A lapsed Catholic’s unexpected devotion
Searching for the Mary statue from her childhood, Sonja Livingston found much more.
memoir
A former Jehovah’s Witness tells her story
Amber Scorah’s memoir has a breathless quality that makes it compulsively readable.
Why did Lyz Lenz’s church fail? Why do so many others?
The former church planter’s melancholy journey through the Midwest and its faith
The intersection between blackness and whiteness
Emily Bernard’s essays insist that no conversation is about race alone.
When Jane Tompkins couldn’t move, she read
Confined by illness, the feminist literary scholar dove into the complete works of V.S. Naipaul and Paul Theroux.
Elaine Pagels’s lifelong search for the sacred
Pagels vividly recounts her spiritual experiences. But she won’t let herself be bound by any tradition.
Learning to love Iran
Delphine Minoui planned a weeklong visit to explore her heritage. She stayed for 10 years.
A DNA test and its aftermath
Even as a child, Dani Shapiro wondered whether she belonged in her family.
Serene Jones’s memoir poses as many theological questions as answers
Theology is story, and Jones is a rousing storyteller.
Tressie McMillan Cottom asks who black women’s voices are for
Cottom interrogates her own story loudly enough for others to hear themselves in it.
A chaplain, his cerebral palsy, and the philosophy that guides him
Stephen Faller’s series of wise reflections on being alive
The miracles of Julie Yip-Williams’s life and death
A cancer memoir about a life sustained by improbable events
A personal narrative of addiction and the culture that birthed it
Leslie Jamison weaves cultural critique into her memoir about alcohol and creativity.
25 years after the Rwandan genocide, Denise Uwimana tells her story
A memoir about survival and the theological questions it raises
A personal discipline of Talmud study
Ilana Kurshan shows how the practice of Daf Yoni gave structure to a life made formless and void.