Catholic Literature (Reading List)

Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy.
Of the three parts of this Epic Italian poem, the “Inferno” is probably the easiest to read. Dante walks through hell meeting old friends, famous politicians and even a few Popes.

Bernanos, George. Diary of a Country Priest.
Touching French novel about the daily life of a parish priest.

Annie Dillard. For the Time Being.
Exceptional contemporary Catholic American author, with a wide range of subject matter. At core, her writings address theological questions about God, life and death.

Shusaku Endo. Silence.
Brilliant contemporary novel of Jesuit activity in medieval Japan by a renowned Japanese writer. Very stark portrayal of the Daimyo’s suppression of the growing Christian cult.

Flannery O'Connor. Complete Stories.
Probably the most highly regarded American Catholic author.

J.R.R Tolkien. Lord of the Rings.
Enormously popular novel. Catholic images and ideas are embedded in the story of Frodo and the Ring.

Sigrid Undset. Kristen Lavransdatter.
Undset, a Norwegian convert to Catholicism, won the Nobel Prize for this trilogy of the life of a woman in the middle ages.

Evelyn Waugh. Brideshead Revisited.
Waugh, a British convert to Catholicism, commented that his novel is about the “unmerited and unilateral act of love by which God continually calls souls to Himself.” In the novel, a young, non-believing, Oxford student forms a friendship with the son of a wealthy Catholic family – an experience which transforms him.