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Wednesday, January 1, 2025

 Books Read, 2024, Stacy L. Patty

It's questionable as to whether publishing such lists is valuable. I admit a sense of pride here, but I do hope than my reading list will encourage others in some way. My own goal is to read widely and to read various kinds of books. I have grateful for eyes, for time, and for friends who recommend books.


Abhishiktananda (Henri le Saux).  Prayer.  ISPCK, 2001 (French original, 1971).  120 pp.  (8 July 2024) 

                 Written by a Benedictine monk who incorporates Hindu spirituality into an understanding of prayer and God, this classic presents prayer as more than a kind of talking to God.  Instead, prayer is living in the presence of God, especially when in the presence of another person.

 Appiah, Kwame Anthony.  Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers.  W. W. Norton, 2006.  174 pp.   (6 Sept. 2024)

                 Should we be citizens of the world or of our closer contexts?  Does globalism or cosmopolitanism necessarily imply either a common international value system or a lack of national or local pride?  The book explores the duties we should/should not have with regard to our local and global neighbors and argues for a universal objective ethic, albeit difficult to define.

 Arendt, Hannah.  Responsibility and Judgement.  Schocken Books, 2003.  310 pp.  (27 Oct. 2024)

                 Philosophical essays in the aftermath of Auschwitz.  Arendt reflects on the natures of moral and political responsibility, particularly as they are judged in war crimes trials.  A long chapter on “Some Questions of Moral Philosophy” engages Plato and Kant in quite complex narrative.  The chapters on Little Rock and Vietnam bring forth Arendt’s theses to more contemporary times.

 Beal, Timothy.  When Time is Short: Finding Our Way in the Anthropocene.  Beacon, 2022.  148 pp.  (7 Jan. 2024)

                 A case for a “palliative hope” approach to living faithfully even if ecological changes are already cataclysmic.  Dissolves the bifurcations of mind/body, nature/spirit, etc.  in favor of a “mindful subsistence” approach to life.  Deals with the domination passages in biblical literature and offers a new/old approach.

 The Bhagavad Gita.  Intro. and trans. Eknath Easwaran.  Nilgiri Press, 2007.  275 pp. (incl. 67 pp. Introduction).  (22 Jan. 2024)

                 Classic Hindu “The Song of the Lord.”  Set in the context of a warrior (Arjuna) struggling with the duty to fight, a chariot driver (Krishna) provides the wisdom of the Upanishads.  Excellent summary of key Hindu philosophy and ethics, with the repetitive refrain to act with purity of love for God, acceptance of one’s role, and renunciation of any agenda, goals, or fruits of one’s action.

 Bourgeault, Cynthia.  Mystical Hope: Trusting in the Mercy of God.  Cowley, 2001.  104 pp.  (11 Jan. 2024)

                 Meditative work on the nature of hope as a kind of living “sonar” that drives us forward, rather than some imaginary or illusive longing.  Mystical hope is metaphysical hope, embedded in “the Mercy,” which acts in the continuing unfolding love of God.  Process theological subtones, it seems.

 Buber, Martin.  I and Thou.  Trans. Walter Kaufman.  1958.  Free Press, 2003.  127 pp.  (31 Jan. 2024).

                 Major philosophy and theology on the nature of Relation with the You.  Extremely important and extremely dense; quite a challenging read.  The last two sections (59 and 60 in this edition) are excellent reflections on the nature of the divine encounter and the failings of religion in trying to objectivize the encounter.  Buber’s concept of the “return” is important, since no one can live in the I-Thou moment for long, even while such moments of true relation (with humans, particularly, who bear the divine) cannot be sustained since life must function.  But the “return” is necessary – the return to the I-Thou moments of true relation and theophany.

 Camus, Albert.  The Fall.  Knopf, 1956.  147 pp. (26 Dec. 2024)

                 Classic portrait of a man dealing with human failure, guilt, and conscience.

 Caputo, John D.  On Religion.  Routledge, 2001.  141 pp.  (5 Jan. 2024)

                 Religion in light of the “death of God.”  An early Augustinian, Kierkegaardian, Nietschean take on faith and the                         religious sense of life.  Strong critique of any absolutizing of ideas or systems.  A final summary lists these lines:

·         “I do not know who I am or whether I believe in God.”

·         “I do not know whether what I believe in is God or not.”

·         “What do I love when I love my God?”

·         “How do I love when I love my God?”  “God is a how and not a what.”

 Caputo, John D.  Specters of God: An Anatomy of the Apophatic Imagination.  Indiana University Press, 2022.  382 pp.  (17 Feb. 2024)

 Provocative philosophical, theological, cosmological, and poetical (theopoetics) exploration around the specters of the mysterium tremendum et fascinans that inspire and haunt human and cosmic life.  Certainly a-theistic, similar to some panentheistic approaches, but more so a kind of Teilhardian process leaning.  The key, however, is that Caputo here deconstructs any attempt at naming God or Being in that neither theism nor any philosophically secular history-driven Geist or any other option controls or drives the cosmological story, which seems headed for oblivion in the long end.  How might we humans live responsibly, then, and how/why do we construct myths that order our lives in view of the truly unconditional that inspires/haunts all of life?  Sections on Aquinas, Luther, Schelling, Hegel, and Derrida slowly – and densely set the context for Caputo’s theopoetics.

 Chomsky, Noam.  It is the Responsibility of Intellectuals to Speak the Truth and to Expose Lies.   New Press, 2017.  142 pp.  (25 Feb. 2024) 

 Important period piece by Chomsky, written in response to U.S. foreign policy during the Vietnam War.  This edition takes the full first essay (expanded from a New York Review of Books 1967 essay) and adds a second “Redux” reflection by Chomsky, written on the tenth anniversary of 9/11.  Extremely biting exposure of the duplicity with which public intellectuals and those defending, justifying, or explaining American policy decisions (“conformist intellectuals”), in contrast to the rare and prophetic value-oriented intellectuals.

 Coomaraswamy, Ananda K.  The Dance of Shiva: Essays on Indian Art and Culture.  1924.  Dover, 1985.  145 pp. (24 Jan. 2024)

 Essays on a wide variety of topics and issues in Indian culture and Hinduism.  Some highly specialized (and dated) art theory and philosophy, but also some excellent insights related especially to the Shiva Nataraj and to the many-armed gods and goddesses in Hinduism.  Very interesting and prophetic comments about the ways that British colonialism would one day come back to haunt the West (e.g., the rise of Indian nationalism, which we see today in full bloom with the B.J.P. party and others).

Cooper-White, Pamela.  The Psychology of Christian Nationalism: Why People Are Drawn In and How to Talk Across the Divide.  Fortress, 2022.  190 pp.  (28 Jan. 2022)

 General overview of the factors and mentality that produce and support Christian Nationalism.  Brings to common language a wealth of important studies in theology, religion, sociology, political science, and psychology.  Not as well organized as I would have liked: Only three chapter sections, and repetitious in places. 

Dazai, Osamu.  No Longer Human.  New Directions, 1958. 177 pp.  Also known as A Shameful Life. 1948 (Japanese).   (4 Nov. 2024) 

Striking semi-autobiographical novel about a boy who grows up with deep anxiety about his own self and the disguises and ploys he uses to survive.  As a budding artist, he enrolls in university in Tokyo but eventually succumbs to a series of relationships, addictions, and abuses.  The book was published one month after Dazai’s suicide. 

The Dhammapada.  Intro. and trans. Elnath Easwaran.  Nilgiri Press, 2007.  253 pp.  (26 Feb. 2024) 

Classic and best known of the Buddhist Pali Tripitaka scriptures, 423 verses attributed to the Buddha.  The “words of truth” bring together, in thematic sections, the major teachings of Siddhartha Gautama.  Something like biblical Proverbs, something like Upanishadic verse, the texts emphasize the way to peace and nirvana.  Easwaran’s 91-page introduction provides an excellent contextual placement of the Buddha and these teachings. 

Grant, George.  Technology and Justice.  Anansi Press, 1986.  133 pp. (7 Apr. 2024) 

The arrival in this world of technological civilization occurred about the same time as modernity began to redefine the classical understanding of the good.  Understood traditionally as an overriding claim to justice, which is tied to love, goodness now is viewed as that which humans create according to their own understandings of freedom and quality of life; good becomes whatever we value.  This “liberation of human desiring from any supposed excluding claim, so that it is believed we freely create values, is a face of the same liberation in which men overcame change by technology” (31).  The result is a situation where technology is open and subject to human whims.  Some nuances of Hans Jonas (The Imperative of Responsibility);  chapters on “Faith and the Multiversity” and “Research in the Humanities” are helpful, especially in exploring Nietzsche and with regard to the place of the Humanities in the academy today.  The last two chapters (on euthanasia and abortion) are co-written and take on a much different writing style. 

Gushee, David P.  Defending Democracy From Its Christian Enemies.  William B. Eerdmans, 2023.  198 pp.  (27 July 2024)  

Analysis of “authoritarian reactionary Christian politics” from the perspective of the history and nature of democracy.  Gushee provides clear reviews of these reactionary movements in modern France, Germany, Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Brazil before moving to consider United States groups in contemporary times.  He finishes with strong support for Christian democratic politics. 

Haight, Roger.  Jesus: Symbol of God.  Orbis Books, 1999.  491 pp.  (23 Sept. 2024) 

Major theological argument for rethinking Christology in light of historicity, contemporary human reasoning, and religious pluralism.  Haight reviews biblical, early Christian and patristic, conciliar, and modern thought related to Jesus of Nazareth, the Logos, and the Christ, showing a breadth of views regarding Jesus the Savior and Son of God.  He challenges a Logos Christology, which has dominated Christian theology, by placing Logos, Word, Son, and other identifiers in the context of symbol rather than hypostasis (an ontological substantial reality), and by thinking more in terms of a Spirit Christology.  Includes an important chapter on religious pluralism, where Jesus is “the central normative witness to the reality of God” (358), but – because knowledge of God is “mediated through history,” “God’s creative and salvific action extends beyond the limits of this story . . . ” (353). 

Hays, Christopher B. and Hays, Richard B.  The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story.  Yale, 2024.  247 pp.  (24 Dec. 2024) 

A new biblical theology of the God of expanding grace and mercy.  The authors review key stories and trends/themes in the Hebrew Bible (Christopher Hays) and the New Testament (Richard Hays), producing a compelling case that the God of Scripture does indeed “change” and unfold through biblical history a more redemptive and inclusive world for humanity.  A major subtext lingers:  this Richard Hayes is the same one whose earlier chapter on homosexuality in his Moral Vision of the New Testament became fodder for Christian judgements condemning same-sex identity.  The Widening of God’s Mercy is a major new text with a major new thesis. 

Heschel, Abraham Joshua.  The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man.  1951.  Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.  118 pp. (18 Mar. 2024) 

Classic reflections on the theological and spiritual importance of the Sabbath, which is a “temple in time,” a touch of the eternal. 

Kalanithi, Paul.  When Breath Becomes Air.  Random House, 2016.  228 pp.  (9 Feb. 2024) 

Superb, moving testament of neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi, whose liberal arts education and keen insights into medicine, philosophy, and literature provide sustenance in dealing with cancer and death.  Honors junior seminar reading this spring. 

McCabe, John.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer: The Last Eight Days.  Baylor University Press, 2024.  437 pp. (18 Dec. 2024) 

Intriguing detailed chronicle of the final days leading up to the execution of Bonhoeffer.  McCabe draws from eyewitness accounts, journals, diaries, and casual passers-by to draw a picture of the world around Bonhoeffer and also around the larger German front as it collapses.  Glimpses of Bonhoeffer’s final readings and prison settings, portraits of his “traveling” companions, and occasional moments of sheer grace and surprise provide a continuing thread through a story interspersed with horrific summaries of Nazi atrocities. 

Norris, Kathleen.  Dakota: A Spiritual Geography.  Houghton Mifflin Press, 1993.  224 pp.  (6 July 2024) 

Combined spiritual reflection and social analysis regarding life on the northern high plains of the United States.  Norris provides short chapters that serve well as devotional reading and nature contemplation.   

Norris, Kathleen.  The Cloister Walk.  Riverhead Books, 1996.   392 pp. (1 Oct. 2024) 

Reflections and narratives about life in Benedictine monasteries, given from the perspective of Norris’ life as a poet and citizen on the northern high plains.  Norris includes spiritual insights and reflections on life, nature, humanity, aging, music, celibacy, marriage, and many other key aspects of daily communal life, whether in a monastery, a rural village, or a major city. 

Nussbaum, Martha.  The Cosmopolitan Tradition: A Noble but Flawed Ideal.  Belknap Press, 2019.  279pp. (5 Oct. 2024) 

How should one balance proper respect for nation with concern and action toward the betterment of the world?  To what extent should concern for and activity toward international justice and human rights include efforts for material aid to bring about better social and economic conditions?  Should one be first and foremost a cosmopolitan (“world citizen”)?  Nussbaum engages the classical tradition (especially the Stoics), Hugo Grotius, and Adam Smith to argue that the traditional “bifurcation of duties of justice and duties of material aid” is problematic on several counts (5).  She promotes a variation of the Capabilities Approach, proposing ten capabilities that “must be secured up to a minimum threshold level if a nation is to have any claim of justice” (240).   Excellent introduction and/or review of key aspects of international justice claims based on the classical tradition. 

Nussbaum, Martha C.  The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age.  Belknap Press, 2012.  267 pp.  (24 Sept. 2024) 

Superb text on the dynamics of religion, fear, and the three elements of good judgement (ethical consistency, specific principles of religious liberty, and an approach through the imagination).  Nussbaum provides an excellent overview of the distinction between and evaluation of the two principles of religious liberty (Lockean neutrality and accommodation) and then gives examples with recent historical cases, moving toward a final chapter on the Park51 project.  The early chapter on fear is worth the entire read. 

Rasmussen, Larry.  The Planet You Inherit: Letters to My Grandchildren When Uncertainty’s a Sure Thing.  Broadleaf Books, 2022.  213 pp.  (7 Oct. 2024)  

A remarkable and often poignant collection of science, theology, and ethics related to the dramatic human impact on earth and the cosmos.  Written in the form of letters to grandchildren, these writings provide various approaches to the numerous important aspects and consequences of current ecological change.  Rasmussen takes us from a description of global climate changes throughout the Holocene geological epoch (the last 11,700 years) to the emerging Anthropocene (postulated by some to have begun about seventy years ago).  His literary, philosophical, and theological illustrations make these letters very rich. 

Rieger, Joerg.  Theology in the Capitalocene: Ecology, Identity, Class, and Solidarity.  Fortress Press, 2022.  217 pp.  (4 Apr. 2024) 

The roots of continuing exploitation of people, and even nature, cannot be explained or alleviated as the product of human action alone.  Rather than an age of the Anthropocene, this time is an age of the Capitalocene, where economic capitalism in particular is the fundamental problem.  Movements toward incorporating solidarity among both human and nonhuman labor production is the only way forward.  This is a densely written academic treatise that draws heavily on Marxist philosophy. 

Sontag, Susan.  Regarding the Pain of Others.  Picador, 2003.  131 pp.  (21 Feb. 2024)  

What is it about art -- and especially photography -- about war that both captures pain and suffering in ways that shock, educate, and then often numb us with regard to their subjects?  Sontag explores theory and philosophy of photography, the ways that photojournalists portray pain, and the ethical judgements that inhere in the photo captures and in the viewing.  She includes a number of references to various French and American art/photography theorists, as well as others, and she incorporates a large vocabulary which forced me to note and look up twelve words.  A good summary might be this paragraph: 

“That we are not totally transformed, that we can turn away, turn the page, switch the channel, does not impugn the ethical value of an assault by images.  It is not a defect that we are not seared, that we do not suffer enough, when we see these images.  Neither is the photograph supposed to repair our ignorance about the history and causes of the suffering it picks out and frames.  Such images cannot be more than an invitation to pay attention, to reflect, to learn, to examine the rationalizations for mass suffering offered by established powers.  Who caused what the picture shows?  Who is responsible?  Is it excusable?  Was it inevitable?  Is there some state of affairs which we have accepted up to now that ought to be challenged?  All this, with the understanding that moral indignation, like compassion, cannot dictate a course of action. (116-17) 

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre.  The Heart of Matter.  William Collins Sons, 1978.  238 pp.  (10 July 2024). 

Teilhard’s magnum opus on the nature of the cosmos, concluding with his “Hymn to Matter.”  This edition includes a number of other important essays, including a couple of wedding sermons and a quite unusual “Nostalgia for the Front” about his time in the trenches during World War I.  From a section of the “Heart of Matter” central essay: 

“For some of your servants, Lord, the World, our New World – the world of nuclei, of atoms and genes – has become a source of constant anxiety. . . . 

“Yet can anything, Lord, in fact do more for my understanding and my soul to make you an object of love, the only object of love, that to see that you – the Centre ever opened into your deepest core – continue to grow in intensity, that there is an added glow to your lustre, at the same pace as you pleromise yourself by gathering together the Universe and subjecting it ever more fully at the heart of your being . . . .” (56-57) 

Thrall, Nathan.  A Day in the Life of Abed Salama:  Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy.  Metropolitan Books, 2023.  217 pp.  (25 Feb. 2024) 

Troubling story and backstories related to a 2012 tragic school bus accident in which seven children die.  Abed (father) and Haifa (mother) lose their son Milad.  The book relates historical and socio-political contexts (and roadblocks, physically and systemically) that lead to the troubles and injustices of life for Palestinians in the greater Jerusalem area.  Excellent source for getting a sense of and some of the history of current Palestinian – Israeli conflicts. 

Voltaire.  Candide, or Optimism.  1759.  Barnes and Noble, 2003.  144 pp.  (26 Oct. 2024) 

Voltaire’s satire as extended commentary on the nature of Leipniz’ “best of all possible worlds.”  Candide faces continual turmoil and struggle as he journeys from persecution to war, imprisonment and torture to freedom and excess, and a determined search for his beloved.  But is this the best of all possible worlds? 

Weil, Simone.  Waiting for God.  G.P. Putnam, 1951.  227 pp.  (11 Nov. 2024) 

Posthumous publication of Weil’s thoughts on faith and spirituality, including a “spiritual autobiography.”  Among the essays included is “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies With A View to the Love of God,” a classic on vocation and study.  Weil’s writing style, or perhaps the translation itself, make the reading difficult in places. 

Williams Rowan.  Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief.  Westminster John Knox, 2007.  166 pp.  (23 Mar. 2024) 

Expanded reflections from pre-Easter Canterbury lectures in 2005.  The former archbishop provides a summary of the creed, with a sensitivity to both the contemporary world and the hindrances toward belief that many people share today. 

Wolfe, Tom.  The Painted Word.  Picador, 1975.  106 pp.  (9 July 2024) 

A commentary on the development of modern art.  Wolfe writes with bitter sarcasm, irony, and humor.  A fun read and a good education on the history of modern art.   

Wulf, Andrea.  The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt’s New World.  Alfred A. Knopf, 2015.  341 pp.  (4 Sept. 2024) 

Stunning, exceptional biography and reflection on the life and influence of Alexander Von Humboldt, the German naturalist who is behind ecology and environmentalism.  A friend and influencer of Jefferson, Goethe, Bolivar, Darwin, Thoreau, Emerson, Marsh, and Muir, Von Humboldt was the most significant explorer, geographer, and naturalist of his time.  He is best remembered for his views in the integrated reality of the world (hints of process philosophy) and of the need for science and arts to be connected.  Truly one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.  

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