Book cover of The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Book description

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Special Award

"I have come to think that the true likeness of Flannery O'Connor will be painted by herself, a self-portrait in words, to be found in her letters . . . There she stands, a phoenix risen from her own words: calm,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Habit of Being as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Flannery O’Connor is one of the great writers of the 20th Century. She was also a lifelong Catholic. Among the themes she explored in many of her letters to friends are the relationship between Christian faith and art and how a writer might share her vision of reality with an audience that didn’t necessarily want to see it.

Like O’Connor, Elisabeth Elliot wrote fiction to explore the action of grace in the darkness and chaos of human life, and like O’Connor, Elliot received harsh criticism of her work from many of her coreligionists. Elliot’s marginal notes in her own copy…

From Lucy's list on learn more about Elisabeth Elliot.

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The High House by James Stoddard,

The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.

The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.

Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…

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