Catholic Fiction Favorites
Discover the best Catholic fiction books with our curated list of favorites. Explore inspiring stories of faith, hope, and redemption from top Catholic authors.
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A Canticle for Leibowitz
by Walter M. Miller
Winner of the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel and widely considered one of the most accomplished, powerful, and enduring classics of modern speculative fiction, Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz is a true landmark of twentieth-century literature -- a chilling and still-provocative look at a post-apocalyptic future. In a nightmarish ruined world slowly awakening to the light after sleeping in darkness, the infant rediscoveries of science are secretly nourished by cloistered monks dedicated to the study and preservation of the relics and writings of the blessed Saint Isaac Leibowitz. From here the story spans centuries of ignorance, violence, and barbarism, viewing through a sharp, satirical eye the relentless progression of a human race damned by its inherent humanness to recelebrate its grand foibles and repeat its grievous mistakes. Seriously funny, stunning, and tragic, eternally fresh, imaginative, and altogether remarkable, A Canticle for Leibowitz retains its ability to enthrall and amaze. It is now, as it always has been, a masterpiece.
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Father Elijah
by Michael David O'Brien
Father Elijah, a Holocaust survivor and convert to Catholicism from Judaism, travels through Europe and the Middle East on a papal mission to find a man who may be the Antichrist and induce him to repent.
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The Mystery of Things
by Debra Murphy
The myth of St. George-and-the-Dragon comes to new and provocative life in this mystery-thriller set in Milwaukee. A gifted young Shakespeare scholar is haunted by a tragic past and recurring nightmares of a Knight, a Lady and a vicious Dragon. He thinks they're just dreams, but when two people close to him fall victim in a seemingly motiveless series of brutal murders, James Ireton discovers there may be a very real Dragon preying in the shadows of his life. Worse, if he doesn't find a bit of St. George in himself, the woman he loves may prove the Dragon's ultimate victim.
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Strangers and Sojourners
by Michael D. O'Brien
In the aftermath of World War I, an Englishwoman emigrates to British Columbia where she falls in love with an Irish trapper who is escaping a past.
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Plague Journal
by Michael O'Brien
Plague Journal is Michael O'Brien's third novel in the Children of the Last Days series. The central character is Nathaniel Delaney, the editor of a small-town newspaper, who is about to face the greatest crisis of his life. As the novel begins, ominous events are taking place throughout North America, but little of it surfaces before the public eye. Set in the not-too-distant future, the story describes a nation that is quietly shifting from a democratic form of government to a form of totalitarianism. Delaney is one of the few voices left in the media who is willing to speak the whole truth about what is happening, and as a result the full force of the government is brought against him. Thus, seeking to protect his children and to salvage what remains of his life, he makes a choice that will alter the future of each member of his family and many other people. As the story progresses he keeps a journal of observations, recording the day-by-day escalation of events, and analyzing the motives of his political opponents with sometimes scathing frankness. More importantly, he begins to keep a "mental record" that develops into a painful process of self-examination. As his world falls apart, he is compelled to see in greater depth the significance of his own assumptions and compromises, his successes and failures. Plague Journal chronicles the struggle of a thoroughly modern man put to the ultimate spiritual and psychological test, a man who in losing himself finds himself.
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Eclipse of the Sun
by Michael David O'Brien
As a result of the degradation of traditional values, a totalitarian regime is established in North America. A newspaper editor in British Columbia is arrested and his family flees.
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The Island of the World
by Michael D. O'Brien
The Island of the World is the story of a child born in 1933 into the turbulent world of the Balkans and tracing his life into the third millennium. The central character is Josip Lasta, the son of an impoverished school teacher in a remote village high in the mountains of the Bosnian interior. As the novel begins, World War II is underway and the entire region of Yugoslavia is torn by conflicting factions: German and Italian occupying armies, and the rebel forces that resist them-the fascist Ustashe, Serb nationalist Chetniks, and Communist Partisans. As events gather momentum, hell breaks loose, and the young and the innocent are caught in the path of great evils; their only remaining strength is their religious faith and their families. For more than a century, the confused and highly inflammatory history of former Yugoslavia has been the subject of numerous books, many of them rife with revisionist history and propaganda. The peoples of the Balkans live on the border of three worlds: the Islamic, the orthodox Slavic East, and Catholic Europe, and as such they stand in the path of major world conflicts that are not only geo-political but fundamentally spiritual. This novel cuts to the core question: how does a person retain his identity, indeed his humanity, in absolutely dehumanizing situations? In the life of the central character, the author demonstrates that this will demand suffering and sacrifice, heroism and even holiness. When he is twelve years old, his entire world is destroyed, and so begins a lifelong Odyssey to find again the faith which the blows of evil have shattered. The plot takes the reader through Josip's youth, his young manhood, life under the Communist regime, hope and loss and unexpected blessings, the growth of his creative powers as a poet, and the ultimate test of his life. There are journeys that show him new worlds and there are numerous characters who affect his life, and who are changed by him. Ultimately this novel is about the ways divine providence can bring forth good fruit from the lives of those who have suffered radical injustice. It is about the crucifixion of a soul-and resurrection.
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Sophia House
by Michael David O'Brien
Sophia House is set in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. Pawel Tarnowski, a bookseller, gives refuge to David Schäfer, a Jewish youth who has escaped from the ghetto, and hides him in the attic of the book shop. Throughout the winter of 1942-43, haunted by the looming threat of discovery, they discuss good and evil, sin and redemption, literature and philosophy, and their respective religious views of reality. Decades later, David becomes a convert to Catholicism, is the Carmelite priest Fr. Elijah Schäfer called by the Pope to confront the Anti-christ in Michael O'Brien's best-selling novel, Father Elijah: an Apocalypse. In this prequel, the author explores the meaning of love, religious identity, and sacrifice viewed from two distinct perspectives. The cast of characters also includes the notorious Count Smokrev, a literate Nazi Major, a French novelist, a terrifying Polish bear, the Russian icon painter Andrei Rublev, and Pawel's beloved Kahlia, the elusive figure who moves through the story as an unseen presence. As the story unfolds, the loss of spiritual fatherhood in late Western society is revealed as a problem of language in the heart and soul, and as one of the gravest crises of our times. As the author points the way to rediscovery of our Father in heaven, he also shows us the path to renewal of human fatherhood. This is a novel about small choices that shift the balance of the world.
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Theophilos
by Michael David O'Brien
"In this fictional narrative, Theophilis is the skeptical but beloved adoptive father of St. Luke. Challenged by the startling account of the 'Christos' received in the chronicle from his beloved son Luke and concerned for the newly zealous young man's fate, Theophilos, a Greek physician and an agnostic, embarks on a search for Luke to bring him home. He is gravely concerned about the deadly 'illusions' to which Luke has succumbed regarding the incredible stories surrounding Jesus of Nazareth, a man of contradictions who has caused so much controversy throughout the Roman Empire. Thus begins a long journey that will take Theophilos deep into the war between nations and empires, truth and myth, good and evil, and into unexpected dimensions of his very self"--Page 2 of cover.
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The Diary of a Country Priest
by Georges Bernanos
In this classic Catholic novel, Bernanos movingly recounts the life of a young French country priest who grows to understand his provincial parish while learning spiritual humility himself. Awarded the Grand Prix for Literature by the Academie Francaise, The Diary of a Country Priest was adapted into an acclaimed film by Robert Bresson. "A book of the utmost sensitiveness and compassion...it is a work of deep, subtle and singularly encompassing art." — New York Times Book Review (front page)
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The Screwtape Letters
by C. S. Lewis
One of C.S. Lewis's most imaginative creations, this world-famous book is a humorous correspondence between the devil Screwtape and his apprentice Wormwood, whose job is to produce a human's soul for eternity in hell. Filled with astute insights into temptation, repentance, and grace, this wonderful tale intelligently explores what it means to live a good, honest life and is a favorite of Lewis fans.
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The Power and the Glory
by Graham Greene
A tormented, alcoholic priest is pursued by an idealistic lieutenant during an anti-clerical persecution in Mexico.
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Mariette in Ecstasy
by Ron Hansen
The highly acclaimed and provocatively rendered story of a young postulant's claim to divine possession and religious ecstasy.
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The Penguin Complete Father Brown
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Father Brown is an eccentric priest with his own particular way of dealing with crime. David Timson, having completed the whole of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes canon, turns his hand to the genial but certainly not innocent priest.
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The Violent Bear It Away
by Flannery O'Connor
"A back country orphan struggles to defy his uncle's prophesy that he will become a baptist prophet"--NoveList.
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The Pilgrimage
by Paulo Coelho
The Pilgrimage paved the way to Paulo Coehlo's international bestselling novel The Alchemist. In many ways, these two volumes are companions—to truly comprehend one, you must read the other. Step inside this captivating account of Paulo Coehlo's pilgrimage along the road to Santiago. This fascinating parable explores the need to find one's own path. In the end, we discover that the extraordinary is always found in the ordinary and simple ways of everyday people. Part adventure story, part guide to self-discovery, this compelling tale delivers the perfect combination of enchantment and insight.
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House of Gold
by Bud Macfarlane, Jr.
The world has come to a screeching halt. The lights are out. And a desperate father is a long, long way from home. Buzz Woodward. Alcoholism. Divorce. Attempted suicide. Buzz had been through it all and has lived to tell. Now he is married with children, pushing forty, out of shape, living hand-to-mouth, and finds himself beginning an impossible journey against impossible odds. Sam and Ellie Fisk. Ten years earlier, when Buzz's best friends fell in love, they also discovered a greater love--their love for the Catholic Church. To outsiders, Sam and Ellie had it all: a perfect marriage, a talented son, friends, faith, wealth, status, success. But now, an unrelenting force of darkness threatens to tear them apart forever. Mark Johnson. He's a big, strong, brave FBI agent, the ultimate tough guy cruising through middle age while enjoying his adoring family. Mark and his wife Maggie are already looking forward to a satisfying retirement when he detects a dangerous technological storm on the horizon. But that is okay ... Mark is ready for anything. Or is he? With House of Gold, America's favorite Catholic novelist returns to the riveting, apocalyptic storytelling which captured the hearts of countless readers in his explosive classic, Pierced By A Sword, while retainging the intimate, realistic characters who charmed, surprised, and ultimately swept readers away in his second novel, Conceived Without Sin. Join Bud Macfarlane as he takes you on a gripping spiritual odyssey that will reverberate through your soul long after you turn the final page. Discover a new world. Change your life forever. -- back cover.
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Dominion I: Seed
by Compasse
A great monument of the Islamic faith crumbles to the ground in a freak earthquake, setting the stage for mankind's entry into the next age; an apocalyptic time where right and wrong, love and indifference, and black and white fade into alternating shades of gray. Out of the remote depths of Africa, enter into the arena a mysterious soul, Jimi T. Expo ' musician, philosopher, and spiritual leader. Utilizing the power of song, Jimi T. offers his message of peace, liberation, and a true heaven right here on earth to a global audience, all in preparation for our final stage of existence ' the full assimilation of mankind into the Collective Soul of the universe. The world is left to ponder the question: Is this man the Christ ' the promised Messiah who has come to set mankind right? Or might he indeed have a darker purpose?
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Dominion II: Phoenix
by Compasse
Second book in the apocalyptic epic series, "Dominion". Jonathan and Nathan have been best friends since their first contentious meeting in the seventh grade, yet all would agree that these graduating seniors are an unlikely pair. Jonathan excels in both academics and athletics, while Nathan approaches life as an irreverent free spirit, not finding anything or anyone worth taking too seriously. Yet despite their affable natures, each carries his own dark secret; personal demons from their unique pasts which they do not dare share even with each other. Their hidden lives are exposed as Luther re-enters the maelstrom, seeking to recover that for which he has made a claim – the very soul of his son, Jesse.
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Dominion III: Tryst
by Compasse
Third book in the apocalyptic epic series, "Dominion". Following the calamitous debut of The Phoenix, a traumatized Simon and grief-stricken Nathan reunite in an attempt to pull the pieces back together. With the fate of Jonathan shrouded in mystery, a new figure is emerging on the world scene—the enigmatic musician/philosopher Jimi T. Expo. His music takes the world by storm, and its accompanying quasi-religious movement, The Way of Mystic Realism, seems to spread like wildfire, filling the deepest yearnings of each soul who dares to embrace it. In the eye of the storm, Nathan and Simon struggle to navigate the transforming landscape of this new world, drawn irresistibly towards an unknown destination—and an un-chosen fate.
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The Death of a Pope
by Piers Paul Read
The Death of a Pope by the highly acclaimed British writer Read is a novel of intrigue, church espionage, and an attempt to destroy the longest continuous government in the world-the Papacy. A priest who seems to be the model of compassion for the poor is accused of terrorist activities. His worldwide charitable outreach is suspected of being a front for radicals. A young woman, a reporter and a lapsed Catholic, tries to undercover the truth but in the process she finds herself attracted to the priest and falls in love with him. Meanwhile, forces conspire within the Vatican and the College of Cardinals to overthrow the Papacy. The death of Pope John Paul II brings the conclave that will elect Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI-only a group of radicals will resort to anything, including blowing up the Vatican, to stop it. A powerful tale combining vivid characters, high drama, love, betrayal, faith, and redemption, The Death of a Pope races toward an unexpected and unforgettable conclusion.