We asked our authors to recommend a book they had read over the past couple of years. Here is what they said:
I loved reading about the character of the man who took care of this horse and the nature of their relationship. —Rosalyn W. Berne
It is hard to put into words the power and the wonder of this epic poem. Thankfully, the poem itself does this. I have come to this masterpiece over and over throughout my life, from being a teenager to now a grandfather. In each revisit, I relate afresh to the glories and struggles and brokenness of our hero with my own mortality in entirely new ways. —Satyan L. Devadoss
Both of these books by Claire Keegan demonstrate an understated brilliance and precision of language—as if they were poetry in prose form. Every word is essential, and the overall effect is this powerful emotional resonance. —Michelle Weise
This novel, set in the days preceding Moctezuma’s meeting with Hernán Cortés in Tenochtitlan, shows us the human side of two civilizations, founded on entirely different belief systems, feeling each other out. It’s funny, philosophical, tragic, trippy, and it also makes a rather powerful statement about how medicines can change worlds. —Ricardo Nuila
Chris is a pragmatist colleague of mine, very thoughtful and very careful in attending to issues in philosophy and religion, especially Catholicism. I think reading this very interesting treatment of Spirituality in The Americas is provocative in its own right, but might also give all of us some insight into the faith and philosophy of Pope Leo XIV! —Barbara S. Stengel
The great novelists foreground the agency of ordinary people leading their lives even as they situate those lives within larger, often unjust, structures that limit and channel that agency. Monica Wood’s excellent How to Read a Book, a novel about incarceration, intergenerational connections, and second chances, reminds us to always see the importance of individuals even when we recognize, and often despair of, the powerful forces that inhibit, and seem to prohibit, full expressions human dignity. —Dan Graff
Fall 2025
Part I: Employing Virtue
Chris Higgins
Anna Bonta Moreland
Karen E. Bohlin
Zena Hitz
Interlude: Meaningful Employment
Michelle Weise
Part II: Employing Vocation
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