Girl Reading by Pablo Picasso

The last class I offered the last year I worked full-time in a parish was titled “The Mustard Seed Conspiracy: Little Books with Big Meaning.” The title was lifted from a book by Tom Sine. I thought it sounded tantalizingly subversive. The sub-title for the class was actually more important. In the sudden emergence of Oprah-inspired book groups, I was searching for books whose page totals were, shall we say, a bit south of Les Misérables and Infinite Jest. Meeting once a week, I was especially hoping to find books that dealt directly or indirectly with theological themes and offered spiritual benefit that could be read in a limited number of hours over a few days.

In my search for meaningful “little books” I included fiction and non-fiction. I placed no boundary on the genre. We read works of poetry, autobiography, theology, spirituality, and with one slight cheat, a short story by Andre Dubus. We read a collection of essays. We read Elie Wisel’s Night, Annie Dillard’s Holy the Firm, Monika Hellwig’s Eucharist and the Hunger of the World, and Johannes Metz’s Poverty of Spirit to name some but not all. I was especially interested in books that generated stimulating, thought-provoking, mutually enhancing dialogue.

Short books I have enjoyed over the years include such little delights as Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed, Antoine de St. Exupery’s The Little Prince, Frederick Buechner’s Telling the Truth: Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale, John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me, Wendell Berry’s Sabbaths, Cynthia Bourgeault’s Mystical Hope, Parker Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak, and Henri Nouwen’s Clowning in Rome and The Way of the Heart.

I am curious to know what little gem of a book, roughly between 75 – 120 pages, might have touched you over the years. Do you have a favorite little book with big meaning? If so, let me know in the Reply box below. Thanks much.