Top 10 Books of 2021
This is the eleventh year I have selected my top 10 favorite books. It has been a helpful discipline for me each year to set a reading goal, meet it, and take the time to reflect on what I have read. Am I reading a wide range of genres, voices, perspectives, and vantage points? Am I being challenged, nourished, stirred, rebuked, comforted, and refined? Am I growing in empathy, wisdom, critical thinking, love for God and people, and a rooted faith?
With those questions in mind, these favorites were selected from the 55 books I logged on Goodreads in 2021.
The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker
I was eager to read this book from the minute my friend (and the best hostess in Phoenix) told me about it. Parker argues that we rely too much on routine and the conventions of gatherings when we should focus on distinctiveness, purpose, and the people involved. If we are interested in meaningful connection, we can intentionally create gatherings designed to transform both individuals and communities. From the fundraising events I’ve helped brainstorm, to staff meetings I’ve led, to the creative liturgical parties we love to throw in our home, Parker offers fresh ideas and ways of thinking about the role of the host that go beyond making an impressive charcuterie platter.
Keys to Bonhoeffer’s Haus, Laura M. Fabrycky
Tim named this wonderful book his favorite of 2020, so it was the first book I grabbed when heading on a cross-country flight this summer. As always, Tim was right. It was as excellent as he reports here. Of course I’m drawn to any reflection on the expat experience, but this book invited me into a deep dive of a historical figure who has often been co-opted by various groups and agendas. I was delighted to tour his house and inhabit his story with her from afar and consider the questions his life of the mind, faith, and civic engagement might mean for the way we discern and seek faithful presence in our own contexts. Fabrycky writes, “Scripture was not only a comfort or refuge. Far from offering an escape from the world, the Scripture Bonhoeffer prayerfully meditated on pushed him more deeply into the murky realities of life in the world.”
Everything Sad is Untrue, Daniel Nayeri
This incredible piece of fiction is based on the author’s own story as he attempts to make sense of his experiences. We’re transported to Oklahoma with a 12-year-old boy who has fled religious persecution in Iran to tackle fifth grade in America. It is the immigrant experience, but anyone who has wrestled with the driving need to make sense of their memories will resonate. It is incredibly raw, human, and not like anything you’ve read before. Take nine minutes to watch this introduction to Daniel and his mother. The author notes, “This was my life, as I experienced it, and it is both fiction and nonfiction at the same time. Your memories are too, if you'll admit it. But you're not a liar. You're just Persian in your own way, with a flaw.”
Prayer in the Night, Tish Harrison Warren
A fellow Anglican, Warren shares about an acute time of suffering and grief in her life and the ways God used Compline Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) to minister to her when he felt most quiet and absent. I add my testimony to the sturdiness of Compline prayer, the Anglican prayer book Tim and I have been deeply immersed in these past eight years. While the BCP can be daunting to crack open for the first time, it is simple to follow the Daily Office app. If I’m too tired to use my eyes, I will opt for listening to this Spotify playlist I created based on the Compline service instead. Warren writes, “We are tempted by nearly every current of culture to form our lives so that there is no time for grief, but only the dim hum of consumption, dulling our agony — but, with it, our joy, wonder, and longing.”
Soul Care in African American Practice, Barbara Peacock
Spiritual formation is something I eagerly orient my reading, rhythms, and free time around, so I was thrilled when I saw this book announced. Of course I want to sit at the feet of those whose spiritual practices were more than piestic hobby, but fuel for the kind of faith that was strong enough to to distinguish the true God of the Bible and Christian faith from the controlling religion of their slaveholders. The kind of rigorous faith that can press into Jesus, keep praying, discern narrow and treacherous paths, and find resilient joy in the midst of injustice and unimaginable suffering. Several of these African-American spiritual giants were newly introduced to me and some were known, yet I had never considered the specific lesson from their life of faith. For example, Frederick Douglass’s commitment to reading Scripture resembles the beloved practice of lectio divina (Latin for “divine reading,” Lectio is a meditative practice of reading Scripture).
Being Disciples, Rowan Williams
I have spent the majority of my life considering what it means to follow Jesus. Often teachers will launch into a litany of checkbox items. Increase your quiet times, slap an extra hashtag blessed on a social post, or increase your JPMs (Jesuses-per-minute) in conversation with coworkers. Williams eloquently and concisely declares discipleship as the way we live, not just the decisions we make or the groups we join. He closes this short and mighty 87-page book with, “Those are the building blocks of a life of discipleship that can stand up to everything around us, in the Church and the world and in ourselves, that tries to stifle our efforts to stay spiritually healthy.” This is a book worth an annual re-reading.
You and I Eat the Same, Chris Ying
Cooking foods from around the globe is my favorite way to feel connected and honor the creativity and preciousness of every culture. As another book I love asserts, “to eat is to travel.” Often we think of the pungent smells, new textures, and unknown ingredients of international cuisines as something that separates us from each other, but this book of essays makes the case that food is one of the rare things that connects us. Cooking and eating connects us all across cultural and political boundaries. From burritos to injera to crepes to dosas to lavash, you’ll find meat wrapped in flatbread. Sesame seeds seem to pop up in nearly every cuisine. Food is not only a way immigrants can preserve their cultural identity, it often becomes their means of making a living while offering their new home delightful new flavors.
Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner
This memoir had me crying in Asiana Market, the Korean grocery store I happen to frequent near my home. H Mart is a more well known Korean–American supermarket chain and is central to the author’s journey through grief for both her mother and the connection to her Korean heritage. Food and cooking is such a huge part of heritage, culture, connection, and memory. But knowing what and how to cook traditional foods was also central to taking care of her mom during her battle with cancer. Her journey through grief, memory, and identity is so courageously raw, emotional, and honest. I deeply resonated with her wrestling, honest self-examination, and working through grief by cooking. And of course, I love any opportunity to be immersed in the Korean-American experience. I hope there are many more opportunities to gain empathy and delight in our neighbors who navigate two worlds.
Send Out Your Light, Sandra McCracken
This book pastored me. It is obvious the author and I share an enneagram number and general outlook on life. So many of the deeper questions, driving desires, and temptations resonated. I’m grateful to have read Walter Brueggeman’s book, “Spirituality of the Psalms,” prior to reading this book. McCracken engages her own story following his overview of the Psalms using three categories: orientation, disorientation, and new orientation. Orientation is the establishment of structure and order. Disorientation is a place of imbalance and nonsense, even potentially unjust. New orientation is moving forward away from what was and toward new possibilities. McCracken writes, “God has also transformed my tossing and tears into redemptive replanting, nourished by the hope set only on his own promise.”
A Burning in My Bones, Winn Collier
It comes as no surprise that Tim and I would eagerly read and savor a biography of the pastor with roots in Stavanger, Norway who wrote “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.” Tim said it best in his book review, but I will also say it was a really difficult book to read while our church continued in a long search for a new pastor. Peterson wrestled to define what a pastor is and is not. And we found ourselves longing for a similarly kind person who prioritized presence with people and questions like these: “How can I lead people into the quiet place beside the still waters if I am in perpetual motion? How can I persuade a person to live by faith and not by works if I have to juggle my schedule constantly to make everything fit into place?” And I found myself asking the question of us as laypeople: What is our part in making this possible for our leaders?
What were your favorite books in 2021? I’d love to hear your recommendations!
See my annual top 10 lists for 2011-2020.