Welcome to our Catholic Summer Reading book selections for 2008.

This year's program officially launches the first week of June. Our popular program returns with an all new selection of outstanding Catholic books for this year! Please visit www.catholicsummerreading.com for more details and to find book discussion guides for selected program titles - we will have these posted shortly. You may also want to visit www.catholicbookdiscussion.com to join in some lively online discussions of the books. Happy reading!

Remember, when you go off on vacation this summer, to the beach, to that proverbial cabin in the woods, or to visit family in another state, don't leave your faith behind!

The beginning of the greatest fantasy epic of our time. Bilbo Baggins was a hobbit who wanted to be left alone in quiet comfort. But the wizard Gandalf came along with a band of homeless dwarves. Soon Bilbo was drawn into their quest, facing evil orcs, savage wolves, giant spiders, and worse unknown dangers. Finally, it was Bilbo–alone and unaided–who had to confront the great …

The conclusion to the greatest fantasy epic of our time. While the evil might of the Dark Lord Sauron swarmed out to conquer all Middle-earth, Frodo and Sam struggled deep into Mordor, seat of Sauron’s power. To defeat the Dark Lord, the accursed Ring of Power had to be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom. But the way was impossibly hard, and Frodo was weakening. Weighed down by the …

Winner of The 1963 National Book Award for Fiction.  One of the greatest Catholic novels of the 20th century! The hero of J.F. Powers's comic masterpiece is Father Urban, a man of the cloth who is also a man of the world. Charming, with an expansive vision of the spiritual life and a high tolerance for moral ambiguity, Urban enjoys a national reputation as a speaker on the religious …

This haunting tale of shame and redemption is the story of Lise Fanshawe, prostitute and brothel manager in postwar Paris, murderer and prisoner, and, finally, a Catholic nun in an order dedicated to serving people on the margins of society. Rumer Godden, author of the masterwork In This House of Brede , tells an inspiring and entirely convincing conversion story that shows how the mercy of …

The Complete Stories of one of the greatest Catholic novelists and short story writers of the 20th century. This collection, when first published in 1972, was the winner of the National Book Award for Fiction. The publication of this extraordinary volume firmly established Flannery O'Connor's monumental contribution to American fiction. There are thirty-one stories here in all, including …

This book is a wonderful invitation to Tolkien's world. This rich treasury includes Tolkien's most beloved short fiction plus his essay on fantasy. FARMER GILES OF HAM. An imaginative history of the distant and marvelous past that introduces the rather unheroic Farmer Giles, whose efforts to capture a somewhat untrustworthy dragon will delight readers everywhere. THE ADVENTURES OF TOM …

Another amazing  novel from one of the great Catholic fiction writers of the 20th century. Will Barrett is a 25-year-old wanderer from the South living in New York City, detached from his roots and with no plans for the future, until the purchase of a telescope sets off a romance and changes his life forever. About the author: Walker Percy is the author of nine books of fiction and …

A limited edition paperback reprint of a classic Catholic novel from the 19th century. A historical picture of the early church in pagan Rome, illustrating the glories of the Christian martyrs as exemplified in the lives of the fair young Virgin, St. Agnes; the heroic soldier, St. Sebastian; the devoted youth, St. Pancratius; etc. This volume is not historical, rather it consists of a series …

A landmark novel from one of the great Catholic novelists of the 20th century. Dr. Tom More has created a stethoscope of the human spirit. With it, he embarks on an unforgettable odyssey to cure mankind's spiritual flu. This novel confronts both the value of life and its susceptibility to chance and ruin. About the author: Walker Percy is the author of over ten books, many of which were …

They are coming! Sixteen-year-old Gilbert Chesterton is orphaned and friendless, stuck working a menial job in grimy turn-of-the-century London. Then one night strange lights fill the sky, and a hail of giant meteors crashes into a field outside the city. The next day Gilbert is amazed to find himself hired by a newspaper and rushed out to investigate the scene. Is it a harmless natural …

A thought-provoking novel about convent life at the turn of the century. Ron Hansen's Mariette in Ecstasy is a gripping, even life-changing book. For the Sisters of the Crucifixion, each day is a ceaseless round of work, study, and prayer--one hardly separate from the other. Their daily life is itself an act of devotion, caught here in a series of illuminated tableaux: hundreds of yellow …

Return to the basics, the "meat and potatoes" of our faith, with Fr. Joe Classen! What is so special about Sacraments? How did the rituals and traditions of the Mass get started? Why do we have a pope? What's the point of going to confession? Father Joe Classen has heard all these questions and more from parishioners, fishing buddies, neighbors, and acquaintances. They seem to …

The continuing story in the greatest fantasy epic of our time. Frodo Baggins knew the Ringwraiths were searching for him--and the Ring of Power he bore that would enable Sauran to destroy all that was good in Middle-earth. Now it was up to Frodo and his faithful servant Sam to carry the Ring to where it could be detroyed--in the very center of Sauron's dark kingdom. About the author: John …

Hailed by Frank O'Connor as one of "the greatest living storytellers," J. F. Powers, who died in 1999, stands with Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, and Raymond Carver among the authors who have given the short story an unmistakably American cast. In three slim collections of perfectly crafted stories, published over a period of some thirty years and brought together here in a single …

Celebrate the Pauline Year with this new book to be published in August 2008. The teachings of the letters of St. Paul permeate just about everything Christians believe and practice, but many of us know very little about this great apostle of the Church. In Meeting St. Paul Today , one of the most respected scholars in the Catholic faith, Fr. Daniel Harrington, SJ, brings the letters of Paul …

Evelyn Waugh tells the story of the Marchmain family. Aristocratic, beautiful and charming, the Marchmains are indeed a symbol of England and her decline in this novel of the upper class of the 1920s and the abdication of responsibility in the 1930s. From the Merriam Webster Encyclopedia of Literature: This satirical novel by Evelyn Waugh was first published in 1945. According to Waugh, a …

The continuing story in the greatest fantasy epic of our time. The Fellowship was scattered. Some were bracing hopelessly for war against the ancient evil of Sauron. Some were contending with the treachery of the wizard Saruman. Only Frodo and Sam were left to take the accursed Ring of Power to be destroyed in Mordor–the dark Kingdom where Sauron was supreme. Their guide was Gollum, …

At her death in 1964, O'Connor left behind a body of unpublished essays and lectures as well as a number of critical articles that had appeared in scattered publications during her too-short lifetime. The keen writings comprising Mystery and Manners , selected and edited by O'Connor's lifelong friends Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, are characterized by the directness and simplicity of the …

A wonderful selection of the writings and biographies of the first monks and nuns of the Church. By the fourth century A.D., devout Christians - men and women alike - had begun to retreat from cities and villages to the deserts of North Africa and Asia Minor, where they sought liberation from their corrupt society and the confining shell of the social self. The Desert Fathers is the perfect …

A touching and thought-provoking novel from one of the greatest Catholic novelists of the 20th century. Will Barrett (also the hero of Percy's The Last Gentleman ) is a lonely widower suffering from a depression so severe that he decides he doesn't want to continue living. But then he meets Allison, a mental hospital escapee making a new life for herself in a greenhouse. The Second Coming is …