Looking for a meaningful Christmas gift? Check out this list of books, visual art and music created by Jesuit Media Lab contributors and 2025 guests on our AMDG podcast.
Also check out the still-very-good gift ideas from our 2024 list.
Editor’s Choice: “A Christmas Carol,” JML Communal Reading Edition
By Charles Dickens
Inspired by our popular Zoom theatre retreats, the Jesuit Media Lab presents this read-aloud version of Charles Dickens’ Christmas classic, perfect to perform together with friends or family on a cold winter’s night. The text of the novella is presented here formatted as a play so it’s easy to choose parts and read it aloud. We abridged the work based on Dickens’ own personal prompt copy of “A Christmas Carol,” which he used in public readings throughout his life.
Books
Fiction
The Rabbit Hutch
By Tess Gunty
“The Rabbit Hutch” is a stunning debut novel about four teenagers — recently aged out of the state foster-care system — living together in an apartment building in the post-industrial Midwest, exploring the quest for transcendence and the desire for love. Winner of the National Book Award.
Cahokia Jazz
By Francis Spufford
The bestselling and award-winning author of “Golden Hill”delivers a “dazzling” (Los Angeles Times), “smoky, brooding noir set in the 1920s” (Slate) that reimagines how American history would be different if, instead of being decimated, Indigenous populations had thrived.
Poetry
Which Seeds Will Grow? Poems
By Andrew Calis
Steeped in wonder, “Which Seeds Will Grow?” explores the past and the present, from ancient Jerusalem to Baltimore’s gardens and alleys through the lens of a Palestinian American. The poems are patient, waiting for seasons to end, waiting for space to expand outward, and waiting for light to touch the earth. Despite the difficulty of waiting, readers will find hope in hopelessness and comfort in the contemplation of the world and its sacred mysteries.
New and Selected Poems
By Marie Howe
Sign up for the JML Book Club for a live Zoom conversation with Howe!
Characterized by “a radical simplicity and seriousness of purpose, along with a fearless interest in autobiography and its tragedies and redemptions” (Matthew Zapruder, New York Times Magazine), Marie Howe’s poetry transforms penetrating observations of everyday life into sacred, humane miracles. This volume won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
44 Poems on Being with Each Other: A Poetry Unbound Collection
By Pádraig Ó Tuama
This new volume offers immersive reflections on the human connection. With an observant eye, Pádraig Ó Tuama shares an enlightening meditation on each poem, revealing the ways we relate to each other, the world around us and ourselves.
Theology / Spirituality
Nervous Systems: Spiritual Practices to Calm Anxiety in Your Body, the Church, and Politics
By Sara Billups
“Nervous Systems” offers helpful, doable daily practices for anxiety in the large and small trials in our lives. This collection of personal and cultural observations invites us to let go in the presence of our anxiety. Join Sara Billups in learning how, with God’s help, to face anxiety head-on rather than trying to pray it away or, worse, grin and bear it.
Finding Peace Here & Now: How Ignatian Spirituality Leads Us to Healing and Wholeness
By Eric A. Clayton
These days, everyone is looking for peace. But too often we look in all the wrong places. In “Finding Peace Here and Now,” Jesuit Conference deputy director of communications Eric A. Clayton shows you that peace starts from within. By looking inside yourself, you can discover and embrace who you are meant to be in God.
A Jesuit’s Guide to the Stars: Exploring Wonder, Beauty, and Science
By Guy Consolmagno, SJ
Explore the universe with the pope’s astronomer. Journey through the awe-inspiring cosmos with celebrated Jesuit astronomer Br. Guy Consolmagno in his masterful exploration of the universe and our place in it.
Theology of Horror: The Hidden Depths of Popular Films
By Ryan G. Duns, SJ
Horror films scare and entertain us, but there’s more to be found in their narratives than simple thrills. Within their shadows, an attentive viewer can glimpse unexpected flashes of orthodox Christian belief. In “Theology of Horror,” Ryan G. Duns, SJ, invites readers to undertake an unconventional pilgrimage in search of these buried theological insights.
Saints Like Us: Young Heroes of Faith
By Margaret Felice
In a world filled with distractions, how can young people grow in faith and virtue? “Saints Like Us” offers a compelling introduction to young saints who faced obstacles, doubts and challenges — yet remained steadfast in their faith. This booklet is designed to inspire Catholic teens and confirmation candidates through real-life examples of holy youth who answered God’s call with courage and love.
From Gethsemane to Golgotha: A Scriptural Stations of the Cross
By Steve Givens
Based on those Scripture citations celebrated on Good Friday in 1991 by St. John Paul II, these 14 excerpts from the four Gospels focus on Jesus’ steps to the cross. These Scripture selections invite a way of reflecting deeply on the accounts of Christ’s passion and death.
Undaunted Joy: The Revolutionary Art of Cultivating Delight
By Shemaiah Gonzalez
In this collection of short essays on defiant joy, Shemaiah Gonzalez reflects on how she gradually learned to see joy not as an indulgence but as a necessity — a way of life and the fruit of faith.
Eyes Fixed on Jesus, Volume 1: A Journey Into the Gospels
By Meg Hunter-Kilmer
Meg Hunter-Kilmer helps you see Jesus anew by taking you through his life as told in the Gospels, breaking open the familiar and shedding light on the foreign so that you can see the face of Jesus in the pages of Scripture and learn to love him more in his word.
The Healing Power of Praying the Rosary
By Gary Jansen
Award-winning author Gary Jansen invites readers on a transformative journey in “The Healing Power of Praying the Rosary.” This concise yet powerful guide offers a fresh perspective on the rosary as both a spiritual practice and a healing tool for the body and mind.
Living the Camino Back Home: Ignatian Tips for Keeping the Camino Spirit Alive
By Brendan McManus, SJ
This book offers guidance for pilgrims returning home from the Camino, encouraging reflection on their journey and sustaining its spiritual significance in daily life.
A Theology of Flourishing: The Fullness of Life for All Creation
By Paul Schutz
Proposing a groundbreaking theological approach to what it means to truly thrive, “A Theology of Flourishing” reframes Christian thought around the concept of abundant life for all of creation.
Ignatius Was Green: Ecological Dimensions of the Spiritual Exercises
By Margaret Scott, ACI
This book offers a new and exciting reading of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius based on his Basque roots and love of nature. A prayerful rereading of the text discovers an ecological dimension running all through the Exercises that, in a rapidly heating world, can offer an Ignatian-based new relationship with creation and adds urgency to the commitment to care.
Past Watchful Dragons: Biblical Stories Retold
By Rose John Sheffler
Welcome to the world of Erith, where the stars sing the stories of heroes, horses, kings, maidens, warriors and dragons. Author Rose John Sheffler brilliantly crafts these fairy tale retellings of biblical stories like the Fall of Satan, Adam and Eve, Queen Esther, Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream, Ruth and Naomi, the Tower of Babel, Hannah, and the Life of Christ.
Discern: Listening for God’s Whispers
By Father Mark E. Thibodeaux, SJ
How are we supposed to notice and pay attention to God amid the chaotic busyness of everyday life? In Discern: Listening for God’s Whispers, bestselling author Mark Thibodeaux, SJ, offers a solution that anchors you in spiritual steadiness despite the hectic demands that clamor for your attention.
Everything Could Be a Prayer: One Hundred Portraits of Saints and Mystics
By Kreg Yingst
Pray and meditate along with mystics and saints through this luminous collection of more than one hundred block prints by artist Kreg Yingst, curator of the beloved Instagram account @psalmprayers.
Memoir / Biography / History
My Son, the Priest: A Mother’s Crisis of Faith
By Kristin Grady Gilger
The true story of a young man’s journey to become a Jesuit priest — written by his mother, a fallen-away Catholic who must come to terms with her son’s decision or risk losing him. It is an intimate, sometimes irreverent, and often searing examination of faith, family and reconciliation.
Father Ed: The Story of Bill W.’s Spiritual Sponsor
By Dawn Eden Goldstein
“Father Ed” is the first biography of Fr. Edward Dowling, SJ (1898-1960), whose guidance transformed Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson’s life and deepened the spirituality of the 12-step movement.
The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien
By John Hendrix
From New York Times bestselling, award-winning creator John Hendrix comes “The Mythmakers,” a graphic novel biography of two literary lions — C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien — following the remarkable story of their friendship and creative fellowship, and how each came to write their masterworks.
Spiritual Criminals: How the Camden 28 Put the Vietnam War on Trial
By Michelle M. Nickerson
In “Spiritual Criminals,” Michelle M. Nickerson shares a complex portrait of the Camden 28, a passionate group of grassroots religious progressives who resisted both their church and their government as they crusaded against the Vietnam War.
Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy
By Christopher White
In “Pope Leo XIV,” veteran Vatican correspondent Christopher White delivers an authoritative account of the conclave that shaped this momentous transition, the forces that propelled Pope Leo XIV to the papacy, and the vision he brings to the Church’s future.
Literary Criticism
Dispatches from the Land of Erasure: Essays and Conversations
By Philip Metres
Drawn from a decade of writing and conversations by Arab American poet and writer Philip Metres, “Dispatches from the Land of Erasure” redefines the writer’s role as a catalyst for justice and a resister of empire. Gathering together a wide range of writing and writers, particularly from Arab and Black diaspora, “Dispatches” reports on what white imperial culture attempts to erase, while uplifting the voices and people who resist that erasure, offering a vision of a more just and peaceful world.
Leadership / Business
Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company that Changed the World
By Chris Lowney
Leadership makes great companies, but few of us truly understand how to turn ourselves and others into great leaders. One company — the Jesuits — pioneered a unique formula for molding leaders and in the process built one of history’s most successful companies. In this groundbreaking book, Chris Lowney reveals the leadership principles that have guided the Jesuits for more than 450 years: self-awareness, ingenuity, love and heroism.
Art
These visual artists have contributed to JML projects and sell prints and other items in their online stores.
Music
Learn about Jessica Gerhardt in this Q&A we published this year, and get to know Brody Bond in this episode of AMDG.
