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What I Read: 2021

 Reads of 2021





This is a little late (only three days to go in February as I begin this, but here it is nonetheless).

As always these are in order of reading not in order of goodness.


Three Cheers for the Paraclete * Thomas Keneally

I got through three chapters and put it down. It just didn’t grab me.


The Compleat Angler * Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton

Interesting as a primary source, but about 50+ pages too long for pleasurable reading. There were some worthwhile pieces in it–poetry, etc.


Entangled * Martin Sheldrake

I listened to this as an audio book, so I probably missed some things, but overall it was fascinating. All about fungus and how “There is more in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy…”


The Lost World of Genesis One * John H. Walton

Another audio book; Walton asserts how the first chapter of Genesis explains that the earth is a temple and all creation has a function in this temple, rather than some pseudo-scientific creation myth. My last Protestant pastor held this view.


Dominion * Tom Holland

Another audio selection in which Holland (not a believer) explains how Christianity changed the Western world (and some of the East as well).


The Wake * Paul Kingsnorth

I first read Kingsnorth’s Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist and was taken with his style and thinking. This is his first novel and it’s about the aftermath of the Norman  invasion of England. Kingsnorth created a “shadow language” combining Old English and contemporary English. It took a little bit of extra decoding, but it makes for a great read aloud.


The Art of Loading Brush * Wendell Berry

This is the latest (2017) collection of Berry’s essays, fiction, and one poem, I think. Anyway, it was the latest for me. He returns to his perennial themes of limits, the problem of scientism and technocracy, and building community among people who live in proximity to each other. From “The Presence of Nature in the Natural World”: “To begin with, I never trusted, and after a while I rejected, the hope that many people have invested in what we might call the industrial formula: Science + Technology + Political Will=The Solution.” He continues, “And so my question has been, and continues to be, What can cause people to destroy the places where they live, the humans and other creatures who are their neighbors, and ultimately themselves?”


Earthsea * Ursula LeGuin

I had only read her short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” but had heard nothing but praise for LeGuin. So, I received this for Christmas in 2020. The hype is deserved: well-written, round characters, brisk plot. Yeah. There are several more in the series. I’ll probably pick up the next one sometime this year.


Live Not by Lies * Rod Dreher

Dreher is a polarizing figure. Either you like him or you can’t stand him, it seems. In this latest book of his, he warns of a coming soft totalitarianism to the West. The book is interwoven with interviews of Christians who lived life behind the Iron Curtain with advice for us today as how now to live. The largest takeaway: how do we Christians in the West learn to suffer well? 


North! Or Be Eaten * Andrew Peterson 

Here’s book 2 of the Wingfeather Saga. The first was good enough to get the second. As mentioned last year, the series is aimed at middle schools (or maybe upper elementary), but the writing is crisp and funny at times. If you like fantasy, this is a good and easy read.


I Heard God Laugh * Matthew Kelly

Another of the giveaways from Matthew Kelly. Kelly has one message, which isn’t bad, but if you keep looking for something different in each title that comes out, you’re going to be disappointed.


An Economics of Justice & Charity: Catholic Social Teaching * Thomas Storck

This was an excellent survey of all the economic (and related) encyclicals of popes from the late 19th Century on. If you think the Church has nothing to say about economics and justice, you are sorely misinformed.


Pan-Worship and Other Poems * Eleanor Farjeon

A friend recommended reading Farjeon, though not necessarily this title, and usually when I read a book of poems at least one made the others I slogged through worthwhile. This one didn’t even have that. Perhaps another collection? I don’t know.


The Aviator * Eugene Vodolazkin

This is the second novel I read of Vodlazkin’s. While not as strong as Laurus, it was still a good read and had a bit of mystery to solve of a man who has no memory of his life before waking up in a Russian hospital.


On the Holy Icons * St. Theodore the Studite

Writing after St. John the Damascene, Theodore continues the fight against the iconoclasts (who are still with us). Another primary source to fight the good fight.


The Skin Map * Stephan Lawhead

The first in a trilogy of time/space travel using “ley lines,” naturally occurring portals to other times and places on Earth. This story is part mystery and part adventure story. It’s a bit pulpy, but a good, entertaining read, nevertheless.


The Holy Fire * Robert Payne

Payne constructs a survey of some of the early Eastern Church fathers in this volume. A decent introduction to the Fathers that many aren’t aware of.


Beast * Paul Kingsnorth

The second in his trilogy. This one occurs in the present with only one character–the narrator. He’s injured and slowly being stalked by some mysterious beast. Kingsnorth continues to experiment with language in this one. I found The Wake to be a better novel, but this one is relatively short.


You Are What You Love * James K. A. Smith

Early on Smith asks readers “What if you are defined not by what you know but by what you desire?” That’s the focus of this book, we become what we love and contemplate. He also writes “You can’t not love.” That’s a bit scary if you truly think it through.


How to Think * Alan Jacobs

Another relatively short book, Jacobs presents the important distinction of how to think, not what to think. Too many people, particularly elites prefer the latter option. Jacobs gives a pithy guide that puts a check on many of our mental habits that lead to division and poor judgment.


Charis in the World of Wonders * Marly Youmans

A novel about a Puritan girl who loses her family and is forced to grow up, survive, and thrive on her own in colonial New England. Well done.


Braiding Sweetgrass * Robin Wall Kimmerer

I wrote about this book in a previous post. Other than some quibbles about taking American Evangelical Christianity as the definitive version, I think there is much wisdom in her book. Much that we would do well to heed here in the first half of the 21st Century.


The Monster in the Hollows * Andrew Peterson

Book Three of the Wingfeather Saga. The series only gets better as it goes on. It does get darker, but it never loses hope nor its humorous gloss.


Watership Down * Richard Adams (finished Jan. 22)

I have thought about reading this for many years, and so I finally did. A meta-myth for rabbits and those who enjoy reading anthropomorphized animals.


George MacDonald in the Age of Miracles * Timothy Larsen

Victorian fairy story writer MacDonald gets not an autobiography, but an analysis of his theology and writing in the short tome. Additionally, responses are given by various faculty members of Wheaton College, including a former fellow parishioner of mine, Jim Beitler.

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