My favorite books from this year were heavy on theology and Christian formation. I loved The Dwelling of the Light: Praying with Icons of Christ by Rowan Williams, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life by Tish Harrison Warren, Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God by Dallas Willard, and The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory by Abigail Favale. But I also loved The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. I also read a lot of great middle grade books including the classic Emily of Deep Valley by Maud Hart Lovelace and The Railway Children by E. Nesbit that I can’t believe I have never read before.
This is my 8th year of putting together my favorite reads from the year! (Here are the previous years 30 // 31 // 32 // 33 // 34 // 35 // 36 // 37). Every year I promise myself I’ll write the reviews as I read the books, and then every year I find that I haven’t, but it’s an interesting way to look back at the year and think about what books and bits of books have stayed with me. Happy reading friends!
Theology and Christian Formation
1. Live No Lies: Recognize and Resist the Three Enemies That Sabotage Your Peace by John Mark Comer (audio version read by the author). I very much enjoyed The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry and thought this book was also a very good exploration of spiritual formation in the vein of Dallas Willard. And because I first got introduced to John Mark Comer’s work via podcast, I personally enjoy listening to his books even more than reading him to capture his sense of humor and emphasis that comes across more clearly when he reads his books aloud.
2. The Dwelling of the Light: Praying with Icons of Christ by Rowan Williams. A beautiful reflection on several Eastern Orthodox icons by the former Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury. It reminded me a lot of The Open Door: Entering the Sanctuary of Icons and Prayer by Frederica Mathewes-Green that I read last year and Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons by Henri Nouwen which I read many years ago and is still one of my all time favorites. I’d highly recommend all three books. (And I’m looking forward to reading Ponder These Things: Praying with Icons of the Virgin (Praying with Icons of the Virtue) by Rowan Williams next year because I got it this year as a Christmas present.)
3. Simply Christian by N.T. Wright. I’m slowly trying to read more N.T. Wright. This little book began as a request by the publisher for him to try and write a more contemporary Mere Christianity by one of N.T. Wright’s (and also my own!) great spiritual heroes, C.S. Lewis. Taking the universal “longing for justice, the quest for spirituality, the hunger for relationship, and the delight in beauty” (introduction page x ) as his starting point, N.T. Wright sets out a case for people to explore Jesus and Christianity as the source and answer to those longings.
4. Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life by Tish Harrison Warren. I absolutely loved Prayer in the Night which I read over vacation two summers ago. And I took this book, which was just as good, with me over spring break. I think that Tish Harrison Warren is so wise and such a good writer. I love her way of explaining Anglican prayers and perspectives. And I think this book with its ties to her life as a young mother was beautiful and deeply moving.
5. Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God by Dallas Willard. I am slowly making my way through the Dallas Willard cannon, and this book did not disappoint. I think I could re-read Dallas Willard’s wise and encouraging words on prayer, listening, and discernment over and over, year after year. The big take away is the reminder that prayer is part of a larger and ongoing relationship, and like the best and warmest human relationships, it is dynamic and multifaceted sharing and receiving. Jesus loves you and wants to talk with you!
6. Anatomy of the Soul: Surprising Connections between Neuroscience and Spiritual Practices That Can Transform Your Life and Relationships by Curt Thompson. As someone with both a mother and a mother-in-law who were therapists and devoted Christians, the idea that psychology and spiritual growth and change can be integrated is not new. But I thought that Curt Thompson’s book (which of course we have given as gifts to both mother and mother-in-law years ago) is a wonderful deepening and exploring of the ways in which our minds and souls can change, grow, and heal. I think another great book that is along these lines is also Try Softer: A Fresh Approach to Move Us out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival Mode–and into a Life of Connection and Joy by Aundi Kolber.
7. The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory by Abigail Favale. I thought this was a fascinating book. Abigail Favale grew up evangelical and went on to study gender at the undergraduate and graduate level, and in that way her story is very similar to mine. She studied modern feminist literature and became Catholic, so our stories diverge a little there, but overall, I thought that she had a grasp of both orthodox theology and contemporary academic gender theory in a way that I really have not seen before. There were parts of the book that were very Catholic (like on issues on contraception) but for the most part, I thought that nearly everything she had to say was very compelling and a good place to begin conversations. I’ve recommended this book to at least five people since I’ve read it, and it’s one of the books I have thought the most about after I read it.
Non-Fiction: Parenting/Health
8. The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children by Alison Gopnik. As she says in the introduction, “Grandmother scientists and philosophers have been rather thin on the ground… (p.8)” and Alison Gopnik is both. Generally, reading her book is a big invitation to parents to relax. Her overarching metaphor is that parenting is more like gardening than it is carpentry, and that we actually have a lot less control over the outcome of who our children are, but still an important role to play in bonding, encouraging, and caring for children. This book is more philosophical than the parenting books I usually read, I don’t think I agreed with all of it, but also parts of it have stuck with me, and I have found myself thinking about learning and the culture of childhood a lot after reading it.
9. Your Four-Year-Old: Wild and Wonderful by Louise Bates Ames (I also read the ones for Seven, Six, and Three Year olds). Over spring break, a friend mentioned these books to me from the mid 1980s as we were discussing the mystery of seven year olds. She said in passing that the title of a classic book from the Gesell Institute is Your Seven Year Old: Life in a Minor Key. I suddenly felt so much better about some friend dynamics with my children’s friends. (Evidently, seven is a notoriously sulky and sad age, and once I understood that I was able to help Jackson understand his friend’s sudden sulkiness.) I think there is a lot of emphasis on helping parents have good expectations on childhood development in the first three years of life. We get told about when to expect a smile, sitting up, crawling, walking, and first words. But outside of someone who recently lived with a three year old telling you with wide eyes that three is very challenging, and that threenagers is an accurate description, the detailed childhood development is less well conveyed to parents. There are definitely aspects of the book that seem nearly 40 years old (like advice “to mother” on planning the birthday parties) but there is also something very comforting about how these childhood attributes aren’t new, and that we went through them in the 1980s and 1990s, and our kids will get through them in the 2020s.
10. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport. I think that Deep Work is such a great book for anyone who wants to write. It’s a reminder that we can make a lot of progress on a project by giving several of our best, completely undistracted (especially from all things internet and social media) hours to it consistently. If anything, I think that social media in the seven years since Cal Newport wrote this book has only become more potentially distracting. While I don’t think that I’ll adopt every suggestion in the book, it is a good reminder that we need to be intentional about the rhythms of our lives, and where we allow our energy to leak out, and that we can do good deep work!
11. The Anatomy of Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming the Body’s Fear Response by Ellen Vora (The Chemistry of Calm). My best friend from high school recommended this book, and I thought it was fascinating. Ellen Vora, an integrative psychiatrist, has a great framework of thinking about “false anxiety” (like how you might feel drinking 5 espressos every day) and “true anxiety” (like how maybe you really need to get out of a codependent relationship). I thought the section on false anxiety, and how to make sure that you are giving your body the nutrition, rest, movement, and connection it needs was really strong. (There were a few ideas that seemed a little too crunchy for me, but for the most part I thought it resonated with a lot of what I have learned from autoimmune expert Sarah Ballantyne.)
12. The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson. Recommended by Anne Bogel from Modern Mrs. Darcy, this is a part-history, part-true crime, and part-expose, fascinating dive into the world of Victorian fly-tying, natural history museum heists, and internet message boards. The beginning of the book (and my favorite part) reminded me of Simon Winchester books (like Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883) or the quirky but amazing Ballad of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts by Julian Rubinstein. I think what I didn’t know going into the book was the true crime aspect of the ending where justice has not really been served, and that many of the missing feathers from the museum theft are still unaccounted for. I listened to the audiobook, which was excellent, although I do wonder if some of the images in the physical copy would have helped me picture the feathers and salmon ties.
13. The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green (audio). I have read (and loved) John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars and I have spent a lot of time helping my husband Evan use John Green’s Crash Course History videos for his first classroom teaching position when we first moved to Wisconsin. So I really loved listening to John Green’s book of essays, in which he rates various things on a 5 star scale. He is very funny and smart. He’s pretty honest about his mental health struggles, and not everything he talks about is rated G. He also loves Liverpool Football Club, which Evan does as well, so that was a fun connection for me hear someone else describe lovingly how wonderful Liverpool is (Evan wants me to add that this is unfortunately not true this season).
14. The Lazy Genius Kitchen: Have What You Need, Use What You Have, and Enjoy It Like Never Before by Kendra Adachi. Her second book, diving into the kitchen and refining many of the ideas of her first book The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn’t, and Get Stuff Done this book is less about recipes (although there are a few great ones) and more about mindset, organization, and general principles for making food and your kitchen work for you. It reminded me a bit of The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life by Timothy Ferriss and Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat.
15. Laundry Love: Finding Joy in a Common Chore by Patric Richardson and Karin B. Miller. Part-stain guide, part-memoir, this is by far the most enjoyable way to learn about caring for your clothes. Full of specific advice (separate your clothes reds, blacks, darks, and whites, wash your clothes on warm, use wool dryer balls) and funny anecdotes, this was a fun read that has changed the way I do laundry.
Memoir
16. The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. I love listening to the Office Ladies Podcast and this was like a big wonderful bonus episode, especially on audio. If you enjoyed the office, you’ll love the stories of the cast and crews’ friendships, memories, and inside stories. This was so fun.
17. I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet: Discovering New Ways of Living When the Old Ways Stop Working by Shauna Niequist. With a lot of honesty and raw vulnerability, Shauna Niequist’s newest memoir is about her family’s move to New York City. I really have enjoyed all of her other books, and while I wasn’t in a place where I felt that lots of old ways weren’t working in my own life, I still thought her book was excellent and I have thought about phrases, stories, and perspectives that she shared for months afterwards. I’m so glad that she’s a writer who feels a professional call to show and write, because her books are a blessing.
18. WayMaker: Finding the Way to the Life You’ve Always Dreamed Of by Ann Voskamp. This was my first Ann Voskamp book! It was beautiful, lyrical, and poetic. Sometimes I didn’t know where exactly the story was going, or what was happening, but as I let go of the expectation that I would, I found that I really did enjoy the journey. Ann Voskamp is a deep feeler, the highs are high and lows are low, but her story about the adoption of her daughters and how her marriage came through a difficult season was moving and encouraging.
19. A Circle of Quiet: Crosswicks Journals by Madeline L’Engle. This was technically a re-read for me. Or at least I had read the beginning of it before, but I didn’t remember the ending at all, so I think perhaps I hadn’t finished it 10 years ago. The book remains a wonderful look into the writing life, especially for a writer who is also a Christian and a mother. But what I enjoyed most about this read through was how the setting of the late 1960s and the early 1970s came through. There is a certain feeling that society is falling apart, that there are big cracks along political and generational lines that feel real and frightening to the people at that time. It was a great reminder that the cracks we feel now along those lines, around similar issues, are not the first time people have dealt with them, and they too will ebb and flow as they did before, and a similar wisdom of listening well to people and writing good and true stories will serve us now as they did then.
20. The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. This is one of the last books I read this year, picking it up off our shelf while caring for a very sick Lily. I cannot believe that I had never read it before. It is amazing. I did know that it was about a Christian Dutch woman hiding Jews in her home during WWII, but I didn’t realize that it would have a significant amount of time in concentration camps. But I’m glad that I didn’t, because I might have mistakenly thought it would have been too heavy and difficult to read. The beginning of the book is so beautiful, full of the kind of Christian home and love that I aspire to have. I love reading about her family. And as she slowly became (after the age of 50!) involved in helping Jews during WWII, you journey with her. It’s such a beautiful book about God’s love and provision. Yes, it’s heavy and hard too, but there is a kind of hope and goodness and faith that makes this a remarkable book. I’m so glad I read it.
Adult Novels
21. The Last Bookshop in London: A Novel of World War II by Madeline Martin. I am tempted to say this is a very sweet story about a woman who works at a book shop during the bombings of London during WWII. And it is, but that reminds me of once we started watching the BBC mini series Cranford and were looking up some information about the series and a comment on Amazon was that “not a lot happened.” And then we were surprised that as the show went along, it seemed a major character died in every episode. The Last Bookshop in London is a little like that. It’s sweet…but a lot of major characters die. Still, it felt like a very clean romance adult version of A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus which is also about the importance of books in getting people through the bombings of WWII England.
22. The Lincoln Highway: A Novel by Amor Towles. I loved A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, and thought that Rules of Civility was good, but not like A Gentleman in Moscow, so I wasn’t sure how I’d like The Lincoln Highway with its story of the 10 day cross country journey by car and train of four companions. And I did love most of it, like 95%, but the 5% I didn’t like, I really didn’t like, including the ending. I think it would make for an amazing book club book, with lots to discuss.
23. Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin translated by Lisa C. Hayden and narrated by James Anderson Foster. This was probably the most interesting, literary, and demanding books that I read last year. (And I did listen to the audiobook which was helpful with all the Russian names.) In many ways, it’s remarkable in the way it captures the essence of a medieval Russian saint. But it’s also very, very weird. It’s jarring and sad. There were sections of it I thought were amazing, and sections of it that I thought might be resolved that really weren’t. There was a kind of slippery time travel in it as well that I did not always understand. Actually, it is the sort of book that having someone else explain and lecture about would make much better. So perhaps after I do that, I’ll have more thoughts on it. In some ways, it reminded me of Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset in terms of a sweeping medieval story.
24. Emma by Jane Austen (narrated by Nadio May). I am slowly making my way through Jane Austen books for the first time. I listened to Emma and then I watched 3 (three!) adaptations. First Autumn de Wilde’s 2020 Emma which was visually stunning, had really wonderful relationships between Emma and Mr. Knightly and Emma and Harriet, and was very funny in a stylized way. Then I got the 2009 BBC mini series Emma staring Romola Garai which was by far my favorite version of the adaptations, probably because it had so many more minutes to tell the story, more the way the books do. And finally I watched the 1996 Emma starting Gwyneth Paltrow which many of my friends have the deepest fond memories of, and I am sure if I had watched that movie as a teenager I would too. It’s a fine version, but I loved the BBC one.
25. This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub. This was a fun and thoughtful book that has lots of time travel back to the 1990s (and lots of language and general PG-13-ness in terms of teenage drugs, sex, and alcohol, but nothing graphic). But at the core, it’s a love story between a father and a daughter. I also loved the storyline between the best friends, and it made me immediately leave a message for my high school best friend about the themes of the book.
26. Marilla of Green Gables: A Novel by Sarah McCoy. For fans of Anne of Green Gables comes this thoughtful novel exploring Marilla’s backstory. Hemmed in as it was by what we know about Marilla from the books, I wasn’t sure how happy this book could be, knowing that Marilla doesn’t get together with John Blithe. But no matter, this was a lovely book, full of love and grief and doing the small right thing even at great personal cost. It might be slightly more older audience than the original books. As far as when to hand it to the young Anne enthusiast in your life, I might wait until 13.
Middle Grade Novels
27. The Bark of the Bog Owl: The Wilderking Trilogy by Jonathan Rogers. This is a fun and well crafted retelling of the early years of Biblical King David set in fictional swamp island that seemed to me to be a cross between British Isle Wales and the Mississippi delta. With lots of fun (although mostly male) characters, this series was such a fun read this year. I think it was really well-written, and since then I have come to love listening to Jonathan Rogers’ podcast in which he interviews Christian writers and artists called The Habit Podcast. (This Jonathan Rogers is a writer and professor with a PhD in English from Vanderbilt University, not to be confused with my favorite Jonathan Rogers, my only brother, insurance risk analyst consultant and part time microgreens and angora rabbit farmer. Although I bet the two would be friends.)
28. The Green Ember by S. D. Smith. This is the first book in a large series of books in The Green Ember universe. SD Smith is a model of self publishing in the Christian field, someone who has worked hard and made a lot of wonderful books people love. I have been so impressed listening to his story and his love for the children that he writes for. These are adventure bunny books, similar to Redwall and Watership Down, with talking rabbits fighting evil, but also very different from those as well. (Which makes sense, since I recently heard that SD Smith had not read any of those books before writing these books.) I love that he started these stories as stories he told his children. Overall, getting to read this book and see how Sam Smith has made a place for his work has been a real source of encouragement to me.
29. Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk. This is a really beautiful but also very sad book. It reminded me of To Kill a Mockingbird at times. Told in first person, this story walks through rural America in the middle of WWII as 12 year old Annabelle’s little world is rocked by the coming of the manipulative bully Betty Glengarry and the reclusive WWI vet Toby. This book is so beautifully written, and if the ending (which was done well, but was super sad) had been more hopeful, I think this would have been a new favorite book of mine.
30. Emily of Deep Valley by Maud Hart Lovelace. This book was recommended in Steeped in Stories: Timeless Children’s Novels to Refresh Our Tired Souls by Mitali Perkins where she walks through seven of her favorite children’s stories in terms of the seven virtues. And since the other six books (Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery, Heidi by Johanna Spyri, The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and The Silver Chair by CS Lewis) are also some of my favorites, I knew that I had to read Emily of Deep Valley. I had read a few of Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy books and enjoyed them a lot. Emily of Deep Valley is set within the world of Betsy-Tacy although a bit later than most of the books in that series take place. It reminded me a lot of LM Montgomery’s books. It was a love story and a growing up story, a story about making your own way and making the most of the people you’ve been given (and of course, reading a lot of good books along the way.) It was a delight.
31. Fortunately the Milk by Neil Gaiman. This was a silly and fun read aloud that perfectly captured the feeling of a dad making up a great story for his kids with the inspiration of the objects around the kitchen. There is time travel and professor dinosaurs, and hot air balloon travel, and, of course, a quest to get a bottle of milk home safely. It’s not meant to be as serious and well done of a book as Neil Gaiman’s other works, and it’s not, but it was just a lot of fun.
32. Dealing with Dragons: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede (books 1-4). I am trying to read more of the popular middle grade dragon books now that I’m finished with my Newbery project. I thought I’d just read the first of this series, but then I loved it so much that I ended up reading all four. Cimorene is a princess who does not want to be stuck being rescued and doing other boring princess things, so she finds herself a dragon and embroils herself in the political-magical world of the Enchanted Forest where the wizards are the bad buys and many dragons are good (if still dangerous when angry). It played around with lots of classic fairy tale tropes in a fun way, with lots of strong female characters. What I found most interesting was that the last book of the series was written and published first without any other of the three prequels. I read them not in publication order, and I thought that the whole experience of having to write the books out of order must have been really challenging. It was interesting to guess what she did and did not know when she set out and what she had to go back and recreate later.
33. The Dragonet Prophecy (Wings of Fire #1) by by Tui T. Sutherland. Another one of my “popular dragon” books, and this series may be one of the very most popular, with more highly anticipated titles still coming out. I can see why these books are doing so well. The first book created a rich world with rival dragon types and clans in the middle of war. And then the ending of the book had several really wonderful surprising reveals that made the whole reading experience great. They are a little bit violent, which I mean all the characters are dragons, so that’s not overly surprising, but there is also a sweetness and an emphasis on friendship which balances the reading experience out.
34. Everything Sad Is Untrue: (a true story) by Daniel Nayeri. This was an amazing read. It’s really more of a memoir than a middle grade novel. It follows Daniel, his Persian name is Khosrou, from Iran to Oklahoma. It is filled with a lot of heart breaking stories, both his own and those of his family, the rich tradition of Persian story telling, and an honesty about what it is like to be a child, nearly a teenager, who is an outsider and stranger but has such a beautiful story to tell. The audiobook version read by the author was excellent. I’d highly recommend it.
35. Miraculous by Caroline Starr Rose. A new book by one of my favorite middle grade writers! Miraculous is a creepy and ultimately redemptive story of a snake oil salesman’s assistant and the new town they come to in the middle of a drought. Told from many perspectives, it is mostly about two kids who become friends and find the courage to help a town escape being taken over. It reminded me a little of Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool, which I also loved. This would be a great Halloween read (even though it’s set in the summer) for kids who don’t want to be really scared, but want a scary villian to root against.
36. The Patron Thief of Bread by Lindsay Eager. Set in a fictional bit of medieval France, a young orphan girl called Duck is sent by her street gang to be a baker’s apprentice and steal them bread and a few coins from the till every week. But while they think that nearly blind Master bread maker Griselde will be an easy target, they do not anticipate that she will come to be a surrogate mother for Duck. Filled with wonderful descriptions of bread and complex characters, this is very well written book. I think the constant deception made the whole book feel a little too anxious and high tension for me to really love the reading experience and have this be a favorite book. And Lindsay Eager was not afraid to have some very obnoxious potty mouth gargoyles and truly bad gang members who do not take the opportunities given to them for redemption, which I think some people will really love about this book. It was very well done.
37. The Railway Children by E. Nesbit. E. Nesbit is one of the grandmothers of modern children’s literature. She wrote many amazing books. We read The Enchanted Castle as a family this year, and it was fun and whimsical, and very long. The Railway Children is set in the 19th century English countryside and is sweet and moving, funny and probably one of the perfect children’s books. It also has a 1971 masterpiece classic miniseries The Railway Children adaption as well as more recent film versions 2000 and 2022.
38. Knight’s Castle by Edward Eager. This was another family read aloud. I had read and enjoyed the first Half Magic book a lot. This book was fun, although pretty different from the first book (and I think that Edward Eager returned to that first style later in the Half Magic series.) This book has a set of cousins setting up their medieval soliders and retelling famous bits of Robinhood and Ivanhoe, and then magically traveling to a land where what they set up is really happening. I think if I were a little bit more familiar with Ivanhoe (by which I mean I knew nothing about it at all beside the Wishbone episode) I would have enjoyed the book even more.
What was the best book you read in 2022?