Both personal memoir and scholarly analysis, Terence Lester’s book provides advice on how to effectuate change and hope that change is possible. Review by Brenda Holston

Sometimes it takes stopping time to wrestle with what it means to inhabit it. Review by Matthew Pullar

The Hours challenges us to embrace the darkness in pursuit of the divine. Review by Elizabeth Harlan-Ferlo

Lucas Smith’s short story collection Spare Us Yet finds apathy an inadequate response to the world. His characters’ encounters with God compel them to contemplation, and then to action. Review by Eric Cyr

If you’re looking for additions to your read/watch list for 2026, try out a few of our favorites from 2025. Merry Christmas and a happy New Year from the editors at Fare Forward!

Leah Libresco Sargeant offers a new vision for feminism—and for how we understand human life in all its vulnerabilities. Review by Maura Ronayne

Sacrificing neither orthodoxy nor charity, a new apologia for the Protestant tradition offers the advantages of local and individual iterations of the faith. Review by Charlie Clark

Alissa Wilkinson takes up the baton for the truth Joan Didion always tried to surface: the stories we tell shape who we are—so be aware of what stories you’re telling. Review by Sara Holston

Instagrammer Luke Sherlock’s foray into print is a thoroughly unexpected little volume that makes up in visual beauty and depth of feeling for what it lacks in weight. Review by Sarah Clark

A series of fictional journals from a Victorian orphan could be mere escapism–but instead, the heroine and her eclectic collection of friends model living through grief with grace. Review by Ali Holcomb

Thomas Tweed’s Religion in the Lands that Became America skillfully traces the imprints of ecological circumstances on American religious life but undersells the influence of religious thinking itself. Review by Will Bryant

Paul Kingsnorth predicts the techno-capitalist mission to eradicate human limits will eradicate humanity itself. Review by Evan Tao