How Many of Peter Kreeft’s Recommended Books Have You Read?

In a lecture given at Immaculata Classical Academy, Dr. Kreeft gives his top two “must read” recommendations from 13 different categories (for a total of 26 books). He is careful throughout to pick books that are relevant in today’s times, formative, and accessible for everyone – even if challenging. For example, he somewhat surprisingly does not include Dante’s masterpiece The Divine Comedy on this list, specifically because it poses huge challenges of historical context to the average modern reader, but does encourage the reading of Aquinas’ Summa by everyone – seeing this challenging work as necessary for the formation of a Catholic, thinking mind.

Give the lecture a listen – he gives his always-fascinating reasoning behind each recommendation, but below is the book list for quick reference.

Don’t forget to support small businesses and check for these books first at your local Catholic bookseller!

Autobiography:

St. Augustine – Confessions (NB: Dr. Kreeft stresses to make sure it’s the Frank Sheed translation)

Sheldon Vanauken – A Severe Mercy

Novels:

Dostoevsky – The Brothers Karamazov

C.S. Lewis – Till We Have Faces

Plays:

Robert Bolt – A Man For All Seasons

Thorton Wilder – Our Town

Epics:

J.R.R. Tolkien – The Lord of the Rings

C.S. Lewis – Chronicles of Narnia

Supernatural Fantasy:

C.S. Lewis – The Great Divorce

C.S. Lewis – Screwtape Letters

Science Fiction:

Walter M. Miller Jr. – A Canticle for Leibowitz

Aldous Huxley – Brave New World

Spirituality:

Brother Lawrence – The Practice of the Presence of God

St. Therese of Lisieux – The Story of a Soul

Apologetics:

Blaise Pascal – Pensees

C.S. Lewis – The Problem of Pain

Classical Philosophy:

Plato – Apology of Socrates

Ancius Boethius – The Consolation of Philosophy

Popular Philosophy:

G.K. Chesterton – St. Thomas Aquinas

G.K.Chesterton – Orthodoxy

History:

G.K. Chesterton – The Everlasting Man

Warren Carroll – Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Conquest of Darkness

Theology:

C.S. Lewis – Mere Christianity

St. Thomas Aquinas – Summa Theologica (NB: Dr. Kreeft recommends using a book that provides commentary to help break open this massive work. Check out his own A Summa of the Summa as a starting point!)

Poetry:

G.K. Chesterton – Lepanto

T.S. Elliot – The Waste Land