Faculty Reading Lists: Dr. Kevin Vaughan

Imagine Herman Melville wrote chapters six to nine of the Book of Genesis and then set the whole thing in outer space and you’ve got an idea of this book. In his latest novel, Canadian author Michael O’Brien takes us on a space adventure, touching down on philosophical, political, and biblical issues along the way. It stands alongside Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz as a tour de force of the Catholic imagination of the Sci-Fi variety.

In this short work, Allen, philosopher and Episcopalian priest, tackles the issue of God and suffering. But fear not! This is no warmed-over theodicy (i.e., justification for the belief in God in a world of suffering and evil), but a compelling argument for how, despite a world of suffering, we can still experience the presence of God in our lives. Allen’s treatment is as entertaining as it is lucid, drawing on a number of literary voices, including Iris Murdoch, CS Lewis, and Dostoyevsky. I’ll be forever in his debt for introducing me to Friedrich Dürrenmatt and Iulia de Beausobre. This is a book I keep close by.

Winston S. Churchill once said we read books too young. This was definitely the case for me with this classic of modern literature. Having suffered through it in high school, I returned to this classic in my mid-thirties surprised to find a page-turning read with a profound reflection on the question of God in modern life. Few contemporary authors have spoken to me with such immediacy as Defoe.

At the turn of the 20th century, Alexander Carmichael scoured the Scottish countryside collecting hymns, prayers and incantations of the surviving Gaelic-speaking regions. Carmichael did the world a service by providing a glimpse into an ancient and enduring culture, much of which has fallen into the abyss of time. I regularly turn to the collection when I need inspiration and spiritual nourishment. Carmichael’s six-volume work as been mercifully adapted into a single volume edition.

Really, anything by the late Oxford Dominican, Herbert McCabe, is worth a read, but this collection of essays is especially helpful when it comes to understanding the Christian faith. Grounded in Thomas Aquinas, with a touch of Wittgenstein, McCabe treats an array of theological topics in a witty, sometimes preposterous, but always insightful manner, presupposing little theological background in his readers. I subject my students to McCabe whenever I get the chance! His essay “Why God?” is worth the whole collection.

Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade

I’m slowly working my way through this spiritual classic by the French Jesuit spiritual writer Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751). It’s ruthlessly practical and bears interesting parallels with Buddhist Mindfulness.

That’s easy! Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country. With Bryson’s account of his travels through Australia, I may be stuck on a desert island, but I’ll be laughing the whole time. His description of listening to Cricket on the radio is priceless: “It’s like falling asleep without losing consciousness.”