In 1956, toward the end of Rev. John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. This is also the tale of wisdom forged during his solitary life and how history lives through generations, pervasively present even when betrayed and forgotten.

"Marilynne Robinson, one of the greatest novelists of our time, returns to the town of Gilead in an unforgettable story of a girlhood lived on the fringes of society in fear, awe, and wonder. Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa church-the only available shelter from the rain-and ignites a romance and a debate that will reshape her life. She becomes the wife of a minister, John Ames, and begins...

A young priest is bound by his sacred vows to keep a deadly secret that was revealed to him by a man in the confessional, but when the unknown man begins threatening the priest's sister, he is forced to choose whether his vows or his family are more important to him.

During a vicious persecution of the clergy in Mexico, a worldly priest, the 'whisky priest', is on the run. With the police closing in, his routes of escape are being shut off, his chances getting fewer. But compassion and humanity force him along the road to his destiny, reluctant to abandon those who need him, and those he cares for.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize–winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Olive Kitteridge comes a “superb” (O: The Oprah Magazine) novel that “confirms Strout as the possessor of an irresistibly companionable, peculiarly American voice.” (The Atlantic Monthly)
 
In the late 1950s, in a small New England town, Reverend Tyler...

From One of America's Best-Loved Writers of the Early Twentieth Century - Harold Bell Wright was truly one of America's master writers of the early twentieth century. His books have sold millions of copies. He possessed an amazing ability to capture a slice of memorable history, to introduce unforgettable characters, and through it all to weave meaningful truth and spiritual significance. The Shepherd of the Hills is the classic story of the stranger...

A brash newspaperman in 1830s New Jersey must decide if redeeming his career is more important than a future with the intriguing woman he investigates, who turns out to be Ruth Livingstone--the daughter of a man involved in a high-profile trial.

Arthur's seduction of an innocent, young country girl results in remorse, suffering, and regret. According to The Oxford Companion to English Literature, "the plot is founded on a story told to George Eliot by her aunt Elizabeth Evans, a Methodist preacher, and the original of Dinah Morris of the novel, of a confession of child-murder, made to her by a girl in prison." The story's plot follows four characters' rural lives in the fictional community...

The narrative follows Bishop Jean Latour and Father Joseph Vaillant, friends since their childhood in France, as they organize the new Roman Catholic diocese of Santa Fe subsequent to the Mexican War. While seeking to revive the church and build a cathedral in the desert, the clerics, like their historical prototypes, Bishop Jean Laury and Father Joseph Machebeuf, face religious corruption, natural adversity, and the loneliness of living in a strange...

Minister Paul Hudson, called to pastor a struggling church in California, becomes so caught up in building attendance and filling church coffers that he loses sight of his mission to save souls, alienating his wife and son, and eventually bringing about his own downfall.