The Sparrow

It's been awhile since I've gotten tangled up in a plot and been loathe to put down the book. The Sparrow has a story that you have to ease into, to get comfortable with the idea of Jesuits and space travel. But once you're there, you're in. Emilio Sandoz, the linguist, finds himself the butt of a cosmic joke as he's been sent around the world to learn languages and then dump all his knowledge into an AI program. The tale takes 8 brave souls to Alpha Centauri in search of the Singers. Years later, Emilio comes back alone, wrecked. It is a story of a man's quest for god and his challenges of the faith.

The title reference comes 7 pages from the end. "Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine," Vincenzo Guiliani said quietly. " 'Not one sparrow can fall to the groud without your Father knowing about it.' " "But the sparrow still falls," Felipe said.