I want to propose a special kind of reading for lockdown, perhaps a perfect antidote for the anxieties of sequestration. It’s an ancient practice, much of it sparked by St. Benedict as he opened his great monastery at Monte Cassino in the sixth century. With a collapsing classical culture all around, Benedict believed the Christian life could not flourish without both reading and prayer. Along with work, these were his three pillars. We have much to learn from this enduring practice.

Last night I finished Peter Brown’s monumental Augustine Of Hippo: A Biography. This is my second reading of this extraordinary work. St. Augustine, of course, is that towering figure from the fourth and fifth century who straddled the age of the Apostles and the unfolding of Christian Europe.

This book is getting a lot of attention these days. Though it was not written with the presidential election in mind, J. D. Vance reminds us of that forgotten population out there that rose up to elect a crass-talking, offensive, scary candidate who promised change for them. Vance is a proud Hillbilly from the Appalachian byways of our country, people from families and communities and regions devastated by dramatic, bewildering change. These are the ones left behind.

This is one of the most remarkable books I’ve read in a long time. Truly remarkable. Perhaps life-changing. We learn from biblical writers, poets throughout the ages, mystics, and so many others that the “world is charged with the grandeur of God,” to use Gerard Manley Hopkins familiar words. Such a world is God’s gift to us. This is exactly the kind of world Ann Voskamp opens up for us from each page of this book.

Somehow I am in the mode of rereading. I pulled this lovely book from my shelf and read it again, meditatively and reflectively as the title suggests. Walter Hooper has made delightful selections from Lewis’s broad range of writings. This is a great introduction to Lewis. It is also a way to sound his depths.

This book touched me deeply. I read it many years ago, close to its date of publication in 1992. Because we were traveling to Amsterdam this summer, to study and reflect on the works of Rembrandt, I pulled this book off my shelf to get closer at Rembrandt. This book is published with a magnificent print of Rembrandt’s great painting The Return Of The Prodigal Son on its cover. What Nouwen does is simply stunning. He reports the journey of how this painting changed his life. Of course it is not only the painting. Rembrandt drew Nouwen more deeply into the extraordinary story told by Jesus.

I am looking for solutions these days, fresh angles on the daunting challenges of our day. So often fresh angles are the most controversial. This book offers such a new take, controversy and all.

Sharon and I just returned from a marvelous trip to several Northern European cities, Amsterdam chief among them. There of course we spent time in the incomparable Rijksmuseum, home to a glorious collection of its chief residents, Rembrandt and Vermeer. We then went next door to Van Gogh’s own museum. It was all a rich time, stimulating beyond belief.

I read this marvelous book many years ago. For some reason I picked it up again for my early-morning reading. What an incredible book. This is the story of Lewis’s childhood and early adult years. It is the story of adult formation, spiritual formation, intellectual formation.

I am shocked that I had not discovered Nikolai Berdyaev until recently. This book is fabulous. This writer speaks my language. Berdyaev is Russian, of course, writing about his beloved homeland and the fate of Europe in the smoldering aftermath of World War I. He also watched with dismay the emergence of Soviet power through the Bolsheviks. These were dark times.

This is a fabulous book. It is about believing in our age of unbelief. It is about saying what we believe in an age when the language of faith has grown thin, stale, inadequate. It is decidedly not, though, about nailing down our faith in some pat formula of theological statement. Wiman is a poet. Words matter to him. And so he demands authentic, honest language to talk about his encounter with the living God.

This is an important book. We’ve caught glimpses of this book shaping up over the last few years through Brooks’ New York Times columns and his various speeches, twice on my campus, many of them at other Christian universities. He has become intensely focused on the formation of moral and spiritual character. A life of self-giving and humility shine through.

This book is one of three essential reads, says David Brooks, if we hope to understand the daunting challenges facing our contemporary society. Putnam is ever the exceptional social scientist, marshaling all the statistics needed to support his main thesis: The American dream is in crisis.

I find myself looking for solutions these days. I’ve grown weary of the endless analysis of our problems. Enough already. Usually such analysis splits on the ideological axis—it’s either from the left or the right. The solutions then seem tired, worn, inspiring little confidence. Yuval Levin is a bracing breath of fresh air

No one I know is old. We are all just growing a bit older, as we like to say. Here is a wise book that can inspire us through this sometimes arduous process. Cicero is one of the great writers of classical antiquity, highly regarded for both rhetoric and insight. And so with wit and wisdom he tackles here this knotty subject.