Fiction

Riot Recommendation: A Round-Up of Books about Saints

Rebecca Joines Schinsky

Chief of Staff

Rebecca Joines Schinsky is the executive director of product and ecommerce at Riot New Media Group. She co-hosts All the Books! and the Book Riot Podcast. Follow her on Twitter: @rebeccaschinsky.

This installment of Riot Recommendation is sponsored by Unbridled Books and Afterlives of the Saints by Colin Dickey.

In Afterlives of the Saints, Colin Dickey— author of Cranioklepty—presents us with a history of faith as told through some of the strangest stories of the saints. These are saints who murder, saints who gouge out their own eyes and hold them out for inspection, saints who minister to the petty and the bizarre and the maligned. These are saints who, when visited in a contemporary context—as saints in the cities—actually enlarge our concept of faith….Colin Dickey retells their stories, not as a theologian, but as someone trying to understand the ways of the world.

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On Monday, we asked you to recommend books about saints and the journey to sainthood. Here’s a collection of your suggestions from the comments, Facebook, and Twitter.

Fifth Business by Robertson Davies

Edmund Campion by Evelyn Waugh

Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II by George Weigel

Godric by Frederick Buechner

Brendan by Frederick Buechner

The Little Flowers of Saint Francis by Raphael Brown

Interior Castle by Saint Teresa of Avila

Souls on Fire by Elie Wiesel

Somewhere a Master: Hasidic Portraits and Legends by Elie Wiesel

Messengers of God: Biblical Portraits and Legends by Elie Wiesel

The Empty Chair by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov

The Gentle Weapon by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov

The Story of a Soul by St. Therese de Lisieux

St. Francis of Assisi by G.K. Chesterton

Do you have any to add? Holler back in the comments.