c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Charles W. Colson, former special counsel to Richard Nixon, served a prison term for his role in the Watergate scandal. He now heads Prison Fellowship International, an evangelical Christian ministry to the imprisoned and their families. Contact Colson via e-mail at 71421.1551(AT)compuserve.com.)

(RNS)-Many of us vacation with our families, but we also bring along friends: Our favorite authors. While some prefer the works of such literary megastars as Joan Collins and Robert Ludlum, for others, a week spent reading the literature of gratuitous sex and violence leaves a bad taste in the soul.

If the point of vacation is to rejuvenate the soul, I suggest this short list of literary classics. An added advantage to bringing great books to the beach is that they can be left unattended on a beach towel with little fear they will be stolen.

The Brothers Karamazov, by Feodor Dostoevski. This is my favorite novel, bar none. It raises the great questions of belief and non-belief, boiling down the great issue into one unforgettable sentence:”If there is no God, then all is permissible.” This is not to suggest that the book is stiff or dull. Far from it. There’s a murder at the heart of the story, and the chapter called”The Grand Inquisitor”is a masterwork of literature and suspense.

Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan. As you read this great book, remember that the author had very little formal education, and indeed wrote this book while in prison. A poignant look at the travails and glories of the spiritual pilgrimage, it strikes themes at the heart of human existence.

That Hideous Strength, by C.S. Lewis. Redemption is the theme of this masterwork. But like the rest of Lewis’ science fiction, this is a great story greatly told. It reminds us why Jesus, along with many of our other great moral teachers, used story and parable to teach moral truths.

Lewis is the author of great apologetic works, of course, but he also had a very good sense of humor, one that could be very arch. Anyone who has not read”The Screwtape Letters”could spend a wonderful afternoon on the shore perusing this classic, and cackling in a way that may disturb the neighbors.

Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. If you take only one book to the beach, perhaps it should be this classic. Reading it requires an entire week. My edition comes in at 1,232 pages, every one a treasure. Hugo, who was chiefly a poet, writes here of forgiveness, Christian fidelity and compassion, against the backdrop of revolutionary Paris.

Those who love a well-drawn scoundrel will find none better than the innkeeper Thenardier, and those who like their books heavily sprinkled with brilliant asides will find plenty, such as this jewel:”The pupil dilates in darkness and in the end finds light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end finds God.” The Thanatos Syndrome, by Walker Percy. Percy was a great Catholic novelist from the South who wrote many great books (“Lost in the Cosmos”is one of my favorites), but this is his best, and Percy’s most prophetic. Be advised: The truth level of this work is painfully high, and its subject matter is what Pope John Paul II would later call the”culture of death.”As historian Paul Johnson recently wrote, the sanctity of life will be the major issue of the 21st century, and Percy weighs in mightily.

I won’t spoil the fun by telling you exactly how Percy addresses the issue, but one scene (you can’t mistake it) is worth the price of the book. This one will not be found in any of the waiting rooms at Planned Parenthood.

Cancer Ward, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. There is nothing much more to be said about this Nobel Laureate, save to remind ourselves that Solzhenitsyn went through hell and came out the other side something of a saint. His experiences with cancer of the body and communism’s cancer on the soul resulted not only in this monumental work, but”The First Circle,””One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”and of course the Gulag books. You think you have troubles? Read Solzhenitsyn, who also teaches us how to hope.

The Father Brown Mysteries, by the great Christian social critic G.K. Chesterton. These are great entertainments written by a man of deep intelligence and scintillating wit. You’ll have as much fun reading them as I suspect Chesterton had writing them.

These books, of course, are reminders that many of the great works of our civilization have been written by authors with strong religious faith. I expect people will be reading them hundreds of years hence. I do not expect the same for Ms. Collins.

MJP END COLSON