God’s Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the making of the Bible by Candida Moss (William Collins, £12.99 (£11.69); 978-0-00-861221-4). New in paperback

“Filled with profound revelations for reading and understanding the gospels themselves, God’s Ghostwriters is a groundbreaking and rigorously researched book about how enslaved people shaped the Bible, and with it all of Christianity. It’s also an intimate portrait of lives not often considered by history, and a reckoning with the motives and methods of the early Christians as they spread their message across the ancient world.”

Waiting on the Lord: Reflections for a priestly life by Simon Cuff (Canterbury Press, £12.99 (£11.69); 978-1-78622-655-6).

“In a restless, fast paced world of quick fixes, there is huge value in the way priesthood is, as the ordinal puts it, ‘weighed and pondered’. In this thoughtful exploration, Simon Cuff addresses key aspects of priestly life and the ways in which it prophetically stands in contrast to the priorities of contemporary culture.”

Mother of Invention: Mother Teresa and the Franciscan servants of Jesus and Mary by Bridget Gillard (Sacristy Press, £25 (£22.50); 978-1-78959-373-0).

“Mother of Invention is the story of how a woman, the daughter of a bigamous marriage, with no money, connections or academic background, founded her own religious Order which, at its height, was visited by over 2,000 people a year.”


Selected by Frank Nugent, of the Church House Bookshop, which operates the Church Times Bookshop.