As it turns out, pandemics are good for readers. I read so many books this year that I'm not even including on this list those that were forgettable and unimportant. But I am including 22 reviews, which makes for a lot of words. I've listed my top six books of the year at the beginning, but there are some good ones further down the list if you're inclined to read that far.
GREAT BOOKS
I read a lot of good books. Occasionally, I read a great book. This year I read two:
The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride. Many book characters don't stay with me longer than it takes me to get the book back to the library. The people in McBride's book will linger in my mind a very long time. Written in 1996, this is a book I can't believe I hadn't read until now. It's become a standard university text, and I love the thought of it provoking college students to think, "I wonder if my parents had a life before me? I wonder where they came from and who they are?" McBride chronicles his journey of discovering his mother's story, and why she, a Jewish woman married to a black man, didn't look like him or his 11 siblings. His account is moving and powerful. It's painful, but also uplifting and a beautiful testimony of how one ordinary woman raised extraordinary children with no money but a whole lot of Jesus.
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson. It took 2020 to wake me up to a world I knew nothing about. This was one of a handful of books I read to help me understand what it's like to be black in America. It contains a part of history I never learned, the Great Migration of black southerners to the north and the west between 1917 and 1970. I learned more from this book than from any other this year. Wilkerson's massive amount of research is couched in such captivating storytelling that I breezed through 622 pages in a couple of weeks.
GOOD BOOKS
Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World's Largest Religion by Rebecca McLaughlin. This was Christianity Today's 2020 Beautiful Orthodoxy Book of the Year, and it is well deserved. If you or someone you know is struggling with questions like the tension about diversity and religion, if science and Christianity are compatible, if the Bible denigrates women, or how Christianity can say it's the only way to God, this book is a good choice. You can just tell that the author is brilliant, but she's also accessible and engaging. Her chapter on the Bible and slavery was an answer to prayer for me. Her goal is not to offer one-size-fits-all answers, but to introduce readers to new ways of thinking about the hard questions of faith.
Another Gospel?: A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity by Alisa Childers. False teachers are nothing new. Paul, Peter, and Jude all wrote about them in their epistles, and they find a way into every generation of Christian thinkers and leaders. Today we know them as "progressive Christians." Childers was drawn in by one and on her way to the deconstruction that has become the buzz word of our day. But she didn't stay there. She threw herself into deep study of the legitimacy of the Bible and orthodox Christianity and came out with a fortified, robust belief in all that she'd believed in before. She puts her story and her hefty research into this book, which I will be giving to all the high school girls I have in Bible study. It's readable and relatable, and it will help them critically evaluate the false doctrines they're sure to face.
New Morning Mercies by Paul David Tripp. Maybe more than any other year, it was good to start each day of 2020 with a shot of good theology. The theme of this devotional is grace, and I needed it every day.
The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church's Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby. The author promised in his introduction that this would be a hard book to read, and he was right. But it wasn't hard for me for the reasons he anticipated. I have no problem acknowledging that the church has hidden its head in the sand for centuries regarding racism. I am not surprised that some of the great theologians of the past were also some of the biggest racists. Tisby did his research, his facts are well presented, and I believe them. My struggle was two-fold. First, I'm not sure it's fair to judge events of the past by the standards of today. In a bold move for his time, Billy Graham personally pulled down the segregation ropes at his revivals. Yet Tisby condemns him for not doing more, because by today's standards, that's not nearly enough. My second issue was one of personal reckoning. If I had been born on a plantation in the early 1800s, it would have been so easy for me to believe the Christian rhetoric that justified slavery: "We're saving souls!" If I was never taught how people were kidnapped from Africa and brought to the U.S. and didn't personally see how cruelly and inhumanely they were treated (and had no Netflix documentaries to show me), would I have taken a stand against something that my culture had always known and embraced? How I pray that I would have, but I fear that's not the case. This book sparked my year of repentance for myself, my ancestors, and the church.
FICTION
Apeirogon by Colum McCann. This was the most unique book I've ever read. It's fiction? Sort of? It's a novel? Not really? It tells one cohesive story in its 457 pages, but in a most unusual way. I chose to read it because I'm overdue in understanding the Israel-Palestine conflict, and this book went a long way in filling my gaps. It also had me googling words like Nakba and intifada. (If 457 pages isn't for you, Vox.com has a good series of articles that explain the decades-long conflict.) The story is centered on the unlikely friendship between two fathers--an Israeli and a Palestinian who both lost young daughters in the conflict--and their mission for peace. But you'll also get snippets on how many gallons of water a swimming pool holds, where Nothing Compares 2 U was originally recorded, and more facts about birds than you ever wanted to know. I kinda loved it? I think?
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurson. Called by one reviewer "the most widely read and highly regarded novel in the entire canon of African American literature," I read this one as part of my aim to get outside my own world and way of thinking. The story moves slowly at first, and it's hard to keep the characters straight. The dialogue is challenging. It's one of those books where you want to go back and read the first several pages again once you've finished. This was not a light, breezy read. It was perplexing and stretching as I had to put on different lenses to read it. But as I think back on it, I like it more and more, and I realize it had much to teach me.
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid. What Hurston's book lacked in readability, Reid more than made up for, even though this book is equally deep. The main character is a young black woman who is questioned in a grocery store for being with her babysitting charge, a 3-year-old blonde girl, in the middle of the night. That event has ramifications for all the characters, black and white, and their relationships with one another. Reid's sharp, insightful writing reveals the true nature of people's internal dialogue (much of which I could relate to, sadly), though a lot of the language is rated R.
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This is the fictionalized account of a Nigerian woman who moves to the United States to attend college. Adichie, who herself moves back and forth between Nigeria and the U.S., has much to say about race in the U.S. Rather than a good story with compelling characters, this novel felt more like a series of essays on race. But for anyone who wants to understand how Africans living in America view our country and our racial issues, Adichie gives a helpful perspective. The main character didn't even know race was an issue until she moved to the U.S. In the end, she made the decision to forgo fancy salads and reliable air conditioning to return to Nigeria, where her children would treat adults with respect and be evaluated by something other than the color of their skin. (This one's also R rated.)
The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett. This book is near the top of all 2020 Best Books lists, and I can see why. It's a fascinating story about two light-skinned black twin sisters who run away from home and choose different directions for their lives. One marries the blackest man she can find and has a daughter with him before escaping his abuse. The other "passes" for white, marries a wealthy white executive, and has a blonde daughter. The story offers a sad look at what it's like to live under the burden of lifelong secrets and shame. I'd recommend this book except that I did not enjoy a secondary plot about a transgender relationship. It was uncomfortably graphic and, in my opinion, added nothing to the story.
Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout. I remember liking the first Olive Kitteridge book, which I read years ago. This one, not so much, although it opened my eyes to the kind of spiritual questioning, fear, and hopelessness people have. I'm not sure that's what Strout was going for, but as she wrote a book centered around older people, those approaching death and terrified of it, it made me thankful that I don't have to live with that kind of fear.
NON-FICTION
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover. I guess pandemics make me crave memoirs, because I read three this year. I didn't enjoy this one like I did James McBride's book, but it was hard to put down. The author grew up in a doomsday/antigovernment/survivalist Mormon family in Idaho and never attended a day of school until she managed to get into college. Her story is disturbing on many levels, but especially in how she was raised to see God. This is a story about false religion as much as anything.
Why We Can't Sleep by Ada Calhoun. This is a well-written book subtitled "Women's New Midlife Crisis." But not just any women. Gen X women, of which I am one. I identified with nearly everything Calhoun wrote. I remember growing up with the Enjolie perfume commercial, where the woman can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never let you forget you're a man. I remember being told, "You can have it all." I was a latch-key kid with minimal parental supervision and dreams of changing the world. Calhoun hits all the notes of growing up in the 70s and 80s, only to arrive in the 90s and 2000s realizing that things weren't quite what we expected. With chapters on caregiving (young children and aging parents), money panic, decision fatigue, singleness, childlessness, divorce, job instability, menopause, and the simple doldrums ("Is this really what my life was supposed to look like?"), the book was insightful but depressing. Her conclusions were to find a good support system, ditch unrealistic expectations, and wait until things get better, like after 60. I find the hope of Jesus much more satisfying. I found myself trying to identify with the mopey discontentment apparently shared among women my age, only to come back to how much difference a transformed-by-Christ perspective makes on, well, everything.
Doing Life with Your Adult Children: Keep Your Mouth Shut and the Welcome Mat Out by Jim Burns. I have entered the stage of life where this is the kind of parenting book I read. Sigh. The subtitle of this one says it all. While a lot of the book addressed problems I don't yet have, the best advice I got from Burns was to remember that any unsolicited advice offered to an adult child will be heard as criticism.
White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo. I reviewed this book on my blog in July. It helped me understand the reasoning of Critical Race theorists, of which DiAngelo is one of the loudest voices. I thought the book started out well. She pointed out things I need to know, and she did it in a mostly helpful way. About halfway through, the tone seemed to change, and I felt like I was being chastised, not educated.
Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts by Jennie Allen. I really like Jennie Allen, and she's written a timely, necessary book. It's an expanded version of "take every thought captive," complete with the author's own story, biblical and scientific research, and practical recommendations. Late in the book it all started to sound the same, so I stopped reading, but I have a feeling this is a book I will return to again and again.
How We Think by John Dewey. I read this one pre-Covid, which feels like another lifetime, so I barely remember what it said. It centered on why we have closed minds and aren't willing to challenge our own thoughts, including a checklist at the end to help readers think in new ways.
Moving Mountains: Praying with Passion, Confidence, and Authority by John Eldredge. I'm still processing this one. Eldredge writes about prayer of intervention, listening prayer, warfare prayer, inner healing, and physical healing, among other things. He includes his own sample prayers, which are helpful, but there was something that rubbed me ever-so-slightly the wrong way about how he approaches God. Still, I'm taking it to heart and thinking more about how to pray boldly, powerfully, and confidently.
Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr. I wanted to like this one, but I never quite got it. I resonated with Rohr's argument that we all need closure at the end of every major life transition. I agreed with the idea that we don't really become who we're meant to be until we've suffered. His point, I think, was that falling down is actually moving upward. I got more from the jacket cover than from the actual book: "If you are on course at all, your world should grow much larger in the second half of life. But your circle of real confidants and truly close friends will normally grow smaller, but also more intimate. You are no longer surprised or angered when most people, even institutions, are doing first-half-of-life tasks."
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. I keep running into this title in other books, so I finally decided to check it out. If it hadn't been short, I wouldn't have stuck with it, as it wasn't what I expected. It's Didion's story of losing her husband, writer John Dunne, while their daughter was on life support fighting for her own life. Didion is an acclaimed writer, and her words are elegant. But the book felt like wallowing in someone else's grief for 227 pages, which is not what I needed during a pandemic. One really good point, though: Didion defines grief as a passive condition, something that is thrust upon you. She defines mourning as what you actively choose to do with your grief.
Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino. This was on a "must-read" list of 2019 books, and the author was named "the voice of millennial women." I was up for learning more about millennial women and how they think, so I was game to check this out. I didn't find anything likable about the author or her voice. Now, clearly, I was not her target audience. She grew up an evangelical Christian, but exchanged Jesus for psychedelic mushrooms, which she decided gave her the same religious experience. She is a hard-core feminist and writes about how stupid it is to get married and how oppressive it is to take a man's name. I read this book, like many others this year, to see the world through the eyes of another person. By the time I finished this one, I was extremely thankful to have my own eyes back.
