America 250: Books American Christians Should Read | Season 2 Preview

In this preview episode for Season 2 of Christians Reading Classics, host Nadya Williams sets the stage for an ambitious exploration of books that American Christians should read in honor of America's 250th birthday in 2026.

Opening with Thomas Jefferson's 1771 letter to Robert Skipwith about building his Monticello library, Williams frames the season around a central question: What role do books play in forming the American Christian imagination? Jefferson argued that fiction and classical works are "useful" because they "fix us in the principles and practice of virtue"—exercising our moral dispositions like muscles until they become habits.

This season examines how classic books—both American and those that shaped American thought—enrich our imagination while alleviating modern anxiety. As Williams puts it, "reading classic books really is the intellectual equivalent of touching grass."

Upcoming episodes include:

• Frederick Douglass's Narrative with Dr. Shiloh Brooks
• Henry Adams's The Education of Henry Adams with Leah Libresco Sargent
• Aldous Huxley's Brave New World with Caitlin Walls Shelton
• Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin with Obie Tyler Todd
• Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics with ultra-marathoner and virtue philosopher Sabrina B. Little (including discussion on teaching virtues to children)

Key Themes

• How classic books form a "library of the mind" that shapes souls and affections
• The timeless, good, true, and beautiful qualities that define a classic
• How books grow with us, revealing new insights with each reading
• The relationship between reading and virtue formation

About the Host

Nadya Williams is Books Editor at Mere Orthodoxy and author of Christians Reading Classics (Zondervan Academic).

Christians Reading Classics is a podcast from Mere Orthodoxy and is listener-supported. If you would like to support this work, become a Mere Orthodoxy Member today at http://mereorthodoxy.com/membership.

Apply for fall 2026 admission to Beeson Divinity School's MDiv and be considered for a full-tuition scholarship. https://bit.ly/beesonscholarships 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:18

I sat down with a design of executing your request to form a catalog of books, amounting to about 30 pounds sterling, but could by no means satisfy myself with any partial choice I could make. Thinking, therefore, it might be as agreeable to you, I have framed such a general collection as I think you would wish, and might in time find convenient to procure. Out of this, you will choose for yourself to the amount you mentioned for the present year, and may hereafter, as shall be convenient, proceed in completing the whole. A view of the second column in this catalog would, I suppose, extort a smile from the gravity, from the face of gravity. Peace to its wisdom. Let me not awaken it. A little attention, however, to the nature of the human mind evinces that the entertainments of fiction are useful as well as pleasant. That they are pleasant when well written, every person feels who reads. But Worain is its utility, asks the reverend sage, big with the notion that nothing can be useful but the learned lumber of Greek and Roman reading with which his head is stored. I answer, everything is useful, which contributes to fix us in the principles and practice of virtue. When any signal act of charity or of gratitude, for instance, is presented either to our sight or imagination, we are deeply impressed with its beauty and feel a strong desire in ourselves of doing charitable and grateful acts also. On the contrary, when we see or read of any atrocious deed, we are disgusted with its deformity and conceive an abhorrence of vice. Now every emotion of this kind is an exercise of our virtuous dispositions. And dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body, acquire strength by exercise. But exercise produces habit. And in the instance of which we speak, the exercise being of the moral feelings produces a habit of thinking and acting virtuously. So wrote Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Robert Skipwith on August 3rd, 1771. The purpose of the letter? Putting together Jefferson's private library at Monticello. A very long list of books and their cost from one particular bookseller's catalog was enclosed with the letter. Included among them for the category of fine arts are observations on gardening from Payne, Webb's Essay on Painting, Pope's Iliad in Odyssey, Dryden's Virgil, Milton's Works, Telemachus by Dodsley, and, well, we could keep going. But you get the idea. Now, in case you're wondering, and of course, who wouldn't be, in addition to fine arts, here are the other categories of books Jefferson included in this preliminary plan for his library. There's criticism on the fine arts, there's politics, trade, religion, law, history ancient, history modern, natural philosophy and natural history, and last but not least, miscellaneous. Welcome to this preview of season two of Christians Reading Classics, a podcast from Muir Orthodoxy. I am Nadia Williams, book's editor at Muir Orthodoxy, and the author of the book Christians Reading Classics out this past fall from Zandarvan Academic. In opening the first season, I reflected on the crisis of our modern evangelical imagination and the accompanying sense of anxiety with which we dwell today. One remarkable thing that classic books do is enrich our imagination while also alleviating our anxiety. In other words, reading classic books really is the intellectual equivalent of touching grass. Well, now we're back here for season two. And this is 2026, the year of America's 250th birthday. In other words, the anniversary of four years after Thomas Jefferson wrote the letter I started by reading to you in part. And so it makes sense to focus this season on books that American Christians should read in honor of America's 250th. Many of these are books written by American writers in America, about America, but some are older classics of the sort that found their way to American libraries such as Jefferson's and to our very national imagination. For any avid reader, the life story is a story of a life lived with books, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We all are what we read. There's simply no way around it. This is in fact true for everyone, of course, and not just Christians. The books we read become a part of us, a library of the mind, as literature scholar William Marks called it in his book by the same title. And this library of our mind is what we keep perusing day after day in our lives. With books we especially love, we keep returning to them time after time, year after year, season after season, and every time we return to them, we see something new. This story of our lives, with books and on books, is the foundation of this podcast. As Christians, we are aware of how particular books shape our mind. But more than that, we know that books shape our souls and our affections. What is a classic? I ask guests at the beginning of each episode. The answers you may have noticed vary slightly, but are ultimately getting at the same general themes. A classic, people repeatedly say, is timeless. It is good and true and beautiful. A classic speaks not only to our minds but to our souls. And for reasons that at times we can't even fully articulate, a classic grows right along with us, inviting us to see something new about the book and about ourselves every time we return to it, even if we do not agree with everything in this book. And so I invite you to join us on this journey of season two. To give you just a few glimpses of what to expect, we will open with an episode on the narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass with Dr. Shiloh Brooks. We will move on to Henry Adams, a distinguished scion of the Adams family, and a conversation with Leah Labresco Sgt. about his classic, The Education of Henry Adams. You can also look forward to a conversation on Aldous Huxley's Brave New World with Caitlin Walsh Shelton. Also an episode on Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin with the talented biographer of the Beecher family, Abi Tyler Todd. And there's also a conversation with ultramarathoner and virtue philosopher Sabrina B. Little on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. I asked her, in fact, to talk also about ethics and virtue and teaching your children the virtues. And these are just a few of the examples you can look forward to in this coming season. So go ahead, place all the library holds you need, and join us as we talk classic books as Christians in the Year of America's 250th.