This is coming a bit late, but the books are definitely not out-of-date. As usual, these include books from any year, not just 2021. Reading is one of my delights, in a pandemic or in normal life. As I write this, I realize there is no such beast as “normal life.” Reading reminds me of this.
These are listed in the order in which I read them.
FICTION:
Kristin Hannah, The Four Winds
(2021): Compelling story set in the dust bowl of the 1920s-30s and the migration
of people to California to work in the fields. Centers around Elsa, a woman
rejected by her parents and undervalued by her husband, but courageous and
resourceful, on a difficult path learning to value herself.
Barbara Kingsolver, Flight
Behavior (2012): Story around the issue of climate change,
centered on monarch butterflies mis-migrating to the hills of Tennessee and a
country woman learning to be a scientist.
Bo Caldwell, City of Tranquil
Light (2010): Moving story about missionaries to China, a
fictional account but based on the lives of the author’s grandparents.
Ruth Hogan, The Keeper of Lost Things
(2017): Novel of a strange man who collects little things people
have lost, intending someday, after his death, to have them all returned. He
also collects and redeems lost people. It’s about being lost…and then found.
Ruta Sepetys, Out of the Easy
(2015): Novel of a young neglected girl’s finally successful attempts to
escape from her life in New Orleans and make a future for herself.
Louise Penny, The Madness of
Crowds (2021): The latest Penny murder mystery does not disappoint. Detective
Gamache’s task is to follow a popular speaker whose message is persuasive and
dangerous. Of course, someone is murdered, and solving it gets complicated.
Issues are euthanasia, delusion vs. reality, and the nature of crowds.
Jeanine Cummins, American Dirt (2020): Possibly the best novel I read this year. Hard to read in places because of violence and human suffering, but based on research and the experiences of thousands of migrants. Deals with drug cartels in Mexico and the attempts of so many to escape and make the journey to the US. Shows the hardships of the journey and arouses compassion as well as a fierce desire for justice and humane immigration policy.
Marjan Kamali, The Stationery Shop
(2019): Set in Tehran in the revolutionary times of the 1950s. The
protagonist, a young woman, finds refuge among the books in a stationery shop
and there meets Bahman. Socially mismatched, they fall in love anyway. Culture
as well as the revolution separate them and she escapes to America. Good
insights about culture, enduring love, decency, and the power of poetry.
Fredrik Backman, Anxious People (2020):
Hilarious story about a failed bank robber who finds herself inadvertently
holding a group of people hostage. Full of surprises. The author seems to be
saying that human beings are idiots. But loveable idiots.
NON-FICTION:
Grevel Lindop, Charles Willians: The Third Inkling (2015): Well researched and fascinating biography of a complicated man, whose life resembles his novels. Yet I am indebted to Williams for his concept of burden-bearing (or substituted love, as he calls it).
Neil Shubin, Some Assembly
Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA (2020):
Fascinating account of a difficult subject for a non-scientific thinker
like me. But Shubin brings it to down to a popular level while keeping his
integrity as a scientist. Can’t say I understood it all, but I learned a lot.
Natasha Trethewey, Memorial
Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir (2020): Do all famous writers have difficult
childhoods?
Dana Greene, Denise Levertov: A
Poet’s Life (2012): I loved reading the biography of one of my favorite
poets, including the account of her conversion to Christianity.
Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body
Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014): One of the best books read this year. Scientific explanation of what happens to
a person during trauma and why the effects are so long lasting. Holistic in its
approach, including strategies for treatment and healing.
Jim Defede, The Day the World
Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland (2002): True story of a
small Canadian town that found itself host to 38 diverted airliners and 6,595 stranded
passengers and crew. The town (population 10,000) found the resources and the
generosity to care for them for three days. Inspiring and informative.
Kathryn Aalto, Writing Wild: Women
Poets, Ramblers, and Mavericks Who Shape How We See the Natural World (2020).
Short biographies of women writers passionate about the environment, going back
to people like Dorothy Wordsworth and including such modern writers as Rachael
Carson, Annie Dillard, and Mary Oliver. Interesting, inspiring, and
encouraging.
Tom Michell, Penguin Lessons: What I Learned from a Remarkable Bird (2015): Totally fun to read. A true account of the author’s adventure as a young man teaching in Argentina. While on vacation in Paraguay he rescues a penguin from an oil spill and, when the cleaned-up penguin refuses to leave his side, he finds himself forced to adopt and raise it. About ecology, the intelligence of animals, and the relationships between people and beasts.
Blaine Harden, Murder at the
Mission: A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the American
West (2021): Deals with the murder of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman in
1847 at the hands of the Cayuse tribe they had come west to convert and the
myth (lies) that grew up around that incident. It paints a dark picture of the
mission endeavor, the quarreling relations among the missionaries, and the injustice
done to native peoples. In terms of the missionary endeavor and its effects,
the author’s prejudices come through. Nevertheless, the history is troubling
and deserves reflection and, perhaps, repentance.
Susan Orleans, The Library Book (2018):
Another favorite, a history of libraries, focusing on the Los Angeles
Public Library and the fire that gutted it in 1986. Between the chapters that
carry forth this complicated story are delightful detours into the history of
libraries in general, the history of book burning, the inner running of large
libraries, the extent of a library’s services, and even the relation of large
libraries to the homeless. Written in an engaging manner, I couldn’t put it
down.
Phillip Yancey, Where the Light
Fell (2021): A memoir of Yancey’s difficult years and the
fundamentalism and racism from which he emerged. Remarkable.
Sarah Ruden, Paul Among the People:
The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimaged in His Own Time (2010): Important
and well-researched study of the theology of Paul, showing how his context
influenced his thinking and needs to affect our interpretation. She deals with
subjects like Paul and pleasure, homosexuality, women, the state, and slavery.
She says that she started her research hating Paul, but ended up loving him. Very
helpful.
POETRY
Jorge Luis Peña, El país de los miedos (2014): It was a privilege to discover and translate the work of this Cuban Quaker poet, who is well known in his own context. Among other things, he writes fantastical poems for children on adult themes.
Jarod K. Anderson, Field
Guide to the Haunted Forest (2020): Excellent poetry by a young poet,
blogger, and You-Tuber.
Ted Loder, Guerrillas of Grace (2004):
For me, this was a return to an old favorite. Loder writes prayers in
poetic form on all sorts of contemporary issues. I find this book both pleasing
aesthetically and profound in its insights.
