Books to Read

My resolution for 2017 was to read 17 books in a year. I cheated a little bit because most of the books I “read” I actually listened to as audiobooks while I was cooking or doing other household tasks. Sitting down and reading 17 books was not very probable for me, but I enjoy listening to music or something while I cook and this way I can kill two birds with one stone!

Anyway, following is a list of the books that I read this year. You might notice that I don’t read much fiction. It’s not that I don’t enjoy fiction, but fiction has to be really good to get me interested and I wanted to focus on learning more this year rather than entertainment. The books fall into two broad categories (although a few could just as easily be both): Christian living and trying to understand life from other people’s perspectives. Where applicable, I included children’s books that fall into the same general themes so that you can introduce these topics to your kids, if you’re interested. All descriptions come from Amazon and my opinion of the book is my own. The list is sorted by topic and more or less in the order in which the books were read.

Christian Living

1. Invitation to Solitude and Silence by Ruth Haley Barton

Much of our faith and practice is about words―preaching, teaching, talking with others. Yet all of these words are not enough to take us into the real presence of God where we can hear his voice. This book is an invitation to you to meet God deeply and fully outside the demands and noise of daily life. It is an invitation to solitude and silence. The beauty of a true invitation is that we really do have a choice about embarking on this adventure. God extends the invitation, but he honors our freedom and will not push himself where he is not wanted. Instead, he waits for us to respond from the depths of our desire. Will you say yes?

This book challenged me a lot as a person who likes to always be busy. IJM puts a lot of emphasis on stillness (part of our daily work routine) and solitude (each employee is given a day of solitude each year), and this book helped me see the importance of it in my personal life, as well.

      2. Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian in Community by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, renowned Christian minister, professor, and author of The Cost of Discipleship recounts his unique fellowship in an underground seminary during the Nazi years in Germany. Giving practical advice on how life together in Christ can be sustained in families and groups, Life Together is bread for all who are hungry for the real life of Christian fellowship.

We have been trying to add emphasis to living in community for several years now, but in a lot of ways I felt like we were flying by the seat of our pants a bit. This particular book challenged and encouraged me to continue to seek Christian community, and gave important ideas as to what it should and should not include.

      3. Reclaiming Hope: Lessons Learned in the Obama White House about the Future of Faith in America by Michael Wear

In this unvarnished account of faith inside the world's most powerful office, Michael Wear provides unprecedented insight into the highs and lows of working as a Christian in government. Reclaiming Hope is an insider's view of the most controversial episodes of the Obama administration, from the president's change of position on gay marriage and the transformation of religious freedom into a partisan idea, to the administration's failure to find common ground on abortion and the bitter controversy over who would give the benediction at the 2012 inauguration.

The book is also a passionate call for faith in the public square, particularly for Christians to see politics as a means of loving one's neighbor and of pursuing justice for all. Engrossing, illuminating, and at times provocative, Reclaiming Hope changes the way we think about the relationship of politics and faith.

This book was really eye-opening for me, and gave insight to some of the questions I had about events in the Obama administration. Really good read for any political persuasion.

       4. The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard

Dallas Willard, one of today's most brilliant Christian thinkers and author of The Divine Conspiracy (Christianity Today's 1999 Book of the Year), presents a way of living that enables ordinary men and women to enjoy the fruit of the Christian life. He reveals how the key to self-transformation resides in the practice of the spiritual disciplines, and how their practice affirms human life to the fullest. The Spirit of the Disciplines is for everyone who strives to be a disciple of Jesus in thought and action as well as intention.

As a person who grew up in the Christian church, disciplines are a topic with which I am rather familiar. However, Dallas Willard adds some disciplines to the list that I had never considered before (celebration and remembrance being ones that stuck out the most to me). He also emphasizes that disciplines should be seen as training for the “big game”, instead of drudgeries to check off our to-do list.

        5. The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns

The Hole in Our Gospel is the compelling true story of a corporate CEO who set aside worldly success for something far more significant, and discovered the full power of the gospel of Jesus Christ to change his own life. He uses his journey to demonstrate how the gospel-the whole gospel-was always meant to be a world changing social revolution, a revolution that begins with us.

This one confirmed a lot of ideas and leadings that we had felt before we decided to do this fellowship with IJM. Our faith should lead us to change the world!

        6.  Unashamed by Lecrae

"If you live for people's acceptance, you'll die from their rejection." Two-time Grammy winning rap artist, Lecrae, learned this lesson through more than his share of adversity—childhood abuse, drugs and alcoholism, a stint in rehab, an abortion, and an unsuccessful suicide attempt. Along the way, Lecrae attained an unwavering faith in Jesus and began looking to God for affirmation. Now as a chart-topping industry anomaly, he has learned to ignore the haters and make peace with his craft. The rap artist holds nothing back as he divulges the most sensitive details of his life, answers his critics, shares intimate handwritten journal entries, and powerfully models how to be a Christian in a secular age. This is the story of one man's journey to faith and freedom.

Love Lecrae’s music, and was moved and inspired by his story!

        7.  Love Does by Bob Goff

As a college student he spent 16 days in the Pacific Ocean with five guys and a crate of canned meat. As a father he took his kids on a world tour to eat ice cream with heads of state. He made friends in Uganda, and they liked him so much he became the Ugandan consul. He pursued his wife for three years before she agreed to date him. His grades weren't good enough to get into law school, so he sat on a bench outside the Dean’s office for seven days until they finally let him enroll. Bob Goff has become something of a legend, and his friends consider him the world's best-kept secret. Those same friends have long insisted he write a book. What follows are paradigm shifts, musings, and stories from one of the world’s most delightfully engaging and winsome people. What fuels his impact? Love. But it's not the kind of love that stops at thoughts and feelings. Bob's love takes action. Bob believes Love Does.

Bob Goff is funny, inspiring, and courageous. One of my favorite reads of the year!

         8. The Dangerous Act of Loving Your Neighbor: Seeing Others through the Eyes of Jesus by Dr. Mark Labberton

Jesus didn't see a sick woman, he saw a daughter of God. He didn't see an outcast from society, he saw a child of Israel. He didn't see a sinner, he saw a person in the image of the Creator. Are we able to see others with the eyes of Jesus? Seeing rightly is the beginning of renewal, forgiveness, healing and grace. Seeing rightly, says Mark Labberton, is the beginning of how our hearts are changed. Through careful self-examination in the Spirit, we begin to bear the fruit of love toward others that can make a difference. Here is a chance to reflect on why our ordinary hearts can be complacent about the evils in the world and how we can begin to see the world like Jesus.

Really, really good book that challenged me to see others as Jesus sees them, and inspired me to love them as children of God.

         9. Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help, and How to Reverse It by Robert D. Lupton

Veteran urban activist Robert Lupton reveals the shockingly toxic effects that modern charity has upon the very people meant to benefit from it. Toxic Charity provides proven new models for charitable groups who want to help—not sabotage—those whom they desire to serve. Lupton, the founder of FCS Urban Ministries (Focused Community Strategies) in Atlanta, the voice of the Urban Perspectives newsletter, and the author of Compassion, Justice and the Christian Life, has been at the forefront of urban ministry activism for forty years. Now, in the vein of Jeffrey Sachs’s The End of Poverty, Richard Stearns’s The Hole in Our Gospel, and Gregory Boyle’s Tattoos on the Heart, his groundbreaking Toxic Charity shows us how to start serving needy and impoverished members of our communities in a way that will lead to lasting, real-world change.

I had heard some of these points before, but it was good to hear them from an expert and also hear about what he has learned from some of his personal failures.

         10. Raising an Original: Parenting Each Child According to their Unique God-Given Temperament by Julie Lyles Carr

In Raising an Original, Carr helps to redefine the primary purpose of Christian parenting, this raising of the next generation. God has given each of our children specific gifts, abilities and capacities for specific purposes and He can equip parents to discover and support those powerful personality traits if they know where to look and how to respond. So many kids raised in Christian homes launch into their adult lives without any sense of knowing who they are called to be or what their mission on earth is. What if parents, teachers or mentors could help them discover the wondrous, unique threads woven within them that will enable them to see their part in the fabric of God’s universe?

Lots of good parenting insights, especially as we parent our three VERY different children! This is a book that I will revisit every few years to help me stay on track as a parent.

Life from Other Perspectives

          11.  The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

This book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. With dazzling candor, legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." By targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control—relegating millions to a permanent second-class status—even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness.

I learned a lot from this book, and got many good suggestions for further reading. It’s a very intense read, and might take awhile to get through, but if you’ve read the whole thing I would love to dissect it with you!

          12.  Seeking Refuge: On the Shores of the Global Refugee Crisis by Stephan Bauman, Matthew Soerens, and Dr. Issam Smeir

We can’t ignore the refugee crisis—arguably the greatest geo-political issue of our time—but how do we even begin to respond to something so massive and complex? In Seeking Refuge, three experts from World Relief, a global organization serving refugees, offer a practical, well-rounded, well-researched guide to the issue. Drawing from history, public policy, psychology, many personal stories, and their own unique Christian worldview, the authors offer a nuanced and compelling portrayal of the plight of refugees and the extraordinary opportunity we have to love our neighbors as ourselves.

The stories in this book are so compelling. It’s a great source for more information on the refugee crisis and ways you might participate in bringing relief to the millions displaced.

           13. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?

Profound read that gave me lots of questions to ponder. For me, a quicker and lighter read than The New Jim Crow, but equally compelling.

            14. The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag by Kang Chol-hwan and Pierre Rigoulot

North Korea's leaders have consistently kept a tight grasp on their one-party regime, quashing any nascent opposition movements and sending all suspected dissidents to its brutal concentration camps for "re-education." Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of one of these camps to escape and tell his story to the world, documenting the extreme conditions in these gulags and providing a personal insight into life in North Korea. Part horror story, part historical document, part memoir, part political tract, this record of one man's suffering gives eyewitness proof to an ongoing sorrowful chapter of modern history.

This book was incredibly eye-opening to the horrors that have been happening in North Korea for decades. A hard, but important, read.

            15.  The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman

After their zoo was bombed, Polish zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski managed to save over three hundred people from the Nazis by hiding refugees in the empty animal cages. With animal names for these "guests," and human names for the animals, it's no wonder that the zoo's code name became "The House Under a Crazy Star." Best-selling naturalist and acclaimed storyteller Diane Ackerman combines extensive research and an exuberant writing style to re-create this fascinating, true-life story―sharing Antonina's life as "the zookeeper's wife," while examining the disturbing obsessions at the core of Nazism.

A really interesting read, as the author weaves true events with speculation as to what thoughts and feelings the Zabinskis might have had as they secretly resisted Nazism.

          Children’s introduction to fighting evil in World War II: The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom

          Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker who became a heroine of the Resistance, a survivor of Hitler's concentration camps, and one of the most remarkable evangelists of the twentieth century. In World War II she and her family risked their lives to help Jews and underground workers escape from the Nazis, and for their work they were tested in the infamous Nazi death camps. Only Corrie among her family survived to tell the story of how faith ultimately triumphs over evil.

             16.  Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance

Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.

Incredibly interesting read! Insightful look into a community that doesn’t get much discussion from the larger culture.

             17.  Let Justice Roll Down by John M. Perkins

His brother died in his arms, shot by a deputy marshall. He was beaten and tortured by the sheriff and state police. But through it all he returned good for evil, love for hate, progress for prejudice, and brought hope to black and white alike. The story of John Perkins is no ordinary story. Rather, it is a gripping portrayal of what happens when faith thrusts a person into the midst of a struggle against racism, oppression, and injustice. It is about the costs of discipleship--the jailings, the floggings, the despair, the sacrifice. And it is about the transforming work of faith that allowed John to respond to such overwhelming indignities with miraculous compassion, vision, and hope.

This is an intimate telling of Dr. Perkins’ incredible life story, and revealed a lot about what life was like for people of color in the 1900s. Highly recommend!!

          Children’s introduction to life for people of color in the 1900s: The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis

          Enter the hilarious world of ten-year-old Kenny and his family, the Weird Watsons of Flint, Michigan. There's Momma, Dad, little sister Joetta, and brother Byron, who's thirteen and an "official juvenile delinquent." When Byron gets to be too much trouble, they head South to Birmingham to visit Grandma, the one person who can shape him up. And they happen to be in Birmingham when Grandma's church is blown up.

           And Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli

           Jeffrey Lionel "Maniac" Magee might have lived a normal life if a freak accident hadn't made him an orphan. After living with his unhappy and uptight aunt and uncle for eight years, he decides to run--and not just run away, but run. This is where the myth of Maniac Magee begins, as he changes the lives of a racially divided small town with his amazing and legendary feats.

Do you have a resolution for 2018? Do you have a book that I should add to my “To Read” list? Wishing you joy and peace in the new year!