Fiction and inspiration for workers (plus bonus content)
Connecting doers with thinkers, part 2
This is the second and final part of the reading list for workers! Thanks again to all who’ve asked for reading recs. For the rationale and previous listed categories, please see the first post. The whole list is accessible at bottom as a PDF if you want it for curriculum or self-study.
How to use: One item from each category will suffice to inform cultural engagement (besides Bible—read the whole thing!). Beyond that, read whatever you like for a fuller picture. I picked the books assuming the reader has a bandwidth of about 3-5 books per year. I still recommend asking an ethicist, consecrated lay worker, priest, or other thoughtful practitioner for guidance to see how to apply the texts or how they fit together.
Modern fiction for boosting creativity
A Wrinkle in Time and its sequel A Wind in the Door
Madeleine L’Engle
This is sci-fi that celebrates home and family. Winner of the Newbery Medal and great for all ages, the series mixes science, angels, biblical references, and coming-of-age.
Dune
Frank Herbert
Herbert envisioned regenerative agriculture before it was cool, and on a planetary level too. The protagonist faces a choice between creating Space Islam or Space Liberation Theology.
David Foster Wallace
The redemptive epic of American consumer culture. Along with mentors and life experience, this book helped inspire my entry into addiction medicine.
Gene Yuen Lang
There’s promise and peril when cultures collide. The author, a DC and Avatar the Last Airbender illustrator and a Catholic, provides a masterclass for enculturating the Gospel. Brilliant idea to make a comic book on the Boxer Rebellion, a messy time in Chinese history and Christian missions.
Recommended journals and Substacks
No-BS cultural analysis that remains gracious. Renn loves American Christianity enough to appraise our cultural weaknesses honestly while proposing solutions. The old newsletter and new long form articles are especially high-yield. Male-coded in a good way.
Rigorous and up-to-date info on the current state of marriage, intersexual dynamics, and family formation in the United States.
Accounts of Christian and communitarian ethics that people are actually trying to live out.
Bible
Any Gospel for which you find personal affinity
Genesis
Nehemiah
Amos
Acts of the Apostles
Bonus: Medical-industrial complex
Victoria Sweet
Physician and historian Victoria Sweet critiques the bureaucratic takeover of medicine and envisions a new way of caring for patients inspired by the medieval saint and mystic Hildegard von Bingen.
This is Your Brain on Birth Control
Sarah Hill
Pairs well with the fascinating account of the animal and human experiments by feminist and eugenicist Margaret Sanger and colleagues that led to development of the Pill.
Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism
Anne Case and Angus Deaton
An exposé of how our current biomedical industry and economic systems sacrifice specific groups of our countrymen, namely working class folks. Great to contrast with the opposite goal of human flourishing empirically described by Vanderweele and colleagues.
Interview and book: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State
Aaron Kheriaty
The First Things interview is a good overview for the working professional, and the book offers a deep dive. Great applications of Foucault and analyses of past totalitarian regimes to our technological zeitgeist.
Casey Means and Calley Means
I aim to read and critique this when I get the chance. If you would like to read it along with me, please let me know!
Full combined PDF of parts 1 and 2 here:
Amazing recommendations!