Reading List

If you would like to join a book club choosing from the authors from The Well, drop us an email at thewellqueenanne (at) gmail (dot) com.

2024 Reading List (in development!)

• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong

• In Reunion: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Communication of Family - Sara Docan-Morgan

• Do Better: Spiritual Activism for Fighting and Healing from White Supremacy - Rachel Ricketts

• Being-in-Creation - Bruce Ellis Benson and Norman Wirzba

• Beekeeping for Beginners: How to Raise Your First Bee Colonies - Amber Bradshaw

• The Intersectional Environmentalist - Lea Thomas

2022 Reading List

• Gender Trouble - Judith Butler

• Undoing Gender - Judith Butler

• The Book of Longings - Sue Monk Kidd

• Our Lives Matter: A Womanist Queer Theology - Pamela Lightsey

• Do I Stay Christian? - Brian McLaren

• Camino de Santiago: Camino Frances: Guide and map book - Sandy Brown

• The Way of St. Francis - Sandy Brown

• Radical Love: Introduction to Queer Theology - Patrick S. Cheng

• This Sacred Life - Norman Wirzba

• New Direction for Holy Questions: Progressive Christian Theology for Families - Claire Brown and Anita Peebles

• A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church - Wil Gafney

• EO Wilson: Biophilia, The Diversity of Life, Naturalist - EO Wilson

2021 Reading List (still in development)

• The Power Worshippers: The Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, Katherine Stewart (2020)

• If God Still Lives, Why Can’t I Breathe?: Black Lives Matter and Biblical Authority, Angela N. Parker, Lisa Sharon Harper (2021)

• “After Ten Years”: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Our Times, Victoria J Barnett (2017)

• Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds, Thomas Hübl and Julie Jordan Avritt (2020)

• Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons of Our Own, Eddie S Glaude Jr (2020)

• The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin (1992)

• On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It, David Livingstone Smith (2020)

• On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder (2017)

• Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and Courage to Stand Alone, Brené Brown (2019)

• You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame, Resilience, and the Black Experience (An Anthology), Tarana Burke and Brené Brown (2021)

2020 Reading List

• The Mystery of Suffering and the Meaning of God, Anson Hugh Laytner (2019)

• The Courage to Be, Paul Tillich - Third Edition with Introduction by Harvey Cox (2014)

• God Can't: How to Believe in God and Love after Abuse, Tragedy, and Other Evils, Thomas Jay Oord (2019)

• How to be Anti-Racist, Ibram X. Kendi (2019)

• Dreaming (Compass: Christian Explorations of Daily Living), Barbara A. Holmes (2012)

• Joy Unspeakable, Second Edition, Barbara A. Holmes (2017)

• Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel, Jesmyn Ward (2018)

• The Time is Now: A Call to Uncommon Courage, Joan Chittister (2019)

• Listening Your Way to Enlightenment: A Meditation, Guo Cheen (2020)

• To Protect and Serve: How to Fix America’s Police, Norm Stamper (2016)

• Piglet's Process: Process Theology for All God's Children, Bruce G. Epperly (2019)

• Stamped, Racism, Antiracism, and You, Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi (2020)

• From Judgment to Hope: A Study on the Prophets, Walter Brueggemann (2019)

• Tenacious Solidarity: Biblical Provocations on Race, Religion, Climate, and the Economy, Walter Brueggemann (2018)

• The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society, Franz De Waal (2010)

• Our House Is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis, Greta Thunberg, Svante Thunberg, Malena Emman, and Beata Emman (2020)

• The Age of Overwhelm: Strategies for the Long Haul, Laura van Dermoot Lipsky (2018)

• More to come.... Help us...Send us recommendations for our reading list. 

2019 Reading List

• Beating Guns: Hope for People Who Are Weary of Violence, Shane Claiborne and Michael Martin (2019)

• A Gospel of Hope, Walter Brueggemann (2018)

• Theology of Hope, Jürgen Moltmann, (2010)

• So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Olou, (2018)

• Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy, Anne Lamott (2017)

• Understanding Implicit Bias: What Educators Should Know, US Department of Education (2016)

• The Marvelous Mustard Seed, Amy-Jill Levine, Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, Michelle Meganck (2018)

• Practicing Resurrection: The Gospel of Mark and Radical Discipleship, Janet Wolf (2019)

• Just Mercy (Adapted for Young Adults), Bryan Stevenson (2018)

• Feeding the Resistance: Recipes + Ideas for Getting Involved, Julia Turshen (2017)

• The Way of Coyote: Shared Journeys in the Urban Wilds, Gavin Van Horn (2018)

• Laughing with the Devil: Seeing the World with Julian of Norwich, Amy Laura Hall (2018)

• Sacred Resistance: A Practical Guide to Christian Witness and Dissent, Ginger Gaines-Cirelli, (2018)

• Intrinsic Hope: Living Courageously in Troubled Times, Vicki Robin (2018)

• What’s Faith Got to Do with It: Black Bodies/Christian Souls, Kelly Brown Douglas, (2005)

• Parable of the Sower, Octavia E. Butler, (2000 [first published 1993])

• The Most Beautiful Thing I’ve Seen: Opening Your Eyes to Wonder, Lisa Gungor (2018)

• Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist, Eli Saslow (2018)

• Shameless: A Sexual Reformation, Nadia-Bolz Weber (2019)

2017 Reading List & Other Resources

• As a partner in the March for Science, we recommend their list of books for science lovers.

• Bonhoeffer's Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance, Reggie Williams (2014)

• Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury After War, Rita Nakashima Brock (2012)

• Temporary Preserves: Chalk Art by David Zinn, David Zinn

• The Sky Beneath Your Feet (2017 Calendar), David Zinn (2017)

• The Third Reconstruction: How a Moral Movement is Overcoming the Politics of Division and Fear, William Barber III, (2016)

• This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt is Shaping the Twenty-First Century, Mark Engler and Paul Engler, (2016)

• The Death of Race, Brian Bantum (2016)

• Can You Dig This (Film), Ron Finley, Exec. Prod., Delila Vallot, Director, (2015)

• Way of Love: Recovering the Heart of Christianity, Norman Wirzba (2016)

2016 Reading List

• Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, Miroslav Volf (2004)

• A Common Word: Muslims and Christians on Loving God and Neighbor, Miroslav Volf (2010)

• Against the Tide: Love in a Time of Petty Dreams and Persisting Enmities, Miroslav Volf (2010)

• Putting God Second: How to Save Religion from Itself, Donniel Hartman (2016)

• Redeeming Mulatto: A Theology of Race and Christian Hybridity, Brian Bantum (2010)

• Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World, Miroslav Volf (2016)

• Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil, Emilie Townes (2006)

• Washed in Grace, Emilie Townes (The Christian Century, 06/29/10)

• Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, Bryan Stevenson (2015)

• What Does It Mean To Be White?: Developing White Racial Literacy, Robin DiAngelo (2012)

• Is Everyone Really Equal? An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education, Robin DiAngelo (2012)

2015 Reading List

• Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now, Walter Brueggemann

• The Divine Magician: The Disappearance of Religion and the Discovery of Faith, Peter Rollins

• The Idolatry of God: Breaking Our Addiction to Certainty and Satisfaction, Peter Rollins

• Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table, Jacqueline Briggs Martin and Eric-Shabbaz Larkin

• The Awakening of Hope: Why We Practice a Common Faith, Jonathan Wilson-Hargrove

• Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, Bryan Stevenson

• Lynched: The Victims of Southern Mob Violence, Amy Kate Bailey and Stewart E Tolnay

2014 Reading List

• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness, Michelle Alexander

• The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions, Helen Prejean

• Black Prophetic Fire, Cornel West and Christa Buschendorf

• Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim’s Tale, Ian Morgan Cron

• Defrocked: How a Father’s Act of Love Shook the United Methodist Church, Frank Schaefer

• Insider/Outsider, Susannah Heschel

• Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?: Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World, Brian McLaren

• Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, Karen Armstrong

• Strangers at My Door, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

2013 Reading List

• Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and a New Spiritual Awakening, Diana Butler Bass

• Embracing Emergence Christianity, Phyllis Tickle

• Folks, This Ain’t Normal: A Farmer’s Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World, Joel Salatin

• Eaarth, Bill McKibben

• Food & Faith: A Theology of Eating, Norman Wirzba

• Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know, Robert Paarlberg

• Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health, Marion Nestle, Michael Pollan

• Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda

• Eat, Drink, Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Food Politics, Marion Nestle

• Happy City, Charles Montgomery

• Not Alone: Reflections on Faith and Depression, Monica A Coleman

2012 Reading List

• Come Out My People!: God’s Call Out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond, Wes Howard-Brook

• A New Way to Be Human, Robert V Taylor

• The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto, Cornel West and Tavis Smiley

• The Power of Parable, John Dominic Crossan

• Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life, Kathleen Norris

• The Wisdom of Stability: Rooting Faith in a Mobile Culture, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

• The Rule of St. Benedict: A Contemporary Paraphrase, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

• It Calls You Back: An Odyssey through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing, Luis Rodriguez

• The Evolution of Faith: How God is Creating a Better Christianity, Philip Gulley

• A Better Atonement: Beyond the Depraved Doctrine of Original Sin, Tony Jones

• The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds, Alexander McCall Smith

• Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers, Anne Lamott