A Year of my Reading

In imitation of John Wilson

Last month in Prufrock News, Micah Mattix lamented the long, useless booklists that accumulate at the end of each year. He noted that his favorites come from those writers he admires, such as former editor of Books & Culture, John Wilson. I concur: I look forward to reading John’s yearly review of his reading. In 2019, Fathom Magazine gave me the privilege of reviewing my own reading log, and I’ve recommended books a few times for Law and Liberty’s end of year list. This year, I thought I’d add my own. Out of the 100+ books I was privileged to read this year (and, I confess, I don’t finish all of them, and I’ve read some of them half a dozen times before), I want to earmark a dozen-ish as the most paradigm-shifting, beautifully engaging, or worthwhile books that I read in 2021.

1. The Bible At the start of the year, Ascension Press’s Bible in A Year was the highest ranked podcast before its first episode even aired. If you have done the Bible Recap before (I did in 2020), this is the Catholic edition. I was ready for some Bible reading. Not only did I receive Robert Alter’s The Hebrew Bible, but also had The Word on Fire The Gospels and recently received Acts to Revelation in time for finishing the New Testament. I have to rank these new Bibles as my number one reads this year. I would highly recommend these beautiful translations for Christmas gifts.

(This painting of Pentecost accompanies Acts 2 in the new Word on Fire Bible.)

2. A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene Peterson by Winn Collier After listening to this biography on audible, I wanted a hard copy to read a second time. Then I reviewed the book for Plough. This biography inspired me to be a saint in numerous practical ways: penciling in time with authors, leaving space in my life for God to surprise my calendar with His agenda, praying before meetings to see how Christ meets me there.

3. A Swim in the Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading and Life by George Saunders This book may not be for everyone, but it fits me to a T: Russian stories, creative writing, and George Saunders. What more could I want in a book! The audiobook features the talents of BD Wong, Rainn Wilson, Glen Close, Nick Offerman and others! To top it off, now Saunders is offering a course based on this book through Substack. I’m elated. Subscribe here.

4. The Women Are Up To Something by Benjamin J.B. Lipscomb This is almost the book I wish I had written. Tying together the biographies and thought of Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch; Lipscomb shows how revolutionary was the philosophy of these women. Without their scholarship, moral subjectivism would have increased its reach and hold even further than it did. Instead, they stood their ground on truth, leaving a legacy that includes Alasdair MacIntyre (whom I saw speak in November at the Center for Ethics and Culture Conference; he is 92).

5. Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman Recently I had the privilege of speaking with Thurman’s grandson on the phone; he gave us permission to publish two of Thurman’s prayers in our reader (Learning the Good Life, May 2022). If you are not familiar with Thurman, he was influential on Martin Luther King, Jr. After I read the book, I shared a few of my thoughts on my YouTube. In addition to this book, I’d recommend two 2021 literature titles, a new novel The Trees by Percival Everett (it depicts an alternate universe, in which, in 2018 in America, white people whose ancestors participated in lynching get lynched) and a reprinting of Claude McKay’s poems in Harlem Shadows, which boasts an introduction by James Matthew Wilson. If you have been enjoying African American literature, keep your eye out for Claude Atcho’s Reading Black Books (May 2022).

5. The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Beth Allison Barr Although I read Barr’s book the year prior, the book launched in April 2021 with a strong readership, ranking as a popular bestseller in several categories on Amazon. The book spurred me to read a handful of other books on the history of women in the church, including William Witt’s Icons of Christ, which Scot McKnight names alongside Barr’s book as striking a punch against complementarianism. Also, an older title that is systematic in its approach: Slaves, Women and Homosexuals by William Webb, who taught me the notion of “redemptive spirit” as a way of reading the Word. Less systematic and more approachable is Worthy: Celebrating the Value of Women by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Eric Schumacher, which I also read this year.

6. Battle of the Classics: How a Nineteenth-Century Debate Can Save the Humanities Today by Eric Adler It has surprised no one that the humanities have further declined in public appreciation over the last couple of years, but this book argues against that perpetual descent. In an effort to increase readers for this book, I participated in a forum of reviews in University Bookman, did a patreon conversation with Jenn Frey for Sacred and Profane Love, and interviewed the author on The Liberating Arts. We also featured Wellmon and Reiter’s The Permanent Crisis. In addition to those two books, I want to recommend—to those interested in questions about education—The Love of Learning the Desire for God by Jean Leclercq (1961). It was providential to read all three this year. I put them in conversation in a talk I gave at the Word on Fire conference in Nov; the talk will be published soon at the James Martin Center for Academic Renewal.

7. Reading as a Spiritual Practice At the University of Dallas this fall I taught a course on reading as a spiritual practice (book coming out spring 2023). Two books that I read for that course completely altered my imagination. In Ivan Illich’s In the Vineyard of the Text: A Commentary to Hugh’s Didascalicon, Illich cautions our culture about what we have lost over the centuries in terms of our reading practices; we do not attend enough to the communal nature of reading and the necessity of memorization (read too Hugh’s text). Similar in theme, Mary Carruthers’s The Craft of Thought overturned my paradigm regarding the canons of rhetoric. We do not first invent ex nihilo, but we inventory what we remember, creating from our memory storehouse new beautiful things. Thus, memory precedes invention. Through Carruthers’ history of memory from the fifth to twelfth centuries, she altered the way that I think of reading and writing.

8. Novels that move us towards holiness My new book arrives in March 2022, but I wrote it in the spring of 2021, re-reading a dozen novels that I hope you will add to your reading list. In addition to books I had planned to include, there were several I had never read that became either part of the recommended reading at the end of each chapter (François Mauriac’s The Knot of Vipers, Diane Glancy’s the reason for crows, and Ernest Gaines’s A Gathering of Old Men) or, in the case of Walter Wangerin, Jr.’s The Book of the Dun Cow, became the featured novel of the chapter. Wangerin passed away on Aug 5, 2021. Philip Yancey wrote a fitting tribute in Christianity Today. Purchase the essay collection Songs from the Silent Passage edited in honor of Wangerin, which includes contributions by Eugene Peterson, Luci Shaw, Yancey and others.

9. Sigrid Undset I’m unabashedly cheating in putting an author’s name here instead of one of her books. I re-read Kristin Lavransdatter this year, which is celebrating its centenary. I also enjoyed Return to the Future: An Escape to Freedom that recounts Undset’s journey from Norway to Stockholm to Moscow to Korea as she fled the ensuing Nazis. Her hagiography Catherine of Siena is available on Audible. If you want to read books on her, check out Andrew Lytle’s Kristin (1992) and Deal Hudson’s edited collection On Saints and Sinners (1993). In November, St. Austin Review dedicated their entire issue to celebrating Undset. I plan to spend much of 2022 reading everything else that Undset has written and in 2023, embarking on a pilgrimage to Norway. Undset’s writing is worth everyone’s time.

10. Evangelical Thought Leader by Matthew Pierce To close, let me recommend this fun title. I referred to it in my September post when I first stumbled upon it. The book is funny—and occasionally vulgar, sorry—but is a good reminder that fame and platform-building is not kingdom work. After watching Christian leaders plummet into public disgrace because of sin (and reliving disaster in the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast series), I relished this humorous take on Christian celebrity culture.

Thanks for letting me share what I read and enjoyed this past year. It’s always a good season to reflect and take stock of the year. I do that, in part, through what I have read—searching my Amazon orders, Audible account, reviews online, and my stock-full bookshelves to remind myself what I have experienced.

I’d love to hear what you most loved reading this year. What are your top ten picks of 2021?