As I’m publishing the first draft of this post, it’s the middle of 2020, 5 months into the new world of pandemic lockdown. Like last year, I’ve been reading a lot, both through Audible and through good old fashioned books. I don’t know about you, but I need an alternative to the incessant onslaught of the 24 hour-a-day news cycle. By the time May rolled around, I was catching myself doomscrolling way too much. Books have always been one of my escapes. What’s interesting is that I started out the year picking back up on my dystopian literature kick from last year with Hugh Howey’s Wool and then Suzanne Collins Hunger Games trilogy. Had I known a global pandemic was about to hit, I might have picked some other genre. As I’m writing this, I haven’t completed my commentary on everything yet, which I’m working on, but if I don’t go ahead and post, I’ll forget what I’ve read!
Wool by Hugh Howey – I started out the year with some lighter reading after my Russian literature marathon in late 2019. I had Wool recommended to me by a friend. I hadn’t heard of the book at the time, but the story of how Hugh Howey got started with it is pretty cool and while it took me a little while to really get into it, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I spent some time over the last couple years reading some great dystopian literature and I think Wool is a respectable addition to the genre’s canon. This first story leaves a lot of questions and it took me about 6 months to pick up the other 2 in the series which I’ll go ahead and list below.
Shift by Hugh Howey, the second book in the series chronicles the events leading up to the events in Wool. Shift tells the story of how the silos came to be.
Dust by Hugh Howey. Dust was a pretty satisfying conclusion to the series.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – Back when the movies came out, I saw the Hunger Games and Catching Fire, but never saw the 2 Mocking Jay movies, not because I didn’t want to, but I guess I just had other things going on. After the first couple movies, I knew I wanted to read the novels at some point. After reading the first Wool series, I kind of jump started my dystopian phase for 2020 (I think I go through a dystopian phase for a little while each year!). What can I really say about these stories? I’m probably one of the few people who haven’t read them by now. Most people know the premise. I do think that Suzanne Collins insight into politics, fascism, media culture and class structure is quite extraordinary and if you haven’t read the books because you think they’re simplistic, sensational stories for teenage audiences, that’s not the case.
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. By the time I got to Mocking Jay, I couldn’t really put the book down!
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy – This is my third marathon Russian literature read and my second Tolstoy book (last year I committed to reading War & Peace).
The Gift by Lewis Hyde. I really tried to get into the gift, it being pretty much required reading for artists and creatives, but I really struggled to get through it. I do resonate with his eventual thesis of art as gift, as he defines gift, but it took a lot of work to hang with the first half of the book.
Echoes of Eden by Jerram Barrs. While I have a lot of respect for Dr. Barrs and have been greatly encouraged by his work, I had a hard time getting through this one. Not because I disagree with anything that he was saying, quite on the contrary, but I had a hard time figuring out who this book was written to. To me, it was a little like preaching to the choir and maybe it’s just me, but it seems like the intended “audience” which I think is supposed to be Christians who are anti-arts or anti-imagination was a little bit of a straw man. But again, I’m certain that the issue was more me than Dr. Barrs, so I don’t want to presume it wasn’t a good book, it just wasn’t for me.
Caffeine by Michael Pollan taught me to look at my own personal caffeine addiction with a mixture of thoughtfulness and resignation. This was a short, fun and enlightening read on one member of my drink trinity (the others being water and wine).
Pen & Ink Drawing, A Simple Guide (& accompanying workbook) by Alphonso Dunn
Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller – I’m late to the game with this one. Blue Like Jazz apparently has been making the rounds in Christian circles for a number of years with varying degrees of controversy, or so I hear. I’ve gravitated away from my steady consumption of apologetic and theology books as well as Christian commentary on current culture for a couple years, really emphasizing literature, historical biographies and some non-fiction that caught my attention. Blue Like Jazz really ministered to me in a way only a few books have (like Andrew Peterson’s Adorning the Dark).
Adorning the Dark by Andrew Peterson – This is the second time I’ve read through Andrew’s book. This one ministers to me so much. It’s one of those books that feels like it’s speaking directly to me, like an intimate conversation with someone who understands the way I think. I’ve been a fan of Andrew Peterson for a number of years now since discovering his music. Adorning the Dark is really a collection of his musing on the creative process and I found it both instructive and encouraging to anyone who feels the call to create. The other thing I love about this book is all the references to great authors, musicians and poets, many of whom I’ve never read or listened to and have since been greatly enriched by. Most of the next books in this list came from recommendations or quotes from Adorning the Dark and Blue Like Jazz.
Walking on Water by Madeline L’Engle. When reading through Andrew Peterson’s Adorning the Dark, he urges readers at one point to read Walking on Water. If you haven’t read it, he says, stop reading this and go get it. Well, I didn’t exactly follow his instruction since I read and re-read Peterson, but when I did finally pick up Walking on Water it resonated with me in much the same way. Both of these books have affected me far more deeply than anything that I’ve read in the last couple of years because they speak straight to my heart and give legitimacy to the artistic part of my personality, which has laid dormant for most of my adult life. These 2 books for me are a fork in the road and where I go from here, I’m not entirely sure, but I’m compelled to follow where the smoldering reed takes me.
Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott was like attending a creative writing class taught by a wizened professor. She opened my eyes to new ways of thinking about the discipline of writing and this book was like fuel for me. It has changed the way I approach my writing now. This was also, for me, a kind of an introduction to Traveling Mercies which, along with Blue Like Jazz, spoke to me on my own spiritual pilgrimage, giving words to many of my feelings. Regardless of how I mature as a writer, I will always be deeply in debt to Anne Lamott.
Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
The Green Ember by S.D. Smith
Ember Falls by S.D. Smith
Ember Rising by S.D. Smith
Sailing Around the Room by Billy Collins. Collins is the re-entry point for me for poetry. In high school, I always like my lit classes and was one of the few weirdos who actually liked poetry and trying to figure out what in the world the poets I read in English were trying to say. It’s been a long time since I’ve delved back into the world of poetry, with the exception of some of my own writing, which can’t but be improved upon by immersing myself in the writing of people who actually know what they’re doing. Collins is exactly my speed. A modern poet that turns the ordinary into the extraordinary with the turn of a phrase. I wish I’d been introduced to him years ago!
The Art of Drowning by Billy Collins
Questions About Angels by Billy Collins
Horoscopes for the Dead by Billy Collins. This is the 4th collection of Collins poetry that I read. Obviously, I can’t get enough!
A Timbered Choir by Wendell Berry
Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
The Poems of Richard Wilbur
The Haw Lantern by Seamus Heaney. Continuing on my 2020 poetry journey, I picked up The Haw Lantern at a local used bookstore. With the exception of his translation of Beowulf, which I loved as a young adult, this is my first experience with Heaney’s poetry. I found it rich, but not as accessible as some of the other poets that I’ve been reading. In these poems, Heaney explores the theme of loss, which I was able to experience to a degree, but I felt like he draws significantly on Irish culture and history which I’m fairly ignorant of and so it took me some work to make my way through it. That being said, having to work your way throuhg a book isn’t a bad thing, it’s just something that (unfortunately) we’re not that used to these days.
Watership Down by Richard Adams. I picked up Watership Down after reading the first two Green Ember books, curious to see to what extent S.D. Smith drew from Adams, which turns out isn’t much at all. Granted, both books are about rabbits, but that’s pretty much where the similarities end. I don’t think I’ve ever read Watership Down before which surprises me because given the sheer volume of books I read to my kids, I can’t believe I never read it out loud. That may be because I tried to watch the movies with them when they were really young and they got totally freaked out by Fiver’s vision at the beginning and I don’t think we actually finished it. Which is a shame because it’s awesome!
Unashamed by Lecrae. I’m not really a hip hop fan, but I heard an interview with Lecrae on the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast and was super impressed with his honesty, candor and perspective on his career and success. So much so that I got his book. I ended up devouring it in a couple days. Whether you’re a fan of his music or not, his story is powerful. Highly recommended! I’ll be reading his newest book for sure.
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. I absolutely loved a Gentleman in Moscow when I read it last year and as a result this one has been on my list for a while. This was a very different story, but so good. Reading his novels is like traveling back in time and experiencing his settings, so immersive is his writing style.
Previous Year Reading Lists
