Twenty Five Books Every Christian Should Read

Renovaré, the spiritual formation organization, has come out with a book about Christian books, the provocatively titled Twenty Five Books Every Christian Should Read. Gathering together editors from Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant traditions, the list comprises the following books:

1.  On the Incarnation  by St. Athanasius
2.  Confessions  by St. Augustine
3.  The Sayings of the Desert Fathers
4.  The Rule of St. Benedict  by St. Benedict
5.  The Divine Comedy  by Dante Alighieri
6.  The Cloud of Unknowing  by Anonymous
7.  Revelations of Divine Love (Showings)  by Julian of Norwich
8.  The Imitation of Christ  by Thomas à Kempis
9.  The Philokalia
10.  Institutes of the Christian Religion  by John Calvin
11.  The Interior Castle  by St. Teresa of Avila
12.  Dark Night of the Soul  by St. John of the Cross
13.  Pensées  by Blaise Pascal
14.  The Pilgrim’s Progress  by John Bunyan
15.  The Practice of the Presence of God  by Brother Lawrence
16.  A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life  by William Law
17.  The Way of a Pilgrim  by Unknown Author
18.  The Brothers Karamazov  by Fyodor Dostoevsky
19.  Orthodoxy  by G. K. Chesterton
20.  The Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins
21.  The Cost of Discipleship  by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
22.  A Testament of Devotion  by Thomas R. Kelly
23.  The Seven Storey Mountain  by Thomas Merton
24.  Mere Christianity  by C. S. Lewis
25.  The Return of the Prodigal Son  by Henri J. M. Nouwen

I have read Confessions, Divine Comedy, Institutes, Pilgrim’s Progress, The Way of the Pilgrim, the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Mere Christianity, which comes out to about 25% of the list. I have On the Incarnation, The Practice of the Presence of God and The Cost of Discipleship sitting on my “book queue” shelf, waiting to be read. Almost all of these books have been on my radar, and I would want to eventually read every one, except for Brothers Karamazov—I just can never really get into Russian writing.

Which of these books have you read? What would you add to the list? Subtract from it?