On Friendship

TTF Staff

These are some books we recommend for further reading on the topic of Friendship, the subject of our Reading by Cicero.

• Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1974).
• Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics (books 8 & 9). One of the classic treatments of friendship.
• Richard Lamb, The Pursuit of God in the Company of Friends (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003). An in-depth and practical contemporary handbook on spiritual friendship with annotated bibliography.
• C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (Harvest Books, 1960, 1971).
• Lilian B. Rubin, Just Friends: The Role of Friendship in Our Lives (New York: Harper & Row, 1985). A psychological study.
• Caroline J. Simon, The Disciplined Heart: Love, Destiny, & Imagination (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997). Discusses friendship and other loves in the context of literature and philosophy. Accessible and insightful.

Readers may also be interested in Boswell’s Life of Johnson, notably sections on the first meeting of the literary club, and the dinner after the death of Garrick. Available as hypertext and from Amazon.

Basil Mitchell’s essay, “War and Friendship,” in Philosophers Who Believe features the influence of a friend on his journey to faith.

Alan Jacobs has a provocative essay, “Friendship and Its Discontents,” in his collection A Visit to Vanity Fair (Brazos 2001). 

Lists, Character and Ethics, Leadership, Spiritual Growth, Mon 28 Nov 2005