Rev. Daniel Kanter’s 2023 Summer Reading List
“I am a sucker for a tale of a shipwreck and have been reading Roman era detective novels by Lindsay Davis for the last year. This list also includes some well written novels and a look at religious nationalism in America, an oldie but a goodie by Flannery O’Connor and a great overview of the school of Humanism.”
Rev. Daniel Kanter
Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry
This book explores how the effects of violence and abuse reverberate across generations. Old God’s Time is a “reckoning with belated innocence.”
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann
The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.
The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet
A guide to the religious dimensions of American politics, Jeff Sharlet journeys into corners of our national psyche where others fear to tread. The Undertow is both inquiry and meditation, an attempt to understand how, over the last decade, reaction has morphed into delusion, social division into distrust, distrust into paranoia, and hatred into fantasies―sometimes realities―of violence.
Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope by Sarah Bakewell
The bestselling author of How to Live and At the Existentialist Café explores seven hundred years of writers, thinkers, scientists, and artists, all trying to understand what it means to be truly human.
A debut novel about a young man whose reality unravels when he suspects his mysterious employers have inadvertently discovered time travel—and are using it to cover up a string of violent crimes . . .
Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor
Everything That Rises Must Converge” is a collection of short stories by Flannery O’Connor that was first published in 1965. It was written in 1961 in the midst of the American civil rights movement. The ideas of intergenerational conflict and transforming social mores play out against the backdrop of racial desegregation in the South. O’Connor’s story focuses on tensions that emerged after integration.
Last Act in Palmyra by Lindsey Davis
Last Act in Palmyra is a 1994 historical mystery crime novel by Lindsey Davis and the sixth book of the Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries series. Set in Rome, Nabatea, and Palmyra, the novel stars Marcus Didius Falco, informer and imperial agent. Murder mystery in Ancient Rome. What could be better?
