I got closer this year to my goal than ever before! Thank you, audio books, for some of these keeping me companion on road running. A few of these are out of order – starts, stops, returns, pick up back. Highlights – wow, many of these were so good this year. Mini-reviews are below.
- Missionary Methods – St. Paul’s or Ours? – Roland Allen
- The Ninth House – Leah Bardugo
- Hell Bent – Leah Bardugo
- The Rule of St. Benedict – umm, st. Benedict.
- Sun House – David James Duncan
- Surrender – Bono
- Seeking God – Esther De Waal
- Reaching Out – Henri Nowuen
- Dopamine Nation – Anna Lembke
- The Curse of Chalion – Lois McMaster Bujold
- North – Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail – Scott Jurek and Jenny Jurek
- Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home – Heather “Anish” Andersen
- Becoming Odyssa – Jennifer Pharr Davis
- Called Again – Jennifer Pharr Davis
- Fire Weather: A True Story From A Hotter World – John Vaillant
- Stony the Road – Henry Louis Gates Jr.
- Kitchen Confidential – Anthony Bourdain
- Murderbot Diaries series – books 1-7 – Martha wells
- Almost Somewhere – Suzanne Roberts
- Under the Banner of Heaven – John Krakauer
- The Ministry for the Future – Kim Stanley Robinson
- A Walk in the Park – Kevin Fedarko
- Force of Nature – Julie Quinn
- The Curse of Chalion – Bujold (again) !!
- Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry (1/2 – waiting from library)
- Cadillac Desert – Marc Reisner
- Big Rock Candy Mountain – Wallace Stegner
- Recapitulation – Wallace Stegner
- The Sound of Mountain Water: Essays – Wallace Stegner
- Too Like the Lightning – Ada Palmer (1/2 – waiting from library)
- In The Spirit of Crazy Horse – Peter Matthiessen
- Managing leadership anxiety: Steve cuss (reread)
- Seeking a Better Country: 300 years of Presbyterianism in America – DG Hart and John Muether
- Liberty in the Non-Essentials: The Story of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church – Don Fortson
- Reading Augustine and the Psalms – Jason Byasse (1/2 – currently reading)
- Planting Missional Churches – Ed Stetzer and Daniel Im
- The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene (1/2 – currently reading)
Most provocative: Fire Weather. 1/3 disaster narrative from 2016, 1/3 frightening analysis of how fire and modern economies work, 1/3 the tightest, most compelling case for human causation in climate change.
Most illuminating: Dopamine Nation. I read this with a pastor’s book club of friends and we had such an interesting discussion. I loved it, learning from it, and have thought about it every week. Check out her interview on Rich Roll’s podcast.
Best one of a kind: Sun House (novel). (Sighs) – David James Duncan is brilliant. This book was HARD to get through – so long and dense and seemingly a collection of character/narratives without plot, but I persevered. Of course, he had me at …PNW, mountains/backpacking, clash of western and Eastern philosophy, theology, and mysticism food and sustainable agriculture, love stories, generational trauma stories and more. A lovely human vision of what could be. I want to sign on, but I have 1.5 hands clapping: I think there is an unexplored underbelly here.
Most haunting: I love Wallace Stegner’s writing so much. Top 10 author for me. Reading BRCM (again) what an absolute delight – the audiobook is by one of my favorite reader voices and just nails it. What an achingly beautiful American story. Recapitulation is a followup heartbreak. I want to learn to see and to write like him.
Best novel: The Curse of Chalion. A fantasy book that reads like historical fiction. I told Robin about this author and I think she read all of her work, and Robin pressed me to read this book. It had a lasting effect on me: if you make it to the end, you might find out why. This is a “common grace” gem.
Most fun: tie between Leah Bardugo’s two books (the wait for more is … I just hate waiting) and the Murderbot books (strangely hilarious, heart-warming, and … prescient).
Biggest Impact: Roland Allen’s old book on church planting in the spirit of the apostle Paul. I started this book at Christmas last year and it just got hold of my imagination and heart: part of the story of my year.
Books that made me mad, feeling some righteous anger: Cadillac Desert and In the Spirit of Crazy Horse.
Most inspiring: Fedarko’s A Walk in the Park. Sheer beauty. And yes I am going back into the Grand Canyon (again). Someday.
A year-end quote to leave you with from “At home in the fields of the Lord” – essay by Wallace Stegner:
There is only this solid sense of having had or having been or having lived something real and good and satisfying, and the knowledge that having had or been or lived these things I can never lose them again. Home is what you can take away with you.
Miss you, Fern Trail and Signal Mountain Pres and town and trails and friends. But carrying you with me.
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