Each year, I like to take a trip down memory lane to review which books I read that have had a lasting impact. Every person’s reading tastes are different, so you may hate the books I loved (and vice versa). But because we as humans love to praise the things we love and urge others to do the same, I cannot allow January to pass without giving a shout-out to some of the books that have made me think, laugh, cry, and feel over the last 365 days.
If you get my monthly letter, you’ve already heard about most of these books, so some of them will be a refresher. If you want to get a monthly peek into what I’m reading, listening to, cooking, and buying, subscribe here.
1. What God Has to Say about Our Bodies: How the Gospel Is Good News for Our Physical Selves by Sam Allberry
Do you ever read a book and think, “I am so glad this book was written!” That’s what I thoght when I finished What God Has to Say about Our Bodies. In a society that tends to swing between extremes of worshipping bodies or despising them, this book takes a Biblical look at what our bodies are for and how we can think about and treat them in a way that honors the One who made them.
Favorite quote:
“In our culture, the hero today is not the person who risks his body for the sake of others, but the person who lays aside anything and anyone for the sake of being authentic. We most esteem not self-sacrifice, but self-expression.” Bull’s-eye.
2. You’re Only Human by Kelly Kapic
What does it mean to be human and joyfully live within your limits? Why does it matter that the Son of God came to earth and lived in a human body? This book addresses those questions and more in a gentle, thought-provoking way. Reading this book has given me a greater awe that God would stoop down to become like one of His creations and it’s also encouraged me to trust God with my many limits.
Favorite quotes:
“Your finitude is not the result of sin, but of real creaturely dependence.
“One of the most inefficient things you can ever do is love a person.”
“We sometimes make meditating on Scripture sound too difficult, too sophisticated, too spiritual for those of us who are not supersaints. But meditating is just taking a biblical truth (e.g., “The Lord is near”) and savoring it throughout our day, thinking about it, resting in its assurance, allowing the thought to run over us like a purifying stream on a hot summer day. These truths often take a while to move into our souls, so we must spend time with and rest in them.”
(Many thanks to my friend and fellow pastor’s wife, Heather, for this book recommendation!)
3. Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri
I told you (in my monthly letter) that this book was going to show up in my favorite books of 2022 and indeed, here it is. This is the story of a refugee written by an adult but told from his perspective as a child. Personal, a bit random, some potty humor (“poop stories” as he calls them. I mean, it’s written from the perspective of an elementary-aged boy, so…), and incredibly thought-provoking. I loved this book and feel an instant bond with anyone else who has read it.
Favorite quote:
“Memories are tricky things. They can fade or fester. You have to seal them up tight like pickles and keep out impurities like how hurt you feel when you open them. Or they’ll ferment and poison your brain.”
4. The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges
This book is a bit of a gut punch but in a good way. Don’t probe into that analogy too much, it doesn’t make sense. Convicting and a book I could stand to read on a regular basis.
Favorite quotes:
“God has not called us to be like those around us. He has called us to be like Himself. Holiness is nothing less than conformity to the character of God.”
“Too often, we say we are defeated by this or that sin. No, we are not defeated. We are simply disobedient. […] When I say I am defeated by some sin, I am unconsciously slipping out from under my responsibility. […] But when I say I am disobedient, that places the responsibility for my sin squarely on me. We may in fact be defeated, but the reason we are defeated is because we have chosen to disobey.”
5. The Bible
I read through the Bible in 2022 using this plan. 10/10 recommend this book. I linked my personal Bible and really like the room for journaling on each page.
Favorite books/passages/verses:
All of 1, 2, and 3 John—largely because I’m leading a ladies Bible study through these books at my church, and anything I do with that group is automatically my favorite.
Isaiah 53—I memorized this passage with a friend at my church and it served to cement the beautiful truth into my mind and heart.
Psalm 145—My family and I memorized the first portion of this Psalm together earlier in 2022. This phrase from verse 2 was a constant rebuke and encouragement to me: “Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever.”
6. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
I didn’t
Favorite quotes:
“If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.”
“He soon felt that the fulfillment of his desires gave him only one grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. This fulfillment showed him the eternal error men make in imagining that their happiness depends on the realization of their desires.”
7. Prayer in the Night by Tish Harrison-Warren
I found myself nodding my head, praying, and crying the whole way through this book.
Favorite quote:
“The reason I can continue watching and waiting, even as the world is shrouded in darkness, is because the things I long for are not rooted and wishful thinking or religious ritual but are solid as a stone rolled away.” Find it here.
8. The Chicken Chick’s Guide to Backyard Chicken Keeping by Kathy Shea Mormino
My friend, Brenda, let me borrow this book when I embarked on the world of backyard chickens and it was such a helpful resource. I made the mistake of reading it during lunch one time and came across a page that detailed the difference between normal and abnormal chicken poop. So I made the habit of reading it outside of mealtimes.
9. Ten Words to Live By by Jen Wilkin
This is a book all about the 10 commandments. I really appreciate the way Wilkin elevates the commandments as something we should love since we love the One who gave them to us.
Favorite quotes:
”Satan has succeeded in convincing believers that lust is just something to be managed instead of something to be slain.”
“We should love the law because we love Jesus, and because Jesus loved the law. Contrary to common belief, the Pharisees were not lovers of the law; they were lovers of self.”
“Because we are accepted in the beloved, we will not be content to simply be not-murderers, or not-contemptuous, or not-angry. We will not merely refrain from taking life—we will run toward giving it.”
10. The Wonderful Works of God by Herman Bavinck
I read this book purely on my husband’s recommendation and I was intimidated because it is a large book with zero pictures. Though I approached it with fear and trepidation, it proved to be one of my favorite reads of 2022. It’s true that there were several sections I had to read multiple times before I understood what he was saying. But it’s also true that I gleaned so much from this book and started multiple conversations with my husband on the joys of new discoveries or theological truths that were more deeply fixed on my heart and mind because I read it. This book is not for the faint of heart. But I recommend it to you nonetheless because it deepened my thinking and the Lord used it to strengthen my faith.
Favorite quotes:
“God, and God alone, is man’s highest good.”
“Awareness of weakness should not lead to despondency and recklessness but rather stimulate an exercise of all our power and our trust in the help of He whose power is made perfect in weakness.”
(My husband also recommended I read this book, which I did. Though it increased my understanding of church history, I didn’t feel like it deserved its own number in my list of favorite books. So this is its very honorable mention.)
11. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
As a Christian, there were things I disagreed with in this book and there were things I heartily agreed with in this book. (Name a book you can’t say the same about.) Here’s why I’m naming this as one of my favorite reads of 2022: It’s making me think differently about how I view regrets (more of a Philippians 3:13-14 mindset of forgetting the things which are behind and reaching forward to the things God has placed before me) and cementing my belief that small moments we have with others are more important than we realize. Looking strangers in the eye and saying hello as you pass them is a small, seemingly insignificant thing that can make them feel human and important…something everybody needs to remember.
Two favorite quotes:
“Never underestimate the big importance of small things.”
“It is easy to mourn the lives we aren’t living. Easy to wish we’d developed other other talents, said yes to different offers. […] It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn’t make and the work we didn’t do the people we didn’t do and the people we didn’t marry and the children we didn’t have. […] But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself.”
12. The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
This was a re-read for me, but the first time I’ve read it in print (last time was an audiobook). I understood it in print better than I did via audio.
Favorite quotes:
“There have been some who were so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ. Man! We see it in smaller matters. Did ye never know a lover of books that with all his first editions and signed copies had lost the power to read them? Or an organiser of charities that had lost all love for the poor? It is the subtlest of all the snares.”
“‘Friend,’ said the Spirit. ‘Could you, only for a moment, fix your mind on something not yourself?’”
I was worried this would die a sad, unused, and dusty death on my nightstand, but it has, in fact, remained alive, used, and quite free of dust. I began this journal in July 2021 and here I am still using it in 2023. Journaling for people who want the benefits of looking back but who are overwhelmed by a large blank area to write in. (Which is ironic seeing as I am currently writing on a large blank laptop page, but no matter.) I am such a fan of this book that I got one for one of my kids for their birthday. I don’t think they’re using it. But I wasn’t journaling at their age either and this is where that old adage comes in handy: it’s the thought that counts. Get your own un-overwhelming journal here.
So, I’d love to know…have you read any of these books? If you have, what did you think of them? I’d also love to know if there are any books you’ve loved that you think I should read, so drop a comment below, shoot me an e-mail, or send out a smoke signal recommendation so I can glean from your reading lists.
And how about a little walk down memory lane?
Books I Read in 2021
2020
2019
2018
2017