It’s the time of year where I look back at the books I read before the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve and share the ones that stood out, in an effort to persuade you to read one or two.
Despite my resolution at the beginning of 2022 to read fewer ebooks, I read even more of them than in 2021. Que sera, sera. I enjoyed my reading life, so that’s what matters! I read 127 books, 81 ebooks and 46 print. Here’s where I tell you that I had a huge reading slump for the last two months of the year, due to moving stress and seasonal depression. But never fear, I still managed to devour two types of fiction: fanfiction and one particular author’s thriller/suspense books. In fact, I read 16 of her books within about 10 weeks (all ebooks). I call that binge reading, personally, especially as not one of those books received a place in this list, but I’ll take the reading where I can get it.
Usually I issue a blanket content warning for everything I read, which I still am (ask if you have questions!), but this year I’m also issuing a specific content warning for the suspense/thriller books, if you are inclined to seek them out. They contain many varieties of dark content, so ye be warned.
The Book I Learned the Most From:
The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey
Christians think we know Jesus, yet often we know a sanitized, vague version of God become man who turned the world upside down, and rarely do we truly understand the historical Jesus. He is God, and he also was a Jewish man who lived and died in a volatile, complex land and era in history. Two thousand years distant, we simply don’t understand the cultural elements and tensions that he spoke to specifically. Yet do we recognize what it means for him to be God, either? He is gentle and fierce, human and God, eternal and historical. Philip Yancey explores the Jesus of the New Testament, leaving preconceived churchy notions behind, and finds a complex man at the center of a religion that so often fails to follow him. As C.S. Lewis would say, he isn’t safe, but he is good.
Bonus: The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth by Beth Allison Barr
A medieval history scholar draws back the curtain on the modern concept of biblical womanhood through tracing its origin and bringing the history of women in the medieval church to light.
The Best Historical Fiction:
Queen of Swords by Judith Tarr
Seen through the eyes of the young noblewoman Richildis, Melisande, heir to the Crusader Kingdom because she has no brothers, fights to rule Jerusalem as queen despite the law that requires her marriage and subordination to her husband. This book’s plot follows the actual historical events of Melisande’s reign, from battles to the crusade of Louis VII of France and Eleanor of Aquitaine, but is narrated by fictional characters with a front row seat to history. I loved the stories of Bertrand and Richildis, a brother and sister who arrived in Jerusalem separately for reasons strongly at odds with each other, and delighted in learning the history of the Crusader Kingdom under the rule of Melisande and her son Baldwin III. Very much a character-driven story, with beautiful depictions of the Holy Land and Byzantium, I fell in love with this book.
The Most Fun Book:
Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come: An Introvert’s Year of Living Dangerously by Jessica Pan
A shy introverted writer decides to spend one year living like a gregarious extrovert and takes up various challenges such as improv classes, making friends while traveling, and hosting a dinner party. Along the way she discovers long stifled elements of her own personality and friendships in places she never dreamed of enjoying. Unlike Jessica Pan, I have never lived internationally, but I too am a shy introverted writer who sometimes has to fight my natural tendency to be a silent wallflower wishing for a dynamic social life. Reading about her bravery and panicked responses to some of the situations she ends up in made me laugh and cringe and nod enthusiastically. For me, this book was not only a fun read, but also motivating and inspiring.
The Best Fantasy:
The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
A former soldier returns to the court where he spent his boyhood and ultimately finds himself in the center of a deadly intrigue that transcends the physical world to the realm of the divine. Cazaril is a broken man after his experiences as a prisoner, but when the Royesse Iselle needs his service, he comes face to face with the darkest of magic and terrible treachery. This book stands out in the epic fantasy genre because the characters carry incredible depth and their relationships feel so true. Cazaril himself is an unusual fantasy hero; his strength lies in his humility, compassion, and loyalty, and he is not cynical or brutal, because this is not an action story. Beautifully written with powerful explorations of love, faith, and religion, this book ought to be a fantasy classic.
Bonus: The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison
In this stand-alone sequel to The Goblin Emperor, Thara Celehar uses his small ability to speak to the recent dead to serve the common people of his city, which soon puts him squarely in the center of several treacherous mysteries.
The Best Spiritual Book:
Simply Tuesday: Small-Moment Living in a Fast-Moving World by Emily P. Freeman
Life happens most on the Tuesdays that are ordinary and small, which so often feel pointless and too slow for the fast paced hustle of our world, but Emily P. Freeman calls us to meet Jesus in the quiet simplicity of the ordinary. In church, on social media, in conversation with friends, the push for bigger and bolder and faster living leans heavy on our souls. It’s easy to feel that doing the dishes or running errands or volunteering for kid’s ministry again doesn’t mean much and that we should probably do something radical for God. Yet what if we meet Jesus and further his kingdom most in these quiet ordinary moments? Reading this book was a breath of fresh air and good for my soul.
The Best Memoir:
Crossing the Line: A Fearless Team of Brothers and the Sport That Changed Their Lives Forever by Kareem Rosser
A Black boy and his brothers living in Philadelphia find a riding stable in the heart of the hood and dive into the sport of polo, changing their lives forever. In America, polo is a sport typically reserved for wealthy white people, due to the sheer amount of money and access it takes to pursue. Yet Kareem, a boy struggling to hold his family together despite the poverty and violence of their neighborhood, leads his team to become the first all-black squad to win the National Interscholastic Polo championship. As a Certified Horse Lover™, I’m a total sap for any true story involving horses. Kareem tells his story and his family’s story so well, from the tragedy to the long, hard struggle to the sheer joy of riding. My life has never been anything like Kareem’s, but I deeply resonate with his experience of the power of a horse to fill in the cracks in one’s soul.
Other books I enjoyed last year include one on sleep that guilted me into going to bed early for about five nights, an old favorite by L.M. Montgomery that is sheer wish fulfillment, and a small philosophical book on self-deception in the Christian life.
Come join me on Goodreads so that I can haunt your reading life with the desperation of someone who has 1600+ books on her TBR and yet is always searching for more. Or, you know, so you can read my sometimes gushing and often snarky reviews, usually posted at the beginning of each month.
I’m jumpstarting my 2023 reading life by finally finishing the four library books I’ve had checked out for almost two months, and maybe this will be the year I read the last book in seven different series I’ve been in the middle of for years. Or War and Peace. You know, dreaming big.
Happy reading!
Scribblings 