The Talisman (Second Edition)

From the Publisher:

Sir Walter Scott, one of the most widely read writers in the English language, is credited with inventing the genre of historical fiction. But his greatest distinction is that of being perhaps the greatest literary defender of Western Christendom–that cultural ideal, seldom fully achieved but, until recently, always aspired to, which viewed culture as an attempt to approximate Christian ideals and values in all things.

He shows the superiority of the Christian faith in a way that refrains from denigrating its enemies but which, like the knights it portrays, does not give any ground in the confrontation with Islam. It is a story more relevant today than when it was written in 1825.