Mike and Jess discuss the neglected, yet brilliant, genre of the essay and why we should be reading more of them. 

Books mentioned on this episode:

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Mystery and Manners

God in the Dock

The Givenness of Things

What are we doing here?

In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G. K. Chesterton

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

Consider the Lobster and Other Essays

Self-Reliance and Other Essays

Signposts in a Strange Land

The Message in the Bottle

Essays of Four Decades

Essays of a Catholic

Kierkegaard on Faith and the Self: Collected Essays

Disarming Beauty: Essays on Faith, Truth, and Freedom

The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

Mike and Jess share their picks for March...a little late...but there's a good reason. As it happens, they both picked war histories. 

Did you hate studying history in school? Maybe you weren't reading the right books. Mike and Jess talk about the value of reading histories and why perspective makes a difference. They also share what they are reading for Lent.

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Books mentioned on this episode:

1776 by David McCullough

Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich by Norman Ohler

Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam HIgginbotham

The Great Heresies by Hilaire Belloc

The Crusades by Hilaire Belloc

Robert Kaplan

The Civil War (series) by Shelby Foote

Thomas Cahill

Above All by Elizabeth Foss (Take Up & Read)

Word in the Wilderness: A poem a day for Lent and Easter by Malcolm Guite

Purgatory by Dante (Anthony Esolen, trans.)

Mike and Jess discuss the books they read in February, and they find that their authors, and books, share some interesting things in common. Plus...Flannery O'Connor's thoughts on the author's view of reality spark an interesting discussion of the importance of a distinct metaphysic in the novel. 

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Books mentioned in this episode:

Mystery and Manners by Flannery O'Connor

The Second Coming by Walker Percy

Lost in the Cosmos by Walker Percy

The Women on the Porch by Caroline Gordon

Mike and Jess kick of the episode with a tip for your reading life: using "lead measures" to meet your reading goals. Then they dive into one of their favorite categories of this year's reading challenge: novels by Southern American authors! 

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Books, authors & resources mentioned on this episode:

Deep Work, by Cal Newport

Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole

The Women on the Porch, by Caroline Gordon

The Moviegoer, The Last Gentleman, The Second Coming, The Thanatos Syndrome, by Walker Percy

Wise Blood, by Flannery O'Conner

William Faulkner

Mark Twain

To Kill a Mocking Bird, by Harper Lee

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

The Best Southern Novels of All Time

Mike and Jess discuss their book picks for January's category, "a faith memoir." Interestingly, we picked books/authors with a lot of similarities, though the books are quite distinct themselves. Have a listen as we talk about Tyler Blanski's An Immovable Feast and Sheldon Vanauken's A Severe Mercy. And don't forget to share picks with us on social media. #thecatholicreadingchallenge

Mike and Jess introduce the podcast and book categories for the year. We discuss some possible selections for our first category: "a faith memoir".

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For a free printable of the 2019 reading categories visit Jessica's blog. 

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Book and authors mentioned on this episode:

Shelby Foote's The Civil War (3 volumes)

Thomas Cahill

Christopher Dawson

Robert Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts

Doctors of the church: Edith Stein, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, St. Therese 

The Two Towers 

A Severe Mercy 

An Immovable Feast