State of the Bookshelf 2023
Another year of one of my favorite posts: my reading year-in-review! This year I’ve entitled it “State of the Bookshelf,” though a more truthful title may be “State of the Libby App.” Can I get a witness?
I continue to be grateful for the good gift of the written word, and this year—after having several friends release books into the world—I am particularly in awe of those who make the effort to write beautifully, truthfully, and with care for their readers. The process is not for the faint of heart. What a collective of courageous souls!
Looking back over my year as a reader, a few things stand out:
This was accidentally the Year of the Memoir for me. I’m curious as to why this is. Perhaps it’s that so many good ones were released in 2023, and well-written books in a genre tend to give me an appetite for more. Perhaps it’s that I’ve had a desire to give thanks for and make peace with parts of my own story, and I like to be in good company while doing so. Either way, I read some good ones this year, and I’m grateful. Memoirs: Taste: My Life Through Food*, Stanley Tucci; All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir*, Beth Moore; Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Spiritual Life, Lauren F. Winner; A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman, Joan Anderson; Finding Me: A Memoir*, Viola Davis; How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family’s Story of Hope and Survival in the American South*, Esau McCaulley; You Could Make This Place Beautiful*, Maggie Smith (and there are several more memoir-adjacent works I could have added)
My oldest child who just turned 8 is reading independently now. I am simultaneously bursting with pride and in mourning. He has a glorious imagination, and I am so thrilled that he is cultivating a love reading. We still read aloud as a family, which I hope to do as long as I have my kids living in my house, no matter their age, but it’s a change. Family Read-Alouds: Prince Caspian, C.S. Lewis; The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Beverly Cleary; The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader,” C.S. Lewis
When my oldest two boys were really small, we’d spend a large portion of each morning reading a giant stack of picture books, some picked by them, some by me. As they got older, we still read plenty throughout he day, but they also took on interests like Legos and illustrating their own stories and putting on puppet shows. All lovely things, but I had been pining for those cozy, snuggle-and-read mornings. But now, with my oldest two in school and the four- and two-year-olds left to their own devices, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the return of the giant stack of picture books. Nothing good is lost forever. God is kind.
The volume in my world and in my mind has felt turned up loud this year, and I have found myself craving silence. I want and need time with my own thoughts, time in the “middle minutes” (a lovely Sarah Hagerty phrase that I love) to notice God seeing me, time to wait for him. This has impacted the way I interact with audiobooks, and I’m good with that. I still enjoyed so many of them, but I’m in a season where I need to choose silence when I can get it. Books that simply must be enjoy on audiobook: Any memoir read by the author (ESPECIALLY Beth Moore’s); The Princess and the Goblin*, George MacDonald
And without further ado, here are the books I enjoyed in 2023. A * notes the books I listened to on audio book. Anything in bold is a book that marked my year in a special way (which is not exactly the same as my favorite books of the year, though there is some overlap).
I wish there was a good way to mark books that I’m simply dying to talk to someone about, but wouldn’t necessarily recommend. I like to read widely, and the writing I’m able to receive in a particular season might not be the same as the writing you are able to receive in yours. If there’s one you’re curious about, I hope you’ll let me know. Talking to you about books would literally make my day.
Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus*, C. Christopher Smith and John Pattison
Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect*, Will Guidara
Prince Caspian, C. S. Lewis
Taste: My Life Through Food*, Stanley Tucci
Pilgrim’s Inn, Elizabeth Goudge
The Graveyard Book*, Neil Gaiman
You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World, Alan Noble
Sea of Tranquility*, Emily St. John Mandel
Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End, David Gibson
How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America*, Clint Smith
All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir*, Beth Moore
Sonnez Les Matines: A Play, Jane Clark Scharl
How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now*, James K. A. Smith
Glittering Images, Susan Howatch
Low Anthropology: The Unlikely Key to a Gracious View of Others (and Yourself)*, David Zahl
Word in the Wilderness: A Poem for Lent and Easter, Malcolm Guite
The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints*, Jessica Hooten Wilson
The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams
Hearing God: Developing Conversational Relationship with God*, Dallas Willard
The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness: The Path to True Christian Joy*, Timothy Keller
Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Failed a Generation, Jon Ward
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry*, John Mark Comer
The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Beverly Cleary
Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Spiritual Life, Lauren F. Winner
A Home in Bloom: Four Enchanted Seasons with Flowers, Christy Purifoy
The New Fight for Life: Roe, Race, and a Pro-Life Commitment to Justice *, Benjamin Watson
The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again*, Catherine Price
Why We Create, Edited by Brian Brown and Jane Scharl
Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for our Common Life, Makoto Fujimura
The Midnight Library, Matt Haig
Holy Unhappiness: God, Goodness, and the Myth of the Blessed Life*, Amanda Held Opelt
Leisure: The Basis of Culture, Josef Pieper
When Narcissism Comes to Church: Healing Your Community from Emotional and Spiritual Abuse*, Chuck De Groat
A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman, Joan Anderson
The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis*, Karen Swallow Prior
Finding Me: A Memoir*, Viola Davis
Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt
How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family’s Story of Hope and Survival in the American South*, Esau McCaulley
Charis in the World of Wonders, Marly Youmans
This Homeward Ache: How Our Yearning for the Life to Come Spurs on Our Life Today, Amy Baik Lee
The Metropolitan Affair, Jocelyn Green
In Good Time: 8 Habits for Reimagining Productivity, Resisting Hurry, and Practicing Peace*, Jen Pollock Michel
The Deep Down Things: Practices for Growing Hope in Times of Despair, Seth and Amber Haines
The Princess and the Goblin*, George MacDonald
You Could Make This Place Beautiful*, Maggie Smith
Horses of Fire, A.D. Rhine
The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming, Sally and Sarah Clarkson
Prayer: How to Have a Conversation with God, Rosalind Rinker
The Maid*, Nita Prose
The Practice of the Presence of God: Conversations and Letters of Nicholas Herman of Lorraine, Brother Lawrence
The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader,” C.S. Lewis
Here’s to another year of good, true, beautiful, soul-forming, heart-filling, perspective-widening, mind-sharpening, neighbor-loving, Kingdom-noticing, enjoyable, joyful, delightful reading!
P.S. I share a brief review of each book I read in my monthly newsletter. I’d love to have you join me over there for more book talk. You can sign up here.