On Wednesday, February 8, two local ministers discussed the books that had been transformative for them in their lives and ministries. Although one minister serves in a Baptist church and the other is an Episcopalian priest, several of the books and authors that spoke to each overlapped. Below are the books discussed, many of which are available at the Emory libraries. Please ask a librarian if you would like assistance in locating a copy.
Recommendations from Dr. Jim King, Senior Pastor of Parkway Baptist Church in Duluth, GA:
- The Classics Illustrated versions of classic literature (read as a child)
- Biographies of famous people as children
- The works of Charles Dickens
- The King James version of the Bible – particularly for the value of the story and the narrative
- The works of William Faulkner
- Anything written by Frederick Buechner
- On Being a Christian by Hans Küng
- A History of Christian Thought by Justo Gonzalez
Recommendations from Rev. Benno Pattison, Rector of Church of the Epiphany in Decatur, GA:
Scripture:
- Genesis
- The story of Jacob wrestling with God (and later, Frederick Buechner’s The Son of Laughter)
- The book of Job
- The Moses story
- The Joseph story — as a story about recapitulation, placing God into his story
Children’s literature:
- Incident at Hawk’s Hill by Allan W. Eckert
- The Fireflies (a picture book)
- Grimm’s fairy tales
- Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne (read as an adult)
Books read in high school / early adulthood
- Westerns written by Zane Gray
- John Le Carré’s spy novels (especially The Perfect Spy)
- Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- Call of the Wild, White Fang, and other works by Jack London
- Graham Greene’s novels, for the politics of human relationships presented therein
- Shakespeare’s plays, particularly Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth
Poetry
- T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets
- William Butler Yeats
- Ogden Nash –words are playful
- Mary Oliver
- Bones of the Earth by Carol Jane Bangs
- Jaan Kaplinsky
- Kenneth Bernard, The Baboon in the Night Club
- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Naturalists
- Chet Raymo – Honey from Stone: A Naturalist’s Search for God and 365 Starry Nights
- David James Duncan – The River Why (fiction) and River Teeth: Stories and Writings (essays)
Periodicals: Sports Illustrated (for the passion of those writing about what they cared most about), National Geographic (for travelling the world), The New Yorker (for narrative journalism)
Liturgical and Theological Texts:
- Easter Vigil in the Book of Common Prayer
- Compline and evening prayer in the Book of Common Prayer
- Magnificat
- Athanasian Creed
- Chicago Lambeth Quadrilateral – the sociological and anthropological dictates of a church
- Robert Capon’s An Offering of Uncles, the Priesthood of Adam and the Shape of the World
- Augustine (in the negative) led me to explore the writings of Pelagius
- Christ Through the Centuries by Jaroslav Pelikan
- The Unfolding Drama of the Bible by Bernhard Anderson
- Prayer is Thinking by John Macquarrie
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
- Peter Miller, The Singer, The Song, and The Finale – portrays Jesus as a singer
- C.S. Lews, The Chronicles of Narnia
- E. Mansell Pattison, Pastor and Parish: A Systems Approach
