That’s another year done, another gone by.
2019: the decade’s final slice.
The last few months of every year are usually times of great reflection and inquiry for me, so what better way to initiate it than to reflect on this year’s reading challenge? Looking back, I may have been a bit ambitious when I set this goal last December, especially since I think I read a whopping 12 books in 2018. And so I owe a debt of thanks to my good friend Rebekah Johnson for joining me in this 40-book challenge and thus igniting a spirit of healthy competition between two armchair theologians (who also love a good whiskey). At times, our passive-aggressive banter kept me going.
40 books is a solid stack. I haven’t taken the time to figure out how many pages or words that could be (honestly, who would, especially when you’re reading 40 books) but rest assured I took a month off here or there. Maybe you’re like me, too, in devouring book after book for a month and then binge-watching TV for three.
Hey. Life’s a balance.
To make it easier on both of us, I’m sectioning off these summaries/reviews into four parts, ordered simply by groups of ten. I’m not going to lie, a couple of these were total duds. In some cases, you don’t have to necessarily like a book to know it’s important that you finish it. I’m a firm believer that your bookshelf should transcend affinity to embrace challenge, but you shouldn’t lose affinity along the way. On the other hand, a handful of the books I read this year will be lifelong favorites..
Without further ado, my 40, Part One:
1. Wounds Are Where The Light Gets In – Walt Wangerin Jr.
A collection of creative non-fiction vignettes, Walt Wangerin masterfully traces the grace and mercy of God in his own life and in the lives of those around him. A quick read, finished in only a couple hours, but Wangerin’s witness lingers on, his stories etched in my brain. Think the accessibility of Chicken Soup for The Soul meets the spiritual richness of Brennan Manning and the storytelling of Frederick Buechner.
2. You Who: Why You Matter and How to Deal With It – Rachael Jankovic
One of the most spiritually challenging books I’ve read in a long time. Was a few chapters in before I learned that Jankovic is the daughter of notable (and often controversial) reformed pastor Douglas Wilson. But no matter. Jankovic stands on her own here, dismantling the philosophy behind ‘existence precedes essence’ and demonstrating how this warped understanding of personhood directly contradicts scripture. What is most endearing is Jankovic’s insistence in treating women like adults. There’s no coddling language here. No ‘sweetie’ or ‘babycakes’, no pandering suggestions to go ‘wash your face’. Here, Rachael reminds us that just washing our face won’t cut it. We need to be made over. But first comes dying to self.
3. Peace Like A River – Leif Enger
It’s a great day when you come across a novel that reinvigorates your love for story. One of the best I’ve read this year (and this decade), Peace Like A River defies genre in that it’s all at once a drama, mystery, romance, Bildungsroman, and spiritual fantasy tale. Told from the perspective of young asthmatic Reuben Land, this story goes beyond the Land family’s search for their fugitive brother Davy. I couldn’t put it down, cliché as it is to say. I stayed up way too late. I read through my lunch breaks. I cried. I needed to wait at least a week before I could pick up another book. Can’t speak highly of it enough.
4. The Singer – Calvin Miller
Recommended to me by some stranger on goodreads. The Singer is an allegory for the story of Christ written in the 1970’s. The tagline describes it as a retelling of the Cosmic Conflict, and for many similar books that phrase would be a bit indulgent, but it fits perfectly for The Singer. Again, a quick read, but one that lingered. What’s great about these biblical-based allegories is that they allow us to shed any baggage we bring to the Gospels and experience the core of the story in a fresh way. This is especially helpful for those of us who have grown up in the church and long to have our Sunday school callouses sloughed off. Sure, they tend to edge a little too close to blasphemy, but responsible readers will be able to sift out the wheat and blow away the chaff. Miller’s allegoric retelling of Jesus healing the man possessed by legion is particularly moving.
5. Eve in Exile and The Restoration of Femininity – Rebekah Merkle
I didn’t plan this year of reading to consist of the Wilson family bibliography, but I admit it edges close enough to seem intentional. Eve in Exile was recommended to me by a few women I strongly respect, so I hopped right to it. Merkle didn’t write this as a follow up to her sister’s You Who, but it sure works as one. Where Jankovic challenges our modern conceptions of personhood and identity in contrast to Scripture, Merkle harnesses that same energy as she takes on radical feminism. I came to this book already in agreement with majority of her arguments, which lessened their blow, but I found myself rethinking my own similar positions and their adequate defense. What I appreciate most about Merkle is how she defends traditional feminine roles in an even-handed way. She can’t be accused as perpetuating any of the pathetic strawmen stereotypes feminists paint complementarian roles as, nor cowardly blurring lines to be more agreeable to feminist ideals. Merkle plays it straight.
6. A Gospel Primer for Christians: Learning to See the Glories of God's Love – Milton Vincent
Not much to say about this one as I don’t want to spoil it but I recommend reading it every few years. It’s a quick read, short and very sweet. Give it a shot and you’ll see why.
7. Popes and Feminists: How the Reformation Frees Women from Feminism - Elise Crapuchettes
I’ve heard from a few people that Eve in Exile is the greater work of these two books on feminism from Canon Press, Doug Wilson’s publishing house (we are almost done with Doug, I swear). But if I’m honest, I preferred this one. Don’t get me wrong, Eve in Exile is a great introductory critique of feminism and I think it serves greatly in the debate on sex and gender roles, but I really loved Popes and Feminists. I was delighted as it played on my libertarian sensibilities in comparing modern day feminists to the same virtue-signaling, totalitarian corrupt papacy (spoiler: the resemblance is uncanny). But this book is half an ideological diagnosis and half a Hall of Fame. What most endeared me to Popes and Feminist is the second portion, a collection of historical biographies and anecdotes that tell the story of the wives, daughter, widows, and women of all social status who were integral to the Reformation. It reads like a family history and, to borrow the world’s term, I felt empowered. I’d never heard of many of these women, which broke my heart, but the way they laid down their lives in service for the gospel has enshrined them an eternal legacy. These are the kind of women we should emulate: women who didn’t think about themselves or their importance at all and kept their eyes on Christ to the end.
8. The Man in the Dark – Douglas Wilson
Ah, the final Doug entry. We arrive at last. The Man in the Dark is a western romance, and if you know me well, you know that combination doesn’t often frequent my reading lists. I loved last year’s western read, Charles Portis’ masterpiece “True Grit”, so I figured, what the heck – I’ll give it a shot. The beautiful, mysterious Savannah Moreland settles down in Paradise Valley for a new beginning and lands herself in the middle of a love triangle and an evil scheme by a rebuffed suitor. Cliché at times but overall rather sweet, it’s a better option than any of those zillion other Christian romances. However, while I enjoyed the story’s twist, I later found out that particular kind of twist is fairly prevalent in Christian romances. I’ll take that reviewer at her word and not investigate for myself.
9. Silence in the Age of Noise – Erling Kagge
This year I struggled in my relationship to technology. Not only does my day job consist of frequent computer use, but I watched more TV this year than I think I ever have in years past. And let’s not forget the mammoth of social media. My first reckoning came with this year’s iOS update incorporating screen time analytics. Finding out you spent five hours on Instagram is…nauseating. In response I turned to Erling Kagge’s Silence in the Age of Noise. Kagge, if you’re not familiar, has crushed the world record for reaching the South Pole unsupported and, as you can imagine, knows solitude and silence intimately. So who better to woo us back from our chaos of constant stimulation? What’s truly lovely about this book is how Kagge dances through mediums of communication. In between short vignettes of story or philosophical reflection are Kagge’s own expedition photographs. These images communicate the essence of Kagge’s message in a way words cannot. One can feel the silence, the cold, the solitary exposure strong in each image. We fear silence, but why can’t we shake our longing for it either?
10. The Lily of the Field and The Bird of The Air – Søren Kierkegaard
Following Kagge’s treatise on silence, I wanted to dive in further but with a more explicitly Christian perspective this time. Kierkegaard’s little book challenged me in ways that I couldn’t predict. He takes a hard look at two oft-quoted sayings of Jesus and the implications they have on the lives of believers. How he pulls so many ideas out of these two short verses baffles me. Like much of Kierkegaard’s work, the material can be so dense that one has to slow down and chew on it for a bit, but most accessible and impactful to me was the lesson the lily of the field teaches us about silence before God. Most of us begin to pray by launching straight into telling God our thanks or petitions, but all other created things first bring reverence to their Creator, and so should we by also beginning in silence. How can we pray to let the Lord search our hearts without also sitting before Him in reverent, silent, open anticipation? This was a great little study in contemplation.