Death Comes for the Archbishop

Written by: Willa Cather

First line: One summer evening in the year 1848, three Cardinals and a missionary Bishop from America  were dining together in the gardens of a villa in the Sabine hills, overlooking Rome.

Why you should read this book: Gorgeously written, evocative of time and place, a fictionalized version of the true story of an extraordinary life: Jean Marie Latour, appointed the first bishop of New Mexico, finds himself navigating a intransigent, unhelpful, and often deadly world. In a landscape unforgiving and uncivilized, where the people often hostile, Latour focuses on his mission: to bring the teachings of the Catholic church to the new world, and by and large, his determination and vision carries him through. As it does for all men, death eventually comes for the archbishop, but what he builds in his life and leaves behind him still stands.

Why you shouldn't read this book: A fierce antipathy to organized religion.