Recommended Reading

THE CATHOLIC RESTORATIONISTS have put together a list of essential reading, which I give you here, with links to online texts:

To begin working toward restoration, it helps tremendously to know what you're working toward. For most of us, the process of learning about what we want to restore starts with study. Here you'll find compiled a list of essential books, essays, etc. suggested by the members of the group. I doubt any of us have read them all, but most of us have read at least some.

Check back from time to time, as the list will grow for a while as submissions continue to come in. In fact, it will probably always grow as long as there are good books to be found.

And if you're wondering why the Bible isn't on the list, we figured since it's an essential and integral part of the Catholic faith that it was a given.

Nonfiction:

1. After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre (Lorraine)
2. All Things Considered, G.K. Chesterton (John)
3. A Night in the Desert of the Holy Mountain, Metropolitan Hierotheos (Mark)
4. Apologia Pro Vita Sua, John Henry Newman (Lorraine)
5. Commentary on the Gospel of John, St. Thomas Aquinas (Lorraine)
6. Confessions of a Convert, Robert Hugh Benson (Lorraine)
7. Duties of the Catholic State, Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani (Lorraine)
8. Heretics, Chesterton (Mark)
9. Imitation of Christ, Thomas à Kempis (Mark)
10. Introduction to the Devout Life, Saint Francis de Sales (Mark)
11. In Tune With the World: A Theory of Festivity, Josef Pieper (Lorraine)
12. Leisure the Basis of Culture, Josef Pieper (Lorraine)
13. Liturgical Timebombs in Vatican II, Michael Davies (Steve)
14. Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis (Steve)
15. Life of Saint Anthony of the Desert, Saint Athanasius (Mark)
16. Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle (Lorraine, Mark)
17. On Being and Essence, St. Thomas Aquinas (Lorraine)
18. On Monarchy and Kingship, St. Thomas Aquinas (Lorraine)
19. Orthodoxy, Chesterton (Lorraine, Mark, Steve)
20. Path to Rome, Hilaire Belloc (Steve)
21. Physics, Aristotle (Lorraine, Mark)
22. Politics, Aristotle (Lorraine, Mark)
23. Republic, Plato (Lorraine, Mark)
24. Small Is Beautiful, E. F. Schumacher (Lorraine)
25. Summa Theologica, St. Thomas (Lorraine)
26. The Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty, Thomas Saward (Lorraine)
27. The Church and Farming, Fr. Denis Fahey (Lorraine)
28. The Church and the Land, Fr. Vincent McNabb (Lorraine)
29. The Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius (Lorraine, Mark)
30. The Heresy of Formlessness, Martin Mosebach (Steve)
31. The Interior Castle, Saint Teresa of Avila (Lorraine, Mark)
32. The Liturgical Year, Dom Prosper Gueranger (Lorraine)
33. The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, Jean Leclercq (Lorraine)
34. The Restoration of Property, Hilaire Belloc (Lorraine)
35. The Saint Petersburg Dialogues, Joseph De Maistre (Lorraine)
36. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, various authors (Mark)
37. The Sermons of John Henry Newman (Lorraine)
38. The Three Ages of the Interior Life, Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange. (Lorraine, Mark)
39. The Way of the Pilgrim, Anonymous (Mark)
40. What are People For?, Wendell Berry (Lorraine)

Fiction:

1. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh (Lorraine)
2. Fairytales of George MacDonald (Lorraine)
3. Green Dolphin Street, Elizabeth Goudge (Lorraine)
4. Leaf By Niggle, Tolkien (Lorraine)
5. Man Alive, Chesterton (Lorraine)
6. Mansfield Park, Jane Austen (Lorraine)
7. Out of the Silent Planet, C.S. Lewis (Steve)
8. Perelandra, C.S. Lewis (Steve)
9. The Betrothed, Alessandro Manzoni (Lorraine)
10. The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis (Steve)
11. The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis (Lorraine)
12. The House at Pooh Corner, A.A. Milne (John)
13. The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien (Lorraine, Mark, Steve)
14. Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne (John)

Poetry and Verse:

1. El Cid, anonymous (Lorraine)
2. The Ballad of the White Horse, G.K. Chesterton (Lorraine)
3. The Georgics, Virgil (Lorraine)
4. The Hound of Heaven, Francis Thompson (Lorraine)
5. The Illiad, Homer (Lorraine)
6. The Odyssey, Homer (Lorraine)
7. The Song of Roland, anonymous (Lorraine)

Essays and Letters:

1. “Advice for a Ruler,” King St. Louis (Lorraine)
2. “A Remaining Christmas,” Belloc (Lorraine)
3. “Does Community Have A Value,” Wendell Berry (Lorraine)
4. “Feminism, the Body, and the Machine,” Wendell Berry (Lorraine)
5. “Living the Faith in Exile,” Edwin Faust (James)
6. “On Fairy Stories,” Tolkien (Lorraine, Mark)
7. “The Abolition of Man,” C.S. Lewis (Mark)
8. “The Idea of a Pilgrimage,” Belloc (Lorraine)
9. “The Mowing of the Hay,” Belloc (Lorraine)
10. “The Ottaviani Intervention,” Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci (Stve)
11. “The Pleasures of Eating,” Wendell Berry (Lorraine)
12. “Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer,” Wendell Berry (Lorraine)

Audio:

1. "Music and Morality," Fr. Basil Nortz (Lorraine)


Recommended With Reservations:

1. Lost in the Cosmos, Walker Percy
2. Meditations, Marcus Aurelius

Reader Suggestions (Not necessarily reviewed or endorsed by CR and in no particular order):

1. Theology and Sanity, Frank Sheed
2. The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri
3. Confessions, Saint Augustine
4. Shakespeare: The Complete Works, William Shakespeare
5. Canterbury Tales, Chaucer