Last updated on 11/03/2026
Welcome to the November 2026 edition of An Open Book, hosted both at My Scribbler’s Heart and CatholicMom.com!
My husband as well as my oldest son are both Michaels, so there has always been a particular interest in St. Michael the Archangel in our household. St. Michael and His World by another Michael, Mike Aquilina, is a fairly short biography of the beloved saint drawing on scripture, Church history, various time periods, and even other religions. My husband highly recommends it.
I read The Power of Love by Fulton Sheen around the time of his beatification and in advance of writing a review for CatholicMom.com. (Coming soon!) This collection of essays on various types of love is easy to read in digestible chunks and full of Sheen’s bold and pithy insights that I always find valuable. Many analogies and applicable quotes from literature help get across Sheen’s points.
My adult son read A Student’s Guide to the Study of History by John Lukacs, presented by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), an organization his sister has recently come to know by attending an ISI-sponsored retreat. The author/historian explains why history should be studied, what the study of history entails, and how it has been approached throughout time.
During his daily commute, my son listened to C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. While he enjoyed the book, he would’ve appreciated more depth and specificity from Lewis. Even so, he acknowledged that “Lewis excels at making his arguments understandable and applicable, and a great many people have found and will continue to find Lewis’ work helpful on their journey towards Christ.”
If you read An Open Book each month, you’ll recognize that Heaven or Heresy: A History of the Inquisition by Thomas F. Madden is another talk from The Modern Scholar. Professor Madden goes beyond popular portrayals of the Inquisition to examine it from all sides and the religious and political context in which it occurred. He addresses both the Spanish and Roman Inquisitions and dispels myths concerning each.
My son planned on reading Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence by Pope Leo XIV alongside his sister (who is participating in an upcoming conference on it hosted by St. Vincent College), but he pulled ahead and finished early. My son is a cyber security analyst, so while he had a variety of thoughts on different aspects of the book-length encyclical, I found his insights regarding the tech industry, which he shared on Substack, particularly interesting.
The Inland Campaign for Vicksburg: Five Battles in Seventeen Days, May 1-17, 1863 by Timothy B. Smith is part of the Civil War series my son has been reading off and on. This is the fifth and final volume in the series, covering Grant’s march through Mississippi with mounting successes for the Union Army.
Before Gettysburg: Untold Stories of the Harrisburg Region During the Pennsylvania Campaign and the American Civil War by James E. Schmick, Donald J. Madar, and Scott L. Mingus, Sr., is a historical book of regional interest. My son bought a signed copy from the primary author at his Civil War and More bookstore. The book has many illustrations, photographs, and maps. A lifetime of research went into the book, and it is great for identifying local spots of interest and their connection to the Civil War.
My college daughter had high praise for His Greatest Speeches: How Lincoln Moved the Nation by Diana Schaub, which she read in advance of a discussion. The book closely examines three of Lincoln’s speeches: the Lyceum Address, the Gettysburg Address, and his Second Inaugural Address. Grammar, word choice, and Biblical and other allusions are examined, and my daughter was left with great appreciation for Lincoln’s brilliance as a speech writer.
While I’d heard of this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, I knew nothing about it until my daughter read it for a college course. While she thought this satirical novel set in New Orelans, A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, had less to do with the Catholic imagination than other books she’s read for the course, she highly enjoyed it. Sadly, the author, discouraged by his lack of success, committed suicide before its publication. His mother subsequently sent the novel to Catholic author Walker Percy, who aided in its posthumous publication.
A novel that did exhibit much more of the Catholic imagination is The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. This book lived on my parents’ bookshelf when I was very young, but I have yet to read this classic about a man who makes a Faustian bargain, selling his soul for immortality. As Gray becomes more decadent, his picture reflects the depravity of his soul. My daughter marveled at Wilde’s skill as a writer, employing beautifully written passages.
It was October, and my high school daughter decided to read the epistolary novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. It wasn’t what she expected, but she loved it! She especially appreciated “the deep Christian beliefs and values [that] were ever-present and the one powerful belief that God could and would save them, even if it were not in the way they hoped or preferred.” She also noted how the book portrayed the different but equal roles of men and woman, noting that “this book really showcased the true feminine genius, not that women have to be the same as men but that they should complement them and care for them in their uniquely feminine way that men cannot imitate.”
The Dawn We Seek by Allison Regina Gliot, FSP, is another vampire tale, the third and final book in the In Aeternum trilogy. My daughter’s favorite book in the series was the second book, but she highly enjoyed this one as well (and I’ll be reading it soon myself). After living for so long as a vampire, Christopher has sought forgiveness, but he still must face aspects of his past and his ties to another vampire, the Shadow. Our choices and the opportunity for redemption are at the heart of this story.
My children mostly repeat the same literature curriculum, so I try not to be too repetitive and share the same books over and over again. It’s been a while since I shared Inherit the Wind: The Powerful Drama of the Greatest Courtroom Clash of the Century by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, which I think last appeared here four years ago and before that, in 2017. The play is based on the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial regarding a teacher accused of teaching the theory of evolution, and my daughter read it with her Humanities class.
In the same vein, I haven’t shared every time someone in the house read Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Killer Angels, but my youngest son has been reading it this fall. This fictional treatment of the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg is so engaging and captures not only the historical events of the three-day battle but also the personalities of the commanders on both sides of the battles—and the ties between them.
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