The City of God is one of the most important works of Christian history and philosophy ever written. The writings of St. Augustine are as intriguing to the casual reader as it is to Christian researchers. St. Augustine's work provides insight into Western thought and the development of Western civilizations. The City of God provides the reader with an artful contrast between earthy cities and those in heaven as a representation of the eternal struggle between good and evil. The City of God was originally penned in the early 5th century as a response to the prevalent belief that Christianity was to blame for the fall of Rome. St. Augustine is known as one of the most influential Fathers of the Catholic Church. Born November 13, 354, Augustine would eventually be recognized as a Saint by the Catholic Church, the Eastern Christian Church, and the Anglican Communion. 

In this powerful audiobook by the acclaimed spiritual leader and best-selling writer, one he calls his "most important", he analyzes the profound spiritual, moral, and political crisis in the contemporary world. He says that he "considers that the decadence of our time has all the faces of mortal peril." His finding is simple: Our world is on the brink of the abyss.

Few people had a more profound effect on Christianity in the 20th century than G. K. Chesterton. The Everlasting Man, written in response to an anti-Christian history of humans penned by H.G. Wells, is considered Chesterton’s masterpiece. In it, he explains Christ’s place in history, asserting that the Christian myth carries more weight than other mythologies for one simple reason—it is the truth.

After the Bible, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas Kempis is the favorite book of Catholics throughout the world and has been the spiritual guide of the saints since it first appeared in 1418. And of the English editions, none can equal this inspiring translation of Bishop Richard Challoner. This book speaks to the soul of every true Christian, reminding him of the fleeting nature of earthly joy as opposed to the eternity of happiness with God.

Part poetic masterpiece, part mystic treatise, The Dark Night of the Soul by 16th century Carmelite monk St. John of the Cross, addresses the feeling of being forgotten by the Presence of the Almighty that every Christian desirous of walking more closely with God must pass through in order to learn to walk by faith and not by sight.

On May 8, 1373, 30-year-old Julian of Norwich, sick and near death, had a series of visions of Christ. In these 16 visions she learnt about God's loving nature. God in Julian's visions was not angry and wrathful. Instead, the three properties of God were presented as life, love and light, and all of His creation was good, including his servant, man. In Julian's version, Man is not to blame for his sin; instead it is something that he must experience and overcome in his spiritual journey with God.

2012 marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of C. S. Lewis’s classic, Mere Christianity. Having sold over half a million copies in the UK alone, his overview of Christianity has been imitated many times, but never outdone. Mere Christianity brings together Lewis’s legendary broadcasts from the war years; talks in which he set out simply to ‘"explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times."

Institutes of the Christian Religion is John Calvin's seminal work on Protestant systematic theology. Highly influential in the Western world and still widely read by theological students today, it was published in Latin in 1536 and in his native French in 1541. The book serves as an introductory textbook on the Protestant faith for those with some previous knowledge of theology and covers a broad range of theological topics from the doctrines of church and sacraments to justification by faith alone and Christian liberty.

What can the call to discipleship, the adherence to the word of Jesus, mean today to the businessman, the soldier, the laborer, or the aristocrat? What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is his will for us today? Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonhoeffer answers these timeless questions by providing a seminal reading of the dichotomy between "cheap grace" and "costly grace."

In The Interior Castle, Carmelite nun, mystic, and patron saint of Spain Teresa of Ávila uses the metaphor of a giant crystal castle to explain her theory of the soul and the various stages it passes through as it progresses towards God. Beginning in the outer rooms, where demons are fought and vices are purged, the soul must reach the inner chambers, where it will enter betrothal and intimate union with God. Prayer is central to the journey, as the soul is guided by its practice and each phase represents a different category of devotion.

Whether taken as a book of faith or a cultural artifact, the New Testament is among the most significant writings the world has ever known, its web of meaning relied upon by virtually every major writer in the last 2,000 years. Yet the New Testament is not only one of Western civilization’s most believed books, but also one of its most widely disputed, often maligned, and least clearly understood, with a vast number of people unaware of how it was written and transmitted.

For many years an atheist, C. S. Lewis vividly describes the spiritual quest that convinced him of the truth and reality of Christianity, in his famous autobiography. "In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God...perhaps the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England." Thus Lewis describes memorably the crisis of his conversion. Surprised by Joy reveals both that crisis and its momentous conclusion that would determine the shape of Lewis' entire life.

For centuries people have been tormented by one question above all: if God is good and all-powerful, why does he allow his creatures to suffer pain? And what of the suffering of animals, who neither deserve pain nor can be improved by it? The greatest Christian thinker of our time sets out to disentangle this knotty issue. With his signature wealth of compassion and insight, C. S. Lewis offers answers to these crucial questions and shares his hope and wisdom to help heal a world hungry for a true understanding of human nature.

In this bold, momentous work, the Pope - in his first book written as Benedict XVI - seeks to salvage the person of Jesus from recent 'popular' depictions and to restore Jesus' true identity as discovered in the Gospels. Through his brilliance as a theologian and his personal conviction as a believer, the Pope shares a rich, compelling, flesh-and-blood portrait of Jesus and incites us to encounter, face-to-face, the central figure of the Christian faith.

Bloomsbury presents The Way of St Benedict by Rowan Williams, read by Peter Noble.