Time for a books episode, where we each talk about a book we recently read and recommend. In this conversation, Haley and I dive in to a novel from the 1960s that’s recently seen a resurgence, and a brand-new work of nonfiction.

Haley talks about Shusaku Endo’s Silence, a based-on-true-facts story which has recently been made into a movie by Martin Scorsese, and she relays a bit of history none of us knew much about until this story released. I talk about The Road Back to You by Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabile, a new book taking an approachable position to the Enneagram, an ancient personality profiling process, and a dive a little into what the Enneagram has personality meant for me the past few years.

We get into a tiny bit of theology, particularly in one way Protestants and Catholics differ, and we explore the idea of suffering, and how easy it is for us as a culture to say things like, “Oh, of course I would do the right thing” in a challenging setting—but would we? And what is the right thing when it’s unclear?

Listen here:

Links for this episode:

• Haley’s blog, Carrots for Michelmas
• Haley’s podcast, Fountains of Carrots
• Haley on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook
• Tsh on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook
• Silence, by Shusaku Endo
• Christian art and suffering
• Andrew Garfield didn’t expect to fall in love with Jesus
• The Road Back to You, by Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabile
• The Road Back to You podcast
• The Liturgists podcast
• The Enneagram on The Liturgists, with Cron and Stabile
• A 101 on the Enneagram
• A brief description of the nine Enneagram types
• The Simple Show vault—episode 6 is about the Enneagram with Leigh Kramer
• The La La Land soundtrack
• Daniela Andrade (and her cover of La Vie en Rose)

Big thanks to this episode’s sponsor, Aaptiv, a fitness app that’s like Netflix for your body! To join me in giving it a try this year, they’re giving you guys 30 days free when you sign up—head here, and use the code theartofsimple.