My Jesus Year: A Rabbi's Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of Faith, by Benyamin Cohen. Raised an Orthodox Jew in Atlanta, as a child Cohen obsessed over the church across the street from his home. Struck by a crisis of faith, he decided to see if Jesus couldn't lead him back to Judaism. Each week for a year, after celebrating the Jewish Sabbath, he attended Sunday services at a number of Christian churches. His journey of exploration is full of surprises and humor.

The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, by Timothy Keller. As founder of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, Keller has heard many questions like, How can there be one true religion? or How can a loving God allow suffering? In this book, he gives his reasons for believing in God unconditionally, without denigrating the secular point of view presented in other recent books.

Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-up Idealists, by Susan Neiman. Philosopher Neiman sees religion as just one way in which we can strive to become better people. Moral clarity – knowing and articulating our common ideals – is essential to public life, she says, if we are to answer the social and political questions challenging our society.

How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People (While They Are Still on This Earth), by Henry Alford. Part family memoir, part oral history, this book draws from some unusual sources—deathbed confessions, late-life journals—in search of wisdom. The result is an optimistic vision of our dying days. According to Alford, life after 70 is the fulfillment of life's questions and trials, not their end. This book will make you look forward to getting older!

The Invisible Wall, by Harry Bernstein. Harry’s working class neighborhood in an English mill town early in the 20th century had an invisible wall running down the middle, dividing the Jewish and Christian families, who did not mix under any circumstances. That is, until Harry's sister Lily fell in love with Arthur, a Christian boy. Bernstein has written a moving tale of working class life, social divide, and forbidden love on the eve of the First World War.

Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist’s Wife, by Irene Spencer. In 1953, 16-year-old Irene became the second wife of her half-sister's husband, who eventually married eight more women. Raised in a fundamentalist Mormon community, Irene saw nothing unusual about her situation. But after 28 years, wanting more, she left, and eventually entered into a monogamous marriage. For an honest account of a culture that is often sensationalized, read this memoir.

Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and Buddhist: One Woman's Spiritual Journey, by Jan Willis. Raised Baptist in Alabama in the 1950s and 60s, Willis attended Cornell University, where she became a student activist and turned to Buddhism as a way of coping with racism and social injustice. Faced with a choice of joining the Black Panthers or going to India to further her religious studies, she chose the latter. Yet years later, she found herself compelled to reexamine her childhood faith.

Crazy Faith, by Susan K. Williams Smith. Smith, a pastor and blogger on religion for the Washington Post, challenges people to let God use them for impossible tasks – tasks that require faith that God will bring success against insurmountable odds. From the story if David and Goliath to the histories of Harriet Tubman and Nelson Mandela, she reminds us that these were ordinary people who faced extraordinary challenges without fear – because they had crazy faith.