Fr. Steve's Reading List

As fall begins to bring us our first rains, light a fire, brew some tea and dust off a good read. Here are seven important and timely books Fr. Steve read over the summer, with topics ranging from a sci-fi world where dreams can alter reality, to an exploration of individual and systemic racism in the United States. Fr. Steve has good recommendations; check them out for yourself.

1. Our Kids by Robert Putnam

"Our Kids opened me to the end of the American dream, especially in the opportunity for education for the kids of our poorest families... and it questioned me about how we can provide opportunity to them here." – Fr. Steve

2. Missoula by Jon Krakauer

"Missoula shattered any illusions I had about the extent and the viciousness of sexual assault on college campuses... forcing me to be doubly sure we are doing everything we possibly can to protect our students and to provide them every resource and help." – Fr. Steve

3. Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

"This book showed me what we are really doing in the unjust systems of our country of incarceration and punishment... and it asks me how juvenile detention and the King County Jail, which bracket us, should impact us more consciously." – Fr. Steve

4. A Defense of Liberal Education by Fareed Zakaria

"A Defense of Liberal Education gave me an even greater rationale and language for upholding the foundations of our education." – Fr. Steve

5. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

"Reading Ursula K. Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven—our common book for new freshmen and transfers—makes me intrigued how students will see the tension between what we can do by technology and what we must do ethically to assure our humanity." – Fr. Steve

6. Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

"Perhaps the most surprising and most disturbing book I've read is Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric, which conveys in poetry and prose what is the dehumanizing accumulation in the body of a black person from the never-ending felt experiences of being invisible, being erased, being perceived as angry or threatening, being treated as a category rather than as a self... It was my best examination of my conscience." – Fr. Steve

7. The Care for Our Common Home by Pope Francis

"This encyclical convinces me how everything we do in our university, all our academic subjects and our programs, all of our activities, our campus, our finances, our community and global outreach, all of us in how we relate to and treat one another is connected, is a unity, is part of the integral ecology at the heart of the Pope’s message and plea. It’s not only about climate change and global warming, it’s about us and our fundamental attitudes, our care, our justice, our mercy, our truth."

– Fr. Steve

Kudos to Fr. Steve for keeping up with relevant and important topics. Do you have a book recommendation for Fr. Steve and the Seattle U community? Write it in the comments below.