As we wave goodbye to 2010, it would seem a good time to look back over the best books published and read over the past year. This is something that the Ignatius Press website has been doing for several years. Each year, at around this time, Ignatius Insight’s editor, Carl Olson, approaches a number of Ignatius Press authors requesting a list of their favourite books or most enjoyable reads. I’ve copied my own listing below. To read the lists of other authors, follow this link: http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2011/bestbooks1_2010_jan2011.asp

Joseph Pearce has firmly established himself as the premier literary biographer of our time, especially in interpreting the spiritual depths of the Catholic literary tradition. He is the author of acclaimed biographies of G.K. Chesterton, Oscar Wilde, Hilaire Belloc, and J.R.R. Tolkien, and books on English literature and literary converts. His most recent book is Through Shakespeare’s Eyes: Seeing the Catholic Presence in the Plays http://www.ignatius.com/Products/TSE-H/through-shakespeares-eyes.aspx?src=iinsight . Pearce is Writer-in-Residence and Associate Professor of Literature at Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida, and is the Co-Editor of the St. Austin Review https://staustinreview.org/  and the Editor-in-Chief of Sapientia Press http://www.avemaria.edu/shop/. He is also the editor of the Ignatius Critical Editions http://www.ignatius.com/ignatiuscriticaleditions/index.asp . Visit his IgnatiusInsight.com author page http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/authors/josephpearce.asp  for more about his work and a full listing of his books published by Ignatius Press. 

Looking for the King by David Downing (Ignatius Press, 2010) and Death of a Liturgist by Lorraine V. Murray (Saint Benedict Press, 2010) were the two most enjoyable new works of fiction that I’ve read in the past year. The former is a masterfully told mystery story, which weaves in and out of the world of Tolkien, Lewis and the Inklings; it’s a must-read for all lovers of Tolkien and Lewis, and for all lovers of well-written and well-woven thrillers. The latter is a simply delightful satire, masquerading as a murder mystery, on the nonsensical world of liturgical modernism.  

Apologetics for the Twenty-First Century by Louis Markos (Crossway, 2010) and More Christianity: Finding the Fullness of the Faith by Fr. Dwight Longenecker (Ignatius Press, 2010) are the two most dynamically engaging works of apologetics that I’ve read recently. The former engages with the wit and wisdom of Chesterton and Lewis to shed light on the challenges faced by Christianity in our secular fundamentalist age. The latter takes Lewis’s Mere Christianity as its starting point but leads the reader to the “more Christianity” to be found in the Catholic Church. Father Longenecker writes with a sublime simplicity that is simply sublime.

The highlight of the year, for me, was the Beatification of John Henry Newman by the Holy Father in September. In commemoration of this momentous event, Ignatius Press published Blessed John Henry Newman: Theologian and Spiritual Guide for Our Times by Keith Beaumont (Ignatius Press, 2010) and The Heart of Newman, a selection of Newman’s writings edited by (Ignatius Press, 2010). Taken together, these two volumes should be in every Catholic’s library. The first serves as the perfect introduction to Newman’s life and work, the second is an excellent synthesis of some of his finest writing.

In last year’s selection of my favourite books I mentioned Roads to Rome by John Beaumont (St. Augustine’s Press, 2010), a book for which I had written the preface but which had not yet been published. It is now available from St. Augustine’s Press. I cannot recommend this particular book highly enough. It’s a meticulously researched compendium of hundreds of prominent English Catholic converts stretching right back to the Reformation. As a reference work, Roads to Rome is indispensable for anyone wishing a deeper knowledge of the history of the Catholic resistance and revival in England.

An entirely different sort of Roman road is the subject of Roads and Ruins: The Symbolic Landscape of Fascist Rome by Paul Baxa (University of Toronto Press, 2010). This intriguing and fascinating work demonstrates how the fascist ideology radically changed the historic landscape of the Eternal City. 

My final choice is Christianity and Literature: Philosophical Foundations and Critical Practice by David Lyle Jeffrey & Gregory P. Maillet (IVP Academic, 2011), a work which I’ve read in manuscript but which will not be published until the spring. It’s a penetrating and panoramic engagement with the great works of western literature from the salient and sapient perspective of two fine Christian literary critics.