, Health, and Financial Security.
- Dave Eggers, Zeitoun.
- Will Ellsworth-Jones, Banksy: The Man Behind the Wall.
- Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit.
- George Friedman, The Next 100 Years; A Forecast for the 21st Century.
- Paul Froese and Christopher Bader, America’s Four Gods: What We Say About God — and What That Says About Us
- Becky Garrison, Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church; Eyewitness Accounts of How American Churches Are Hijacking Jesus, Bagging the Beatitudes, and Worshipping the Almighty Dollar.
- Atul Gawande, The Checklist Manifesto; How to Get Things Right.
- Peter H. Gleick, Bottled and Sold; The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water.
- Michelle Goldberg, Kingdom Coming; The Rise of Christian Nationalism.
- Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Worse Than War; Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity.
- Raymond G. Gordon, Jr., ed., Ethnologue: Languages of the World.
- Paul Greenberg, Four Fish; The Future of the Last Wild Food.
- Chris Hedges
- Jeff Jarvis, What Would Google Do?
- David A. Kessler, The End of Overeating; Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite.
- Russell King, et al., People on the Move; An Atlas of Migration.
- Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life.
- Jonathan Kozol, Fire in the Ashes; Twenty-Five Years Among the Poorest Children in America.
- Peter Kramer, Against Depression.
- Madeline Levine, The Price of Privilege; How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids.
- Gordon Livingston, M.D., Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart – Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now.
- Wendy Lustbader, Life Gets Better; The Unexpected Pleasures of Growing Older.
- Gabe Lyons, The Next Christians; The Good News About the End of Christian America. How a New Generation is Restoring the Faith.
- Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, The Face on Your Plate; The Truth About Food.
- Christopher McDougall, Born to Run; A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen.
- Robert O'Harrow, Jr., No Place to Hide.
- Fred Pearce, Confessions of an Eco-Sinner; Tracking Down the Sources of My Stuff.
- Karl Pillemer, 30 Lessons for Living; Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans.
- Sylvia Plath, Ariel, the Restored Edition; A Facsimilie of Plath's Manuscript, Reinstating Her Original Selection and Arrangement.
- Michael Pollan
- Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.
- Marilynne Robinson, When I Was a Child I Read Books: Essays.
- Richard Rohr, Falling Upward; A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life.
- Amartya Sen, Identity and Violence; The Illusion of Destiny.
- Karen Stabiner, The Empty Nest; 31 Parents Tell the Truth About Relationships, Love, and Freedom After the Kids Fly the Coop.
- Miroslav Volf, A Public Faith; How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good
- David Foster Wallace
- Karl Weber, editor, Waiting for Superman; How We Can Save America's Failing Public Schools.
Science, Science and Religion, Environment
- Ruth Bancewicz, editor, Test of Faith; Spiritual Journeys with Scientists.
- Michael Benson, Far Out; A Space Time Chronicle.
- Francis Collins, The Language of God; A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief in God.
- Jared Diamond, Collapse; How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.
- Elaine Howard Ecklund, Science vs. Religion; What Scientists Really Think.
- Tim Flannery, The Weather Makers; How Man is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth.
- Francis Fukuyama, Our Posthuman Future; Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolutio
- Owen Gingerich, God's Universe.
- J. Allan Hobson, Dreaming; An Introduction to the Science of Sleep.
- Max Jammer, Einstein and Religion.
- Woodeene Koenig-Bricker, Ten Commandments for the Environment; Pope Benedict XVI Speaks Out for Creation and Justice.
- Mario Livio, Is God a Mathematician?
- Kenneth Miller, Finding Darwin's God.
- National Academies Press, Science and Creationism: A View From the National Academy of Sciences.
- National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine, Science, Evolution, and Creationism.
- Ronald L. Numbers, editor, Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion.
- John Polkinghorne, Science and Religion in Quest of Truth.
- Marilynne Robinson, Absence of Mind; The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self
- Peter Rogers and Susan Leal, Running Out of Water: The Looming Crisis and Solutions to Conserve Our Most Precious Resource.
- Joan Roughgarden, Evolution and Christian Faith; Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist.
- Oliver Sacks, The Mind's Eye
- Carl Sagan, The Varieties of Scientific Experience; A Personal View of the Search for God.
- E.O. Wilson, The Creation; An Appeal to Save Life on Earth.
- Herman Wouk, The Language God Talks; On Science and Religion.
Economics
- Amy Chua, World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability.
- Paul Collier
- Judith M. Dean, Julie Schaffner, and Stephen L.S. Smith, editors, Attacking Poverty in the Developing World; Christian Practitioners and Academics in Collaboration.
- William Easterly, The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (guest review by Julie Schaffner, Visiting Associate Professor of International Economics in the Fletcher School at Tufts University).
- Paul Farmer, Pathologies of Power; Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor.
- Thomas L. Friedman
- Douglas A. Hicks, Money Enough; Everyday Practices for Living Faithfully in the Global Economy.
- Michael Lewis, The Big Short; Inside the Doomsday Machine.
- Roger Lowenstein, The End of Wall Street.
- Bill McKibben
- Robyn Meredith, The Elephant and the Dragon; The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us.
- Jeffrey Sachs
- Michael J. Sandel, What Money Can't Buy; The Moral Limits of Markets.
- David Shipler, The Working Poor; Invisible in America.
- Gabriel Thompson, Working in the Shadows; A Year of Doing the Jobs [Most] Americans Won't Do.
- World Resources Institute, Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Synthesis. A Report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
- Muhammad Yunus
Poetry, Art, Film, Literature, Photography and Music
- James Allen, Hilton Als, Congressman John Lewis, and Leon F. Litwack, Without Sanctuary; Lynching Photography in America.
- Maya Angelou, Mother; A Cradle to Hold Me.
- Wendell Berry
- Harold Bloom and Jesse Zuba, editors, American Religious Poems, An Anthology.
- James A. Connor, The Last Judgment; Michelangelo and the Death of the Renaissance.
- Esther de Waal, editor, The Celtic Vision; Prayers, Blessings, Songs and Incantations from the Gaelic Tradition.
- Lorrie Goldensohn, editor, American War Poetry; An Anthology.
- Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World; How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare.
- Ron Hansen, Exiles.
- Jennifer L. Holberg, ed., Shouts and Whispers; Twenty-One Writers Speak About Their Writing and Their Faith.
- Harlan Hubbard, The Woodcuts of Harlan Hubbard, with a foreword by Wendell Berry.
- Alan Jacobs, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction.
- Robert Johnston, Useless Beauty; Ecclesiastes through the Lens of Contemporary Film.
- Michael Kimmelman, The Accidental Masterpiece; On the Art of Life and Vice Versa.
- Edmund Morris, Beethoven; The Universal Composer.
- Les Murray, Killing the Black Dog, A Memoir of Depression
- Mary Oliver
- Camille Paglia, Break, Blow, Burn; Camille Paglia Reads Forty-Three of the World's Best Poems.
- Rainer Maria Rilke, Pictures of God; Rilke's Religious Poetry.
- Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia; Tales of Music and the Brain.
- Jeffrey Spier, editor, Picturing the Bible; The Earliest Christian Art.
- Elizabeth Zelensky and Lela Gilbert, Windows to Heaven; Introducing Icons to Protestants and Catholics.
Gender, Sexuality, HIV-AIDS
- Karen Ande (photography) and Ruthann Richter (text), with a foreword by Peter Piot, Face to Face; Children of the AIDS Crisis in Africa.
- Greg Behrman, The Invisible People; How the US Has Slept Through the Global AIDS Pandemic, the Greatest Humanitarian Catastrophe of Our Time.
- Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There; A Life in Two Genders.
- Timothy Bradshaw, ed., The Way Forward? Christian Voices on Homosexuality and the Church.
- James Childs, editor, Faithful Conversation; Christian Perspectives on Homosexuality.
- Carol Curoe and Robert Curoe, Are There Closets in Heaven? A Catholic Father and a Lesbian Daughter Share Their Story.
- Helen Epstein, The Invisible Cure; Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS.
- Mitchell Gold, editor, with Mindy Drucker, Crisis: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing Up Gay in America.
- Donald E. Messer, Breaking the Conspiracy of Silence; Christian Churches and the Global AIDS Crisis.
- Gene Robinson, In the Eye of the Storm; Swept to the Center By God.
- Dorothy Sayers, Are Women Human?
- Abraham Verghese, My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story of a Town and Its People in the Age of AIDS.
- Dan O. Via and Robert A.J. Gagnon, Homosexuality and the Bible; Two Views.
- Mel White, Stranger at the Gate; To Be Gay and Christian in America.
Fiction
- Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending: A Novel.
- Georges Bernanos, The Diary of a Country Priest.
- Wendell Berry, A Place in Time; Twenty Stories of the Port William Membership.
- Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist.
- Junot Díaz, This Is How You Lose Her.
- Dave Eggers, A Hologram for the King.
- Paul Harding, Tinkers.
- Anne Lamott, Imperfect Birds: A Novel.
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road.
- Lydia Munn and Heather Munn, How Huge the Night.
- Kevin Powers, The Yellow Birds; A Novel.
- Anne Rice,
- Marilynne Robinson
- Philip Roth, Nemesis.
- Stephen Sangirardi, Life on the Planet: 7 Stories.
- Wm. Paul Young, in collaboration with Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings, The Shack; Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity.