Fr. Edward Looney, STB, Mdiv

Hallie Lord understands the upheaval life can bring. The radical changes she faced, from her parents' divorce when she was a preteen to moving 11 times in 15 years with her family, relentlessly pushed her toward fear and helplessness. Yet by digging into her faith and through much self-reflection, she realized that even though those challenges had left her a bit battered and bruised, they had also equipped her for any difficulty that may arise.

Fr. James Martin, SJ, is one of the most recognized Catholic priests in the United States. His book Building a Bridge called the Catholic Church to more respect and compassion for the LGBT community - and made Martin not only a friend to LGBT people but a lightning rod for some "traditionalist" Roman Catholics. His articulate and winsome personality has endeared him to millions inside and outside the Church. Now it is time to tell the story of his own life, to explore the experiences that made him the person he is today.

Through beautiful prose and inspiring meditations, Caryll Houselander depicts the intimately human side of Mary, Mother of God, as an empty reed waiting for God's music to be played through her. Lovingly bringing Our Lady down off her time-honored, ancient pedestal, Houselander shares her insightful and beautiful vision of Mary on earth, Mary among us, Mary as a confused but trusting teenager whose holiness flowered with her eternal "Yes".

Eleven-year-old Isabella’s parents are divorced, so she has to switch lives every week: One week she’s Isabella with her dad, his girlfriend Anastasia, and her son, Darren, living in a fancy house where they are one of the only black families in the neighborhood. The next week she’s Izzy with her mom and her boyfriend, John-Mark, in a small, not-so-fancy house that she loves. Because of this, Isabella has always felt pulled between two worlds. And now that her parents are divorced, it seems their fights are even worse, and they’re always about her.

Dorothy Day (1897-1980) was a prominent Catholic, writer, social activist, and cofounder of a movement dedicated to serving the poorest of the poor. Her life has been revealed through her own writings as well as the work of historians, theologians, and academics. What has been missing until now is a more personal account from the point of view of someone who knew her well.

In this compelling new book - drawn from conversations with and narrated by award-winning Vatican journalist John L. Allen Jr. - Barron, founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, proclaims in vivid language the goodness and truth of the Catholic tradition. Through Barron's smart, practical, artistic, and theological observations - as well as through personal anecdotes about everything from engaging atheists on YouTube to his days as a young die-hard baseball fan from Chicago - To Light a Fire on the Earth covers prodigious ground.

In Being Mortal, best-selling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending. Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit.

The light of the Christian faith is flickering out all over the West. American churches are beset by a rapidly secularizing culture, the departure of young people, and watered-down pseudo-spirituality. Political solutions have failed, as the self-destruction of the Republican Party indicates, and the future of religious freedom has never been in greater doubt. The center is not holding. The West, cut off from its Christian roots, is falling into a new Dark Age.

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is 12, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.