Overbooked Book Lists

Questions of Faith Stars

Page Modified: June 19, 2009

Books about questions of faith and religion

Fiction

• The Passion of Reverend Nash
  Author: Basch, Rachel
  Publisher: Norton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0393057682 Date: 2003
  Library Journal Kirkus
  In the vein of Gail Godwin's Evensong, Basch presents a novel about the role of faith in contemporary life that tells the story of a wounded healer who must make sense of her own grief if she is to continue caring for her flock.
  Updated 5.9.03
• To Err is Divine
  Author: Bozai, Agota
  Publisher: Counterpoint $ 24 ISBN: 1582432775 Date: 2004
  Kirkus
  A bestseller in Hungary and Germany, this is the story of a woman who awakens one day with a halo that reveals the absurdity of her neighbors and the fickleness of life in a capitalist culture.
  Updated 4.8.04
• Valley of Bones
  Author: Gruber, Michael
  Publisher: Morrow $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060577665 Date: 2005
  Kirkus PW LJ
  Gruber explores the nature of faith and madness in this brilliantly conceived follow-up to Tropic of Night, his dazzling debut thriller novel.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Psychological Suspense
  Updated 1.23.05
• Our Lady of the Forest
  Author: Guterson, David
  Publisher: Knopf $ 25.95 ISBN: 0375412115 Date: 2003
  LJ Kirkus PW
  In a suspenseful and emotionally charged story of faith at a contemporary crossroads, the bestselling author of Snow Falling on Cedars offers a provocative new novel about a teenage girl who claims to see the Virgin Mary.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 7.28.03
• Confessions of a Pagan Nun
  Author: Horsley, Kate
  Publisher: Shambhala $ 19.95 ISBN: 1570627193 Date: 2001
  Library Journal
  In this moving and subtle tale, an Irish woman struggles between the old Druid ways and the rising tide of Christianity.
  Suggested Reading: Irish Stars
  Updated 8/24/01
• Jamesland
  Author: Huneven, Michelle
  Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0375413820 Date: 2003
  Booklist
  Gathering at Helen Harland's new church, several dissatisfied people encounter one another--and some significant others besides--as their particular desires dovetail in a quest not just for romance but deeper meaning in the "variety show of religious experience."
  Updated 8.13.03
• The Laws of Invisible Things
  Author: Huyler, Frank
  Publisher: Holt $ 25 ISBN: 0805073302 Date: 2004
  PW
  In this suspenseful and finely wrought first novel, a young doctor's encounter with a mysterious disease leads him to a crossroads between faith and reason.
  Suggested Reading: Fiction & Mystery Debuts
  Updated 3.1.04
• Electric God
  Author: Hyde, Catherine Ryan
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 23 ISBN: 0743211189 Date: 2001
  Booklist
  Published to coincide with the film based on her book Pay It Forward, Electric God is a story of human failings and superhuman strengths: a contemporary reinterpretation of the Book of Job set in modern-day California.
  Updated 11/22/00
• In the Company of Angels
  Author: Kelby, N.M.
  Publisher: Hyperion $21 ISBN:0786866667 Date: 2001
  PW
  A compelling novel of dark miracles and angelic visitation, set in a Nazi-occupied Belgian town that is scented by chocolate. A young French Jew girl is saved by Belgian nuns after a bomb kills her grandmother. Then the miracles begin. In a town haunted by memories of the past and the desperation of the present, the miraculous is hard to recognize.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | World Wars Stars
  Updated 2/21/01
• The Office of Innocence
  Author: Keneally, Thomas
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 25 ISBN: 0385507631 Date: 2003
  Kirkus PW
  Poignantly depicting the conflicts between the secular and the holy, and between the family of a Father's birth versus the brotherhood of priests, this is a tale set in the most compelling of circumstances. Keneally has created an endearing protagonist who speaks to the conundrums of the age while paying tribute to quiet heroes of the past.
  Updated 12.23.02
• The Miracle
  Author: L'Heureux, John
  Publisher: Atlantic $ 24 ISBN: 0871138573 Date: 2002
  PW Kirkus
  L'Heureux has been acclaimed as a "master storyteller ... elegant, cunning, and wickedly funny" (The Washington Post). Now, in a pitch-perfect, deeply satisfying work of fiction, he enters the world of an unorthodox young priest whose faith is put to the test.
  Suggested Reading: Questions of Faith
  Updated 8.13.02
• The Autobiography of God
  Author: Lester, Julius
  Publisher: St Martins $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312288204 Date: 2004
  LJ
  From the author of Lovesong: Becoming a Jew comes this provocative new novel that asks the question: If God exists, then how could he allow the Holocaust to happen?
  Updated 11.2.04
• The Preservationist
  Author: Maine, David
  Publisher: St Martins $ 21.95 ISBN: 0312328478 Date: 2004
  PW
  Maine has penned a compelling and fresh novel based on the story of Noah and the flood, told with wisdom, wry humor and a modern sensibility.
  Updated 6.14.04
• Miracle at St Anna
  Author: McBride, James
  Publisher: Riverhead $ 24.95 ISBN: 1573222127 Date: 2002
  LJ
  Based on the historical incident of an unspeakable massacre at the site of St. Anna Di Stazzema, a small village in Tuscany, and on the experiences of the famed Buffalo soldiers from the 92nd Division in Italy during World War II, Miracle at St. Anna is a singular evocation of war, cruelty, passion, and heroism. It is the story of four American Negro soldiers, a band of partisans, and an Italian boy who encounter a miracle--though perhaps the true miracle lies in themselves.
  Suggested Reading: African American Stars | World Wars
  Updated 2/19/02
• The Madonna of Excelsior
  Author: Mda, Zakes
  Publisher: FSG $ 23 ISBN: 0374200084 Date: 2004
  Kirkus LJ PW
  A new novel by a towering presence in contemporary South African literature. By turns earthy, witty, and tragic, The Madonna of Excelsior is a brilliant depiction of life in South Africa and of the dramatic changes between the 1970s and the present.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 3.15.04
• Golfing with God: A Novel of Heaven and Earth
  Author: Merullo, Roland
  Publisher: Algonquin $ 23.95 ISBN: 1565125010 Date: 2005
  LJ
  Hank's afterlife takes an unexpected turn when he is summoned to help a player whose game is in a slump. To his dismay, his new pupil is God Himself. Or Herself. Depending on the day.
  Updated 9.17.05
• Ghost Country
  Author: Paretsky, Sara
  Publisher: Delacorte List Price: $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385299338 Date: 1998
  Booklist
  In the shadowy streets below Chicago's Loop, among the poor and downtrodden, a homeless woman believes that the blood of the Virgin Mary is seeping through a crack in a concrete wall. Ghost Country tells what happens in the lives of three people, after a mysterious woman appears at the wall during a thunderstorm.
  
• Lying Awake
  Author: Salzman, Mark
  Publisher: Knopf $ 21 ISBN: 0375406328 Date: 2000
  Booklist
  In a Carmelite monastery outside present-day Los Angeles, Sister John of the Cross experiences visions of such dazzling power and insight that she is considered a spiritual master. But they are accompanied by powerful headaches, and when a doctor reveals they may be dangerous, she faces a devastating choice since she fears a "cure" may end her spiritual gifts.
  Suggested Reading: Epilepsy
  Updated 10/4/00
• A Complicated Kindness
  Author: Toews, Miriam
  Publisher: Counterpoint $ 23 ISBN: 1582433216 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  This landmark literary novel balances unbearable sadness and beauty in the voice of a witty, beleaguered teenager whose family is destroyed by fundamentalist Christianity.
  Updated 9.22.04
• The Unveiling
  Author: Wolfe, Suzanne M.
  Publisher: Paraclete $ 19.95 ISBN: 1557253544 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  When Rachel Piers, a brilliant conservateuse at a Manhattan art gallery, is given the dream assignment of restoring a mysterious medieval painting in a church in Rome, she uncovers layers of her soul that continue to haunt.
  Updated 4.6.04