Reading is conversation.

As a grade-schooler in the 1950s, my ideal afternoon off went like this:

It’s raining. I’m on the screened in back porch of our house in Athens, Ohio, lying on the sofa glider, with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a glass of Kool-Aid. And I’m having a conversation with Hugh Lofting about Doctor Doolittle.

Sixty years on, I’m a retired librarian who can’t use the library for the books I’m reading, because I have to write in them. Underlining, marginalia, indexing on the flyleaves, etc. Hubby Jim says I’m talking with the authors. He’s right.

What follows represents forty-plus years of conversation, most of it in the past decade or so. It’s by no means an exhaustive list, and it barely touches on the fiction. However, these are the authors who have influenced me the most.

Faith and Practice

• Robert Alter, translator
  • The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary (2007)
  • The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary (2008)
• Rex Ambler, The Quaker Way: A Rediscovery (2013)
• Karen Armstrong
  • The History of God (1994)
  • The Battle for God (2001)
  • Islam: A Short History (2002)
  • The Great Transformation: The World in the Time of Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Jeremiah (2007)
• Resa Aslan, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (2011)
• James Breech, The Silence of Jesus: The Authentic Voice of the Historical Man (1983)
• Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons (2007)
• Marilyn Busteed, Richard Tiffany, Dorothy Wergin, Phases of the Moon: A Guide to Evolving Human Nature (1974)
• James Carroll, Christ Actually: The Son of God for the Secular Age (2014)
• James P. Carse
  • The Silence of God (1985)
  • Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility (1986)
  • Breakfast at the Victory: The Mysticism of Ordinary Experience (1995)
  • The Religious Case Against Belief (2009)
• Pema Chödrön
  • Awakening Loving-Kindness (1996)
  • When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (1997, 2000)
  • The Pocket Pema Chödrön (2010)
• Tim Crane, The Meaning of Belief: Religion from an Atheist’s Point of View (2017)
• John Dominic Crossan
  • The Historical Jesus: The life of a Mediterranean Jewish peasant (1993)
  • Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (1994)
  • The Birth of Christianity: Discovering what happened in the years immediately after the execution of Jesus (1999)
  • In Search of Paul: How Jesus’s Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom (2005)
  • God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now (2008)
  • The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon (coauthored by Marcus J. Borg; 2010)
  • The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord’s Prayer (2011)
  • The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus (2012)
  • How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian: Struggling with Divine Violence from Genesis through Revelation (2015)
• James G. Crossley, Jesus and the Chaos of History: Redirecting the Life of the Historical Jesus (2015)
• The Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Douglas Abrams, The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World (2016)
• Ram Dass
  • How Can I Help? Stories and Reflections on Service, with Paul Gorman (1985)
  • Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing and Dying (2001)
• Stephen Finlan
  • Problems with Atonement: The Origins of, and Controversy about, the Atonement Doctrine (2005)
  • Options on Atonement in Christian Thought (2007)
  • The Apostle Paul and the Pauline Tradition (2008)
  • The Family Metaphor in Jesus’ Teaching: Gospel and Ethics (2009)
• Richard Q. Ford, The Parables of Jesus: Recovering the Art of Listening (1997)
• Douglas Gwyn
  • Apocalypse of the Word : The Life and Message of George Fox (1986)
  • The Covenant Crucified : Quakers and the Rise of Capitalism (1995)
  • Unmasking the Idols : A Journey Among Friends (1989)
  • Seekers Found : Atonement in Early Quaker Experience (2001)
  • Conversation with Christ: Quaker Meditations on the Gospel of John (2011)
  • But Who Do You Say That I Am? Quakers and Christ Today, Pendle Hill Pamphlet #426 (2014)
  • The Anti-War: “Peace Finds the Purpose of a Peculiar People” & “Militant Peacemaking in the Manner of Friends” (2016)
• Hafiz of Shiraz, 14th century Persian Sufi poet, exemplified by Daniel Ladinsky’s versions of selected poems, The Subject Tonight is Love (2005)
• H. Larry Ingle
  • First Among Friends: George Fox & the Creation of Quakerism (1994; 2001)
  • Quakers in Conflict: The Hicksite Reformation (1998)
• Joyce and River Higginbotham
  • Paganism: An Introduction to Earth-Centered Religions (2005)
  • Pagan Spirituality: A Guide to Personal Transformation (2006)
• Tarif Khalidi, The Muslim Jesus: Sayings and stories in Islamic literature (2001)
• James Kugel, The Bible As It Was (1999)
• Jon D. Levenson
  • The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (1995)
  • Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (2008)
• Amy-Jill Levine & Marc Zvi Brettler
  • The Jewish Annotated New Testament (2011, 2^nd edition 2017)
  • The Bible with and without Jesus: How Jews and Christians read the same stories differently (2020)
• George MacDonald, George MacDonald: An anthology, edited by C.S. Lewis (1946)
• Linda A. Mercadante, Belief without Borders: Inside the Minds of the Spiritual but not Religious (2014)
• Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (1962)
• Robert J. Miller, editor, The Complete Gospels: Annotated Scholars Version (4th ed., 2010)
• A New New Testament: A Bible for the 21st Century Combining Traditional and Newly Discovered Texts, edited with a commentary by Hal Taussig (2013)
• Brent Nongbri, Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept (2012)
• Scott Peck, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (1983)
• Mitri Raheb, Faith in Face of Empire: The Bible through Palestinian Eyes (2014)
• Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught (1969; rev. & expanded, 1994)
• Katsuki Sekida, Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy (1975; 2005)
• Christopher W. Skinner, Reading John (2015)
• William Stringfellow, An ethic for Christians and other aliens in a strange land (1973)
• Hal Taussig, editor & commentator, A New New Testament: A Bible for the 21st Century Combining Traditional and Newly Discovered Texts (2014).
• Mother Teresa, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, The Private Writings of the “Saint of Calcutta”, edited with commentary by Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C, (2007; 2009)
• Geraldine Thorsten, God Herself: The Feminine Roots of Astrology (1980)
• Chögyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (1973; 2002)
• Géza Vermès
  • Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels
  • Jesus and the World of Judaism
  • The Religion of Jesus the Jew
  • The Changing Faces of Jesus
  • The Authentic Gospel of Jesus
• Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow, Dancing in God’s Earthquake: The Coming Transformation of Religion  (Orbis Books, 2020)
• Ken Wilber, The Essential Ken Wilber: An Introductory Reader
• Paul Woodruff, Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue, by  (2002)

Science and Culture

• H.W. Brands, Traitor to his class: The privileged life and radical presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (2008)
• Antonio Damasio
  • Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain (1994; 2005)
  • The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness (1999)
  • Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain (2003)
  • Self Comes to Mind: Construction the Conscious Brain (2010)
  • The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures (2015)
• Timothy Egan, The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl (2006)
• Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
• Stephen Jay Gould
  • Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History
  • The Panda’s Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History
  • Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History
  • The Flamingo’s Smile: Reflections in Natural History
  • An Urchin in the Storm: Essays about Books and Ideas
  • Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History
  • Bully for Brontosaurus
  • Dinosaur in a Haystack
  • The Lying Stones of Marrakech
  • Rocks of Ages
• Jeremy W. Hayward, Perceiving Ordinary Magic: Science & Intuitive Wisdom
• Arlie Russell Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right (2016)
• Douglas R. Hofstadter, Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979, 1999)
• Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)
• Charles C. Mann
  • 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (2006)
  • 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (2012)
• Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964; 1994)
• Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America (2002)
• Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
• Claudia Rankine, Just Us: An American Conversation (2020)
• Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2nd ed., 2010)

Fiction

• Greg Bear
  • Darwin’s Radio (1999)
  • Darwin’s Children (2003)
• Michael Chabon, the works
• John Galsworthy, The Forsyte Chronicles
  • Volume I: The Forsyte Saga (1906-21)
  • Volume II: A Modern Comedy (1924-1928)
  • Volume III: End of the Chapter (1931-1933, published posthumously)
• E.M Forster, the works [free eBooks available from Project Gutenburg]
• Neil Gaiman
  • American Gods
  • Anansi Boys
  • Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett)
  • Neverwhere
• William Gibson, the works
• Frank Herbert, the works, especially the six original Dune books
  [but not his son Brian, who inherited his daddy’s notes but not his talent]
• Robin Hobb –  the works
• Doris Lessing, the works, especially the Canopus in Argos series
• David Liss – the works
• Terry Pratchett
  • The Discworld Series
  • Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)
• Kim Stanley Robinson, the works
• Neal Stephenson, the works
• John Ronald Reuel T:olkien, the works
  [and kudos to his son Christopher, who inherited his daddy’s notes and knew what to do with them]
• Walter L. Williams, The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture (1986; 1994)