Why read A Severe Mercy?

Book cover of A Severe Mercy

Book description

A heart-rending love story described by its author as “the spiritual autobiography of a love rather than of the lovers” about the author’s marriage and search for faith.

Vanauken chronicles the birth of a powerful pagan love borne out of the relationship he shares with his wife, Davy, and describes…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked A Severe Mercy as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Molly Worthen

Author

I read this book during a very intense summer a few years ago when I was trying to figure out if Christianity could possibly be true, and how a nerdy secular academic like myself could even begin to ask that question.

I found a kindred spirit in Sheldon Vanauken. In this memoir set mainly in the 1950s, he tells the story of how he took a sabbatical from his teaching job at a little college in Virginia to go to Oxford with his wife. Neither of them was religious at the time. In fact, the first part of the book…

From Molly's list on helping a secular person understand the weirdest parts of religion.

Shandi Stevenson

Author

The sheer, transcendent beauty of the language in this book would have made me love it even had I not found the story engaging, and the powerful, personal truth of the story it tells would have made me love it even if the prose had been awkward and lackluster.

The marriage of the language with the deeply personal story of a young American couple finding their way through love, marriage, and friendship to the love of Christ, and then facing the ultimate test of their young faith, will mark you forever. I will warn you that I finished the book…

From Shandi's list on Christian biographies to meet lifelong friends.