2023 Catholic Novel Reading Group

Friday, April 28 (6:30 PM), St. Thomas Aquinas (Room 2-4)

The St. Anselm Institute Catholic Novel reading group invites you to join our discussion of Michael O'Brien's widely acclaimed, apocalyptic thriller Father Elijah (1996), an adventure that will hold us on the edge of our seats!

All are invited to attend, and the Institute will mail a free book to interested UVA students. Email Jocelyn Moore (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Wednesday, April 27, 2022 (7:00-8:30pm)

UVA Students: request a free copy by emailing Director of Programs Jocelyn Moore (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). The St. Anselm Institute will send you the book.

Tuesday, February 22, 2022 (7:00-8:30pm)

UVA Students: request a free copy by emailing Director of Programs Jocelyn Moore (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). The St. Anselm Institute will send you the book.

Wednesday, October 13, 2021 (6:30-8:00pm)

This short and exuberant novel was penned by a newspaper journalist, a Knights of Columbus ghostwriter, a prolific Hollywood screenwriter and producer, and a great admirer of G.K. Chesterton. Intrigued? Mr. Blue offers an unexpectedly quirky, Franciscan inversion of Jay Gatsby and the outrageous Roaring Twenties. Don’t miss a great discussion of this hidden American gem of the Catholic imagination.

UVA Students can request a free copy by emailing Director of Programs Jocelyn Moore(This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). The St. Anselm Institute will send you the book.

Monday April 19, 2021; 7:30-8:45 (Zoom)

Join us for a discussion of two short detective stories by G.K Chesterton: "The Blue Cross" and "The Flying Stars"--both are enjoyable accompaniments to mark the end of this Season of Lent. Chesterton orients Fr. Brown’s confessional-informed sleuthing efforts "not only [toward] the bursting of a bubble but ... the breaking of a dawn.” Everyone is invited to join our discussion. Email Dr. Jocelyn Moore (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) for the Zoom link and a digital copy of these classic stories.

February 24, 2021; 7:30-8:45 (Zoom)

Sigrid Undset, Wild Orchid

Looking for a great read over the long Winter Break? Plan to start the new semester with a discussion of The Wild Orchid (1931) by Sigrid Undset, a writer all Catholics should know. Like her Nobel prize-winning trilogy Kristen Lavransdatter, this coming-of-age novel about Paul Selmer, a young Norwegian raised with modern free-thinking sensibilities, offers a masterful depiction of the gradual germination of Faith that leads to conversion. Students, faculty and everyone else are invited to join our discussion. Email Dr. Jocelyn Moore (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) for the Zoom link. UVA students will receive a free copy!

Wednesday November 11th, 7:30-8:45PM

"Babette’s Feast" and "Leaf by Niggle"

For the end of the semester, we have paired two very different short stories that approach the vocation of artists in the world: Karin Blixen’s (pen-name Isak Dinesen) "Babette’s Feast” (1958) and J.R.R. Tolkien’s "Leaf by Niggle” (1945). Babette, a preeminent Parisian chef, and painter Niggle each live amidst neighbors who do not fully appreciate their creative efforts. Yet Blixen and Tolkien enchant their readers with visions of Art's most transcendent ends.

Discussion will take place via Zoom. RSVP to Jocelyn Moore (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and we'll send you the Zoom link invitation.

September 16 & October 7, 2020

Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited (1945)

For the start of this unusual semester, Brideshead Revisited is our Catholic Novel pick. Waugh's classic novel invites us to savor the golden back-to-school days at pre-war Oxford, the unforgettable summers with the alluring Catholic Flyte family, and the subtle “twitches of the thread” of Grace in life's painful events.

We will host two Zoom discussions, on Wednesdays September 16 and October 7, 7:30-8:45 PM. On Sept. 16 we will discuss 'Book One', and on October 7 we will finish with 'Books Two and Three'. RSVP your interest to Dr. Jocelyn Moore (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and we'll send you the Zoom link invitations. Note to UVA students: we'll buy and Amazon you the book!

July 22, 2020: Natalia Fenollera, The Awakening of Miss Prim (2013)

All are invited to join our Zoom discussion on Wednesday July 22, 7:30-8:45PM

A young woman of ample academic qualification pursues a librarian job in a remote French village: what ensues is a delightful love story - that is equally a romance of literature, philosophy, and the search for Happiness. In Fenollera's debut bestseller, her bookish, secular protagonist stands to be changed by the community of charming San Ireneo, an enclave from the modern world founded around a Benedictine monastery.

RSVP to Dr. Jocelyn Moore (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and we'll send you the Zoom link invitation. (UVA students: we'll buy and Amazon you the book).

Wednesday May 27, 2020: Randy Boyagoda, Original Prin (2018)

Zoom meeting @ 7:30pm (We'll send you the Zoom invite link)

Randy Boyagoda (Univ. of Toronto) offers us a satirical look at some of the absurdities of Faith, family, and university life in the modern world. “The novel’s hero, a professor working at a bankrupt Catholic college, goes to the Middle East to open a satellite campus, convinced God is calling him to do this work... in the company of his sexy ex-girlfriend from graduate school. Will Prin save his school and lose his soul?”

Boyagoda is the author of two other novels (Governor of the Northern Province, and Beggar's Feast) and a biography of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus.

February 4, 2020: Cormac McCarthy, The Road (2006).