The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is one of my favorite weeks of the year—in part because it usually affords a little extra time to curl up on the couch with a cup of tea and the pile of books I got for Christmas. It’s also a good week for reflecting on my reading from the past year, looking at other people’s end-of-year book lists, and compiling a new to-read list for the year to come.
And so, for those of you who love books and book lists as much as I do, I offer seven of my favorite books from 2022, in the order that I read them. I hope you enjoy, and I hope you send me some suggestions for my 2023 list!
1. The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
A book about how trees work—how they get what they need to grow, how they adapt and survive, how they reproduce. And about how they do a lot more than we might imagine—like sense their surroundings, communicate among themselves, and maybe even think. A book to remind you that trees are alive.
A favorite quote:
“In many latitudes, forests drop leaves in the fall and leaf out in the spring, and we take this cycle for granted. But if we take a closer look, the whole thing is a big mystery, because it means that trees need something very important: a sense of time. How do they know that winter is coming or that rising temperatures aren’t just a brief interlude but an announcement that spring has arrived?”1
Wohlleben’s attempt to answer this question is part of an ongoing discussion of whether trees have something akin to intelligence and memory. Fascinating.
(I have been working on a series of essays, inspired by this book, about what trees might have to teach us about productivity. Here’s the introduction and part one, and stay tuned for part two coming in January.)
2. The Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life by Tish Harrison Warren
A book about how we can experience the presence of God and be transformed into the image of Jesus by leaning into the repetitive, mundane habits of daily life, like brushing our teeth and making our beds.
A favorite quote:
“For most of history the majority of believers could not read, so Christian worship intentionally taught the gospel in pre-literate ways. But even now, each of us, whether first graders or physics professors, still learn the gospel in pre-literate ways. . . . We have to taste and see that God is good if we are ever going to really believe it.”2
3. Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
As this book’s subtitle says, it is “the life story of Jayber Crow, barber, of the Port William membership, as written by himself.” As a young man, Jayber thinks that he has been called to be a pastor, but as it turns out, his calling is to be a small-town barber. This could easily have been written as a story of disillusionment. Instead, it’s a story about being bound to a place and its people, about suffering the cost of such a membership—loss, grief, the necessity of forgiveness—but also receiving the gifts of belonging and love.
“Maybe a lot of people could say the same—I think they could; the squeak between living and not living is pretty tight—but I have had a lucky life. That is to say that I know I’ve been lucky. Beyond that, the question is if I have not been also blessed, as I believe I have—and beyond that, even called. Surely I was called to be, for one thing, a barber. All my real opportunities have been to be a barber, as you’ll see, and being a barber has made other opportunities. I have had the life I have had because I kept on being a barber, you might say, in spite of my intentions to the contrary.”3
4. Home by Marilynne Robinson
A story about a brother and sister who both find themselves back in their childhood home with their declining father. A masterfully written treatment of fraught relationships, the pain we can cause one another, and the tenderness and grace we can extend to each other.
“To be honest, I think I tell you my sad stories to see if they really are sad. And sure enough, the tears start, and I can relax about it. I mean, there’s nothing sad about getting what you deserve. So I’ve been told. I feel a little vindicated when you cry.”
“I don’t know. Maybe getting what you deserve is the saddest thing in the world.”4
5. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
A book about the endless task of paying attention to our endlessly intricate world, about encountering senseless horrors and equally senseless wonders, and ultimately about the gift of being alive. A strong contender for my favorite work of nonfiction. (And, of course, the source of the name of this newsletter!)
“At the time of Lewis and Clark, setting the prairies on fire was a well-known signal that meant, ‘Come down to the water.’ It was an extravagant gesture, but we can’t do less. If the landscape reveals one certainty, it is that the extravagant gesture is the very stuff of creation. After the one extravagant gesture of creation in the first place, the universe has continued to deal exclusively in extravagances, flinging intricacies and colossi down aeons of emptiness, heaping profusions on profligacies with ever-fresh vigor. The whole show has been on fire from the word go. I come down to the water to cool my eyes. But everywhere I look I see fire; that which isn’t flint is tinder, and the whole world sparks and flames.”5
6. The Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot
T.S. Eliot once wrote, “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood”—which accurately describes my experience with his work. I don’t feel qualified to hazard a guess as to what this collection of four poems is about, but I do know that I find plenty that I resonate with, am moved by, and want to keep mulling over.
Like these lines:6
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
7. Practicing the King’s Economy by Michael Rhodes and Robby Holt
A book about how to live out the economy of the kingdom of God in the way that we steward our time, money, resources, and relationships. A challenging and immensely practical read.
I especially appreciated this explanation of a familiar passage (Matthew 6:20–21):
Rhodes and Holt write,
“'Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,' Jesus said, 'for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.' We often read this verse as saying, 'Where your heart is, there your treasures will go.' But while that’s true too, Jesus makes the opposite point here. 'Where you put your stuff,' we might paraphrase, 'will determine what happens to your heart.' Contrary to our expectations, Jesus declared that if we obey him by investing in his kingdom, then our hearts will be moved toward his kingdom. Our practice of giving shapes our hearts for God."7
Honorable mentions:
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo; Rembrandt Is in the Wind by Russ Ramsey; Gilead, Lila, and Jack by Marilynne Robinson; and The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris
I would love to hear some of your favorite books that you read this year as well as your recommendations for my 2023 reading list!
Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees, p. 147.
Warren, The Liturgy of the Ordinary, p. 134.
Berry, Jayber Crow, pp. 65–66.
Robinson, Home, p. 276.
Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, p. 9.
Eliot, “East Coker.”
Rhodes and Holt, Practicing the King’s Economy, p. 45.