These are the books I keep finding myself mentioning and recommending over and over again. They’ve been really formative for me, and I hope you enjoy reading about them, too!
On Personal Growth
(1) Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend
This book is so helpful for thinking through what to do in any kind of emotionally charged situation. Whenever I’m asking myself what is my responsibility and what isn’t? How, as a loving Christian, do I hold others accountable, so that things work the way they should? When is enough, enough and I can go my way in peace? This book always helps me come to a place of peace regarding these questions.
(2) The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
I read this book after graduating from college, having suffered from depression for about twelve years. It really helped me turn my life around and bring me to where I am today: married with a child, involved in my church, and generally content and thankful. We all need to learn to be proactive, have clear priorities, be good managers of our resources (time, energy, material), work well with others, and take care of ourselves, and that is what this book showed me how to do.
(3) A Failure of Nerve by Edwin Friedman
This book is a new discovery for me this year (2023), as part of the Schole Sisters Grow Up Mentorship (an intense book club for thoughtful, motivated Christian moms seeking self-improvement). It is so helpful for thinking about common obstacles to leadership. Friedman describes our age as one of chronic anxiety, attributing this to “a failure of nerve” in leaders. This book is teaching me how to be a loving and engaged leader, who has her own life, has a backbone, and doesn’t let work take over. It’s been helpful for me in my work both inside and outside the home.
On Being a Woman
(1) The Lifegiving Home by Sally Clarkson
I can’t explain the depth of my love for Sally Clarkson! She combines decades of missionary and motherhood experience with true feminine virtue—especially cheerfulness, grit, faithfulness, refinement—and is a living example of Titus 2 (that is, older women mentoring younger women in living the faith). Sally teaches women, especially mothers, all over the world how to incarnate God’s love in their homes, making them a mission field to their own families and to all who enter in. This book, and honestly everything she’s written, are truly worthwhile.
(2) GraceLaced by Ruth Chou Simons
This is a devotional I come back to again and again for encouragement, perspective, inspiration, and hope. Ruth is like a younger Sally, in her own way. A mother of five, she has been through a lot and come out on the other side with powerful messages of faith and hope for women in the trenches, from all walks of life. The book is beautifully illustrated and features reflection questions and journal prompts throughout.
(3) The Empowered Wife by Laura Doyle
This countercultural book has helped thousands of women reclaim their marriages, including many on the brink of divorce. Laura offers a new way to think about marriage, offering counterintuitive and effective tips for all kinds of marital problems that can arise. This book has increased my happiness and confidence in my wifely role as I understand the way it’s “supposed to work.” I’d like to make it my standard gift for bridal showers.
(4) Eve in Exile by Rebekah Merkle
A lot of people talk about Rebekah’s sense of humor in this book and her concise history of feminism, but my favorite part of it is her challenge to women to really embrace the possibilities of gloriously living our vocation as women. As someone who grew up in a liberal setting and took feminism for granted, once I got to my mid-20s (but starting in high school) I really struggled to understand what it meant to be a woman and why God created me, along with half the human race, this way. Books like this are a godsend to girls and women looking for answers, meaning, and a way forward. I’m reminded of C.S. Lewis’ famous sermon on “The Weight of Glory” where he writes that we are contented to play with mud pies in a slum, because we can’t imagine the glory of a holiday at the sea. This book made me laugh and cry, but most of all, it lit a fire under me to go and do and spend all the talents I have, in order to love those God has entrusted to my care.
On Society
(1) Mama Bear Apologetics and Mama Bear Apologetics Guide to Sexuality by Hillary Ferrer
Hillary has an incredible blend of lighthearted humor, sense of urgency, and hard-hitting theological acumen. For anyone living in North America today, these two books are both so helpful for thinking about how to teach our kids and engage differently-minded people on hot-button issues. For someone like me, naturally shy on this front, having recourse to these books is encouraging and empowering.
On Christianity
(1) The Orthodox Study Bible, Ancient Faith Edition
This is the original Bible, with the Old Testament according to the Septuagint translation, which was the one used by all Jews and Christians during the time of Christ and the early Church. At the time of the Reformation, several of these Old Testament books were removed from the canon. However, Catholic and Orthodox Bibles still contain all of the books, and sometimes you can find them in a Protestant Bible in the “Apocrypha” section. In this edition of the OSB, you can find all sorts of commentary by the Holy Fathers giving saintly perspective on Scripture, as well as intratextual connections, especially between Old and New Testaments, as various prophecies are fulfilled.
(2) The Prologue from Ochrid by St. Nikolai Velimirovic
This is basically a daily devotional for the calendar year, written by a saint of our time, St. Nikolai Velimirovic. I have yet to read through the entire two-volume tome, but hope to emulate the practice I’ve encountered in many families and monasteries of reading the entry for each day of the year. The author, St. Nikolai, was a real genius, polymath and polyglot, who combined a peasant upbringing in Serbia with a rich amalgam of studies and work around the world (including Pennsylvania—he helped to found the English-language St. Tikhon’s Seminary, which still trains future priests and church workers), in the late 19th and early 20th century. This work feels timeless and holy, and yet speaks to our modern moment.
(3) The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
I encountered this epic novel during sophomore year of college as part of my Great Books classes, and it has been my very favorite novel ever since. We read it as a class, providentially at a time when I was going through a faith crisis about whether to remain Orthodox, the faith I had grown up in. The beautiful, saintly, and loving character of Elder Zosima, and his relationship with the naive and pure-in-heart protagonist Alyosha, resonated with me deeply and inspired me as to what is possible in the Christian life: loving and taking responsibility for all living things, however wicked or innocent, and so growing into the likeness of God.
(4) For the Life of the World by Fr. Alexander Schmemann
This is another book that providentially came to me during that same faith crisis. Despite having grown up as an Orthodox Christian, I didn’t really appreciate or even understand the symbolism and meaning behind our worship rituals. This book changed all that for me, really bringing our faith and its practices to life.
(5) Courage to Pray by Metropolitan Anthony Bloom
This was the third and final book that came to me during my faith crisis and helped me transition to following Christ as an adult, in the Orthodox Church. Metropolitan Anthony writes here all about Orthodox spirituality, which is essentially our “personal relationship with God”: how can we as human beings experience Him? A chemist as well as a bishop, Metropolitan Anthony united a rich and full life in contemporary Western society with the spiritual depth of the Eastern Church, and thus speaks in a uniquely powerful voice for Christians in the West today.
(6) The Ethics of Beauty by Dr. Timothy Patitsas
I read this book during the pandemic and couldn’t put it down, though it weighs several pounds! It’s both eminently readable and mind-blowing. Dr. Patitsas, dean of Hellenic College Holy Cross (an Orthodox university), covers a multitude of topics here, from architecture and civil planning, to gender roles and religion, to therapy, to war. His essential thesis is that we must put Beauty first in every sphere, for she heals, restores, enlivens, enlightens, explains, and builds—doing so wordlessly, experientially, and incontrovertibly. Truth and Goodness can and do follow in her footsteps, but this book is all about Beauty and how she leads the way.
(7) Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy by Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
My husband and I listened to this excellent book during our cross-country move last year. Fr. Andrew is a true gem of a priest. I find myself looking to him as an example of “intellectual hospitality” as well as symbolic thinking. This book is informative for non-Orthodox and Orthodox alike. It is a thorough, interesting, readable, and charitable explanation of the similarities and differences between Orthodoxy, other Christian denominations, and non-Christian religions.
What are your favorite and most formative books (in any area) to which you return again and again? I can’t figure out how to put a comments section on this page, but I’d love to hear from you on the Contact page!
Alexandria's Daughter 