Here are 88 books that The Problem of Pain fans have personally recommended if you like
The Problem of Pain.
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I am a former hospital chaplain. My job was to accompany people through the earliest stages of dealing with crisis, trauma, and grief. In four years, I responded to more than 750 deaths, along with countless car accidents, gunshots, stabbings, miscarriages, stillbirths, violence, and unimaginable abuse. With a front-row seat for the worst of this world, faith became much more complicated. I wrestle every day but still cling to faith amid the spiritual and mental scars.
I know this is a children’s book, but sometimes I need more pictures and less words. This book reminds me that God is close, tender, and deeply personal, not cold, distant, and demanding. This helps me feel safe to question, wonder, wander, doubt, and believe.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The late, beloved Rachel Held Evans answers many children's first question about God in this gorgeous picture book, fully realized by her friend Matthew Paul Turner, the bestselling author of When God Made You.
Children who are introduced to God, through attending church or having loved ones who speak about God, often have a lot of questions, including this ever-popular one: What is God like? The late Rachel Held Evans loved the Bible and loved showing God’s love through the words and pictures found in that ancient text. Through these pictures from the Bible,…
An unlucky girl. A secret society. Can her mother be rescued?
Mallory Stone is frustrated. After four years of living on the road, the young travel blogger is annoyed that her mom still won’t let her show their face on the internet. But Mallory discovers there is more to her…
I am a former hospital chaplain. My job was to accompany people through the earliest stages of dealing with crisis, trauma, and grief. In four years, I responded to more than 750 deaths, along with countless car accidents, gunshots, stabbings, miscarriages, stillbirths, violence, and unimaginable abuse. With a front-row seat for the worst of this world, faith became much more complicated. I wrestle every day but still cling to faith amid the spiritual and mental scars.
I loved this book because it met me in the tension between faith and suffering with raw honesty and unexpected humor. Kate Bowler doesn’t offer simple answers—she dismantles the tidy clichés I’ve heard too often, exposing how little control we actually have.
This book has helped me wrestle with the mystery of God’s love that sticks with me even when nothing makes sense.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - 'A meditation on sense-making when there's no sense to be made, on letting go when we can't hold on, and on being unafraid even when we're terrified.' LUCY KALANITHI
'Belongs on the shelf alongside other terrific books about this difficult subject, like Paul Kalanithi's When Breath Becomes Air and Atul Gawande's Being Mortal.' BILL GATES
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLE
London-born Kate Bowler, a thirty-five year-old professor at the school of divinity at Duke, had finally had a baby with her childhood sweetheart when she began to feel…
I am a former hospital chaplain. My job was to accompany people through the earliest stages of dealing with crisis, trauma, and grief. In four years, I responded to more than 750 deaths, along with countless car accidents, gunshots, stabbings, miscarriages, stillbirths, violence, and unimaginable abuse. With a front-row seat for the worst of this world, faith became much more complicated. I wrestle every day but still cling to faith amid the spiritual and mental scars.
I read this book after my heart attack, and it met me in a place of deep vulnerability. I felt like it was written for me… for that time. It made me remember especially the importance of silence and solitude. It played a big part in my healing from the mental and spiritual trauma of my heart attack.
Since its first publication, The Way of the Heart has helped millions of men and women cast off the anger and greed that trouble the world—and find love, compassion, and peace in the heart of God.
Inspired by the ancient teachings of St. Anthony and the Desert Fathers,The Way of the Heart clears before us a spiritual path consisting of three stepping-stones: Solitude (learning not to be alone but to be alone with God); Silence (the discipline by which the inner fire of God is tended and kept alive); and Prayer (standing in the presence of God with the mind…
Killion is born several generations after the establishment of the Cities of Light which now sprinkle each continent of the world, places where God’s spirit produces a tangible presence felt by all who enter. Yet he is raised outside these cities, under the direction of Adar, who teaches his followers…
I am a former hospital chaplain. My job was to accompany people through the earliest stages of dealing with crisis, trauma, and grief. In four years, I responded to more than 750 deaths, along with countless car accidents, gunshots, stabbings, miscarriages, stillbirths, violence, and unimaginable abuse. With a front-row seat for the worst of this world, faith became much more complicated. I wrestle every day but still cling to faith amid the spiritual and mental scars.
I found so much freedom in this book. Richard Rohr put words to things I had long felt but struggled to articulate—that Christ’s presence is not confined to religion, rules, or a distant heaven but woven into everything, here and now.
This book expanded my view of God, shattering the small, transactional faith I had been handed and replacing it with a love big enough to hold all things. Rohr’s words helped me see Christ in the ordinary, in the broken, in myself—and that changed everything.
'One of the most influential speakers in the world' - OPRAH WINFREY
In his decades as a globally recognized teacher, Richard Rohr has helped millions realize what is at stake in matters of faith and spirituality. Yet Rohr has never written on the most perennially talked about topic in Christianity: Jesus. Most know who Jesus was, but who was Christ? Is the word simply Jesus' last name? Too often, Rohr writes, our understanding has been limited by culture, religious squabbling, and the human tendency to put ourselves at the centre.
The question I have for Christian authors is this: are we Christian authors or authors who are Christian? The realm of horror is the perfect genre to explore the human condition in all of its depravity. Why do Christians avoid this genre when at the end of the day? I grew up watching horror movies with my grandmother and I enjoy the thrills and chills, the questions the genre asks, and the various ways horror can be depicted. Christians understand the dark forces that underlie our natural world. And we understand the darkness within ourselves. But unlike Hollywood horror, we know what the solution – Christ. So that’s why this is a passion of mine.
I call him HIM is an apocalyptic horror story about a man who is a fighting machine.
Hell has come to earth and wreaked havoc. Demonic beings lurk everywhere, feasting off of humanity. Our main character is simply called Him. He has no name, but only rage as he kills demonic hordes with his sword and his strength.
Where is God in a world filled with demonic influences? Where is God when the cry of humanity reaches out for answers? This thought consumes Him, but there may be a light. A young girl who may be the key.
Scott Kimak blends this horror, apocalyptic story with gritty violence, intense action scenes, coarse language, but also themes of redemption and sacrifice.
In a post-apocalyptic world, a warrior and his family are driven underground, fighting for their very survival. When they do emerge, the futuristic planet they discover is very different from the one they left behind. Ruled by an evil presence which dominates and controls what is left of mankind, Earth has been reduced to a violent place of darkness, grief and destruction.I call him HIM follows the journey of this unnamed warrior as he loses both his family and his mind. As he hits rock bottom, all he can think of is his insatiable yearning for revenge until he meets…
I am passionate about this topic because it dates back to my childhood. I have been interested in this subject for as long as I can remember and, as far as I can tell, gravitated towards it naturally, probably due to those unknown vectors within us all that gear us towards our loves, interests, and passions. I have written many novels in this field, and countless short stories, some published, others lying around my house. For me, this genre defines the best aspects of the imagination and is full of color, fantasy, and the entire broad spectrum of human emotions, including the most potent: fear.
This novel's structure inspired me to write my book, at least in part. I read it in one sitting while working as a security guard at a nature park on Christmas night years ago. It deals with an unholy presence by the name of Jakerbok, imprisoned in the pages of the book, who perpetually pleads with the reader to “Burn this book!” or else. It is wholly unique, original, and decidedly unsettling.
The long-awaited return of the great master of horror. Mister B. Gone is Barker's shockingly bone-chilling discovery of a never-before-published demonic 'memoir' penned in the year 1438, when it was printed - one copy only - and then buried until now by an assistant who worked for the inventor of the printing press, Johannes Gutenberg.
This bone-chilling novel, in which a medieval devil speaks directly to his reader-his tone murderous one moment, seductive the next-is a never-before-published memoir allegedly penned in the year 1438.
The demon has embedded himself in the very words of this tale of terror,…
Readers describe Krenik's writing style as “fast-paced, engaging, making complex plotlines easy to follow.”
Set in a dystopian world where dragons exist, this series offers readers layers of mysteries to unfold. Romance flares between a viscount and the nanny of his five-year-old twins. But not everyone is as they seem,…
Reading certain texts in the Bible growing up began my love for all things supernatural. The more I studied the subject and understood the worldview of the biblical authors and of other ancient cultures, the more I began to see these scenes in vivid color. With my passion for theological study (personally and as part of a master’s program), my work as a police officer, and my love for fantasy fiction perfectly positions me to write stories in which deep supernatural elements intersect with the gritty and real space of everyday life.
This was one of the first fiction books I read that set before me a world that is ordinary interrupted, and affected by another world that is supernatural.
In this book, when the main character goes to sleep, he wakes up in another world populated by mysterious beings and people.
Perhaps most interesting about this set up, is that events in this “dream world” affect events in the waking one.
While the main character only retains a passive ability (entering this other world and healing) the whole traveling between both spaces, his interactions with both divine and malevolent beings, and his race to stop his world from destruction all pulled me into the story in such a way that I could not put down.
Enter the adrenaline-laced story that started it all: the fate of two worlds hangs in the balance of one man's choices as dreams and reality collide.
Thomas Hunter narrowly escapes mysterious assailants only to encounter a silent bullet that clips his head . . . and his world goes black. He awakens in an alternate reality and soon finds himself pulled between two worlds. In one, Thomas is an average guy working in a coffeehouse. In the other, he's a battle-scarred general leading a band of warriors known as the Circle.
Every time Thomas falls asleep in one reality, he…
I’ve loved scary stories ever since I was a kid thumbing through Goosebumps, and I’m delighted that my children enjoy them as much as I do. Since they’ve outgrown spooky picture books like mine, middle grade horror audiobooks are our favorite way to pass the half-hour drive to school—but not every excellent book has an equally excellent narrator. Some sound downright bored with the material; others have such engaging voices that I will never read the books again without hearing them in my head. These are five of the most deliciously creepy middle grade novels that we’ve discovered for those long car trips.
This is my eleven-year-old son’s favorite book by master of kiddie horror K.R. Alexander, and I’ll admit that when I read the paperback, I didn’t understand why. The story of Kevin’s obsessive desire to win the annual haunted house contest—no matter what dark forces he angers in the process—was very good, but I thought some of Alexander’s other books were better. Then I listened to the audiobook, and I’ll be darned if I don’t agree with my son now. Michael Crouch infuses Kevin with exactly the right levels of vulnerability and desperation, making us understand every terrible decision he makes...even as we cringe in anticipation of the consequences.
A haunted house has come to life in this spine-tingling novel from the author of The Collector.
They've lost control of the haunted house.Every year, the town of Happy Hills holds its haunted house contest. In a spooky old manor, teams of kids come up with new ways to frighten people. The scariest team wins.But this year, all the teams are going to lose. Because this year the house itself has awakened . . . and it won't be happy until it's devoured all the people inside. What started out as a game has turned into something much more deadly.Is…
I am a writer and all-around nerd living in California. When I was a kid, I loved scaring myself silly with ghost stories. My school’s tiny library had a stock of Goosebumpsbooks that I devoured like candy. Ever since, I’ve loved stories about the things we are afraid of—especially the ones that make us question where that fear comes from. The books on my list blend my love of horror and fantasy. They are stories to make you shiver, and stories to make you think. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.
The Good Demon is unlike anything else I’ve read. It’s eerie, intimate, and spellbinding. Clare’s demon was her best friend, her Only, right up until her parents called a priest to cast the demon out. Now the only thing Clare wants is to get her demon back. It’s hard to say more about this book other than that it is very, very, good. The horror elements are scary in the way of abandoned houses and shadows seen from the corner of your eye. If you like your stories strange and moody and your characters flawed, you should definitely give this book a try.
It wasn't technically an exorcism, what they did to Clare. When the reverend and his son ripped her demon from her, they called it a "deliverance." But they didn't understand that Clare and her demon-known simply as Her-were like sisters. She comforted Clare, made her feel brave, helped to ease her loneliness. They were each other's Only.
Now, Clare's only comforts are the three clues that She left behind:
Be nice to him
June 20
Remember the stories
Clare will do anything to get Her back, even if it means teaming up with the reverend's son and scouring…
Throne of the Bandit Lord
by
Derick William Dalton,
In defiance of her city's culture, Miri Oliva travels the realm with shield and spear seeking adventure. By recovering stolen gold for a village, she kindles the wrath of two tyrants, one vicious and spiteful, the other cold and cunning. But Miri is no stranger to trials of will or…
I am a fantasy and science-fiction author with a soft spot for books cut with a sharp sense of humour, impaled on the absurd, or littered with the brutal slaughter of conventions and tropes. I love crisp one-liners and surreal worlds, awkward anti-heroes, and kick-ass heroines who bring their own ruthless horde to the fight. If I were to pick out one feature of a book, film, or television show that really catches my attention it would be “Wow. Didn’t see that one coming.”
Grunts is one of my ultimate laugh-out-loud books, followed by a look round to make sure there’s no one nearby I have to explain it to. It’s a tale of the orcs after the final battle between good and evil, out of a job and in the tricky position of being on the losing side. Grunts delights in turning every fantasy trope on its head, cracking jokes I certainly wouldn’t want to explain to my mother, and at every step rooting for undeniable bad guys who were just there to do the job of fighting for the Dark Lord.
Oh, and the orcs are cursed with a cache of weapons from our world that is turning them into US Marines. I don’t know why that makes it so much funnier, but it does.
Don’t embarrass yourself - remember to pee before you start reading.
A fantasy tale, with black humour, by the author of "Rats and Gargoyles" and "The Architecture of Desire". The usual Last Battle of Good against Evil is about to begin. The forces of Light are outnumbered, full of headstrong heroes devoid of tactics - but the Light's still going to win.
